Adventures in LondonTown

Blah Blah Blah Amsterdam

2009-05-03T19:16:00.013+01:00

After Mom and Nana left, I crammed for and took my European Integration final, finished packing (I'm so on the ball), and headed to the airport with Vanessa to go to Holland! I'm starting to get used to European airports and the way they're run. You check your bags, then wait in a huge terminal until a half hour before your flight. After nearly an eternity, your departure gate number appears and you try to beat the mad rush to the gate (it never works). Then you stand in line to go through security and sit in a glass room with no exit until you can board your plane. It's nerve wracking for me, but at least I expect it now. Anyway, on to fun stories from Holland!

We arrived in Amsterdam late that night, stumbled around the train station trying to figure out how to get to our hostel, then decided to walk in the opposite direction. After about 5 minutes, we both got a little nervous, called a cab, and got to our hostel just in time to crash.

The next day, we woke up and walked around the city. Everything was already starting to be decorated for the Queen's Day festival the next day, but it wasn't that crowded yet. Needless to say, I was still glad that I'd been to Amsterdam before -- there was a carnival set up in the middle of Dam Square, which was great the next day but not so great for touristy sightseeing.

We decided to start the day off by purchasing matching orange cowboy hats and sunglasses for Queen's Day and then wandering around the canals (that's code for "getting lost").

But, hey! We saw some pretty fun things, like this camoflagued bike. No one's stealing that!

High on my list of things to do was to visit Anne Frank's House. I had missed out on it when I went to Amsterdam my Junior year of high school and it was probably my only regret from the trip. Being able to go inside the house was a really great experience. I know everyone says this, but it's true -- it was so small! The father decided not to replace the furniture inside the house after the Nazis found them and confiscated everything, which made it a bit eery... but in an appropriate way. The most interesting room to me was Anne's room, which still had the original decorations (mostly clippings from magazines of her favorite actors and actresses).

Next stop: the flower market! Vanessa and I walked past it, thinking it was a stall (we didn't look down the street... where it continued for 3 blocks), but finally found it. Hooray! It's the perfect place to go if you're interested in buying tulips or cannabis starter kits. I liked the tulips, haha. The flowers were all arranged well and the market itself was really colorful. There were also lovely souvenir shops. This was my favorite display:

Holland's version of "Pimp My Ride??"

After wandering around the flower market and getting lost again (neither of us are the best with directions... oops), we found our way to the Heineken Brewery!

Yummm. =) What a delicious experience. The Brewery was just like any other -- a tour of the brewing process with taste tests and interactive things but they really seemed to go above and beyond the norm. They had a bunch of displays up of different things made out of Heineken cozies, labels, and bottles and had a video room with commercials from ad campaigns over the decades. One of my favorite displays was the "world bottle," where Heineken designed a bottle that could be stacked on itself to build affordable housing in lesser developed countries. Personally, anyone who can drink a house worth of beer and then build a house with the leftover bottles has my respect.

The karaoke station was the best part of the Brewery by far. We thought it would be in English and were more than a little surprised when it turned out to be in Dutch...

I may regret putting this online, but it's almost too good not to share. The best we could do was, "blah blah blah Amsterdaaaam!" Seriously, Dutch is one crazy language.

After our trip to the Heineken Brewery, Vanessa and I bought tickets for a canal cruise and had a nice dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. The food was as delicious as it was expensive (very), but at least it was kind of cool to go to an international Hard Rock. The night cruise was fun, and by the end of it both of us were wiped so we went straight back to the hostel and crashed.

The next day was Queen's Day! The two of us dressed in all orange and walked to the tram station by the hostel. When we got there we ran into a bunch of nice Dutch guys from Rotterdam. One of them was named Barney, so we decided to refer to them as Barney and Friends (haha). They showed us how to get to Central Station, but we lost them after a little while. It was hard to keep track of people when there were literally millions of people wearing orange wandering through the streets.

Vanessa and I spent much of the morning watching the constant stream of party boats in the Canals. They were insane -- tons of people packed onto tiny boats with huge speaker systems blasting music and lots and lots of alcohol. Lots.

After wandering around town for a while (we went to Meseumplein to see part of a concert and found the famed Bulldog coffee shop), we returned to the Canals with a six pack to try to bribe our way onto a boat. It nearly worked, but in the end we just decided to drink our beer and people watch. What a good decision! We met a bunch of nice people (mostly people with boat trouble) and even saw a live band perform on the water.

Our orange outfits were fabulous. We got compliments on the matching hats and glasses all day. ;)

After a while we decided to wander again and ate dinner at a cart in the middle of the street. I had an amazing hot pastrami sandwich with some sort of mustard on it... it was absolutely incredible so when I finished I insisted that we walk back so I could get another. ;) Next, we went to the carnival in Dam Square and rode a swing ride. It was a blast, plus it gave us a great view of the city! Our next stop: dessert in the form of warm waffles from a cart in the carnival. DELICIOUS!

Before we turned in for the day, we decided to take a walk through the Red Light District. It was definitely an interesting experience - much different from how I remembered it in high school, although I'm assuming that our tour wasn't very in depth.

Sexy. One of the best parts of the Red Light District was the tranny dressed like the Queen and his friend who traded Vanessa's hat for an orange boa and danced with her in front of another sex shop. It was hilarious!!

We left Amsterdam the next day and took a train to Rotterdam, home of crazy architecture. Rotterdam was pretty much demolished during WWII, so they used it as an opportunity to experiment with incredible architecture.

Vanessa and I visited these cube houses. They were just as crazy inside and it was surprising that people actually lived there.

