A Foggy Day (In London Town)

Thanksgiving - Americans Give Thanks and Educate the English

2007-12-01T08:00:00.000-08:00

This was the first Thanksgiving I spent without my family, and it was a little rough. But as there were a number of us poor, family-less Americans in London we banded together to try to make the most of what we had. We all pitched in a couple pounds and bought the fixin's for a proper Thanksgiving feast and away we went. Unfortunately, because Thanksgiving is an American Holiday, no one else celebrates it. So the majority of us still had to attend our internships. While many of us spent our first (and hopefully last) Thanksgiving ever working, Ross, our incredible flatmate, took the day off and spent the day at the flat cooking up our feast. We were smart enough to realize that we should get some cooking done the day before, and thus, all the desserts were baked and ready to go on Wednesday night. We had 2 pumpkin pies and loads of cookies. We also peeled the potatoes and yams and made the cranberry sauce. Once we all arrived home we sat down to a proper Thanksgiving feast. 13 Americans doing what they can to celebrate. We had mashed potatoes, gravy, mixed veggies, cranberry sauce, yams, stuffing, bread, little bit of turkey, and chicken. We also had Strongbow to drink. We were only able to get a little bit of turkey because of the Avian Flu here, which has been driving the price of turkey through the roof. Chicken has been going up as well, but not nearly as much, because this is the season that everyone starts buying turkey for their Christmas dinners. For dessert we had pumpkin pie, vanilla ice cream, cookies, and some candy. We also did a post-dinner tea and coffee time. We were very classy. As we enjoyed our desserts we went around the room and said what we were thankful for. Many of us said that we were thankful for Ross, who cooked the wonderful meal, and for the fact that 13 of us have been able to live together in such a tiny space for so long and not kill each other. After eating many of the kids decided to head for the pub, but I went to lay down and talk to my family on Skype because I missed them and had a post-Thanksgiving food coma.

Friday I returned to my internship and then left after a half day because I had to catch my bus out of the city and up to Leeds for my Thanksgiving weekend with a British family. While at work I explained Thanksgiving 2 or 3 times to different co-workers. Personally, I think Thanksgiving is a really great holiday because it was created with the sole purpose of giving thanks for all you have. And its about family, and when lots of people get together lots of food follows. Its great. I also gave my boss tips about what to do and not to do Thanksgiving weekend because she was headed for New York for a few days also starting on Friday. I educated her on Black Friday and things, and even learned something about it myself. I always thought the reason it was called Black Friday was because it was so horrible in the stores. Tons of people rushing about trying to get the best deals, messy displays from people pawing through everything looking for what they want but not caring that they're leaving it a mess for the next person, and the total lack of parking spaces. Well I'm sure thats what a lot of other people associate with the day as well. But the term is used because it is the official start of the holiday shopping season, and since so many people shop and buy things it is traditionally the weekend when many businesses start turning a profit for the year and move out of the red, and into the black. Thus, Black Friday.
The bus left at 3:30 on the nose (something I was incredibly surprised and impressed to see) and arrived in Leeds at 8:05. 4 1/2 hours on a coach was more than enough I can assure you, particularly because the whole thing was full. Not one seat was empty and I had a broken chair on the aisle. So not only could I not use my pillow to sleep on, I couldn't even recline a little to get more comfortable. And to make it even more miserable the coach driver was a complete jerk and wouldn't allow me to take my backpack with me on the coach. He said there wasn't room for it in the over head bin, and I would have to place it in the luggage hold. I tried to argue with him, but he just yelled at me and told me to do what he said or he'd leave it behind. So I was uncomfortable and bored for 4 1/2 hours. Also we made one stop about halfway to our destination to pick up more people (not sure how we did this, as all the seats were full) and one man got off really quick for some reason. He got off with no jacket or anything, not even his cell phone. And then the driver left without him. His wife tried to call him, but found his phone in the seat, and told the bus driver he had left him behind. The driver being the throughly miserable person he is told her he couldn't do anything about it and continued to drive. Even though we were still in the round-about and able to turn around for him. Total jerk.

When I arrived at the bus station in Leeds I met my homestay family, Eric and Marie (pronounced Mary) Songhurst and the other two girls I was to share my experience with. There was Katie, who is from Colorado and attends University of Hawaii, and Sarah who is from South Dakota and goes to South Dakota State. They were both really nice girls and I liked them quite a bit. Before we got into the car to head for the Songhursts’s house we walked around the main shopping area of Leeds because it was all decorated for Christmas and the lights were incredible. I was in love within minutes because it was so pretty. I just love the Christmas season. It makes me so happy. After walking around for a bit we headed for their home and once there they heated up some dinner for me and I ate some really yummy turkey pie and veggies. And then they gave me some apple crumble with vanilla ice cream and I was a happy, happy camper. I went upstairs to my room and found that I had been given my own room and had a big bed (I think it was a full) and the other two girls were sharing a different room with twin beds. I was like “Wooooo, I’ve got my own room, and a big bed!” The bed also had an electric blanket to keep me nice and roasty-toasty and I totally spread myself out across the bed and slept diagonally with my arms all spread out.

Saturday morning we were roused out of bed at 6:45am and out the door by 7:20 so we could be to the BBC Radio station by 7:45. The 5 of us were interviewed on ShowJo’s Saturday morning show on our experiences in England, being in the country for Thanksgiving, and sharing it with a British family. It was really cool, and our homestay dad, Eric, made sure it was recorded (he made his son, Eric, wake up really early to record it) and made cd’s for us. He didn’t get it done before we had to leave, so he is mailing them to us. After our radio appearance we went back to their house and had an old-fashioned American pancake breakfast. It was so yummy. I had 5 pancakes and a Clementine and milk and it was grrrrreat. We then went to Scarborough and Filey on the East coast of England on the North Sea. It was perfectly picturesque and lovely, and completely overcast and misty and freezing, and the quintessential English day. We took lots of pictures and stuck our hands in the North Sea…so I can officially say I’ve been in the North Sea. We also played in the surf, because as we were trying to get pictures of us sticking our hands in the waves we had to keep running out of the way of the next one because we didn’t want to get our feet soaking wet. Haha it was lots of fun. Filey and Scarborough are both towns on the coast, and we walked around the sea-side and cliffs and had a picnic lunch in the car at the top of the cliffs and walked around at the top. Surprisingly, there aren’t railings at the top of the cliff, so if you aren’t careful you could tumble down onto the rocks in the sea below. We were careful though, and made sure to stay away from the very edge. After our lunch we made the journey back to Leeds (about an hour and a half on the motorway) and were home by about 3. We then started preparing for our Thanksgiving dinner (the turkey was in the oven while we were out). We had so much food and a dinner party with the Songhursts and their son and his wife. His wife’s sister, and two of their work friends. There were 10 of us total and we had a lovely time, with happy hour before dinner, dinner, alcoholic desserts, and then post-dinner drinks. And then they tried to convince us American kids that they weren’t alcoholics. Haha yeah right. By the end of dinner it was really late and we went to bed.

Sunday we slept in a bit…and by slept in I mean we slept until about 8:30. We then had breakfast and went out to the Pennines. We saw Malham’s Cove and Janett’s Foss. They were absolutely gorgeous and sooo green, which I thought was totally different because it was the end of November, and at home everything is brown and mostly dead. Here its just rainy constantly and doesn’t get bitterly cold until January or so, so its really green until then. It was also nice to be able to be up close and personal to everything without any safety railings in the way. We actually had to walk through fields with cows and sheep to get to Malham’s Cove. It was really great, and I was rather tempted to go pet a cow, but in the end I thought better of it and didn’t try it. After our tour of the Pennines we headed back to Leeds and said good-bye to Sarah and Katie, as they had trains home Sunday evening. We then returned home for some dinner and a quiet evening in and some television. We watched Antiques Roadshow and Heartbeat. It is set around Goathland and Whitby and on the North Yorkshire Moors. The North Yorkshire Moors Railway is a railway that is shot in the show and it runs from Pickering to Goathland and from this year on to Whitby. The Music played is basically chart hits from the 60's and its been running for about 17 years. Watching tele was really nice and relaxing, and I headed for bed around 11. The next morning I slept in until about 9:45ish and then Marie and I went around Leeds and did a bit of a tour of downtown and a really neat Christmas Fair. We returned back to their house for lunch and then I packed up and headed for the bus station and returned back to London on Monday evening.

As always, my pictures are better at telling the story, and I'll put them up...I swear!! For now, you guys will just have to entertain yourselves with the links I've provided.

Cheers!

Also, I find the subject of Avian Flu incredibly interesting, because its not something Americans tend to worry about, but here its a big ticket item and people are concerned and preparing for a pandemic. So I've provided a link or two on some further readings, if you're as interested as I am.
How Well Can Wall Street Handle Pandemic Flu?

World Health Organization

CDC

"You're radiant, I can't take my eyes off of you"

2007-12-01T07:31:00.000-08:00

My last post was little more than a week ago, but it feels like so much longer because it was about Paris, and that was in fact forever ago. Nearly a month now. And I feel like a slacker, and I promise that for the last 17 days (yes, I admit that I'm counting down) I will do much better.

Since I've been back from Paris I've done a few things other than go to my internship. I hang out on the weekends, and go do and see things, and one weekend my darling Joanna was here to play with and show off London to, and last weekend I went to Leeds and stayed with a family for Thanksgiving weekend. So lets go back, and see what we can do about relaying all my experiences in the correct order.

Tuesday right after I returned from Paris I had a short meeting with Vas, a man who works in the Metropolitan Police Department who just finished a London First Secondment program with us. He gave me an overview of the Met and offered to put me in touch with some other officers within the Met. It was really useful, and after my meeting with him, I spoke with Stuart Wratten, an officer in the homicide division and he invited me out to the station in Barking to get an overview of what the homicide division does. So I went out there on the following Tuesday and got a really great rundown on how things work out there. I spent a good 4 hours in the station that day. They told me how they run their cases, showed me clips of Nightline, and showed me crime scene pictures and autopsy pictures of victims. It was a bit gory, but lets be honest, it's the kind of thing I live for. I learned a lot, and hope to have a chance to get back out there, and what would be really cool, is Stuart said that if he got a call for a homicide and I was around, he would let me come along. I think that would be incredibly cool and interesting to see something like that, but I feel weird saying something like, "I hope it happens" because then I would be saying that I hope someone gets murdered for my own benefit. That's pretty awful.

That thought actually inspires a memory I have of that following Friday (we're up to Nov. 16^th now). Some people from the office were going out for an after work drink and I was invited along as well, so I went. I needed some cash, so I set off in search of a Barclays, and found one on the far side of Leicester square. On my way there a man asked me for directions and I couldn't really help him. But he noticed my accent and started asking me about myself. He was kinda dirty and older, and I'm not certain if he was a bum or just a dirty European (am I allowed to say that?) but I wasn't too keen on prolonging the conversation. Anyhow here is roughly what followed:

Him: Are you American? (he also had an accent which made him hard to understand)

Me: Yes

Him: Why are you here, are you visiting?

Me: No, I'm studying for my university. I'm just here for the term.

Him: Oh, what are you studying?

Me: Justice (he looked a little less enthused at talking to me at this point..hmm wonder why, creepster)

Him: Oh that's cool. Want to be a lawyer?

Me: No, I want to be a cop or in the FBI or something. (looks even less enthused, but carries on all the same)

Him: Why do you want to be a cop, do you like putting handcuffs on people (and I am certain he was going for a dirty and less appropriate meaning).

Me: No. I like protecting people.

Him: Oh, that's nice.

Me: Yeah. I have to go, bye.

Yes, this actually happened. It was interesting to say the least. As for the rest of my night that night, my co-workers were very interested in the differences in our cultures and the different things and things. They were particularly interested in my drinking habits, because I said that my limit is usually 2 or 3 drinks, because I don't really enjoy drinking beyond being social these days. I've gotten over the being drunk thing already and I haven't even reached legal drinking age in the states. So backwards.

Also on Friday I got to see my BIG!! She had a 5-6 hour layover in Heathrow on her way to Cairo to see Timmy, and we met up and had lunch. It was so amazingly good to see her. I also met up with Joanna on the way because she was in town that weekend visiting. The three of us did lunch in a pub and had fish and chips (Joanna had sausage and mash though, I think) and Melissa brought me peanut butter m&m's. I was in HEAVEN because you can't get those over here, and I missed them so much. She brought me 2 big bags, and I just finished them this past weekend. I need more!!! She also brought Hershey's chocolate for Angelica. We were soooo thankful. We had a really great lunch, and it was really sad to say goodbye, but I'm very glad for the time I did get with her.

Friday evening after I had drinks with my co-workers I met Joanna and Justin (her friend she was visiting) and we went to a club called AKA, that was really neat. Well, the club itself was kinda lame and a bit expensive, but there was some really good entertainment. They had like, floor shows and one woman ate fire, and another did an act on a rope. You know the ones they made you try to climb in gym class? One of those. She did all sorts of acrobatics on it. So impressive, especially considering I couldn't even get halfway up the damn rope in high school when I was in the best shape of my life (so far).

Saturday morning I headed for Borough Market, and met up with Joanna and Justin once again to show it off to them. It was my third trip to the market and Justin hadn't been yet, so I got to show it off to them a bit. I went hungry and prepared to gorge myself on the delights that the market had to offer, and I was not disappointed one bit. Joanna and I started off with Nutella crepes, one of my new favorite things to eat. We then walked around a bit to get a lay of the land and choose what we were going to have for lunch. We tried loads of cheese samples (not all of them were good..blech) and a few chocolate samples, and even a bacon sample and a gin sample!! Joanna ended up choosing a bratwurst from a German stall, and I helped her eat it, the end that was sour kraut free that is. Then got myself a falafel, that was mmm mmmm good, but I had trouble eating it all because of the brat. After the market we took a tour around London School of Economics, where Justin goes to school, and played in the leaves and had a good time. We walked through the strand, to Trafalgar Square and then up to Piccadilly where I finally left them to head for South Kensington once again for basketball practice. Practice was intense because my legs were tired from walking all day and my feet were already sore. So then I ran around for 2 hours and we scrimmaged for quite a while and basically I was dead. After practice I got back to the flat, did a quick rinse-off and then got ready for another night out. I met up with Joanna and Justin again, this time in Leicester Square and we went to a club called the Zoo Lounge. Apparently this place is kind of famous? Or at the very least, very popular. The place was packed. The upstairs was fairly small, but once we ventured downstairs we found that the place was absolutely huge. And still packed. There were 6 big rooms downstairs and 3 bars and the place was jumpin'. I was really glad we had Justin with us because guys were hitting on me and Jo left and right, and Justin protected us from the more sketchy of them. Until he decided his objective of the evening was going to be, and I quote, "I'm gonna get you some ass, Sarah." I'm not sure why he decided this must happen, and why he thought I needed ass, but apparently I needed it, so he tossed as much at me as he could. Which is a weird thought if you think about it. Usually people only talk about getting guys girls, but this time it was the other way around. I was just interested in dancing with the least sketchy people possible because the more sketchy they are, the more likely it is that you'll be touched and fondled, and I was not ok with that. Clearly. I do not want random men to touch me, and I don't know why they think its ok. I don't know them, they don't know me. What if I was a mass murderer picking out my next target. They have no idea who I am (I'm ranting, sorry). So the best story I've got from that night is the Christiano story. This guy claims he was 23 (I'm sure he was older) and he's half Turkish half Italian (I think, I don't remember). He told me I was 'radiant' and he couldn't stop looking at me. Hmm..creepster. I decided he was polite though, and said I would dance with him. We had to have a few hand checks, but nothing too bad. He offered to buy me a drink, which I turned down because I had decided to be sober that night (and I was having loads of fun). He was a little disappointed at that, and then said, "Sarah, may I kiss you." At this point I laughed in his face (and said no), because, really, you think after 5 minutes I'm going to let you kiss me? I don't think so. About a minute after that the song was over and he said he would leave me alone. Fine by me. A few minutes later I heard something that made me laugh and very glad I told this guy no. He was talking to another girl and I distinctly heard the phrase, "you're radiant, I can't take my eyes off of you." It was a really fun night, as you can tell. Haha.

Sunday Joanna and I played in the leaves in Hyde Park (for a total of 5 minutes because it was FREEZING) and then went and explored Harrod's. We then went to Ben's Cookies and got cookies and milk and had a really lovely snack. Then it was time to put Jo on the train so she could head for the airport. For the rest of the day I did homework and other things and hung around the flat.