After the cube houses, we walked through the city and to a park just beneath the Euromast. Rotterdam has really great parks, too. I think I prefer London's, but theirs was still absolutely beautiful. I wish we had had more time to explore it, but we wanted to get to the Euromast before it closed.

An obligatory tulip picture. There were thousands in all sorts of different colors - it was stunning!

Once we got to the top of the Euromast (basically a huge viewing tower), we were able to see the whole city beneath us. I really liked the Erasmus Bridge (the white asymmetrical bridge in the center of the picture) because it's different from any other bridge I've seen.

The viewing platform at the top also had these really cool signs facing North, South, East, and West. On each of the signs were pictures of famous monuments, architectural feats, and important sites all around the world that were that direction from Rotterdam. It was really fun finding the ones that I'd been to (especially the places I've just visited this semester and the Christo Redentor statue in Rio!).

Afterwards we had dinner at a DELICIOUS Chinese buffet, complete with a wok and a grill. We ended up staying there for at least 2 and a half hours, taking full advantage of the unlimited food and three free drinks. =)

The next day we took a train to The Hague to see the sights and visit Vanessa's grandmother's old apartment. The Hague is where all the foreign embassies and ambassador's houses are located in the Netherlands. It's also home to the Dutch Parliament. It was really cool to walk down the street with all the foreign embassies. Everything was fancy, the streets were lined with beautiful trees, and it all looked extremely well-kept. What a beautiful city!

Some very expensive housing near a bunch of embassies. We walked down this street for about a half hour, but it was so relaxing and the houses were so pretty that I'm really glad we didn't take a tram.

After we found Vanessa's grandmother's old apartment, we took a tram to Madurodam, a kind of theme park that had miniature models of famous Dutch architecture. It made me think of a more sophisticated Legoland, haha.

Look, it's a tiny version of St. John's Basilica! The detail on this was amazing. Also, please disregard the giant Elmo in the background...

This is the interior of the Dutch Parliament. The little soldiers and the tiny carriage were the most impressive part in my opinion.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip. Vanessa and I are adorable! =)

These fish were probably the most exciting thing about Madurodam. I was more fascinated by them than I think I should have been. But, I mean... they would come up to the surface with their huge mouths and stare at you!! What isn't exciting about that?!

Ok, so these wooden shoes are much heavier than they look. I was trying to lift one of them in this picture (with limited success).

Vanessa and I ended our day by finding our way to the real version of one of the most impressive miniature buildings in Madurodam: the Dutch Parliament! The International Relations major in me (or what's left of it after the IR office screwed me over -- but that's another story) geeked out. It was pretty in person, too!

We took a train back to Amsterdaam the next morning and flew back to London that afternoon. My time in Holland was a bit of a whirlwind experience, but it was definitely a ton of fun. Plus, having some one-on-one time with Vanessa was absolutely wonderful!

Family Time!!

2009-04-27T22:34:00.011+01:00

This weekend, my Mom and Nana came to visit! They took a transatlantic cruise and it ended up dropping them off in London, so I was able to spend a few days with them before taking my last final and shipping off to Holland. =)

I met up with them at their hotel near Victoria station on Saturday morning. It was absolutely wonderful to see them again... skype has been great but it definitely can't compare to a real hug. We caught up a bit then headed off to the tube to begin our day. The tube itself was a bit of an adventure, I don't think either my Mom or my Nana were happy that it was my main form of transportation. It was too dirty and crowded for them. Not that I disagree -- but hey, it's the cheapest thing going (and it's not even that cheap!). Anyway, one ride on the tube was enough, we spent the rest of the time in taxis. ;)

Our first stop was my favorite walk in London. We got off at London Bridge station and had a quick lunch at a nice cafe in Hay's Galleria (a cute little shopping center that used to be a port on the Thames). After lunch we strolled by the Thames past City Hall and up toward Tower Bridge.

The weather was absolutely beautiful. I mean, just look at the clouds! I think this is the best picture I've taken of Tower Bridge by far. We walked across the bridge and spent the afternoon at the Tower of London.

This is the White Tower, one of the central towers at the Tower of London. Yes, there are many towers at the Tower of London. Misleading, I know.

We got a tour from a friendly "beefeater" (I still have no idea why they're called that and I'm really hoping that one of them is a vegetarian). The Tower of London itself was really interesting. It was interesting learning about all the history and mystery that took place there. We waited in line to see the Crown Jewels!!! They were impressive (as expected), but I think my favorite thing in that room was a huge punch bowl for a formal coronation dinner that we originally thought was a bath. A bath! It was able to hold over 200 bottles of wine -- now that's a party. My mom and I also looked around a room with armory from King Henry VIII's time. The best part of that was the enormous codpiece they put on his armor, haha. Intimidation tactic, perhaps?

It's kind of hard to see them in the picture, but the crows (in the center of the grass near the shadow) were absolutely HUGE. No wonder they stay there, I bet it would be pretty difficult for them to fly even if their wings weren't clipped.

That evening we saw The Mousetrap on West End. It's been running for 57 years and we saw the 23,508th show! It was a fun "whodunnit" kind of play, so I won't ruin the ending. We ate dinner at a cute little place by theatre called The Ivy right before the play. The food was delicious... it was nice being treated to a nice meal because my friends and I pretty much always eat at cheap places. ;)

I met my Mom and Nana at their hotel again the next morning and had breakfast with them. We took a train to Windsor to see Windsor Castle, the oldest royal castle in which the monarch still resides. Queen Elizabeth II and the royal family still goe there on holiday (in fact, the Queen was there the day we went!).