Monday my BLC class went to the British Museum, and this time around I did get to see the mummies!! They were really neat, and so incredibly well preserved. It was kind of weird to stand there and look at them through the glass and just know, that inside those wrappings was a human body that is hundreds and hundreds of years old. And I kind of had the weird thought of, "I wonder if it smells." Haha, I'm so gross.

Tuesday night we had tickets to the London Eye, and it was really cool. It takes about 20 minutes to go all the way around and is really neat. Our tickets were for 6:30pm, so it was dark when we went and everything was all lit up. Very impressive. I have loads of pictures, and I’m behind on those and I’m sorry. I’ll work on it.

That’s all for this blog, more to come on my internship, and then my Thanksgiving weekend and this week.

Cheers!

I ate my way across Paris

2007-11-21T05:09:00.000-08:00

Two posts in quick succession. Though you wouldn’t be getting this one nearly as quickly if I was at work right now – where I should be. I’m not there because I’m feeling pretty sickly. Just in time for Thanksgiving again this year. I fear its turning into a tradition. Its Thanksgiving, Sarah must be sick again. Any how, here is the second half of my Paris trip.

Sunday morning around 5am Elyse woke me to say good-bye because her flight was early that day. I sat up and mumbled a hardly coherent farewell and gave her a quick hug, and then she was gone. A couple hours later it was my job to be the camp director, and I got myself and Angelica up and out of the hostel by around 10. Not quite as efficient as Elyse, but not bad nonetheless. Our plan for the day was to see Notre Dame, and then meet up with Laura around noon for lunch, but our plans quickly changed when we stumbled upon a market down the street from us. We couldn’t resist checking it out, and spent the next two hours browsing and strolling. We found a candied fruit seller that was impossible to say no to and he let us try loads of stuff. We tried strawberries, kiwi, apple (it was surprisingly good), cranberries, and walnut and fig, and I’m sure more. Angelica bought some kiwi, and I got some strawberries. They were so good, and absolutely wonderful to munch on throughout the day. I also bought another pashmina for 2 Euros. This one is cream colored and goes really well with just about everything. Though I am disappointed to say that the quality is nowhere near as good as the ones I got at the Rastro in Madrid for the same price. All the same, it was 2 Euro, so I won’t complain too, too much.

By the time we finished with the street market it was nearly time to meet with Laura so we called her, but found that the museum she was supposed to be visiting wasn’t yet open and she was still waiting in line. So we decided to go meet up with her there, and check out the museum. It was Musée de l’Orangerie at the Tuileries. I didn’t know how to spell either, so I googled them and stumbled upon a fantastic blog about someone’s experience at the museum. The museum houses Monet’s Water Lilies works and its some of his most famous art. Its impressionism, so I have trouble appreciating it like I appreciated the Louvre, but there was some other art downstairs by other impressionist artists that I thought was really fascinating. Unfortunately, by this time my camera batteries had died, and I didn’t have extras with me so I don’t have pictures from this museum (they allow pictures so long as you don’t use flash). This is partly why I have added in so many links – they have pictures of what I saw. That and I think these sites are far more eloquent than anything my rough Midwest vocabulary can accomplish.

After the museum Laura and Molly headed for another museum while Angelica and I headed down the Champs-Élysées. Quite funnily though, we belatedly realized that we were not in fact on the famous boulevard, but were instead on the one next to it. New York Ave. It wasn’t a problem because it was right on the Seine and absolutely gorgeous and we took some fantastic pictures (yay new batteries). We also stumbled upon a replica of the Statue of Liberty flame that the French gave to the U.S back in 1886. The perfect replica stands above one of the entrances to the tunnel that is now famous for the car crash that Princess Diana died in. The flame has been sort of converted into a memorial site to Diana with flowers and pictures commemorating the terrible spot. I did a bit of research and learned that there are lots of Statues of Liberty around Paris, and it’s quite interesting. After we spent a bit of time on the wrong street we checked a map and headed up George V Ave to get back to the Champs-Élysées. We didn’t know it when we started walking down it, but George V is home to the Four Seasons Hotel in Paris. As we approached the building we saw a rather large crowd and we couldn’t figure out what was going on.

Once we realized what hotel it was and saw some people holding pens and even saw a few paparazzi around it dawned on us that someone famous must be staying there. We decided we could stand around and wait for a few minutes, because hey, it’d be cool to see a celebrity. As we stood there it dawned on me that it would probably be a French celebrity because, duh, we’re in Paris. But until then I was assuming it would be an American or Brit, because those are really the world famous celebs you think of. Turns out I was right with both actually. Because not 10 minutes after we walked up, none other than Celine Dion walked out of the hotel. I said, “Holy shit, its Celine Dion.” I guess I didn’t actually expect to see anyone I recognized. I kept my wits about me though, and managed to snap a really good photo of her. To her immense credit, I would have to say that she is incredibly classy. She exited the hotel, said hello to the crowd and waved, stood there for a minute or two so people could take photos, and then stepped into her car and was driven away. I think this shows some really good character because I think I would hate to be followed to my hotel and be bombarded by people seeking autographs and pictures constantly. I would want my privacy and peace and quiet. But Celine accepts the reality of her fame with grace and poise, and I was very impressed. I would sneak out the back door as often as possible I think. My curiosity got the best of me, and I visited the Four Seasons website, and wow. That place is incredibly nice. I highly recommend the photo gallery for a quick look at the place if nothing else. I also decided to see how much it costs a night. I had some trouble finding availability, but I finally found an open room for Jan.15^th for $1,122.94 for two people and one night. For that price I hope it’s all inclusive. Spa visits and the like for free. Though maybe not, because if you’re wealthy enough to stay there you’re wealthy enough to pay for whatever else strikes your fancy while you’re there.

After our exciting detour we found the Champs-Élysées and about 5 blocks in front of us was the Arc de Triomphe. It was pretty incredible. We then headed for Notre Dame to meet up with Laura once more. Once at Notre Dame we sat in the cathedral for a while and relaxed because our feet hurt so much and we’d done so much walking the past few days. There was an organist playing Bach (I think) and it was very relaxing. We eventually got up and headed for an (extremely, by European standards) early dinner. On our way we stopped for some more crepes though (#3 of the weekend). For dinner we went to a place Laura had been before, a small restaurant with pretty great French cuisine. The place was completely empty except for the three of us and another American couple (though they were in their 50’s I would say – they mentioned their grown kids). There was one woman working as the entire staff of the place because it was so early (another person came in to work as we were leaving a few hours later). I ordered a steak and potatoes and green beans with a glass of the house red, and Angelica got a steak with pepper sauce and potatoes and Laura got roast beef that was to die for. We all tried each other’s meals and it was all so good. I would have to say that the roast beef may have been even better than my grandmother’s. And everyone in my family will tell you that I have to have Grandma’s roast beef every time I see her, or I feel jipped. There was of course the requisite French bread present that was totally delicious and I ate it with some of Angelica’s pepper gravy and was in heaven. Because the place was empty the cook (and owner I assume) let her two cats out, and one, named Flash, joined us for dinner. We think he was originally just interested in our pashminas, but eventually he cuddled down between us and took a nap while we ate. He was the most gorgeous cat and Angelica said he was a Snowshoe.

After dinner Angelica and I headed home and then decided to go see a movie in French. We saw Le Premier Cri (I gave the link to the movie website, but its kind of a waste of time unless you can read French), a documentary about childbirth. I didn’t understand one word of the film (because I took Spanish, not French in high school) but it was still interesting. After the movie we headed back to the hostel, and hung out with Justin for the rest of the evening and had crepe #4.

Monday morning we slept in until about 9:45 and it was great. We decided we could sleep in because we had already seen everything we came to Paris to see (mostly) and the few things that we thought would be cool to check out still were closed. We learned that they close all sorts of museums and things on Mondays because the government wanted to anger the church way back when, so they closed everything a day later than the church wanted. I’m not sure if this is true or not, but I find it an amusing concept.

We headed out to the city around 11, and stopped off first at an internet café to check email and print out bus tickets for getting home, and we were back on the Champs-Élysées by noon and we decided to go shopping! Justin came with me and Angelica, and he proceeded to be my personal shopper in Zara. I have fallen in love with this store and found that I do in fact like shopping….so long as I have a personal shopper on hand. We had a bit of a fashion show, and Justin was a total instigator and enabler in my quest for a montage-type experience. It was a lot of fun, and I fell in love with loads of their things. Alas, I left the store empty-handed. We then met Laura for lunch after her class. I had roasted chicken again (sooo good) except since we were in a café and not a nice restaurant it came with fries instead of some fancy side dish. But the fries were incredible, and I gobbled them up. Or what was left of them because everyone else decided they would help themselves to them as well. I can’t quite decide if I’m actually annoyed by that or not and its weeks and weeks later. Haha. Laura had to leave for class again, but other three of us stayed and chatted for hours, and spent most of the afternoon just watching the world go by. It was a very Parisian experience. Eventually we had to head back to the hostel and grab our things but on our way we stopped at a street vendor and had crepe #5. We then said good-bye to Justin and set off. We realized we had loads of time to kill though, and there happened to be a shopping area right by the metro, so in we went, and found a Zara, and this time around I did end up buying something. It was just a light blue button down shirt and very simple, but it’s practical, and looks nice. I’ve already worn it twice. So after our shopping tour it was finally time to head for London, and we did so as a pair of very happy, and slightly exhausted holiday-makers.

I think this is the longest blog yet, so I’m very glad I broke Paris into two parts. Ha.

Cheers!

J'adore Paris

2007-11-20T15:57:00.000-08:00

Here it is folks, the long awaited Paris blog. Again, I apologize for the delay between posts.

Angelica and I arrived in Paris late Friday night and made our way to our hostel from the airport without too, too much trouble, considering neither of us have ever been to Paris, and Angelica only speaks a little French, whereas I speak none. We arrived around 11pm and checked into the hostel, called Oops. I thought it was a rather interesting name, but whatever. I’ve heard all sorts of horror stories about how dirty and horrible hostels can be, but this one was pretty nice (though the fact that it just opened in September could have something to do with it) and the only thing really wrong with it was that the elevator was broken…though it only broke after we had checked in and taken our bags up in it, which was nice. As we were checking in Elyse also turned up, so we were all together pretty much immediately, and our plan had worked nicely. The only part of the hostel any of us were wary about was our actual room, because we had booked a 6 occupant ‘mixed’ room. Which meant we could end up with a bunch of boys. We got to our room to find we’d been given a 4 occupant room, and there was one occupant. And he was male, and sleeping. We tried to be as quiet as possible, but inevitably, woke him up. We learned his name is Justin and as I picked up immediately, he’s Australian. He thought it was really nice of us to try to be quiet, and unlike other Americans he’d met previously, and from whom had developed the opinion that the stereotype of loud, boisterous, and obnoxious Americans was right on. He also decided that we were some of the coolest American females ever, because he’d also met some really girly, really annoying American girls. I’m really glad we changed his perception of Americans and showed him that not all of us fit the general, negative stereotype.

After talking to Justin for a bit, we decided we were hungry, and set off in search of some late night munchies. We found a place right next to us that was still open-ish and they let us come in and we sat down to our first crepes of the weekend. I say first, because in the time that I was there (late Friday until early evening Monday I had 5 crepes). And they were absolutely fantastic. I had the fairly standard chocolate crepe, but Angelica got a crepe with chocolate, pears, and vanilla ice cream and sparkler on top! It was crazy! And absolutely delicious. After our scrumptious, late-night snack we headed back to our hostel and got ready for bed. We then proceeded to talk to Justin late into the night, though Elyse and I fell asleep considerably sooner than Angelica and Justin.

Saturday morning Elyse put on her camp director uniform and made sure we were up, dressed, eaten, and ready to go and out the door by 9:07. Our goal was to be out the door at 9, so we could be at the Louvre when it opened at 10 so we wouldn’t have to wait in line for hours on end (I guess its notorious for that). Not bad if I say so myself. If there is one thing Elyse is good for (but clearly she’s good for lots of other things too), that’s totally it, and I’m incredibly glad she was there to do that. Though, I think I did a decent job of getting us up to go on Sunday morning (more on that later though, obvi.).

Our first stop of the jam-packed day was the Louvre. As you all know, I am not what you would call a big fan of art. I assume you all read my post on the Tate Modern, and my scathing sarcasm that went along with it (lots of sarcasm on the photo captions as well). Well, I seem to have found what kind of art I like, because I absolutely LOVED the Louvre. We only spent 2 ½ hours in there, but I think any longer and I would have been overwhelmed. I saw the things I thought were most important and some others on top of that. Because we were there so early we were among the first in, and it took no more than 10 minutes, total to get through security and get our tickets and into the first gallery. Our first stop was obviously the Mona Lisa. I hate to say it, but after hearing about Mona for so long and knowing its so famous, I was really disappointed in it. I have three reasons for this. First of all, it was much smaller than I thought it was going to be. Secondly, there were swarms of people around already, because it was everyone’s idea to see the Mona Lisa first. And thirdly, they had it roped off so you couldn’t actually get close to it. These three things combined to make it pretty impossible to get even a half-way decent photo. While I’m glad I saw it and can now say, “I saw the Mona Lisa,” it left much to be desired and I think I saw much better art that day. Sorry da Vinci. I would love to sit here and tell you about all the paintings I saw that day, but it would make this post about 3 hours long, and I don’t want to write it, and you don’t want to read it (though, maybe some of you without lives do..haha just teasing). But don’t worry, all the pictures I took are up on facebook, and as usual, I’ve posted the link at the bottom. As of now, I haven’t captioned any of them, as its going to take a bit of research for some, but I will get on it, and if you check back I’m sure that they will have some info. And I’ll probably let you know (I like to pretend you guys care that much).

Once outside the Louvre once more the three of us met up with our fourth, Laura! It was quite the AEPhi reunion. From there we walked to Montmarte, which is the tallest hill in Paris, and is topped by the Catholic basilica, Sacré Cœur. The area is known for its artist community, and famous artists such as Dali, Monet, Picasso, and Van Gogh all had studios around this community at one point or another. I wikipediaed Montemarte to learn more about the area, and the next few sentences are things I learned. ‘Montmartre means 'mountain of the martyr'; it owes its name to the martyrdom of Saint Denis, who was decapitated on the hill around 250 AD. Saint Denis was the Bishop of Paris and is the patron saint of France. The hill's religious symbolism is thought to be even older, as it has been suggested as a likely druidic holy place because it is the highest point in the area.’ That is just a little teaser, and the whole Wikipedia article is actually fascinating, and I highly recommend visiting it. Though only after you finish reading my fabulous post! To try to achieve this end, I’ve put the link at the end of the post. Muahaha.

After we walked around the area for a while we decided it was time for lunch, and picked an outdoor café to eat some French food. I had a croque-monsieur, which is a ham and cheese sandwich, and a dark hot chocolate. They were both pretty delicious, particularly the dark chocolate – I’ve found I’ve really developed a taste for it.

After lunch we did a bit of poking around in a shopping mall which was fun. I bought Q-Tips….very exciting, I know. And after shopping for a while we found a cute café and sat down for crepe #2 of the weekend. I also had hot chocolate with mine and it was really, really delish! By the time we finished with this it was growing dark and around 5-5:30 in the afternoon. Laura left us to return to her homestay, and the three of us headed for the big event for the day, the Eiffel Tower.

Seeing the Eiffel Tower was everything I had hoped for and so much more. I guess I didn’t really think about seeing it very much, I just always knew it was an icon. But when I walked around the corner and saw it for the first time, it blew me away. I think it helped that my first glimpse of it was around 6pm and the lights were not only on because it was evening, but also it was sparkling because it was the hour. Every hour, on the hour the tower starts sparkling, and its just glorious. I was enraptured. As we approached I took picture after picture and as a result, I have about 30 pictures of it. We spent 3 hours there, much of which was spent in line, and we left just after 9, so we were able to see the tower sparkle 4 times in the 3 hours, and it was a nice kind of symmetry, to walk up and walk away while it sparkled in the distance. While there we decided to make the trip to the top, and got into line. We stood and talked and passed the time pretty easily (though Angelica and Elyse claim the girl behind us was completely horrible – I didn’t notice though). About an hour into our wait in line we realized that the reason our line was shortest was because it was the line that did not have an elevator to the first and second platforms. Which meant it was stair climbing time. I did not want to get into another line and start all over, so I convinced the girls that it would be ok, and we could make the climb. It was surprisingly easy, even though we climbed just over 700 stairs (they were numbered). Now if you think about it there are generally 12 (sometimes 13) stairs in each flight of stairs which translates to climbing a 58 story building (53 if it’s a 13 step flight). Go us! Once at the second platform there is an elevator only route (thank goodness) to the top, and we proceeded onward. As we reached the top 8pm struck, and the lights were flashing around us. It was incredibly cool and slightly surreal. I also think the comment about having a seizure was made…haha. There was also a random group of American kids around and we over heard a comment one of them made that made us hysterical with laughter. He said something to the effect of, “And to think I was afraid of how high the Ferris wheel was.”