The Royal Band came to perform in a small parade for the Queen! I was so excited to see them... I seriously made Mom and Nana wait around an extra half hour so I could see the end of their performance. Their sound was so amazing!

It was a gorgeous day and walking around the castle grounds was wonderful. It had such lovely gardens! We were able to go into a bunch of the rooms within the castle, but there were no pictures allowed. Awww.

This is seriously one of my favorite pictures of them! So great!

This one makes me smile, too. =) It really was terrific to see them again.

We had dinner in Windsor at a nice little restaurant. I convinced Mom to try the Sunday roast -- what a good decision, it was absolutely delicious.

The next day I met them at the hotel again, but breakfast wasn't being served so we ate at a little divey place. Mom and Nana didn't like it, but I've gotten used to little hole in the wall places so I didn't really mind, haha. It was the first day that it rained while they were in town, which isn't all that bad. We had a cab pick us up and drive past Buckingham Palace on our way to Westminster Abbey.

Mom and Nana in front of Westminster Abbey -- another one of my favorites from the trip!

It was really interesting looking at all the famous tombs, but this one was my favorite. It was of a man trying to protect his sickly wife from death. It was pretty creepy, but very interesting and well done in my opinion. I had saved my visit to Westminster Abbey until Mom and Nana came so that we could see things together and not repeat them.

We even found David Livingstone's tomb! I'm distantly related to him through my Nana, so it was fun seeing that in person. We weren't supposed to take pictures, but I ignored the rules. Shhh. ;)

After Westminster Abbey we went to Harrod's to shop a bit and have tea. The store itself was absolutely huge! I really liked the children's clothing section (awww!) and found it hard to believe how many clothes and accessories they sold for dogs. But the best part was definitely the tea. We were served unlimited tea, finger sandwiches, scones, and little desserts. It was absolutely delicious... I've never had such good finger sandwiches or scones in my life! Plus there was a live pianist performing for us! It was a ton of fun being girly with my Mom and Nana, so I'm really glad I got to go to tea with them but I'm definitely convincing someone else to join me so I can go again.

I returned to the hotel with them after tea and talked for a little while before I had to go back to my flat and study for a final (and pack for Holland! oops!). I would have loved to have spent more time with them, but the few days we had together in London were wonderful!

Hi London, Remember Me?

2009-04-24T21:30:00.005+01:00

It had been a while since I’d done some touristy things in and around London, so after I had recovered from my trips (it's a hard life, I know) I used a few free days before my Mom and Nana’s visit to wander around London a bit and do some of the things I'd neglected to do.

The weather has been MUCH better lately (it’s gotten up to the 60s!!), so Vanessa, Emily, and I decided to take a walk through Hyde Park and the Lexington Gardens. Walking through lots of parks in Europe has made me a firm believer that the US just doesn’t know how to do parks the right way. Maybe I just haven’t been to the right parks back home, but the ones here are just beautiful!

I love spring time! Seeing such pretty flowers just makes me happy. =) I’ve said this before, but living in London has really made me appreciate good weather and the change in seasons.

The park even has a beautiful waterfall! Hyde Park > The Hills Park/all of the Vegas parks. Plain grass and cactus gardens just can’t compare.

Look, it’s Peter Pan! He was really tough to find, but it was worth it. There are lots of fairies on this statue, not just Tinkerbell. Peter Pan is going to be performed by the statue during May, but I'm not sure if I'll be travelling while it's happening... we'll see if I can make it.

A few days later, Caitlin and I took a day trip to Brighton to see the Royal Pavilion, the pier, and the beach. The Royal Pavilion was really cool – it was decorated in Chinoiserie and some of the rooms were just amazing. One of the most impressive rooms was the dining room. It had a huge chandelier held up by a bronze dragon. I wish I could have taken pictures, but at least I picked up a few postcards.

This is Brighton’s beach. They don’t have any sand, just tiny rocks. The water was freezing – I dipped my toes in. Also, the waves were nonexistent. England may know how to do parks, but they're not so great with beaches.

Being silly on a playground by the beach. That was even more difficult to get out of than it was to get in, hahaha.

Next stop, the pier! If you look carefully you can see a really tall ride at the very end of the pier. Riding that was the best decision ever. The pier was just like piers in the US and it was weird to see British flags flying everywhere instead of US ones. The rides were pretty fun and Caitlin and I messed around in the arcade for a bit before heading back to London.

That night we went to see Les Mis with the rest of the girls. Kevin had already seen it, so we had a fun girls night out. The musical was amazing and I’m going to steal the soundtrack from Kevin the next chance I get.

I LOVE this picture of Vanessa and me. =) The whole group went to see Oliver. After a few solid weeks of traveling in small groups, getting everyone together was really nice. Plus… two West End shows in 3 days? Talk about a great time. The show was pretty cute. I wish Rowan Atkinson had been playing Fagin (he was out having surgery for a hernia. What nerve!), but the kids were adorable, especially the Dodger!! Awww. I had just finished reading the book about a week earlier, so it made seeing the musical that much more fun. Side note – since when do I have time to read for fun? Since I decided to “study” abroad. I can’t believe I’m getting away with this.

A few days later, Kevin had a friend in town so I joined them on the London Eye. It was expensive, but worth it. What a great view of the city!

You can see St. Paul’s Cathedral (the blue dome towards the center of the picture) and the Gherkin (the pointed building on the right). I think it looks more like a bullet than a gherkin – that’s a pickle for those of you not so familiar with British slang. Anyway, I really feel like London is becoming my city now. I know I’ve only been there for 4 and a half months, but I really love it. It’s become a part of me and I’ll be very sad to leave when the time comes.

Pass the Turkey, Please

2009-04-15T11:13:00.030+01:00

Alright, so I wasn’t terribly surprised… I thought I’d like Istanbul, but I didn’t know just how much I would love it! My trip to Turkey was simply incredible. I spent most of the time with Kevin, but Meghan was able to meet us in Istanbul for a few days. Hanging out with Meg always makes me happy, so that helped make the trip even more amazing.

Kevin and I got up early to catch our flight to Istanbul… I basically got in from Paris, did laundry, went to bed, woke up the next morning, and got on a plane to Istanbul. Surprisingly, I wasn’t as tired as I thought I’d be. I still wasn’t pleased when our plane had screaming children running wild in the aisles, but at least a funny story came out of it – one of the flight attendants came up to Kevin and me and said, “Excuse me, do you have a baby?” There was an awkward pause before I said, “um, no.” He looked confused and then said, “my colleague told me you had a baby.” We assured him that we didn’t and he went away mumbling about how he didn’t know what we would’ve done with a baby anyway. Just to mess with him I gave him a crazed look as he walked by to check that we had our seatbelts on and asked him if he had seen my baby. =) It was a fun way to start the trip. Kevin and I named our firstborn son Firenze, in case you were wondering.

When we got in to the airport, we had arranged for someone from our hostel to pick us up (posh, I know). We ended up figuring out that this sign was meant for us. McOvenn is not quite the same as McQueen, hahaha.

When we checked into the hostel, the guy working the desk told us that he gave us a free upgrade to a better room from the second night on and then said, “high five!!” Of course we gave him one and soon after that we decided to name him “Joey” because he looked like Joey Fatone from NSync – no lie!

This is our first room – Kevin’s touching both sides of the room. He’s tall, but still… also, the reason I cut off his foot is because I was as far in the corner of the room as I could get. So yeah… teeny, haha. We were glad for the upgrade on the second night. At least there was free wifi – huzzah!

After we checked into the hostel, we decided to explore the city a bit. It took about 5 minutes to walk into town – our hostel had prime real estate.

This is the Haggia Sophia. It’s over 1500 years old (!!) and has been used both as a Christian church and a Mosque, but now it’s a museum.

The Blue Mosque is just across the street from the Haggia Sophia. It was very impressive from the outside. I like Byzantine architecture. =)

That night, we dinner at a restaurant called Cozy Pub. We ordered a meal to share because it looked good and was presented really well.

What a good decision! It was a delicious chicken and lamb dinner, cooked in a clay pot (look, he’s lighting it on fire!), marinated with vegetables, peppers, and great spices. I don’t know how to describe how wonderful it was, but the important part was that it was YUMMY. After the whole fire display, they crack the clay pot open and serve your dinner.

See? YUM. After dinner, we found an amazing dessert place (it became our favorite one… we went there nearly every night… hehe) and had dessert in the park between the Haggia Sophia and the Blue Mosque.

What a great view! We sat in the park, watched the fountains, listened to the call to prayer (which was really cool and actually very pretty in a mystical sort of way), and ate our dessert.

Afterwards, we wandered back to the hostel and went upstairs to the common room/dining room for a drink. There was music playing and Joey and a few of the other staff were parading around the room, one guy with traditional Turkish costume and a sword, one with cymbals, and others using a hookah or a broom for a baton. It confirmed our suspicions that we booked the best hostel EVER. (In case anyone else is traveling to Istanbul, you should definitely stay at the Orient Hostel… definitely the best choice as far as hostels go).

The next morning, Kevin and I went on the roof of the hostel to figure out our plan for the rest of the trip – plus the roof had a great view of both the Haggia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. We wandered around the city center some more, had lunch, and went to the airport to pick Meghan up. I made a sign for Meghan that said “Rochesstraaaa,” just for fun and watched as she squinted among the pick up area for someone until she finally found me! Haha. It was great to see her again. I’m glad that we’ve been able to space out our visits really well so I didn’t have to go the majority of the semester without a Meghan fix. ;)

We spent much of the afternoon walking around the city and had dinner together. I had this great lamb-kebab stew (it’s the best way to describe it). Turkish food was wonderful, I never had a bad meal there! We also tried Turkish Delight for the first time (and it was delightful, of course). We didn’t do too much that day, just went to a bar and talked forever.

The room upgrade that night was great – our new room had nicer beds, plus a sitting area and its own bathroom! It was the best room I’ve ever had in a hostel. The next morning we found out that the shower only had cold water, but you can’t have everything in life. At least it was all ours. ;)

The following day, we went to the Grand Bazaar. It was one of my favorite parts of the trip… and the whole trip was so great, it’s really hard to narrow down.

This is the main entrance to the Bazaar. It’s a complete maze inside with stalls everywhere. Most shops sold lots of touristy things, but there were some specialty stalls that were nice. There were places that sold rugs, hand-painted ceramics, wooden backgammon and chess sets, crystals, scarves, decorated hookahs, beautiful lamps, and of course, cheap touristy junk. The atmosphere itself was the best part – very loud with shop owners standing at the front of their stalls trying to bargain with you, surrounded by all of the colorful shops. I bought a wooden backgammon set hand decorated with mother of pearl, a scarf, and a few trinkets.