After our love affair with the Eiffel Tower we met up with Laura once again, and this time she brought her friend Molly along. Then the five of us went to dinner at a nice restaurant and I had an incredibly delicious and incredibly French meal. It was roasted chicken on a bed of rice (I think, I don’t remember anymore) and mushrooms (I picked out the few mushrooms) and some incredible French bread and a glass of the house white wine. It was incredibly filling, and incredibly tasty. At this point you may begin to realize that I was eating my way across Paris. Once we had filled our bellies again we realized how completely exhausted we were and scratched our original plan of going out to party, and just went to back to our hostel and headed to bed.

I think I’m going to end the post here, and finish my trip to Paris another time because this is already incredibly long. Stay tuned!!

Cheers!

Go here for Love the Louvre pictures

Here is the really great article on Montmarte

Workin' for a Living

2007-11-11T16:18:00.000-08:00

As you all know I did indeed make it back to London safe and sound after all of my adventures abroad. Since my return I have been a major slacker and I apologize profusely. I thought it would be even easier to update after break as I no longer have classes, and basically I have 4 days a week free, but it turns out I have fall less free time than I thought and my internship is pretty intense. I find myself struggling to even get myself to the grocery store so I can cook for myself. Something I’m afraid I have to do yet again.

I’ve started my internship. For those of you who don’t know, I work for London First, in the safer business section. London First brings companies together and lobbies for them in Parliament, and works with the police to make business safer and things like that. I do actual work, which is a bit of a surprise because a lot of internships are just kids making copies and doing data entry, you know the menial things. Well, from the beginning my boss, Denica, has been saying that I’ll be doing lots of real things, and has made a work plan for me that outlines all the skills I should be developing over the 8 weeks I’m with them. Its fairly terrifying because this is my first internship and first real office experience and I don’t have any clue what I’m doing. I’m doing things like data entry (boring, but part of the job), calling our members to get some information on their business continuity plans (as in what is their plan for getting their business running again after a flood or something), going to meetings and taking notes, and there is talk of me doing my very own project. The project is building a website for the metropolitan police…a fairly big deal. Freeeeeak out. More on this in later blogs.

My first weekend back from the weekend, I did a bunch of stuff, even though I didn’t have my oyster. I did get my replacement credit card on Thursday so I didn’t have to starve anymore. Friday night the Victoria and Albert Museum was open late for a Halloween deal, and Justin and I went. It was really cool. We listened to a real life ghost-buster type, and if nothing else it’s a cool story to listen to. We also waited in line for about an hour and a half to get our faces painted like we were dead, and then get a picture taken. It was so cool. We then went to the surprise show at midnight. And boy was it a surprise. It was a freaking burlesque show. My eyes nearly popped out of my head. Seriously, I was shocked they had that at a museum.

Saturday afternoon I decided to head for the Natural History museum, but when I got there I found it completely packed and overrun with small kids and their parents, and it just wasn’t fun. Needless to say, I didn’t spend a lot of time there, but I intend to head back, on a weekday so there are many less people around. Hopefully… After my failed trip to the museum I had basketball practice in the evening, and went to that. It was good, but not hard, like I’m used to.

I have no idea what I did on Sunday. Not a clue. I guess that means I did nothing. Ha. The one thing I did do was take a walk in the evening, and it was a really long one, and very relaxing. I got some groceries, and returned home.

Monday I had BLC, and we took a field trip to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. It was really neat. I have some fantastic pictures, and after the short tour we went inside a different building and had a workshop-type deal. I learned so much about how Shakespeare wrote and how plays were performed and it all makes so much more sense now. And so many of the things are very subtle and I never would have known any of it just from going to a play or something.

Tuesday I went to my internship for a half day because I only intended to go for half a day on Friday because of my trip to Paris. I then spent the afternoon with Rachel Rath, who was in London for a while. She’s in Florence for the semester, and came to visit good old London. We first went to Westminster Abbey and spent a long time touring the Abbey. We went on the day they were testing out a new audio tour, so we got to use it for free, and it was brilliant. We learned so much! We then went to the Victoria and Albert museum and I actually toured it this time around. My favorite room was the giant sculpture room that is full of casts of some of the most famous sculptures in the world. It was really cool, and I’m not even a sculpture person. After a quickish tour of the V&A (it was closing) we walked through Kensington Gardens to see Kensington Palace. Now, the V&A is open until 5:30, and it took us about 20 minutes to get to the Palace from the museum. And its fall, so it was totally full dark by the time we got there. But I figured it wouldn’t be too much of a problem, because a thing called electricity was invented way back when. Apparently they have yet to learn of this fabulous invention in Kensington Palace, because there was not one light on in the whole building. It was quite hilarious, so we of course, took pictures. Haha. We then headed back to the flat so Rachel could see where I live and also say hello to Kristian, because they’re good friends as well. We then went to a pub to have fish and chips, because somehow, Rachel has never had them, though she’s been to England once or twice before.

Wednesday was Halloween, and after our internships much of the flat got dressed up, and went out to celebrate. We went to a place called the Roadhouse in Covent Garden, and we were there around 9pm. Because we got there so early there was no cover. And once we got inside, we found out that if we waited half an hour it would be happy hour, and all cocktails were half off. 3 pound cocktails. It was really sweet. I decided that this was a prime chance to try all the things I’ve always wanted but thought were too expensive. I had a Mi Tai which was really good, a Sex on the Beach (also good), a Long Island Iced Tea (which I’d had before and really liked, though this one was crap), and my favorite of the evening was a Mojito. I’ve also had a Mojito before, but this one was incredible. It was really sweet, and I loved it. It was also really strong, and the bartender (who was dressed like Luke Skywalker) really knew his stuff, and did a few bar tricks. I forgot to mention what I dressed up as. I was the sun. It was sweet. Basically, it was a last minute costume that was totally pimped out. Pipe cleaners and sunglasses = badass. Haha. Or maybe we just played a game called, “Make Sarah look as stupid as possible.” Which worked out well because I looked so toolish it was cool. Ha. There was also a live band that played from 11:30-12:30, and we left soon after they were done with their set because we all had to go to our internships bright and early the next morning.

Thursday and Friday were both pretty regular days at the office, except Friday was only a half day because I was headed for PARIS!! But that’s the next blog.

I was busy putting up pictures from break as well, so here are all the links for that. All my albums from fall break are here, so you may have seen some of them because I sent an email about some of them a while ago.

More pictures and blogs to come soon!

I wanna go to the beach, can't you skip class?

How to be Unlost in Rome

When in Rome, Party like the Romans

This is what life should be like all the time

Authentic Bullfight in Madrid

Cheers!

This is What Life Should be Like All the Time

2007-10-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

Upon my arrival to Madrid my loving Jenn Jenn was there to meet me. I was soooo incredibly happy to see her. My spirits were dampened a little because as I was coming from Italy, Spain did not want to look at my passport. They figure, I can get into another EU country, so I’m ok for theirs. It was a little sad. But its odd, cause they do care if you come from the UK, and the UK cares where you come from no matter what…they’re total snobs, and honestly, I kinda like it. Very security conscious. Must be because they know they’d better be when they’re so friendly with the US. Anyhow, I met Jenn and we booked it to her home stay in Pinar del Ray. Its in the outskirts of Madrid, and very suburbs. They have a really nice Senora and she is incredibly accommodating, and does just about everything for Jenn and Emily. The only problem is she doesn’t speak English, so it was a little hard for me to communicate because I’m so rusty and kinda bad at Spanish. Their Senora was also Theresa Garcia’s mom when she was abroad, but I didn’t find that out until after I had met their mom and didn’t go back.

After we dropped my things off very quickly we went to the bus stop and were off to Sol because Jenn had to see a film for class, and they had gotten me a ticket to it as well. The whole AU enclave program was there actually, so after the film I got to see Emily and Joanna as well. We didn’t get to say hello before the film started because we were about a half hour late to it because of my plane. Although it turns out we only missed about 10 minutes of the actual film because there were so many advertisements, and there wasn’t anything important in those 10 minutes. The film was called Los 13 Rosas and was completely in Spanish and there weren’t English subtitles because it was a real movie in a movie theatre, not just an educational movie. The movie was also incredibly sad, because it was about 13 women who were rebels against the Franco regime in Spain and they all got caught and executed. Since I’m an evil and cold-hearted person (no I don’t really think I am) I didn’t cry, though just about everyone else did.

After the incredibly depressing movie a bunch of us went to a restaurant and had tapas and drinks, though I just had water because I was so exhausted from the night before and didn’t think it would be very kind to my body to put any alcohol in my body whatsoever. We sat there and talked and generally had a good time, and while we were there a band came up to the end of the street we were on and started playing. It was really cool, and they were really good, and it was then and there that I knew that I was going to have some of the best couple days of my whole time over here in Europe, and I was absolutely right.

Following tapas, I went back to Jenn’s and Emily’s to collect my belongings and change for going out, and we met at Joanna’s house where I dropped my things off and we headed for dinner, and then a bunch of us went out to Chueca together. We had dinner at a kebab place called Bosforos. It was a requirement that I visit this place, as it is very near Lola’s and Jason’s favorite place to eat in Madrid, outside of Lola’s that is, because he talks about her cooking even more than he talks about Bosforos. Any how, Joanna, Jenn, Emily, Piah (Jo’s home stay mate), and I all went to Bosforos to have a Jason experience. So we all ordered a #1, and sat at the Jason table (I got to sit in the official Jason seat though) and we were going to put the spices on, but they were no where to be found. So we just ate our #1’s and fries and rice and didn’t have spices, but man, we were all impressed with how incredibly good it was…..and how incredibly cheap. It was 3.50 for the giant kebab that none of us finished! Its like the Spanish version of Chipotle for me I think. Jason calls it an orgasm in a pita, and I think he might not be far off with that assessment. So after dinner we headed out for the evening to a hot spot known as Chueca.

Now, Chueca is known for its clubs, and has some of the best in London literally right next to each other, but it is also the gay district, and apparently Madrid is one of the (for lack of better term) gayest cities in Europe. This isn’t a problem, but it made for some pretty interesting observations. We went to a bar called Nike (pronounced Nee-kay) and they had hella cheap drinks. There were giant cups of sangria for 3 Euros (I think) and mixed drinks the same size for 5 I think. I’m completely unsure because I didn’t pay enough attention when people said how much they were when asked by others, and I didn’t buy any for myself. Now that I think about it I only had one drink (alcoholic) the whole time I was in Madrid, and it wasn’t a problem at all. I just didn’t want it, and I totally had fun anyhow. While at Nike we talked and coughed (cigarette smoke…its legal to smoke indoors in most places in Spain and boy do they ever) and there were 7 or 8 girls in our group, and one boy. This is because there are 30 girls and 4 boys on this program. And I for the life of me can’t figure out why there aren’t more boys….but it seems that its that way a lot for Madrid…I asked where all the boys where, and the response I got from Emily was, “In London apparently”. This was because I had just told her that we had 14 boys and 11 girls in London. We hog the boys, what can I say. The four of us (and by 4 of us I mean Jenn, Emily, Joanna, and I) decided to call it a night early because I was dying from lack of sleep and the others wanted to rest up because we decided that Saturday would be our big night of debauchery. So Emily and Jenn went back to Pinar del Ray, and Joanna and I headed for Manuel Becarra.

It was when we returned to Joanna’s at this time that I met the famous Lola. Joanna’s home stay mom, and also Jason’s when he was in Madrid. Basically Jason was incredibly jealous when I found out that I was not only going to get to meet Lola, but also stay at her home because Jenn and Emily decided that there just wasn’t room at their place. To be fair, I saw it and quite agree, and I got my very own bed at Joanna’s because there was a trundle bed under hers. Lola was fantastic and so incredibly nice, and we had some conversations about Jason. Sadly, I did not get any dirt on him, because she only had good things to say about him. Seriously, if it was up to Lola and Jason wasn’t Jewish, I think she would have him sainted. It’s ok though, it’s clearly proof I’ve got a good ‘un on my hands. It’s just too bad he reads this, ‘cause now his head is going to be inflated beyond belief. I spoke a little Spanish to her and then she asked me if I understood and from then on, it was all Spanish, and I tried my best to keep up with the conversations. I’m pretty rusty on my Spanish, let me tell you. Even though Lola pretty much only spoke Spanish to me, she did speak a lot slower when addressing me, and when it was clear I wasn’t getting it, she used English. She also laughed at me when I was making the bed and apparently tried to put the sheets on the wrong direction and asked me if I knew how to make a bed….I’m positive that for a whole night she thought I was a complete ditz. Whatever, I make beds how I want…..until they make me fix it…haha. Once the beds were made, it was time to get in them and Joanna and I put in Love and Basketball and fell asleep watching that.

Saturday we got up and headed for the Retiro to meet up with Jenn and Emily and have a look around the park. This park is sooo much fun. There is a lake and you can rent boats, and we decided to do this, and the boat cost 4.30 for the 4 of us. We thought it was 4.30 per person, and were still willing to pay that, so we were totally thrilled. We got the boat for 45 minutes and we had tons of fun. Everyone tried rowing, first in pairs (didn’t work out so well) and then singularly…and boy me and Emily were awful at it. We nearly got us killed I think….more specifically and more often though, probably me. We nearly got run over by the Barco…the big boat that is motorized and carries like 20 people around the lake. Joanna and Jenn were good at rowing though, so they did the bulk of the work. There were some waterfalls on one side of the lake, near a giant monument and I wanted Joanna to get near them so I could stick my hand in and have a picture, so she did, and I got one, but then we were too close and the water was going to start coming into the boat, and we were all freaking out cause we were going to be “taking on water” and it would have been falling on me and I did not want to get soaked. We eventually made it out due to Jo’s superior rowing skills and we were all still dry. That is until we met a young Spanish boy around 10 who decided that we were funny, and he would try to splash us from his boat. Well, we thought this was cute and hilarious, but at the same time we rowed away as fast as possible because that water was coooold! The lake isn’t too big and because of that we ran into the kid and his boat numerous times. Eventually he was splashing us, and we were splashing back and giggling the whole time, because it was sooo fun. We were like “Run, it’s the Spanish Armada!!” and then he said to us, “I’ll give you time to escapar!” Clearly the whole sentence was in Spanish, not just the last word, but that’s what he said, loosely translated, and I like the word “escapar” (to escape). This little kid was soooo cute, he absolutely stole my heart away. After the boats we went and had lunch at a little café, and we ordered a couple sandwiches and drinks, and we had also packed some lunch so we had that as well, and it was just lovely. We sat around in the sun and talked and had a nice leisurely time, and I really think the Europeans have it right when they don’t hustle you out of your table once you have finished. We sat there for ages just talking, and then finally asked for the bill and went on our way. We walked around the rest of the park, may have seen the oldest tree in Madrid (we think we found the right one), and then had some fun with cameras and jumping. Haha, the pictures are pretty great. After the park we headed back for Lola’s and the four of us hung out in Jo’s room and we all took naps in the 2 beds. It was just like sophomore year, all of us cuddled up in bed together.

After naps Emily and Jenn had to go back to their house and have dinner and get themselves gathered for the evening out we had planned. Saturday night was to be our long, out-all-night-crazy-night. Here’s the thing. Spanish culture and night life goes like this; dinner between 9-10 and you don’t finish until 10:30-11:30, and then you might head home get yourself together, whatever. But the bars are pretty empty if you show up before midnight, and they get really hopping around 1. Clubs are dead until 1 or 2, and they stay open until 5am-ish. We headed out for Sol around 11 and went to a bar called Dubliners for our first stop. We were supposed to head for Kapital after that, but we ended up having so much fun at Dubliners that we never ended up leaving. All night I only had 1 drink, and I had lots of fun and didn’t need more than that. It was interesting, but hey, whatever, I don’t always need to be crazy. Once Dubliners closed, we went right next door to O’Connell Street, and hung there until about 4 when they closed. Then we had to figure something out, because the metro starts up again at 6 (another reason people are out all night, unless they want to take a bus). We decided that we had to go for churros, and there is a really famous and popular churro place right in Sol, so we went there. I think I’d been there before (the last time I was in Madrid, like 4 years ago), but I couldn’t figure out where our hotel was, but it was definitely somewhere in the area, because we walked to this churro place from it. Any how, the churros were incredible and delicious, and I just love hanging out with my girls, we always have so much fun. After churros it was about 5, and we headed for home on the night buses. Jo and I were home by about 5:30 and we collapsed into bed.