I bought my scarf from this guy. One of the people working his stall quoted me 205 lira for it, but I laughed and negotiated two for 50 – one for me and one for Kevin. The owner knew we knew how it was done (all that at haggling Brick Lane helped!), so he let me borrow a hat and posed for a picture. =)

After the Grand Bazaar, the three of us grabbed a doner for lunch (think thinly sliced meat rolled up in a tortilla with peppers, onions, and a few other things – delicious! I’m glad they have those in London and will miss them once I get back to the states) and headed to the Spice Market. The Spice Market was great – as soon as you enter, you’re surrounded by hundreds of different spices, many in open bags piled on top of each other. The smell is wonderful and the whole market is incredibly colorful… it’s something that I feel like I could never begin to describe. Apart from spices, there are tons of different teas, many on display for you to smell as you walk by.

My favorites were the shops like this one that sold all sorts of different kinds of Turkish Delight. The bottom left of the picture is the kind of Turkish Delight that you normally see, but there are big columns of other kinds on the top left – most of which had pistachios. Yum! Meghan bought a kilo – yes, a whole kilo – of it for 12 lira! Best decision ever! We snacked at it for the rest of the trip and still didn’t finish. ;)

After the Spice Market, we went to visit our first Mosque. It was beautiful inside!! But more on mosques later. Next, we decided to walk along the walls of Topkapi Palace on the banks of the Bosphorus to get back to our hostel. The walk ended up being a bit longer than expected (the wall went on forever! haha), but traveling has made me a firm believer in the fact that you’ve never really experienced a city until you’ve gotten a little lost in it. And anyway, it gave me the opportunity to take in the great view.

This is Ataturk, Turkey’s first president. Turkish people have a kind of cultish love for him – his picture (complete with crazy eyebrows) is everywhere. It kind of reminded me of Stalin, but I thought that this statue (which has a beautiful view the Bosphorus) was nice and was just grand enough for such a revered man. But seriously, someone should’ve told him that his eyebrows are legitimately scary.

After we dropped off some of our stuff at the hostel, we went to the Basilica Cistern. It was made in 532 AD. You know, 1500 years ago. Over the centuries, people forgot about them and they were only rediscovered when people found wells beneath their homes and were even fishing from them.

They had cool lights so you could see all the columns. Ooooh. There were also two Medusa columns in the cistern. The people who built them used them to ward away evil, but no one knows why this one was upside down or why the other one was lying on its side. Walking around the cistern was a very cool experience, kind of like traveling back in time… except for the café downstairs and the shop at the exit. But other than that, time travel.

Next on the list was a visit to the Blue Mosque! I left out pictures of the first mosque we went to because this one was even more grand (although the first was still absolutely stunning… I took around 800 pictures, so I had to make lots of cuts).

Meghan and I posing in front of the Mosque, look how cute we are! Aww. =)

As soon as you walk in, you have to remind yourself not to block the entrance. The outside of the mosque was impressive in its own right, but the inside completely floored me. I really have no words to describe it… it was absolutely gorgeous. All of the walls and the domed ceilings were painted with such intricacy.

We weren’t allowed to visit much of the Mosque, but the parts that we were allowed to see were stunning.

There were always low-hanging chandeliers in the mosques that we went to, the Blue Mosque included. I loved the stained glass windows, too.

The three of us had dinner near the hostel after our visit to the Mosque. The waiter was very friendly and invited us to come back for drinks (to “make blah blah”… or talk) after 11 or so when business was slow. We ended up not taking him up on the offer and went back to the hostel to watch a free belly dancing show.

The next morning we had breakfast and went to the Haggia Sophia. There were church ruins immediately outside of it, but they couldn’t excavate more because doing so would destroying parts of the Haggia Sophia itself. The inside had a mix of décor, including Christian mosaics.

This shows part of the old decorations inside the building. There were a bunch of restoration projects underway. The tallest part of the domed ceiling had scaffolding right beneath it, but it was still incredible. What an amazing building, especially for its age!

This was my favorite part of the Haggia Sophia. The gold doesn’t come out that much in the photo, but it was wonderful. I also liked how the decorative Arabic script contrasted with the Christian frescoes above it (you can’t see it in the picture because I couldn’t fit it in, but there’s a 9^th century Virgin Mary and Child mosaic as well as a 9^th century Archangel Gabriel mosaic. To the right (also outside of the picture – sorry!) was the part of the mosque where the call to worship is held… I think it’s kind of like a pulpit.

I’m on the second floor of the Haggia Sophia in this picture… and you still can’t see the ceiling in the shot. I hope that gives you an idea of how expansive it was. It was just incredible!

Here’s a 12^th century mosaic of the Virgin Mary and child. Again, I found the fact that both religions used this as a house of worship very cool. I’m glad it’s been preserved as a museum, it would be such a shame to have either religion forced out of the building.

After we saw the Haggia Sophia, we went to Topkapi Palace.

Here’s the entrance to Topkapi Palace. There were lots of flowers and beautiful open areas inside of the Palace. I was surprised by Istanbul’s fondness of tulips.

This is inside the sultan’s harem. I really loved it… it was almost too ornate. The tiles on the walls were so colorful and were all hand painted. There were also wonderful rooms with lots of detailed stained glass. It was absolutely beautiful!

This was the Sultan's audience room. It was my favorite room in the harem and it made me think that it really wouldn’t have been too bad to live in a harem back in the day. Everything is provided for you, you’re surrounded by beautiful things, and if you become a favorite you get all sorts of power. Plus you’ve got no expenses, a stipend, and early retirement. ;)

The harem was only one part of the palace, though. There were many other parts, many of which we didn’t have time to see. I loved the large courtyards with flowers and sometimes a great view of the Bosphorus.

Here’s Kevin and I in one of those courtyards with the Bosphorus behind us… I love this picture!!

I’ll say one thing for Turkey – the men there are a bit more creative than other people when they hit on you. One of the guys working at the harem asked me if I was Spanish, then practically insisted that I was because of my “beautiful coloring.” I was flattered and can now check off being hit on in a harem from my list of things to do before I die. Hahaha.