Sunday morning, Joanna slept in while I got up to get ready to meet Emily and Jenn at the metro stop by the Rostro. The Rostro is a giant Sunday morning market in Madrid, not unlike the ones in London. So we went and had a good time looking around, and I bought 2 pashminas for 2 euro each. It was an incredible deal, and they’re pretty decent quality and they look quite pretty. Look out for them in the pictures….I’m pretty obsessed with them now. After the Rostro I went back to Lola’s where we had a lovely sit down lunch around 2 in the afternoon. She made more of her famous Zucchini crema soup, that is sooooooo delicious, and we had bread and beef and fries, and mmmmm such wholesome goodness. After lunch we met up with Jenn and Emily again, and headed for a bull fight!! It was incredible. At a bull fight they don’t just do one fight, they do 6. So you have to see 6 bulls die in the ring. The first one was really hard to watch because we weren’t really sure what to expect, and clearly, its people killing an animal. But we were brave girls and stayed for the whole thing, and saw some pretty spectacular things. The fight we were at was an amateur fight, which means that it was a) less expensive and b) sloppier than a professional fight. Sloppier doesn’t necessarily mean worse, but it can definitely mean more exciting….and boy that is what we got. A bunch of the fighters got roughed up by the bulls and one even got actually gored, and that was awful to watch. I hid in Joanna’s shoulder for that actually. But we followed up, and found out that the guy is going to be ok. He’s got an 8 inch hole in his thigh, but it isn’t anything that is going to kill him or even maim him for life. I think the freakiest part about the whole thing was that his girlfriend was sitting right next to us, and she very reasonably completely freaked out. I would flip out if it was my boyfriend. Never fear, there are loads of pictures, and even some video, and here are some websites to instruct you on bullfighting, because its rather complicated, and I barely understand it myself so I couldn’t possibly explain it all to you.

Go here for the wikipedia explanation (pay attention to the Spanish-style fighting)

Go here for the bull fight we saw. There is some really good video and pictures.

the guy who got really hurt is named Vicente Pinazo, and the part about him is at the very bottom of the page. There were some other incidents at the fight, which are also pictured. You can also click to watch the highlight (or lowlight because it shows the peeps getting hurt)video. The thing is called videoresumen and its all the way to the right near the top of the page.

After the bull fight Emily and Jenn and I went to Bosforos again because we were craving it (totally like Chipotle) and then we went to find Jo at Dubliners to watch the football game. We hung out there until about 11 and then headed home for the evening. We didn’t do much and basically just headed to bed, but not before we had a lovely chat with Lola and we talked about Jason and his insanity (unicorn?). We sill love him though. Haha.

Monday morning I got up really early and met Jenn at the Prado to see the museum only to discover that it is closed on Mondays!! Talk about a bummer. But it was ok, because we went to her school and printed some things out for my flight home, and booked bus tickets and things for me, and then we had lunch and I found paella and it was deeeeeeelish! We also went shopping for a thank you present for Lola. I got her a picture frame and put a picture of me and Jason in it for her. She somehow didn’t have a framed picture of Jason and I had a few pictures of the two of us with me, so I gave her one. She really loved it! Yay! We hung out at school for the rest of the afternoon, and just relaxed until Jo had to leave for her internship, and I had to leave for the airport. It was really sad, because I really didn’t want to leave. Those girls are soooo my favorites (cept Jacki of course) and I think Madrid might be one of my favorite cities on earth. I’ve been twice now, and I don’t think I would mind going back 100 times.

Lost in Roma

2007-10-22T17:38:00.001-07:00

Wednesday started early again, though not quite so early as Tuesday. We were out the door by 9am for Lauren’s Art of Rome class. We walked past the Vatican, which was amazing and totally packed for Wednesday mass. There were incredible amounts of people. Lauren’s art class was pretty cool, we saw a really neat fountain called Fontana Paola, and it was huge! It was on a road called Via Giuseppe Garibaldi, and at the very top of this road is an incredible view of Rome. You can see just about the whole city from there. We also visited a church during Lauren’s class and it was connected to the Spanish Embassy, which was pretty cool. The Spanish embassy is there because the church was commissioned by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, and they bought back some of the surrounding buildings to use as the embassy. After class we headed to the bottom of the giant hill for some lunch, and we popped into a cute little pizzeria and got some of the best pizza I’ve had in a long time. Its one of the few places you can find in Rome that allows you to take your food/drink and go, because in Italy eating is an institution and making it an art form. You are meant to sit and enjoy and take your time, not just stuff while on the go. Its nice because you always get to enjoy your meal, but on the other hand as a tourist with only so much time to see the sights you don’t necessarily want to spend 3 hours on lunch when you could spend 30 minutes and then see St. Peter’s with those other 2 ½ hours. After lunch we stopped back my Lauren’s university, checked our email and ran into some other AU kids. I saw my friend Mark, who kinda looked up at me, said “Hey” and then did this incredible double take as he realize that I wasn’t really supposed to be there. It was absolutely priceless. Then Lauren decided to skip her class, and take me to the beach! It was an hour journey to the coast, and it was a little chilly once we arrived, but it was absolutely worth it. It was incredibly cold, but I was a big girl and eventually got myself entirely into the Mediterranean. The beach was a black sand beach, because it was made out of volcanic rock, and it was really different from the beaches I’m used to. I kept thinking it would be like dirt and make me dirty, but it was just like white sand and just stuck to me, and once wiped off left no residue or black marks. After returning from the beach we ate dinner back at Lauren’s apartment. Lauren cooked some chicken and pasta, and veggies, and it was really good. We then went out and visited the Trevi Fountain at night, and I tossed in a coin to ensure that I return once again, because I totally love Rome, and will return as often as possible. On the way Lauren and I stopped at a gelato place that Lauren claims is the best in Roma, and I won’t deny that it was fantastic, but I still think my place by the Pantheon was better. At the Trevi we met up with Elyse and she wanted some gelato as well, so being the good friend that I am, I agreed to get some more with her. Again, it was good, but my place was better. I then parted ways with Lauren for the evening, and went home with Elyse for the evening. The two of us sat and talked for a couple hours, and then turned in, because we had an early morning ahead of us.

In the morning we left her apartment early and stopped by her local food market, and it was wonderful. There was so much fresh fruit and bread and meats and cheese it was mind boggling. Just walking around was a feast of the senses. We left the market and stopped by a pastry shop and indulged in a cannoli that was absolutely to die for. It was so good, and Elyse managed to make a complete mess of hers and get powdered sugar absolutely everywhere, including on the brim of her baseball cap. I was amused to say the least. We then ended up walking to her school, which was at the top of an incredibly steep and long hill, as the bus decided that it wasn’t ever going to arrive. Elyse then went to her class, and I was off to see the touristy sights of Rome once again. However, I was on the wrong side of the street, and ended up in the suburbs of Rome and completely lost for about 3 hours. By the time I found my way back to the city center my feet killed, because I lost my bus route and didn’t know what other one to take, and it was nearly time to meet Elyse again. However, I was not disappointed in my journey because I got to see a part of Rome that I never would have had I not gotten lost, and it was incredible. I saw a man jogging, and that was landmark because people don’t go running in Rome because they walk everywhere. He was the only person I saw out running the whole time I was there. Once back in the city I visited the Museo dell’Ara Pacis. It’s a museum right down the street from the Pantheon and on display was a collection of 300 of Valentino’s most beautiful dresses, including some dresses worn by incredibly famous women. There was one of Jackie O’s, Halley Barry, Julia Roberts, Audrey Hepburn, and even Princess Diana. For a person who doesn’t really like fashion or dresses that much I liked it an incredible amount, and it was definitely worth seeing. After the museum it was down the street to the Pantheon to meet up with Elyse and we then headed to the Spanish Steps to have a seat on them and at the Fountain at the base of them and enjoy the day. It is one of my favorite places in Rome and I love visiting it. After sitting a while and nearly falling into the fountain, we headed back to her apartment for a bit of a rest and a snack. Then around 6pm we left again, because Elyse had another class, and I was meeting up with Lauren again for dinner and then a night on the town. We ate in again, and hung out with one of her roommates for a while and then headed out to Campo, on of the best known areas in Rome for bars.

At Campo we went to a bar called the Drunken Ship where we met up with Elyse once again and played some beer pong! Lauren and I beat some boys and then were going to play again, when Huw finally arrived. It was so fun!! Huw and Amanda beat Lauren and I and then they lost their next game against some strangers. We then decided to head to another bar, and there Huw refused to let me buy any drinks myself and paid for them because he said I was visiting and he had to be a good host, if only for the night. He is such a gentleman. Because it was a Thursday night the bars were all half empty, though Lauren said in the past they’ve been completely full. I never caught the name of the second place we went to, but it was pretty crazy. The bar tender was a real bartender and did fantastic tricks, and I think the best ones were when he lit a bottle of Malibu on fire and then blew on it to make a torch, and then when he poured some alcohol out of a mixing cup, and then caught it as it was falling to the floor. I’d never seen tricks performed, so this was a real treat for me. We stayed until closing around 2 and were going to go home, when Huw convinced all of us except for Elyse who had a quiz the next day to go to one more bar with him. We headed to Scholars, and it was completely packed. There was seriously no room to move at all here, and was the only full bar, and I’ll have to attest that to the televisions with American sports on them and the fact that it was probably the only American bar open within a mile or so. While the others continued to drink I decided I had had enough because I had to fly to Spain in the morning, so I switched to water to avoid being dehydrated in the morning. When we finally left at closing time, it was really late, and we had a bit of a walk ahead of us. We decided to have a photo shoot on some fountains, and it was really fun, and Huw was totally ridiculous. He also let me wear his shirt because I was freeeezing. He then proceeded to walk us all the way home even though he should have walked the opposite direction when we got to the Vatican. But no, he walked about 10 blocks in the wrong direction, putting him about 20 blocks from home around 4:30 5ish in the morning. We tried to convince him that he needed to stay with us, and we’d give him some blankets, but he refused. He did make it home alright, but we were super worried he would be accosted because he was tipsy and alone and American at 5am. As mentioned, we walked past the Vatican at night, right in front of St. Peter’s and it was incredible. I’d only seen it during the day, and it was all lit up and totally gorgeous. The next day I woke up rather early and with only 2 ½ hours of sleep I needed to make my way to the airport for my flight to Madrid. I made it rather easily and it was nothing compared to my first attempt at traveling throughout Europe. The only problem was that the plane was about 2 hours late….and I’m not sure why. We were supposed to land in Madrid at 1:30 and we didn’t get there until after 3. But more on that later, because this blog is my longest yet I think!!

Cheers!!

When it Rains it Pours

2007-10-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

As I have alluded to earlier in my email, I did indeed have an auspicious start to my lovely holiday. Monday night I had quite a bit to do, and had to leave before the crack of dawn, so I only took about a 2 hour nap. I left the flat at 4am, even though I wanted to leave before that, because I was waiting for the rest of the kids leaving at that time. Because I didn’t leave right away I missed the 4:12 bus I needed to get to Victoria Coach Station. So I had to wait for the 4:42. Because I missed that bus, I missed the first shuttle to the airport, at 4:50. So I had to wait for the 5:20. Now, none of this was a big problem, because the shuttle is advertised as a 40 minute ride, and I would make it in plenty of time to check in for my 7:20 flight. However, the shuttle is mis-advertised, and it took an hour and 20 minutes. Check in closes 40 minutes before a flight, so my check in was supposed to end at 6:40. And I got to the airport at 6:45. I then learned that the flight was a 7:10 and I missed check in by 15 minutes, not 5. I then proceeded to try to get another flight, but I realized that somewhere between getting on the first bus and arriving at the airport I lost my mini wallet that had my bus/metro card in it, my credit card, my Indiana State ID, my FIE student card, my Imperial College Student Card, and my international student card. Basically it was stellar. And it was also 7am. I had no pounds because I had changed it all to euros the day before, and no credit card and I was stuck in some airport on the outskirts of London. Not the best situation. Clearly I start freaking and crying, and not knowing what else to do, I called my parents at home. Now keep in mind that there is a 5 hour time difference, so it was 2am there. I had to call the house multiple times before they woke up to get the phone. I felt so bad waking them, but I didn’t know what else to do. My father basically was incredible, and insisted that I continue onto Rome and we would work everything out. So he gave me his credit card info, paid for the ticket transfer fee, and helped me on my way to Rome. One thing that was kind of a problem was that the new flight was at a different airport, so I would have to take another bus, and that it wasn’t until 5pm. So instead of getting to Rome and seeing some of the sights and playing with my friends for the day, I got to hang out in an airport. So I got a bus for 10am, and spent the time in between running around the airport trying to find out if anyone had found my things and turned them in. No such luck, but a girl can try. The bus to the new airport was for 10 past 10. It never showed. So a bunch of other people and myself waited outside in the cold and rain for over an hour for a bus that never came. And I didn’t have a jacket. Eventually a bus came along, but we couldn’t get on it because the driver had gone over her driving hours, and wasn’t allowed to drive any longer. And then another bus came, but he and the over-hours driver stood around and chatted for a good 15 minutes. None of us were amused. Especially since they didn’t let us onto the bus before they had their visit. Oh no, we had to wait outside still.

We finally got on the bus and then to the airport, and I had to wait around for 3 hours before I could even check in for my flight. You only have about an hour and a half window to get checked in here, because they don’t let you check in until 2 hours before the flight, but close it 40 before take-off. Also this airport didn’t let you take more than one carry-on onto the plane, so I had to check my bag that I wasn’t planning on checking and they charged me 10 freaking pounds for it. Again, not amused.

I finally make it onto the plane and the flight was 2 ½ hours, plus a lost hour because of the time difference, so I didn’t land until 8:40pm. Then I had to take a bus to the main bus station in Rome, and then another bus to where Lauren lives. It would have been really simple had I arrived before 9pm, because the metro would have been running, but Italians are lazy and the metro closes at 9. So I had to take more buses. These buses are not nice buses like the ones in DC that tell you what stop is next. So I had to ask, and it was interesting not speaking Italian, and people around me not speaking English. I even asked the bus driver where the stop was, and he said I missed it, that it had already passed. Now, I’m not positive that’s what he said, but he shook his head and pointed behind him over his shoulder, so that is only what I can assume. So I jumped off the bus at the very next stop, and I was at the back of the Vatican. So that was cool….only I didn’t know what it was at the time. A nice Italian kid about my age tried to help me but he didn’t speak English, and I don’t speak Italian. We discovered that we both speak broken Spanish, so we tried to communicate that way, but soon he was hailing a random person on the street to help out. This girl spoke good Spanish along with her Italian and we got a little more accomplished. I also whipped out my phone and called Lauren and made her talk to the Italians, because she presumably knew the area and could find me, and she speaks broken Italian. Well it sort of worked out, but we called over the girl’s friend who amazingly spoke fluent Italian, fluent English, and fairly good Spanish. And then Lauren found me, and the kids were like, “Wanna come out with us?” It was totally cool and I had made friends despite the language barrier and being a retarded foreigner. Sadly we turned them down because I had had the day from hell and needed food and sleep.

When I got to Lauren’s apartment I found a dinner waiting for me because she had cooked, and it was burritos, Chipotle style. Now clearly it wasn’t just like Chipotle, but it was still good and I was completely thrilled that she was so thoughtful. And basically she hugged me and tried to make my life happier because of my intense day, and soon we were sitting and chatting and having a fantastic time. I knew I missed her, but I really didn’t realize how much until I saw her. It was fantastic.

I’ll tell you about my Roma adventures in the next blog entry, as this one is long enough already.

Ciao!!

Its Been a Long Time Comin'

2007-10-16T16:11:00.000-07:00

Sorry its been so long since I’ve posted, I kept meaning to, and then never did. Wednesday night I went with a couple of my history classmates and met up with my professor in Northern London, and went to a Turkish restaurant. I had a lamb sis kebab, and it was rather spicy, and really good. My professor got quail, and I got to try some, and it tasted pretty much like chicken, no lie. I liked it a lot, and it inspired some Wedding Crashers jokes. Going to this restaurant has also inspired me to want to go to Istanbul, however, since Congress decided to pass a bill saying the official stance of the U.S. government believes Turkey committed genocide against the Kurds during their civil war, I don’t think the Turks are feeling particularly amicable towards us Americans. A telling sign of this non-amicableness is that the Turkish Ambassador to the United States has been called home. So yeah, smooth move Congress.