A door in the palace. I’m not sure where it led, only that it was beautiful.

There were a bunch of museum-ey rooms in the palace, including one with old ceremonial clothes for the Sultans. The pants reminded me of a MC Hammer music video, haha. The treasury room was also wonderful – Turkey has a special fondness for emeralds. They were featured in crowns, ceremonial chairs and boxes, and rings among other things.

One of the rooms that made me very cynical was a room full of religious relics. They had Mohammed’s cloak, a few of his teeth, and some of his beard on display. I can believe that, but the palace also claimed to have Joseph’s turban (which was far too white… don’t you think it would’ve yellowed/disintegrated a lot?), Moses’ staff (suuuure), and a bowl used by Abraham. There’s no way in hell. But it was interesting, I’ll give it that.

That night, Kevin, Meghan and I went to a Turkish Bath. Kevin went to the guy’s section of it, but Meghan and I had a lovely time chatting and being pampered! It was a very naked process (haha), but I really loved it. =) It was kind of like a mini spa treatment. They gave us towels for the steam room, sat us down in the all marble room, and told us to use the warm taps of water. Then they took us to a separate room and gave us massages. After trekking around with a ton of luggage for a week and a half (I know, I lead such a difficult life), the massage was just wonderful.

After our baths, we had a very relaxing dinner next to our hostel at a restaurant with cushy reclining chairs. The dinner was wonderful (as usual – Turkish food is my new favorite!!), and it was nice to just relax and chat before bed.

The next day, the three of us took a cruise on the Bosphorus. It was Easter and we wanted to find a church to go to a service, but obviously our options were very limited. So we had Cadbury eggs instead!! (I brought them with me from London)

The boat took us to the part of Istanbul that is in Asia (it's the only city that spans two continents) and since it was right on the water, we decided to go to a fish place. The food was very fresh, haha. And very delicious! I freaked Meghan out by teasing her with the fish’s head. =)

After lunch we trekked up a huuuuge hill to go see a ruined castle. The view from up there was fantastic, so the long walk (with at least a 45 degree slope at some points) was worth it.

Meghan and I enjoying the view. We’re pretty much adorable, just sayin’.

The boat cruise was a bunch of fun and a nice relaxing way to spend most of the day. After the cruise, we decided to visit another mosque because it overlooked a lot of the city and was huge… so we figured that it’d be important.

We followed this sketchy sign. Turns out that it was right, but it does look a bit untrustworthy, don't you think? Anyway, it made me laugh so I took a picture. ;) The mosque was under a lot of construction, though, so we didn’t really get to see much. Oh well.

That night, we got tickets to a Whirling Dervish show! Whirling Dervishes are something that I’d heard about before, but I had no idea what it was all about. It turns out that the show is supposed to be very spiritual and symbolic.

They spin around while a band plays traditional music on really interesting instruments. It wasn’t my favorite part of the trip, but I enjoyed it and it was definitely something cultural that I’m glad I saw.

Kevin and I woke up early the next morning to catch a plane to Izmir for our extended trip to Ephesus and Pamukkale and Meghan returned to Prague for classes. Classes?? What are those? This is the best semester ever. =) Once we got to Selcuk, we joined a tour to Ephasus. The other people on the tour were very nice. There were a few other students and a very friendly Kiwi.

Ephesus was once a hub of commerce and we got to wander around the ruins, many of them 1^st century. While I was casually sitting on a 1st century column that had toppled over, it finally hit me how old everything was. It was really cool to be able to climb on everything. We were able to explore the sites on our own, but our tour guide also told us about everything.

The Ephesians liked to play dominoes.

We saw an old roman bath and some of the terra cotta piping they used to keep the steam rooms warm (they’d pipe in hot water beneath the floors). Another part of the ruins that was very well preserved were the public toilets, haha. Our tour guide told us that those wealthy enough to have servants would send them in to warm up the marble seats for them. Ew.

This is the library of Selcuk. This was the most impressive part of Ephesus in my opinion. There was a brothel across the street from it and an underground tunnel connecting the two. Men back in the day were still stealthy. "Hey honey, I’m going to the library today…"

After Ephesus, the tour took us to a bunch of different specialty factories. I’m sure it was just a typical tourist trap kind of thing, but I enjoyed a lot of it.

Our first stop after Ephesus was to a ceramics factory. We watched the master make a vase and when he asked for a volunteer, I was able to make something of my own! He let me take it home, but it didn’t survive the journey.

Later that afternoon we visited the site of one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. The tall pillar near the center of the picture is all that is left of the Temple of Artemis.

The next stop took us to the last house of the Virgin Mary. They have a lot of pretty solid reasons for believe that it was the last place she lived, so it was pretty cool to have visited it. The pope has even come to see it!

The other two factories we went to were a huge leather store and a rug store. The leather store put on a fashion show, which was pretty neat. They tried to sell us leather jackets, but Kevin and I just wandered around the store trying on the most expensive ones (my record was 23,000 euros… a full length fur coat). The rug store was actually pretty interesting. They told us how to tell a good rug from a bad rug and showed us how some of them were made.

Most of the rugs are made by women in nearby villages, but they had a few at the factory itself so we could see how they were made. This one is almost done – the owner told me that once she finished, they would open up a few bottles of champagne and celebrate… too bad the tour didn’t stay an extra half hour.