Thursday I had another make-up history class, and Alison and I were finally able to give our history presentation, which was fantastic. After that I had the afternoon off, and Justin and I decided to go to the Tate Modern, and on the way I picked up some batteries, so guess what? Pictures again! Hooray! There is a link at the bottom of the blog. Anyhow, in general I’m not a huge art fan, but when it comes to modern art, I really missed the boat. So I have no idea why I decided that going to the Tate Modern would be fun. And actually, I did make it fun….because I made fun of the “art” so much and was incredibly sarcastic. For some of my wittier comments, see the captions in the photos. But I only got a few pictures before I was told that I wasn’t allowed to take pictures, so that was a little disappointing. There were some things that I did in fact like and I even got a picture of the one I liked the most. Although, the one I liked the most for sarcastic purposes I did not snap a photo of. It was of a hand painted and numbered can….of the artist’s shit. No kidding. I was appalled that something like that could pass for art….although the funny thing is that the can is still sealed shut so no one really knows if there is poo in there or if the artist was just trying to make a statement. But judging from other pieces I saw, I’ve learned not to put anything past these “artist types”.

Friday brought yet another history class, but as it was the last one, save the final, I was kind of excited. We did review for the exam, and that’s about it, although it still took quite a while to get through…he pretty much laid out exactly what we were to write though, so that was nice. Friday afternoon I just kinda hung out until suddenly at 4pm I decided I would go to the British Museum because it stayed open late at night. And so I went by myself, and it was quite nice. I was able to look around at my leisure and not have to worry about anyone else and what they were doing. I saw a Korean Moon Jar, which are incredibly rare because they are so incredibly hard to make. What it essentially is is two rather large jars, only one is open at both ends, and fits on the others top opening to make one giant jar….its really hard to get the seams just right and most pieces don’t survive the firing in the kiln. I think its something like 1 in 10 make it out alright….and that’s by a master crafter! And what’s really sad, is that they take out all the ruined ones to a hole in the ground, smash them, and then burry them. That’ll be a field day for an archeologist in about 600 years or so. I also saw the Rosetta Stone, it was really cool, and I also saw the Elgin Marbles for about a second, but there were so many old Asian businessmen around with their cameras exclaiming wildly, that I just walked away rather quickly. I was in a quiet sort of mood. That and I didn’t realize what I was looking at at the time…haha…oops. I do intend to go back though, because only the first floor was open for some reason, and there are a couple other floors of interesting things. Notably, the mummies from Egypt that are upstairs. I also have to go back again though, because my British Life and Culture class is headed there, and while I can skip out on the class if I like, our professor is requiring that we go on our own at some point and write about 500-600 words on something we saw there and how we felt about it if we do decide to skip. So I’ll have to decide what I want to do…I may choose to miss the class and travel instead, and write a really short summary on some mummies!

Saturday was a relaxing kind of day, and I honestly can’t remember what I did until late that evening. A couple of the girls and I randomly decided to head out for a quick drink at our pub and it turned into a really interesting night out. I was hit on before I even got down the stairs to the pub, and then as soon as I sat down at our table (by 2 different people mind you). And I was the one wearing jeans and a tank top and zip-up jacket and ponytail. Everyone else had nice going out tops and skirts and dresses….not me…and they hit on me….I can’t understand it at all. But the best part was the third couple of guys to hit on us four girls, because they decided they would by us (and themselves) shots of jeiggermeister, and then a little later, another pint. It was fun, and the best part was it was free, and at the end of the night it was a, “Oh my friends are leaving, it was nice to meet you” and a quick wave and out the door. Haha…(sounds a little mean and conniving doesn’t it?…oops)

Sunday I also did a lot of nothing, though I did study for my final that I had on Monday morning, so that’s something.

Monday I took my history final and it consisted of two questions that I proceeded to write 8 pages on and it took me about 2 hours and 15 minutes to write…I’d better get a good grade on it!! Then it was home to the flat for a quick lunch and then back to Foundation House for my British Life and Culture class where we took a walking tour of Covent Garden and Russell Square. It was pretty cool, and we talked about rookeries and the Bloomsbury writers. After class it was back here to the flat to get ready for my European Holiday!! Around 4am I will be leaving for the airport and my 7am flight to Roma, and I’ll be there with Lauren and Elyse until Friday morning when I fly to Madrid to see my loves, Jenn, Emily, and Joanna. There’s going to be some extra fun there, because things always get insane when the 4 of us girls get together, plus we have a guide to Madrid from an insider (yay Jason). Alllso, Jason’s home stay mommy, Lola is now Joanna’s home stay mommy, so I’m gonna go have some soup (I hear its superior) and try to get some bad stories about him from her. Haha.

This is a Picadilly line Service to Cockfosters

Cheers!

Livin' Life in Fast Forward

2007-10-09T13:35:00.000-07:00

I can't believe classes are almost over and soon it will be fall break and the semester half over!! Its going by soooo quickly!

Saturday. For the most part I sat around and did nothing while waiting for 5pm to roll around so I could get ready to go to try outs. I went to tryouts, and immediately realized that my expectations of what it would be were far too high. I thought about the 54 names far too much and forgot that basketball is not what this country does, and it is after all, club level, and not at all serious bball. We spent half an hour just randomly shooting around, and then they had us do 5-6 laps around the court for a warm-up. So I set out to do them, and within one lap around the court I was half a lap ahead of anyone. And I wasn't going fast at all. I was jogging and getting a warm up in. Everyone else was basically walking with a bounce to their step. It was incredible. But I did slow down a bit after that and only finished about a lap ahead of everyone else. We then proceeded to do lay-ups for 20 minutes, and at my end of the court there was one other person who could do a proper left-handed layup. Seriously. And then we did 3 on 2 for a half hour or so, and we did it against the "coaches". Why they didn't let us play defense I'll never know. We then did 3 girl weave and 2 on 1 back for the last bit of time....so like half an hour. It was ridiculous. We didn't do any ball handling drills, almost no defense, no scrimmaging, no sort of plays. None of that. Also no conditioning. It was also very "wing it" by the coaches. I guess I'm just used to good-ole Shead (HS coach) with his very structured and detailed plans for practice. And I miss it, a lot. I broke my finger when we were doing 3 on 2 vs the coach characters while trying to grab a rebound. It pretty much sucked, but didn't realize how much it hurt/that I really did something bad to it until the very end of practice. Adrenaline will do that to ya.
After "try-outs" I came back to the flat and saw all the girls about to leave for dinner and a night out for Diana's birthday. Well, I sat around here, made a quick dinner, got cleaned up, and went to join the girls after their dinner out and went out on the town with them. We went to this place called Abracadabra, and it was completely insane. We had no idea what it was, but later found out that it was intended to be the most exclusive and highest quality (ie: EXPENSIVE) club for rich people in London. We decided it was where the ugly rich Europeans went haha. Click here for the website for the place and you'll see for yourself. Just enter a bogus cell number to see the site...thats what I did. Lol. Needless to say we didn't stay long cause it was expensive and we're poor, so we went to a bar elsewhere in Piccadilly and had loads of fun there. It was 6 girls on the town together, and we just got silly. And we stayed out waaay too late and goofed off together and had a blast. Yay girls nights out!!
Sunday I did nothing (aka: recovered from Saturday). I did do a little work on the presentation I had to give for Tuesday though.
Monday I had class all day. For history we went to the Churchill Museum and War Room Cabinet from WWII. It was amazing. Absolutely fantastic. I would love to educate you all here, but this blog would be farrr too long, so if you would like to know more, go here. For BLC we talked about the media and the reporting on the Madeline McCann case and how irresponsible the media is being on the case. It was really interesting to learn about. We also had some English treats brought by the professor that were really interesting. We had some Cornish pasties that were pretty good, and kind of reminded me of stuffing (the filling anyhow). For some history on the Cornish Pasty, go here.
Tuesday I had politics and we got our papers back. I wrote mine on the United Kingdom Constitution and I got an 'A'!!! Yay! Now, I would like to say that I thought the overall content of the paper did probably deserve the grade I got, but I think that the structure of the paper could have been better, and if I had been able to write more, it would have flowed better (there was a 2000 word limit...my paper was 1996 words). I also had a presentation to give. Angelica and I did the history of civil rights and liberties in the UK. And we did pretty well.
Today we had politics again, and this time, it was our final. Yikes! We took the final, I think I did alright, and I also asked about the presentation grade, and we got an 'A-"! I'm so thrilled. So as long as i get a B+ or higher on the final (which I'm sure I'll get) I'm gonna get an 'A' in the class. Hoorayyyy! Also, I'm excited because this means that I'm totally done with politics!! Yay.

Oh, I nearly forgot! I had my interview for my internship (that we have in place of classes for the rest of the semester) yesterday morning. It went really well, and I clearly got the job! Yay. I'm working for London First in the safer business section. I'm not entirely sure what I'll be doing, but as soon as I start doing it, you guys will be sure to know! The staff I'm working with is currently 2 people short, so I can be sure that I'll get to do some real stuff....and prolly be working my ass off...and not getting paid for it. Meh, thats what an intern does, and I'm going to be getting some fantastic experience. Click here for more info on the London First organization.

And now you are all up to date on my life!

Cheers!!!

I Went Abroad to Study......

2007-10-05T15:27:00.000-07:00

So this week has been nothing but studying, and doing homework, but don't worry, I promise you this blog won't be boring! For those of you who pay loads of attention to detail and can do math, you'll notice that I am writing this around 11:30pm on a Friday night. Yes, everyone I am being that girl who decided not to go out on a Friday night even though she's abroad. I am being a tool and sitting at home whilst everyone else parties and lives the good life. But you know what, I don't regret my decision because I have my reasons, and I can assure you that they are good ones. But for now, I shall regale you with stories from my life this week.

I last wrote on Tuesday and it was the story of my weekend. Well, I can assure you my life has calmed down immeasurably since then. I mentioned that I went to the National Portrait Gallery in my last post, but I didn’t really say anything about it. Now, our visit to the museum was rather hasty, and we didn’t see a lot of the museum, but what we did see was pretty incredible. We started with the Tudor era and walked through the exhibits in chronological order, which is impressive in itself, because the layout of the museum is not the easiest to follow. Props to our professor for that. The Tudor paintings looked almost cartoonish in nature, because of the quality of the paint I think. The colors were so rich and the paint was so thick upon the canvas and the cloths so ostentatious (the style of the period) that some of the paintings could have easily been a cartoon satire. The next era that was really impressive was the Victorian. Basically, I’m a huge fan of Victoria because she was one of the monarchs who actually cared about her people and wanted the best for them. And she actually loved her husband, Prince Albert, which in those days very nearly never happened for royals and such. They had 9 kids, 9!! Someone worked it out and that’s just short of 7 years of pregnancy. Good lord. When Albert died Victoria was devastated and went into mourning for about 20 years, no joke. She also had the amazing monument to Albert erected (you’ve all seen my pictures of Big Albert by now, that’s the monument) and there is the Royal Albert Music Hall right across the street from it as well. In the 20 years that Victoria wore black and mourned she almost never stepped foot out of her palaces and neglected the country something awful. During this time the people who used to love her turned against her and just thought she was a drain on the country’s economy because she didn’t do anything for the country except spend their money (the tax payers support the royals…duh). Eventually Victoria’s advisors managed to rouse Victoria and got her to take an active role in running the country and once again, the people began to love her (I do love a story with a happy ending). Now Victoria gained the throne when she was just 18 (1837) even though she was about 5^th in line for it because amazingly everyone else in front of her died. It happened a lot in those days, what with disease and all. And she didn’t stop ruling until she died in 1901. She ruled for 64 years. That’s the longest reign of any monarch in the history of the country. Although Elizabeth II (the current Queen) is working on a pretty impressive streak herself. After Victoria died her first son, Edward VII came to the throne and he also ruled for quite a long time, and that period became known as the Edwardian Period. They think of the best names, the Brits, don’t they? We walked through the museum up to some pretty modern and recent paintings, and we even saw a photograph exhibit on Princess Diana, that was pretty spectacular. At the end of out rather quick tour we stopped at a computer station, and picked a painting we wanted to research and give the class a presentation on, and then we were off doing homework. Alison and I chose a painting of Queen Victoria. It’s called Queen Victoria’s First Visit to her Wounded Soldiers. It’s a depiction of Vicki visiting soldiers wounded in the Crimean War. She felt horrible about the fact that her soldiers had to fight at all let alone in horrible winter conditions. She did her best to ease their sufferings and put pressure on Parliament to give the soldiers the most supplies and support possible.

As I said before, Tuesday was pretty boring, but Wednesday was pretty cool. We went to the Imperial War Museum for my politics class (I’m not entirely sure how it relates). That place was seriously cool. They had an entire exhibit on spying in wars (including a bit on James Bond, ‘cause they’re that cool) and all the intelligence agencies that GB has. It was really well done, and we spent a huge chunk of time in that exhibit. Its definitely worth the time to visit if you’re ever in London, and the best part is its free! After the spy exhibit we visited the Cold War era and the Korean and Vietnam War periods, and man for a while I totally forgot we were in a British museum, because our war histories are almost identical. There was even a little movie short on Hendrix’s American National Anthem that he played at Woodstock. The only part that you could really tell it wasn’t the US’s own history was the Falkland War, and in the spy exhibit because they have MI5 and MI6 (the MI stands for Military Intelligence). Our two countries are so interconnected when it comes to war, its insane. Its basically US history with a British twist. Now, don’t go yelling at me that I’m completely wrong and there are so many differences, because I do know that there are, and I’m oversimplifying it, but as far as generalizations go, I’m 100% right. But the best part of the museum was what we saw after class was officially over. Our professor said he was done showing us around, and that he was leaving, but we should stay and have a look around if there was anything else that caught our eye. Well, being the nerds we were, most of us did end up staying around for a while. We totally skipped the WWI and WWII exhibits, and we saw that there were “experiences” in there. So we went. Now we all know so much about the world wars that we didn’t spend time actually looking at the exhibits, except that I stopped and looked at the WWI model of a trench for quite a while. But the coolest part was they built a mini trench exhibit, and you can walk through it and its dark and noisy and smells kind of like what a trench would smell I think. It was amazing. I got lost before I went in, so I went through on my own, and it was totally creepy. Then on the WWII side you could go through a London Blitz exhibit. It was kind of corny, but also very interesting. Definitely worthwhile, and they don’t charge for that either. Woot!

Some of Wednesday evening was spent working on the presentation for Friday and most of Thursday was as well. Thursday is also usually my day off, but we had a make-up history class because we missed a couple classes right at the beginning of the semester. We sat in class and listened to a lecture that was rather boring and then watched a semi-interesting movie on the Battle of Britain. It was incredibly old, and I think that is why it was only mildly interesting. Friday I had history….again. And it was presentation day. Me and Alison were ready to go, had our paper written and printed out, I had my computer with the presentation. And then our professor SKIPPED us. We didn’t get to present. We were like WTF. When class was over we went up to him and were like…ummm you skipped us, we were supposed to present. He said, oh sorry….I thought you weren’t ready. Umm no. We spoke to him Thursday after class about having the cord for our power point presentation the next day. What part of that says we aren’t ready to present? So now we have to wait a whole week to present again, because he won’t let us do it on Monday or Thursday (we have another make-up class). I’m incredibly annoyed.

Now as you can see, its no longer Friday night, but Saturday afternoon, and that’s because I fell asleep before I finished my novel. And the reason I went to bed so early is because I haven’t slept well at all this week and because I’m getting a cold thanks to all my lovely roommates, and because today is try-out day! There were 54 girls sent the reminder email, and I’m sure not everyone will turn up, but that’s still a lot of girls and I’ve never had to actually try out before. Anyhow, I went to bed early, and woke up late, and got 12 hours of sleep last night. It was fantastic. Totally makes up for the lack of sleep I’ve had all week. And try-outs are this evening, so after they’re over around 8pm I plan on taking a shower, eating, and crawling back into bed, because with my cold I’m sure to be exhausted. Especially since I haven’t played in a while, and I’m sure it’ll kick my ass. So wish me luck for this evening!!

Cheers!

I Went Abroad to Party.....

2007-10-02T15:16:00.000-07:00

This last weekend was pretty ridiculous. I went out both Friday and Saturday nights. Friday I went with Alison, a new friend from AU I've made, and one of her friends, Julia, that was visiting. We went to Notting Hill and bar hopped, and it was a lot of fun. My goal of the evening was to get hit on by a guy, and I succeeded. I got hit on by no less than 3 guys. Although they were all 24+. Oh well. Julia went home a different way, because she wasn't going to the same place as us (she lived here for 7 years, so she knows her way around, don't worry) so me and Alison were on our own to find the correct night bus home. We were definitely a few drinks deep, and didn't really know where we were headed, so we just got on the first bus that came along, but we knew it went in our general direction. We went too far and missed our stop and ended up at Victoria bus station. Which was good, cause its huge and has loads of buses going through it. We made a stop at a McDonald's and got fries and man, they were delish! We then caught another bus, got off at the far end of Hyde Park and walked the rest of the way home. Now, its a good mile home from where we were, and we knew that, but its not a bad walk, and being as cheery as we were, we didn't care at all. We giggled and talked the whole way home and we made it no worse for the wear.
Saturday night Alison and I went out again, this time to Camden and with Jason and Justin. We were just sitting around, and all of a sudden decided to go out, and as a result didn't do any "pre-gaming" as we like to call it. And even so we (by we I mean me) some adventures on the tube getting there. Basically we decided to follow the 30 people on our train to where ever they were going because they were all drinking (it's allowed and CRAZY) and got off at one stop so we figured we'd see what was up. Well, we couldn't figure out where they had gone, so we were like, back to plan A, Camden. We went to get back on the train, but SURPRISE, I'm the only one who made it on. I hopped on just as the doors were closing, and everyone else was behind me. It was stellar. We met up at the stop we were headed to (just 2 down the line) and there was no harm done, but it was pretty silly. Now, I don't know if any of you know what the Camden here is like, but its similar to our Camden (as in New Jersey) in that it is kinda shady, but not nearly as dangerous because there are virtually no guns here (though I suppose you could just get shanked...sorry mom). Anyhow, the scene is very alternative, though I hesitate to say punk, because punk here has actually died out for the most part. Think vintage clothes, mow hawks, pink hair, and spiked jewelry. Skater-ish. We walked into the bar and the very first thing that happened before I could even order a drink is that 2 guys start talking to me. And they were trying to have "witty banter" but it just came off as them trying to make me feel stupid, and I ended up thinking they were the dumb ones and got quite annoyed (all under 5 minutes). Basically they asked me if I knew the meaning of 3 different words (apparently I fit the stereo-type of being a stupid American?). And they think obnoxious does not mean annoying, but rather cocky or arrogant. Possibly its a cultural difference, but they this guy took a consensus among his friends and one girl was like, "Well I go to university, so I know, and it means arrogant." Umm, hello? I don't know if maybe you missed it, but the whole reason we're here in London is because we're studying. Means we got to university too. She had the whole attitude that she was better than us. Obnoxious.
We left that bar pretty quickly, and found ourselves another bar called Loch 17. It was really cool, played very American music that strangely ranged from current top 40 and pop to 70's dive bar, and 80's dance music. It was all very strange, but we loved it, and Alison and I tried to get some guys to hit on us, but sadly, they all already had girls. Oh well. Though there was a nasty guy who kept touching me around my waste and lower back and I was completely unamused. And Jason came back from the bathroom to tell us that he had been hit on while in there. Some guy told him to "Put his c-ck back in his beautiful pants." As we were leaving I saw the guy who had been touching me, and I very nearly hit him as hard as possible with my elbow as i walked by, but he was talking to the bouncer, so I only made the motion of it at him. I was very menacing, let me tell you. But then Jason was like, that was the guy who hit on me! It was the same guy!!! We all thought that was hilarious, let me tell you. On the way home we got lost on the buses again, finding one in the right general direction of home, and eventually made it there.

Sunday was chill, and Monday was a crazy busy day of classes. 6 1/2 hours of class is not spectacular, let me tell you. Though the first part of the day was spent in the National Portrait Gallery for my history class, and that was actually pretty cool. Today I had class in the evening, and I had trouble sleeping last night so I didn't wake up until noonish (I didn't fall asleep until well after 3am...it pretty much sucked). So I didn't do a whole lot before class, except go to the fresher's fair (Freshman...get it?) and sign up to play club basketball. I'm so excited. Only tons of girls have signed up and there are try-outs on Saturday night, and I'm a little nervous. I know I'll probably do just fine, but I'm still nervous. Yikers!

I also have a bunch of homework coming up, such as a presentation on Friday, another presentation Tuesday, and a FINAL on Wednesday! The class portion of our semester is nearly over and I can't believe it! Its insane. Cause it also means that we're closing in on the halfway mark of the semester, and I'll be home before you know it.

Thats all for now,

Cheers!

"Just Chug It"

2007-09-28T07:19:00.001-07:00

Tuesday was a sad day for me, with the puddle jumping-in-reverse action, but things got a lot better on Wednesday and Thursday for me. Tuesday night I was up kinda late writing a paper for Wednesday afternoon, and so Wednesday morning I woke up and perfected the paper, went to class, and turned it in. After class I had a few hours before we left for a football game, Fulham v Bolton. My first ever football game! I went with Jason and Justin, and on the way we decided to get some beer to drink on the way, since its really expensive in the stadium, and its legal to drink on the streets here. So we stopped at Tesco (think 7/11 with alcohol) and the boys bought a 4-pack of Carling (500mL cans) and I bought a bottle Baumer's hard cider (568mL). So the boys had 1000mL each to drink and I had my one bottle of hard cider to drink. We got out on the street, and realized that my bottle was not a twist-off top, and we didn't have a bottle opener. So we sketchily looked for a way to open it. Jason ended up banging it on the side of a trash can to get it part way open and then we were going to get it the rest of the way open with our keys. We decided that we wouldn't open it all the way until after we got onto the train, so we waited. However, the train was packed with commuters, seriously packed in like sardines. So we decided not to drink until we got off the train, deciding there was enough of a walk to the stadium from the underground station. No problem. We get off the train, and start drinking, and being the dumb American kids who can't drink at home, we think we're hot shit. We take pictures and pass bobbies (cops) and they don't say a thing, and we continue on our merry way. A couple blocks later we see some more bobbies walking towards us on the street. And then they begin to approach us. I began to think that they were going to card us and make sure we were of age, because I had been carded when I bought my cider. This was not the case. We were in the borough of Fulham, and apparently in the borough of Fulham you can not have an open container on the street. They let us know, and we felt really bad, because we had no clue. The cops were really nice about it though, and told us we either had to finish it in front of them right then, or throw it away. We all looked at each other, and I looked at my bottle, which was mostly full, and we were like...uhhh...okkk...then the second bobbie said, "Just chug it." Swear to God, absolutely serious. I looked at him and said, "I know we're Americans, and chugging is kind of our deal, but I'm a small girl." They chuckled and we proceeded to drink as fast as possible in front of the cops. They started talking to us and asked us where we were from and what we're doing at the game and things. I must have charmed them and they must have thought I was a cutie (cause lets be honest, I totally am..ha) cause the second one looked at me and said, "You're struggling a bit, aren't ya." I said yeah, just a little, but I can handle it. They then decided that they didn't want to make us sick, and there was a little park just ahead, and we could duck into the park and quickly and discreetly finish our drinks and then be on our way. It was the coolest thing ever basically.
So then we got to the match, and it was a really great game. Not to mention we were in the 3^rd row! We were soooo close to the match. And I touched the football! It came right at us and I went to catch it, but it wasn’t quite close enough, and I just barely grazed it with my hand, and it landed in the row in front of us. Pretty efffing sweeeeet! It was round three of the Carling Cup, which means that they have to have a winner, no ties allowed! So when regulation was over and it was tied 1-1 there was overtime! It was such an exciting match, the excitement was intoxicating, and it was loads of fun. Fulham ended up losing in the last 7 minutes or so, so that was a little disappointing, but it sure was fun to watch. We were saying "Come on Fulham" in incredibly thick English accents by the end of the night, compliments of the man sitting behind us (who said it once every 2 minutes or so). After the match we came home and told everyone how we were rockstars because we were told by the police to chug our alcohol.

On Thursday the boys (Jason and Justin again) and I went to tour Emirates Stadium, home of Arsenal FC. It was pretty sweet to say the least, and I have loads of pictures. Check out the links at the bottom. And for facebook kids, there is a video as well (eventually). Everyone else, sorry…I’m working on it….Buuuut some more crazy stuff happened to us (read: me) as we were leaving the stadium. We’re walking out, and we have our little gift bags of things we bought, and I see one of them, just hanging out on the sidewalk, as we walk past it I pick it up, cause it looks empty and I figure I may as well throw it away, cause I’m such a good kid and all. I pick it up and notice that it isn’t empty like I thought it was. There was a little book in it….but it was just a complimentary one, like the one we got from the museum tour. But then, I see at the bottom is a little gift box. And then I was like….“Oh, this is someone’s stuff” and as I thought that the car door right in front of us opens and a man in an official-looking Arsenal lanyard leans out. We’re like, is this yours? He says to us, “I think my colleague dropped it, does it have a little gift box in it?” We said yes and I moved to give it back to him, and he waved me off and continued, “The second you picked it up it was yours. Just take it. Hurry up now.” I was flabbergasted (cause I don’t know what’s in it at all) and I was like, are you sure, you can have it back, I just found it. He then said, “Compliments of Arsenal…go on now.” So we left with bag in hand. We waited until we were back on the underground to open it up, and I opened it, and it was a really nice keychain and mini Arsenal shield. Very shiny and wrapped up incredibly well. So it must be rather nice. So I now have this really neat Arsenal thing. And what’s even funnier is that on the way to the stadium I was talking about how I wished I could find a 20 pound note on the ground….this was probably better, but I wouldn’t say no to 20 quid…haha.

Today I’ve done a whole lot of nothing (sorry guys, I hope you don’t think I’m wasting tooo too much of my time over here). I did go to class this morning though! And Jason and I, and Justin too (ironically) have started watching Heroes. We watched the first 2 episodes today. We found a website, called watchheroesonline.com and its got all the episodes….even season 2 already! And tonight a couple of girls and I are going to head out, minus the boys for once. We’ve decided we want to get hit on and not pay for drinks for once (hopefully). If there is one double standard I love, guys buying drinks for girls is the one.

thats all

Cheers!!

p.s. here is the link to pictures... and then the bobbies told us to chug our beer.........

Splish Splash

2007-09-25T01:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my first real experience with London rain. It had rained once before, in the evening, and I went out afterwards, but yesterday, I was actually outside when it was raining, making use of my umbrella. We were on our way to class, and just walking along, and there was a giant puddle on the side of the road. We're mostly past it when a giant bus comes along from behind and splashes the dirty street puddle water all over our backs and legs. Not fun. My pants were all wet (and they were khakis too) and dirty and my shoes were beginning to get all wet. A little while later, we're still walking along, and slightly soggy, and there is another even larger puddle. I'm like, that would suck if it happened again. I look down the road, and there is another bus barreling right for that puddle. I yell out to Justin, who is between me and the road, and tried to pull him back from the splash zone. No such luck. The bus sprayed water everywhere. But mostly onto Justin and myself. Now, since Justin was in between me and the street, a large portion of the water missed me and just got him. But I was still pretty well wet. Now Justin, on the other hand was absolutely sopping wet. From his waist down he was dripping. He was like forget this, and turned around and went home to change, and said he would meet us at the museum later (we were having a field trip to the Science Museum later on in class). Ross and myself continued on (Ross didn't get splashed the second time around because he was a couple steps behind me and Justin) even though we were both pretty wet. My pants weren't jeans, so I knew they would dry fairly quickly, and they did, except for below my knees, which didn't really touch me anyhow cause they were baggy pants. The only thing that was miserable for me all morning was my feet. My socks and shoes were drenched and I could feel the water squishing around in there all morning. It sucked. I was leaving mini puddles of water where ever I stopped to look at an exhibit in the museum. And Ross noted that we kinda smelled a little, because the water was so nasty and dirty. It was really a rather disheartening experience.

The museum was pretty cool, we went to have a look at the exhibits from the Industrial Revolution period. Although our professor loves his tangents and decided that he would show us the whole museum and we wound up looking at airplanes for a good half hour. Whatever. Some of us now have to give presentations on something from the Industrial Revolution period that changed how people lived. Me and Alison decided to pick trains and how they standardized
time because if One town was 10 minutes behind another the train could come "early" and they may not be ready, and trains could crash. Which, clearly is no good. And so this led to pocket watches and people having personal timepieces, and gave Greenwich another job in keeping the official time.

After the museum it was back to the flat for lunch and then dashing off again for my second class, British Life and Culture. After class I did a power shopping trip to the grocery store to get just a couple things and then back here to chill out for the rest of the night. I did some work on my politics paper, laundry, made dinner, wasted time, the general things a college kid does. Then it was bed time!

Today I've got nothing to do until my 5pm class, but I have a paper due tomorrow afternoon, so I've got to write that today.
Guess thats all, nothing exciting at all, especially compared to the weekend I just had.

Cheers!

The Best Weekend Ever

2007-09-23T11:22:00.000-07:00

A Slice of Life

Late Thursday night Elyse arrived for her weekend in London. Hooray! We stayed up kinda late talking, but I had class in the morning, so I turned in early.
Friday morning I went to class, and afterwards I met Elyse, Angelica and Jason at Buckingham Palace. We walked around and took in the view and found a restaurant to eat in, the Slug and Lettuce. It was really cool, and a rather big chain throughout Southern England. After lunch we took the bus back towards the flat, and got off at the far end of Hyde Park and walked through the park to see it and then through Kensington Gardens and back to the flat. Walking through the parks was the most perfect thing. We strolled and watched people and basically let the world go by. It was like watching the most perfect thing ever, and we had so much fun. As we walked along the Serpentine, we saw this realllly old lady feeding the birds. But they were climbing on her. It was kinda gross, and really all I could think of was, "What if they pooed on her." I said this aloud as some people were walking by, and they thought it was a really amusing thought, and started cracking up. There was one point where a bird got its wing caught in one of the lady's bags, and was just hanging in the air. It was really sad, and we freaked out, and helped the bird get free. It was horrible. And it was just a gross old pigeon but still really hard to see. Anyhow, we freed it and it was fine, and went on to get more bread and live its life. We also played with the birds and chased them and stuff. We continued on to Kensington Gardens and saw the Palace and walked around. There were dozens of dogs running and little school children in their uniforms and people walking and relaxing. It was a beautiful day and 100% perfect. We went to dinner and then afterwards we went to the Imperial College Bar, where drinks are subsidized by the government for college students (super sweet). I decided I wanted an Amaretto Sour....so I ordered one. What I got was not what I ordered. Its totally different here. They gave me Amaretto with Sourz....not sour mix. And for those of you who don't know...Sourz is a sweet flavored liqueur. Amaretto is also a sweet liqueur. So basically I had this drink that was 3 shots alcohol and really sweet. I when I realized what had happened I was not excited to drink it, however, it didn't taste too bad. But I ended up having to drink 3 shots of alcohol and no chaser. It was interesting. However, it didn't make me really drunk surprisingly. Everyone has also figured out a fool-proof way of figuring out how drunk I am, and I must say that I think it works rather well. But I'm not telling what it is, cause it concerns some(or one) of you people who read this.

Bath and Stonehenge

Saturday I woke up early and went on a trip to Stonehenge and Bath. I slept most of the way there, but I stayed awake long enough to hear all the commentary our guide gave us. Stonehenge was awesome. I have pictures galore and videos. And the pictures are already up. There is a link at the bottom of the post. Anyhow, on the video (that is not up cause I'm having issues) I said I would wikipedia Stonehenge for everyone, cause they gave us so much information on it that I couldn't begin to remember it and tell it in a lucid fashion. So if you really want to know, head here to learn more.

Bath is a gorgeous little town with tons of history and the famous Roman Baths. It was really cool, and again tons of pictures are already up and here is a link for info.

I know I'm kinda sucking on this post, but dont worry, cause there are really good captions on the pictures that take care of just about everything.