The next day we went to Pamukkale. It means "cotton castle" in Turkish, but the whiteness comes from calcium carbonate deposits. The water has a lot of minerals in it and there’s a pool of it that they claim has mild healing properties. Anyway, when the water flows down into the pools, it’s very pretty. =) I was glad it was such a lovely day – but it was very windy!

Anyone want to play Jenga? Pamukkale had its fair share of ruins. Kevin and I hiked around them for a while and even climbed into a few crypts to explore. Tons of fun!

Instead of paying the 23 lira to swim in the mineral water in a touristy restaurant/lounge area, we chose to wade in the pools and enjoy the lovely view of the city below. Anyway, now my feet feel much healthier. ;)

Pamukkale also had a very well preserved (/renovated) theatre. It was a bit of a hike to get up there, but it was definitely worth it. It had a great view of all of the ruins, plus the theatre itself was really cool.

That night we took an overnight bus back to Istanbul and then hopped on a plane back to London! What an absolutely fantastic trip!!

So I realize that that was a terribly long post. But hey, it covers a full 8 days! ;) And as a side note, it is officially over 1000 words longer than my longest paper this semester. Hahaha.

Paris Holds the Key to my Heart

2009-04-07T19:35:00.026+01:00

Ahh, Paris. What a fun (and EXHAUSTING) trip!

After returning from Scotland, I did some laundry, re-packed, and slept for a few hours. I woke up the next morning to someone knocking at my door and realized that I had completely slept through my alarm (I never even remembered hearing it, which is odd). So, needless to say, it was a crazy morning. I told Vanessa and Caitlin to go to the airport without me, then hurried and still ended up getting there with plenty of time. It's sad, but now I've lost all rights I had to complain about Caitlin always wanting to be way to early for everything because that's what ended up saving me.

When we arrived in Paris, we found our way to the hostel and hopped the tube to the Eiffel Tower.

I'm pretty sure this is my favorite picture from the trip. It was twilight and the lights had just turned on. Beautiful! The three of us wandered around a bit looking for food and finally found a great little cafe for dinner. I made a promise to myself to have a glass of wine with every dinner (what a great decision!). Eating at a leisurely pace (comme les francaises), we spent a relaxing first evening together and got back to the hostel early.

Here's a fun story from that night at the hostel -- some random guy needed help setting up his iPhone, but he didn't speak any English. Feeling helpful (and wanting to practice my French), I helped him out... for nearly 3 hours. At least he bought me hot chocolate. It was quite the ordeal, but I liked knowing that I could hold a conversation (and provide tech support -- who knew?) in French.

The next morning, Vanessa went off to Brussels while Caitlin and I spent the entire day at Versailles.

Hey look, it's the Sun King! I've wanted to visit Versailles since my sophomore year of high school (it was literally on the top of my list of things to do in Europe) and it was so great to actually be there! I always thought Louis XIV was a genius for building such a grand palace to keep the nobles from becoming too powerful. He'd invite them to come up for months at a time, essentially forcing them to spend valuable time and money there trying to outdo the other nobles. Problem solved! Plus, there's a GORGEOUS palace for us to visit. =)

The Hall of Mirrors was one of my favorite parts of Versailles. It was just incredible, especially the paintings on the ceiling. I also really loved the gold angel sculptures that they had holding up crystal lamps. I have never seen anything so beautiful in my life.

Another one of my favorite rooms were the King and Queen's bedchambers (the picture is from the Queen's room). They had separate rooms and the Queen's was much more opulent (as it should be). It was a little much, but still absolutely gorgeous.

Some other highlights were the War and Peace rooms (the IR major in me geeked out about the documents that must have been signed there) and a few display rooms with old formal dresses. I'm glad I didn't live back then because they looked horribly uncomfortable and had cages underneath to keep the dress looking full and, I'm convinced, to detain unruly children.

After Caitlin and I finished exploring the inside of Versailles, we walked through the gardens and had lunch at a little outdoor cafe. It was there that we met a cat who was incredibly skilled at begging. He came up to us, hopped on the bench beside us, and let us fawn over him before demanding payment in the form of pizza crusts. We named him Louis. Awww. =)

After playing with Louis for a bit, we let him have our leftovers and walked to the Marie Antoinette estates. It was a small beautiful hamlet with a lake and adjoining gardens.
No wonder people hated her -- she wanted this hamlet built solely so she could come here with her children and pretend like they were living just like peasants. Like camping, but with servants. And probably cake.

The gardens of Versailles were just about as impressive as the palace itself. I haven't seen that many fountains since I went to Rome! There were some pretty amazing ones, but I fell in love with this one.

It's of a giant struggling in the rocks. Epic, yes? Yes.

Right before we were about to leave, Caitlin and I noticed a bunch of people heading toward a different part of the gardens. We decided to follow them and ended up seeing a live fountain show with classical music. It was gorgeous -- check out the clouds! Our feet aching from the all the walking we did at Versailles, we called it a day and headed back to the hostel to meet up with Vanessa.

After a good night's sleep, we spent Sunday at the Louvre (for free! Man, we're good at planning ahead). We saw all the basics -- Winged Victory, Venus de Milo, Cupid and Psyche, and (am I forgetting something?) oh, right... the Mona Lisa.

Personally, I like this picture of the Mona Lisa better than the closeup I got of the 5 feet of glass protecting it both from a nuclear holocaust and my camera lens. It captures the utter serenity of the room.

I was, however, able to get a close up of the modern Mona Lisa.

Once we had been in the museum for a good 3-4 hours, Vanessa and I got a bit loopy and started posing with statues. It was at that moment that we decided to leave the Louvre, but got hung up in a gift shop. They had adorable plates with princesses who taught good manners on them ("Je ne vais pas mettre mes coudes sur la table!").