Defying the Laws of Time and Space

Today, Sunday, me Alison and Angelica went out to Greenwich to see the market and walk up to the observatory and see the Prime Meridian. The markets were really cool. There were parts of it that were very similar to Portobello Road with really neat booths full of clothes, food, and jewlery. And then there were parts of the market that just made you think of garage sales and people just trying to get you to buy all their crap. We then went up to the top of the Royal Observatory. There we had the most amazing view of the skyline and of the grounds surrounding the area. The Queen's Palace in Greenwich was at the bottom of the hill, and the surrounding grounds were once upon a time fox hunting grounds (fox hunting has been outlawed). We also straddled the Prime Meridian and were in two time zones at once, defying the laws of time and space by being in two different times at once. But not really....lol. We then decided it would be a good idea to run down the hill and boy, was it ever. It was like being a little kid again. Sooo much fun. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of it. But it was incredibly fun. We sat on the hill and just looked at the view and people watched, and for the second time this weekend, the weather and life was perfect. It was completely carefree and relaxing and just wonderful. I also log rolled down the hill, to the great amusement of Allie and Angelica. But it was awesome. It kinda sucked when I had grass allllll over me though. Absolutely worth it. For lunch we went to a hole-in-the-wall fish and chips place and ordered fish and chips, they wrapped it up in paper, and shooed us out the door. Probably the most authentic fish and chips you could ask for. And it was greasy and hot and 100% bad for you, and absolutely delicious. We walked around a bit more after eating and then made our way home in the late afternoon. It was a really good day.

Now its around 8:30 and we're going to head to Kav's and show Elyse where we hang out and then its off to bed kinda early cause I have class in the morning. We're going on another field trip tomorrow for history. This time, to the Science Museum. I can't wait!

Defying the Laws of Time and Space
pictures of this weekend

I've been having a lot of problems uploading the videos properly because I can't get enough bandwidth to load them as fast as needed (I think, I don't really know technical things like this).
But I do have one that I managed to get loaded. Hooray! Here it is.

Covent Garden Street Performer

Cheers!

Did you know that "Thriller" is a traditonal British song?

2007-09-20T07:09:00.000-07:00

Last night I somehow ended up at Kavanagh's with the majority of the rest of the AU kids. Don't ask me how I got roped into it, cause I have no idea. I went, but decided that I didn't feel like drinking beer, and I'm too cheap to buy a mixed drink. So I just sat and chatted. I talked with Diana's cousin who is in London for a few more days (he's been in Europe the past month as a college graduation present). Some other kids were asking what he was going to do once he went home. Well, John was pretty toasted, and I knew the answer because I had asked him the same question a few days previously. So I proceeded to tell everyone, that he's going home and hanging out until January when he's going to Japan and teaching English to schoolchildren. I then looked at him, and said, I told your life story for you. He gazed at me blearily and asked how I knew that. I said to him, "You told me the other day when we were in the flat. We were standing outside Diana's room." He's really drunk and just has no recollection of this conversation. So I decided it was time to mess with his head. I proceeded to say, "Oh come on you know, we were in the hallway talking, it was right before we made out (never actually happened, no worries guys)." He slapped his hands on the table and gave me an incredulous "Whaaaaaaaaaat!!!!!!!" Of course I let it carry on for a while, and then I finally told him I was just screwing with his head. It took him a while to process this information, as he was pretty drunkers, but eventually he got it. Mannn I had fun with that one. I had everyone else at the table cracking up too. Te he, I played a wee little joke.

Today Kristian and I got up a little early to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. It was really cool, but really, I didn't understand what was going on at all. The guys in the red coats were being replaced by the guys in the black coats, but there was this big ceremony including a band and some horse guards that didn't really have much if any purpose. Eventually the royal band started playing music. And they conjured up some music stands from somewhere, and I was like, uhhh did you get them out of your hats? haha. So they start to play and we expect something like "God Save the Queen" or "Old Britania" or something very traditional, since the whole ceremony is a tradition thing. Oh no, they totally broke it down with none other than Michael Jackson's "Thriller". I kid you not, and I have it on video to prove it. They also played such classics as "Eye of the Tiger" and "Shot Through the Heart." Needless to say it was the last thing I was expecting, and as a result, I got a good laugh out of it.
Any how, I decided that I would Wikipedia the changing of the guard as soon as I got back so I could understand what happened. Here is what wiki has to say:

The Changing of the Guard takes place in the forecourt of Buckingham Palace. The St. James' Palace detachment of the Queen's Guard, led usually by the Corps of Drums, and bearing the Colour (if the Queen is in residence, then this will be the Queen's Colour; if she is not, then it is the Regimental Colour), marches along the Mall to Buckingham Palace, where the Buckingham Palace detachment has formed up to await their arrival. These two detachments are the Old Guard. Meanwhile the New Guard is forming up and are awaiting inspection by the Adjutant on the parade square at Wellington Barracks. The Band, having been inspected by the Adjutant, forms a circle to play music whilst the New Guard is inspected. The Guard provides a full Military Band consisting of no fewer than 35 musicians (usually, though not always, from one of the Guards regiments) accompanied by their Director of Music. When the New Guard is formed up, led by the Band, it marches across into the forecourt of Buckingham Palace. Once there, the New Guard advances towards the Old Guard in slow time and halts. The Old Guard presents arms, followed by the New Guard presenting arms. The Captains of the Guards march towards each other for the handing over of the Palace keys. The new reliefs are marched to the guardrooms of Buckingham Palace and St James' Palace where new sentries are posted.
During this time the Band has taken its place by the centre gate, formed up in a half-circle, where it plays music to entertain the New and Old Guard as well as the watching crowds. During this period, the two regimental colours are paraded up and down by the Ensigns (usually junior officers of 2nd Lieutenant rank or equivalent). With the Old and New Guards formed up once again, the Old Guard and the Band marches out through the centre gates in slow time to their Regimental Slow march played by the Band. At the end of the slow march the Captain of the Old Guard gives the word of command to 'Break into Quick Time' and with a brisk five pace roll from the drums, the Band leads the way back to Wellington Barracks.

And there you have it. See, we all learned something new today!

I also posted more pictures on facebook, in the "Alight here for Buckingham Palace" album. There are new pictures from Abbey Road, Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guard, and also the Thames Festival at the end of the album.

I know you're all interested in seeing the videos I've been taking as well, and I'm trying to load those as well, they just take forever. I'll provide links as soon as I get them all up. It may be a while, especially when the Internet connection is as dodgy as it is.

Cheers!

Festivals and Field Trips

2007-09-19T02:48:00.000-07:00

As I said when I left off on Saturday, on Sunday we planned to go see fireworks in the evening. Because I knew Sunday evening would be dedicated to having fun and I needed to make sure I had all my homework done for the week, I spent the day Sunday getting my life together and doing homework.....or as much homework as I could do. Interestingly enough, I didn't actually have any homework. There was a bit of reading, but it was pointless, however, I did it anyhow. With the homework situation out of the way in about an hour (I spent time organizing my class papers and such) I moved on to working on the trips I want to take around Europe. And I bought my tickets for fall break. I am officially going to Rome and then Madrid. And I'm doing it for $150!! I love cheap airline tickets! I'm also working on going places within the UK including Wales and Scotland, and hopefully I'm going to get to Ireland to see Dublin. I'm also hoping to see Paris.

So Sunday evening we headed for fireworks down on the Thames and we went early to enjoy a bit more of the festival and to have a wine picnic. We had loads of fun, and we even found a burrito booth that was incredibly similar to Chipotle. Personally, I thought it was closer in taste to Qudoba though. It was pretty delish. By the time the fireworks were ready to start we had made it up to a really sweet spot on a bridge right next to where they would be shooting off the fireworks from the Thames. And boy, they were pretty awesome. The show was rather short by American standards, but there was plenty of quality. I got a lot of it on video with my camera, but the batteries died just before the finale unfortunately so I'm afraid you won't be able to see the best part.

Monday morning I had history class and we took a field trip to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. Me being silly me didn't bring my camera because I forgot about the field trip, so I don't have any pictures. Which is incredibly disappointing. But we went because the naval history of Britain is essential to their existence. We saw the Lord Nelson exhibit which was incredibly interesting because he was the commander of the entire navy at the Battle of Trafalgar, where the British defeated Napoleon and the French. This was a pivotal battle, and led to the eventual defeat of the French at Waterloo. Lord Nelson died at Trafalgar, he was shot by a sniper and the bullet went through his shoulder and kinda ricocheted around his body for a bit eventually lodging itself in his spine. He died on the ship, but had asked to be taken back for a proper funeral, instead of being buried at sea. So they dumped him headfirst into a barrel of brandy to preserve his body. The outcome of the battle was that 18 of the 34 French ships were either captured or destroyed and this battle would be the starting point for British naval dominance for the next 100 years (1805-1914) only ending because of World War I (which changed everything for most countries). After the Lord Nelson/Trafalgar exhibit we were supposed to see the Imperialism exhibit, which would of course be how the navy helped the Brits colonize a majority of the world. However, it was closed for one reason or another, so we couldn't see it. At this point much of the class had to leave anyhow, because they needed to be back for their next class, but I didn't have to go because my class for the afternoon was canceled (because we were meeting on Tuesday instead). So I got to carry on with about 6 other students and the professor. Also at Greenwich (what its famous for) is the Royal Observatory and the international time line and prime meridian. Ok, so the prime meridian is actually a long line that is basically everywhere, but it was established by the Brits because of their influence over the world. King Henry VIII who is most famous for his large number of wives, many of whom he had beheaded, was also very learned and intelligent and supported cartography (the making of maps). This helped with the establishment of the navy as a power and also lead to many discoveries about time, cameras, and longitude and latitude. So we trekked up an incredibly steep hill and saw the date line, which I of course stood on, so i was in two time zones at once, and completely defied the laws of time and space. We also had a look at the first (I think) camera obscura, which is basically a dark room with a hole in ceiling and a series of mirrors that shows the outside world, in real time. Now, we all know that it is clearly real time, but this was a major discovery back in the 1800's. There were plenty of time experiments and such, and in the end the camera obscura was a very early forerunner to the camera (see the link between the names?).

After all that running around I was tired and so when we got back in the afternoon I took a 4 hour nap and then woke up in the evening for dinner, and sat around with the rest of the flat and hung out, made fun of each other, watched incredibly bad British tv, and then called it a night.

Tuesday was also a busy day, because my British Life and Culture Class had a tour of parliment! You aren't allowed to take pictures of the inside (very disappointing), but I did remember my camera...though I didn't change the batteries, so it wouldn't have worked in the end...haha. Our tour guide was really cool, and we learned loads about the building and traditions that surround it. We talked about the ceremony of the official opening of Parliament, and what the Queen does. We learned that the color of the House of Lords is red, and all the seats and everything is done up in red, while the House of Commons is green, so everything in their room is green. We also thought it was interesting that the House of Commons was destroyed during WWII and the bombing of London (a bomb landed right on it unfortunatly, but the rest of the building was relatively undisturbed). Churchill had it rebuilt in almost the exact dimensions as the old room....even though it wasn't big enough at the time...and now it still isn't big enough for every MP to have a seat. This was done because of tradition. Very odd if you ask me. Also nearly every single house of representatives in the world (or whatever they're called in each country) is roughly modeled on the original set up of the British parliament. For 300 years the parliament met in a rather small room that was long and thin, and so the speaker sat on a chair at one end, that was actually on a set of stairs because of the lack of room. And ever since the speaker in GB, and elsewhere in the world has sat above the rest of the floor. Also the similarities between even what the chairs look like is astonishing. The speaker's chair here is almost exactly the same as the chair in the HoR in the US. We're all just a bunch of copycats!

After the tour it was back to the flat and another nap for me, and then politics class. After class I went grocery shopping (meh) and then back to the flat for food, goofing off, and then bed.

Today I have politics again, and then some sort of reception because we have some AU professors or representatives here to see us...woo? Tomorrow is Thursday, which means no class, so I suppose we'll prolly head out somewhere tonight. I think I shall continue to be boring though, because even though I'm much better and no longer ill, I keep getting headaches, so no alchie for me. Kinda sad, but kinda not, cause I can still have fun without it, and then I can watch all the antics of the drunkies in my flat. Haha.

Oh, one last thing....I did the webshots thing, for those of you who love pictures, but its actually very hard to use...either that or I'm just dumb. And I tend to put up way more pictures on facebook. Now here's something great about facebook, they now have a link I can give all you non-facebook users where you can go and see the pictures even though you're not on it! So I'll just post links to it when I upload new pictures. Here is what there is so far:

Album 1 "Please Mind the Gap Between the Train and the Platform"

Album 2 "Alight Here for Buckingham Palace"

Album 3 "Real World, London"

So yeah, yet another change on the picture front, and I apologize, but I think I've got it for real now!

Cheers!

Lets Take a Walk....

2007-09-15T10:17:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you'll all be glad to hear that I am better! Hooray! I've been taking it easy because I would absolutely hate to over-do it and get sick again, but I did get out and do some fun things today and yesterday. Yesterday started slowly and in the late afternoon I finally ventured out with Jason and Justin to have a peek at Abbey Road. So we hopped onto the tube and whisked down to St. John's Wood and walked the few blocks to Abbey Road. We got there and there were about 7-8ish tourists around doing the same thing we were...having a look at the Beatles' recording studio. Really all it is is a building that is still in use and doesn't look spectacular in any way. It does however have a blue plaque because Sir Elgar also recorded there, and he wrote Pomp and Circumstance (also known as the "graduation song"). Buildings don't get a blue plaque until 20 years after the person its representing has died to protect the family from public scrutiny. Madonna doesn't want everyone knowing exactly where she lives cause she has a life and family...ya know?

What is cool though, is there is a low wall and then fence atop the wall surrounding the building. And the wall was painted white....once upon a time. Its been completely covered in sharpie and markers of the like as tourists will do to pay tribute to the band. Its really quite remarkable. And then there is the cross walk that is the extremely famous because of the Abbey Road album. We were originally going to have a go at getting a photo of us crossing and looking like the Beatles, but there was a bit of traffic, and we abandoned the plan. Justin, however still wanted a general picture. So he stopped to take a picture, and right at that moment there wasn't any traffic, so i decided to cross. Justin ended up with a near perfect picture of me crossing Abbey Road like the Beatles. I'll be putting it up asap.

With our Beatles adventure at an end, we headed for home. On the way we decided that since it hadn't taken too long, we'd stop by Buckingham Palace for a look around outside. It was pretty cool, though we nearly got taken out by an lady on a bike. Instead she tried to avoid me and the others and ended up crashing herself. She flew over her handlebars and hurt her knee. It was pretty intense. But we saw her walking away a little bit later, so we knew she was ok.

Then it was home for real and dinner time. After dinner we decided what to do with our evenings. Some went out to party and get crazy, but I thought that would be too much for me. So I ended up going to a sports bar with 5 guys and was just another one of the guys for the evening. It was fun and low key, and none of them judged me for not drinking, cause they knew I had been deathly ill and fighting the plague this week. We went to this bar because they were showing the Red Sox v Yankees game, but we had to wait till midnight for it to start. So we sat and waited and by the time it started most were ready to go home, so we left after the first inning. I was cool with it, cause I'm not a huge baseball fan, and I was tired. But boy was there some entertainment while we waited. There was this incredibly intoxicated woman who was all over the place dancing like a stripper, making out with random men and men nuzzling her busom. All the while the bartenders are like, "Yeahhhhh woooooo". It was like watching a car crash...you know its horrible but you can't tear your eyes away from it. And this woman, she kept coming over to us and slurring random things. Right after the nuzzling occurred she came over to me and said something to the effect of "this is the best part about being a woman".....uhhhh yeah....She also came over and tried to hit on 3 of the 5 guys in the group....all of whom were like....uhhh...no.... she wrapped her arms around Justin who instantly removed them with a look of disgust on his face, and she looked at him and said "Big mistake, big mistake, big mistake." It was pretty bad. It went on from there...there were plenty of antics...ending in her taking off her shirt and dancing around in her bra for a few minutes. At that point security escorted her out of the building and that was finally the end of her.

So after the sports bar and drunken woman show we headed home and I went to bed. Today we all decided to take part in the Thames River Festival. It was really cool, and I have pictures of it...its hard to describe, you kinda have to see it. But there were markets and vendors and food and music every where and it was really neat. We also wandered away from the festival and onto the doorstep of St. Paul's Cathedral. And it is absolutely gorgeous. Tomorrow night there are fireworks, and a bunch of us plan to attend that. As for tonight I think a bunch of us want to keep it low key, so we're going to head to Kav's for a pint and then bed.

Cheers!

p.s. I've tried about 7 times to upload pictures to picasa, and basically the website hates me. I've moved on and started to put up pictures on webshots. I've got a bunch on there so far, but no captions or anything. It takes a really long time to upload for some reason...but it does it so thats all I'm worried about it. You're welcome to have a peak now while I work on it, or you can wait until Monday when it will all definitely be done.

community.webshots.com/user/sarahbutzer

If I'm stuck inside, it could at least rain.....

2007-09-13T02:04:00.000-07:00

Its now Thursday morning, and I sadly, have next to nothing to report. Why? Because I spent all day Monday in class, and then on Monday night I very suddenly got sick, and have been sick ever since. I am proud to say that I was a trooper though and made it to all my classes. Which really was just one on Tuesday at 5 in the afternoon and one on Wednesday that was at 1 in the afternoon. But still, it certainly wasn't easy. Right now I'm doing my best to get better, but I really don't want to visit the doctor. I don't think I need to, just take it easy for another day or so. Which is why its a really good thing I have a 4 day weekend. Woot! I have a 4 day weekend because I don't have class on Thursday as it is, but I have class Friday morning. But not this week, my professor had to cancel class because he's presenting a paper he's written. I dunno. It means I have a 4 day weekend! Woo! Oh, this same professor (history class) decided that 8:30am was "dodgy" and that we are going to meet at 9am from now on. Pretty sweet if you ask me.

The biggest thing for all you peeps is that I finally got my pictures sorted out, so they'll be up very soon! And then you can all live vicariously through me! Ha.

Oh, and we've been here 12 days and it has yet to rain. So much for the stereotype that it always rains here.

Cheers!

How come every time you come around my London, London Bridge wanna go down?

2007-09-09T04:36:00.000-07:00

So this weekend has been a great one for exploring the city and learning new things. Friday afternoon we had our coach tour and saw the city from inside the bus and we started picking out things we wanted to do and see that way. Friday evening we all decided to go to Kavanaugh's to watch the first game of the Rugby World Cup. And a few of us had dinner in the pub. And what else did we have but fish and chips at the pub. Yup, I had my first fish and chips. And it was rather yummy. I also learned quite a bit about rugby. Its a fascinating game. The opening game of the cup was France vs Argentina, and since not too many Americans (including me) are not fond of France, I was rooting for Argentina. They ended up winning the game 17-12. So it was pretty close. The interesting thing about the game was that the British HATE both France (which is completely obvious) and Argentina. Hating Argentina is a little less obvious unless you pay attention to British life a bit more. The Argentinians invaded the Falkland Islands in the 80's to reclaim land they thought was originally and rightfully theirs. At that time the Argentinian economy was in deplorable condition and the political leaders decided to take this action to play of the people's long standing feelings about the islands and try to get a last ditch effort of support so they wouldn't lose their jobs. There were few casualties on either side, and there were little economic problems for the British, however, the Brits still have very strong feelings of hatred towards the Argentinians because of this. This posed an interesting question on who we were supposed to pull for while watching the rugby match. It also begged the question of why they were watching in the first place. But rugby is a serious sport here, and you watch no matter who is playing, especially if its the world cup. After the game was over there was a DJ at the bar and it was kinda weird and I didn't want to drink beer, so I went back to the flat and had some wine and relaxed and called it an evening. Dirty Dancing Havana Nights was on and I watched that, and then hung out with the rest of the flat once they came back from the pub.

Saturday my GrandBig, Nisa came to visit! She's here visiting her cousins and came into the city to visit for the day. She's on her way to India for 9 months to work and travel and get experience in a hospital before heading off to grad school. She came to play, and we went to Portobello Road market. Its a fantastic street market with clothes and antiques and knick-knacks and food. We spent hours walking around and walked the whole street. I got a few things that are rather cute, and cheap! We had lunch at a Thai restaurant and I had drunken rice, and Nisa had drunken noodles and Angelica had red curry. Angelica had never had Thai before, and she really liked it. My drunken rice with chicken was incredibly spicy, much more so than any Thai I've ever had in the states, and it made my nose run the whole time, but it was so delicious I ate the whole thing. I also ate it with chopsticks, cause I'm that talented. On the way back from Portobello Road (which is in Notting Hill) the underground was having severe delays for some reason, so at High Street Kensington we ditched it and took the bus. None of us had ever taken the bus, and so we had to figure it out...but it was not too hard, and we got on the bus. Our first double decker, and of course we sat up top! It was fun. Once back we went to Kav's again to see some more rugby (England vs USA and we got our butts kicked) and football (England vs Isreal). It was a good day for England cause they won both games handily. Then we went to dinner at a pizza and pasta place down the road...the same place I had my first legal alcohol.

Then it was out to Leicester Square again for another club, and time to say good-bye to Nisa who met up with her cousin to go home. The club we went to was called Oxygen and was a really good time. Me and Angelica danced for hours and decided to stay with Jason when the rest of our group decided to go home. We were just having too much fun, and Jason wasn't quite ready to go either. There were some sketchy guys, but there always are at clubs, so it wasn't too awful. There was one that just wouldn't leave Angelica alone though, and I begged her to let me deck him. She said no. And that if anyone was gonna hit him, it would be her. I was disappointed. Lots of guys kept trying to dance with me all night, and it was odd, cause I'm totally not used to it. Angelica says its cause I was having so much fun and could actually dance. Ha. It made me feel good, weather its true or not. We finally left around 20 after 1 and had to grab a bus that turned into a 45 minute to an hour charade, that was quite funny. We finally made it home and chilled for a bit and then headed for bed.

Today we're headed for Hyde Park and Speaker's Corner. And some grocery shopping and general getting ready for the school week. Ah! I actually have to do stuff! I just wanna have fun! lol.

Oh....my camera and computer aren't compatible and I'm working on getting some things sent here from home to make it work. But I do have a few pictures from other people's cameras. And there is facebook for all you college kids. For everyone else, head here

http://picasaweb.google.com/sarahbutzer

cheers!

Please mind the gap between the train and the platform

2007-09-07T01:24:00.000-07:00

At this exact moment this morning I should be sitting in my History of Britain class. I, however, am not. Why? Because our professor forgot to show up. Hmmm.... so I thought I would take this extra time and update ya'll on my life here. It sort of takes care of the "what now" question since there are only 3 of us in the flat with this class, everyone else was up rather late last night and are all still currently sleeping. And we have things planned for 2 this afternoon (a coach tour of London) so we really can't go anywhere and do things.

So, I'll pick up where I left off....Wednesday. The day was pretty standard. Got up and got ready for my class, politics again, and it lasted all afternoon. It was 1-4. Then I went to the grocery store to get some food and made dinner. We then decided we needed to get out of Kensington and experience the city's night life, because its tops in the world, second only to New York City itself. So we hopped on the tube around 9 and went to Leicester Square (pronounced lester). Once in Leicester Square all we had to do was choose exactly what we wanted to do. We ended up in a club called Metra and there we had drinks (rather weak ones at that) and danced for hours. It was free to get in and we were all happy about that, cause we didn't stay too late. Then it was back on the underground and to our flat where we continued to hang out and have fun till around 3 in the morning.

Thursday was a huge day. The majority of us didn't have class at all, and those of us who did, didn't have class until 1 in the afternoon. So we slept in and then we all got ready to explore the city. We took the tube and got off at the London Bridge stop, and from there we went to a bridge and looked up the Thames and saw the famous London Bridge, and from there the picture taking started. We then walked along the river all the way up to the bridge and then walked across. We also saw City Hall, which is the most unique building I have ever seen that was a government building. Its really rather ridiculous. Once across the bridge we saw the Tower of London, but didn't go in, because we think our classes are taking us there, and we didn't want to pay the 16 pounds ($32) when we could possibly go for free. We then walked around for a bit and then hopped back on the tube and went to Westminster. As we came up out of the tube stop we turned around and Big Ben was directly behind us. It was seriously cool. We saw Westminster from the outside, but it was closed to the public because there were services in progress, so we couldn't go inside. Another time though. We also walked all along Parliament which was pretty sweet, though there weren't any trash cans, period in that area. Too much of a bomb threat is what people have told us. Its actually very hard to find a trash can on the streets here.

After Parliament we walked down to the opposite end of the street and saw Whitehall and then we were in Trafalgar Square. And in the UK there really are a lot fewer rules, because you can climb everything and not be in trouble, like you would be in the US. Its quite nice, cause you can get up on the big statue and sit down and have some pretty sweet pictures. There are some of me...yay! After Trafalgar Square we walked a few more blocks and were in Covent
Garden. There we walked around the market stalls and saw street performers. I took a video of one guy juggling knives while standing on a tightrope on one foot. It was pretty impressive to say the least. But what is kind of annoying, is how blunt they are asking for money. The guy must have talked about it for like 5 minutes about how you should give him money if you liked the show.

After we saw the show we started walking around looking for somewhere to eat that didn't seem too ridiculously expensive...cause the whole area is pretty pricey because its just swamped with tourists. We found a place that didn't seam too bad, and ate a passable meal. But we were all tired from walking allllll day and the food wasn't the greatest, and the service was pretty horrible (they forgot to make 3 of the orders) so we weren't exactly thrilled. After dinner I went in search of ice cream, and I had an ice cream bar, and it cheered me up immensely. It was then finally time for the last thing of the day. We had tickets for Stomp at Vaudeville Theatre. I've never seen it before, and man, it was super cool. I was exhausted and wanted to keep falling asleep, but I stayed awake because it was so awesome. It was also rather loud, so I suppose I would have had a hard time staying asleep. Haha. After the show it was back to the flat for relaxing and unwinding and a shower. Because goodness, London is a incredibly dirty city, and I was filthy. Then it was off to bed for me.

And then this morning was the class that wasn't meant to be.

I also promise I'm working on pictures, I've just run into a snag or two, but I'll have them up this weekend. Promise!

Oh the stories you can tell.....

2007-09-04T13:47:00.000-07:00

After I posted last night everyone went to Imperial College for our welcome bbq. There was free beer and burgers. Guess what! I ate my first burger in about 16 years. I rather liked it. A bunch of us AU kids sat with some Brits and made friends. Mainly me and Angelica talked to them and hung out for a while. We thought the guy, Emory, was 24 or 25ish....nope. Turns out he's 31. And a doctor. But not just any doctor. A cardio-thorastic surgeon. Whaaaaaaat. Insanity.

We were back to the flat by 8:30 and we had a flat meeting to work out things like the fridge and bathrooms, cause lets face it, if there aren't rules 13 people are gonna have a problem. Then we went back to Kavanaugh's for the evening. Angelica, Diana, and myself sat at the bar and were talking and an older guy started talking to us. We had a great conversation about politics and business and society, and it was really intellectual. And then he bought us another round of drinks! Hoorayy! And it turns out he's an executive of Waterford Crystal. The second whaaaaaaat of the evening. We got his card. Go us! lol.

Today we went shopping for groceries and other essentials and then in the evening I had my first class. British politics. It lasted nearly the whole 3 hours, and there was lecture the whole time.....and I didn't learn anything....cause I already knew it all from a previous class. That'll teach me to be a know-it-all. Lol. I did impress the socks of the prof. though.

We came back to the flat and hung out, and then for the third night in a row, we went to Kavanaugh's and closed the bar. Now, thats not as bad as it seems, since the bars here close at 11. And you only have time to drink a pint or two if you don't get there till 10 (like us). It was a rather smaller group this evening....just 5 guys and myself and another Sarah. I was one of the guys, and it was fun.

Now its really late, cause those of us who went out again came back to find those that stayed in were being crazy. So we all sat around and goofed off and had ridiculous conversations, thousands of crazy photos and barrels of laughs. It was a great evening.

Now I suppose you can put pictures on here, but I think it would make it annoyingly long and tedious, so I'll work something out so ya'll can see some pictures, and I'll work on that tomorrow. For now I need to get to sleep....its nearly 2am here!

My first few days

2007-09-03T09:07:00.000-07:00

As my plane landed at Heathrow airport I saw one thing even before we touched the ground that made me smile and think, "Holy shit I'm in London." It was a bright red double-decker bus. One of those things you automatically associate with London.

Now, clearly my trip wasn't that great, but they never are and I was grumpy for a couple hours yesterday, and Angelica told me about 15 times that it wasn't allowed and I still was ornery, so I got it out of my system. So I needn't tell you all about it. I'll just say that I'm rather sore from lugging my suitcases all over, I wish they had lifts so I didn't have to carry it up a couple of flights of stairs rather awkwardly in public places (thank God for chivalrous males), and I wish I could have gotten better directions from people who are supposed to know how to get you somewhere.

Once I got here and all checked in we did a walking tour of the area and our main buildings that we will be using all semester so it was useful. We also went to Boots which is their equivalent to CVS. And the whole time I was just like, "Oh look they have this, and this and this, just like us" I don't know why, but I seem to be acting like the British are aliens and don't use anything that is the same brand. I find it funny and amusing to find different brands, and amazed and glad when I find something the same...even if I don't use it. Its reassuring somehow. Angelica and I grabbed a quick bite at a deli before the tour, and I got something different, cause I am in London after all. I had a sandwich called Tripole (tree-p0-lee) which is avocado, mozzarella, tomato, and basil on bread that is best compared to Cosi's bread. And it was delicious. Mmmmm.

So after our tour we all came back to our flat.....where 13 of us live together....and relaxed. I took a shower to get cleaned up because I realized that I had been wearing the same clothes for 24 hours straight and was rather gross (dragging luggage across London = lots of sweating). We then went to dinner and I had my very first legal alcohol. Hooooray! I had a glass of red wine with my delicious pizza (I ate the whole thing...hehe). And I was impressed with the wine, because it was rather good, and I don't usually like red wine. Directly after dinner our group went to Kavanaugh's. Its our local bar...and by local I mean around the corner. And there I had my first pub experience. And I drank a whole pint of Carling! Although everyone else had 2 or more, wine goes right to my head, and I just can't drink that much liquid. Plus, a pint and a glass of wine is pretty much my limit. Some of the kids ragged on me, and said by the end of the semester they'd have me drinking 5 pints a night. But really, thats just too much peeing, and far too expensive. Haha. After the pub we came home and called it a night, because we were all absolutly exhausted from our long day. I figured that by the time I got to sleep around midnight I'd been awake for 35 of the last 36 hours (I only got about an hour on the plane).

Thus far today we've been rather busy as well. We had a walking tour given by a blue badge. I guess that means they're a real guide...meh. It was nice though. We walked all over Kensington and got to know the area, were given great places to shop for things and saw Kensington Gardens and the palace. And we learned quite a bit of history of the area. Like double buses came into being in the year 1851 because thats when Crystal City was built. It was a arts and sciences fair that Prince Albert supported (he was their patron). In the 3 months it was open 6 million people visited it (London now only has 7 million people). And there wasn't enough transportation so they started putting benches on top of the carriages, and people loved it...thus double decker buses. We also saw the houses of T.S Eliot and some other notables. After our tour Angelica, Dianna, and myself all went to find something to eat and came across a super cheap and rather decent pizza place just around the corner and down the street from our flat. We then had orientation where we received our ID's and tube passes and all sorts of information.

And thats everything I've been up to since I've been here! We're about to go to a welcome bbq and have free burgers and beer. Yup, the program is providing alcohol. Its sooooo different!! Also, the UK subsidizes alcohol for university students....they make it cheaper and easier for us to drink in the university pubs! And we have access to them because we're temporary members of their student union.

I guess thats all, because we're about to leave. Lots more to come!

And so it begins....

2007-09-01T07:50:00.000-07:00

Today is the day! In just a few hours I will be on my way to JFK international airport in New York, and a few hours after that I'll be boarding a Boeing 777 for a transatlantic flight to my new home for 3 1/2 months. Needless to say, I am incredibly excited. I am also slightly nervous...understandably.

I have finished my packing, and incredibly, I have a little extra space! I have a giant duffel bag, and a large suitcase that I am checking (both under 50 pounds....i'm amazed) and a little suitcase that is my carry-on. Then I have a few essentials, including my laptop, that are going in my backpack and a pillow. I've been steadily packing up all week, and now that the day has arrived I can finish up and place my last minute things like shampoo and toothbrush in my bags. My flight is an overnighter, which is great because that gives me most of the day to finish up these things so I don't have to rush around in the early morning.

When I get to Heathrow I'm meeting up with Angelica, a girl in my sorority who is also in the program. We're on different flights coming from different airports, but we land within 5 minutes of each other, so we're going to take the Tube together to our flat in Kensington.

Thats all for now, cause thats really all I know. This is the most spontaneous thing I have ever done thats taken 6 months to plan. I say that because while I have known that I am going for ages and been planning all that I can, the only thing I am sure of is getting there and coming home, because I'm the one who booked the tickets. The people who run the program have told us next to nothing about what is going on and what we will be doing. And what they have told us is so confusing and cryptic it may as well be jibberish. I wonder if they think that is part of the fun. Anyhow, once I get there and things start happening, it'll be here!

The road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it meets some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And wither then? I can not say.