Another detour in the Louvre! I know it's touristy, but it turned out cute. ;)

After the Louvre, Vanessa Caitlin and I decided to grab a quick bite to eat. I got quiche and orangina! How very French... and delicious!!

We originally planned to go to the Musee d'Orsay after the Louvre but we were a bit museum-ed out and the line to get in was long, so we decided to head for Notre Dame instead. The three of us walked by the Seine on our way to Notre Dame and I ended up spotting a wonderful painting for sale. It was painted by an art student at one of the schools in Paris and I just fell in love with it. I don't know how I'll get it home, but I'll figure it out.

Hey, it's the Notre Dame! If you ask Victor Hugo, he'll go on about how gorgeous the church is... for 40 pages (that book is still a painful subject for me). I included a picture so you can save yourself the time and frustration.

It's the Rose window! The inside of the Notre Dame was absolutely beautiful, but a bit different than I expected. I guess it just wasn't as open and sprawling as I thought it would be, but it was still incredible. The towers were closing by the time we got there, so after touring the inside we headed to the Luxembourg Gardens.

The gardens were beautiful as expected and we passed by lots of locals reading by the lovely statues and flowers. We used our time in the park as an opportunity to rest our feet (SO MUCH WALKING!) and just relaxed for a bit. Dinner that night was a 5 star meal at Monsieur McDonald's. Don't judge -- it was close, we were tired, and there weren't any cafes in sight.

The next morning, we headed straight back to the Ile de la Cite. Our first stop was Sainte-Chapelle, my favorite church in France (yes, even over Notre Dame).

The stained glass was so beautiful! The first floor is gorgeous (plus, there's a 12th century fresco), but when you catch your first glimpse of the upper story it leaves you breathless. The walls are almost entirely made of stained glass and it gives the chapel a rich blue glow. I could have spent hours in there, but there were other things to see!

For instance, l'Arc de Triomphe! We hiked all the way here (the towers at Notre Dame were closed for lunch. Our great planning crumbled after the Louvre, I'm afraid. Those of you who are familiar with Paris geography will sympathize with our tired feet).

We had worked up a huge apetite, so we stopped by a cafe we found on a side street off the Champs-Elysees. The food was absoutely delicious and after about 10 minutes we noticed that a giant line had formed in the shop and halfway down the street. We had picked a local favorite, so we bought a baguette on our way out to celebrate.

This is Bernard the Baguette (yes, we named him) and I standing on the Champs-Elysees. He didn't last long... we ate him while standing in line for the Towers of Notre Dame.

This gargoyle had the best view. =) I may have gone a bit crazy with pictures of gargoyles, but they were fun! Unfortunately, none of them sung or danced like in the Disney movie. I also didn't see Quasimodo, but I did meet one of the bells (and it was huuuuuge).

Next stop, the Eiffel Tower! We had walked past it before, but wanted to get a few touristy pictures taken.

Group picture! Awww. =)

Look ma, I'm a tourist!

After performing our civic duty, we decided that the most logical thing to do would be to tear across town to the Sacre-Coeur before it closed. We got to the top in 25 minutes. For those of you unfamiliar with Paris geography, that's 42 miles. Uphill.

I guess I can't complain. It was beautiful and I felt like we really appreciated the view more because we definitely earned it. After poking around inside, we decided it wasn't worth the 5 euro and 500 stairs to climb to the top, so we collapsed on the railing outside. I then had the biggest giggle fit I've had in years. You should be sad that you weren't there to witness it... I pretended to conjugate the word "poke" ("je poke, tu poke, il poke, nous pokons, vous pokez, ils pokent") and then errupted into a fit of giggles so strong that I couldn't breathe. This is what happens when I'm overtired.

We found another cafe for dinner, I had a glass of wine, and we all shared escargots (it was my idea). I had had them (and liked them) before, but it was Vanessa and Caitlin's first time trying them. Caitlin was a bit weirded out at first, but even she ended up liking them! Success.

That night we decided to go up the Eiffel Tower for a view of the city at night. La ville lumiere didn't disappoint -- it was beautiful!

Vanessa had to catch an early flight next morning, so Caitlin and I spent the first part of the day at the Musee d'Orsay before heading to the airport. I really like impressionism, but I'm normally not the biggest fan of modern art, so I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the museum. Maybe it's because Caitlin and I avoided the rooms with wacky art.

This is a closeup of one of Van Gogh's paintings. I became really fascinated with how thick the paint was and how when you look at one of his paintings up close it just looks like a big mess but when you look at the whole painting, you can see what it really is. Stop me if I'm becoming trite, but isn't that how life is?

I'll end with this picture. By the time we reached the second floor of the museum, my legs were about to give out and I just sat down, exhausted. I looked up and saw this -- Rodin's Porte de l'Enfer (the Gates of Hell). I think it might be my favorite work of art (even above Hausmann's Mechanical Head, which was my favorite for 5 years). It's based off of Dante's Divine Comedy and, to me, completely expresses humanity. It completely changed my view on art.

And that completes the tale of my trip to Paris! It was a wonderful, whirlwind adventure. I'd love to go back someday and experience it at a much more leisurely pace.

Wild and Sexy Scotland!

2009-04-02T02:40:00.014+01:00

Finally, my second USC-funded trip -- this time to Scotland and the Highlands! I took the train with Vanessa and Caitlin from King's Cross to Edinburgh and while we were waiting for our train to arrive, I posed with Platform 9 3/4.

I guess I'm just a Muggle after all... no Hogwarts for me. =(

When we got into Edinburgh we found our hostel and then headed straight to Edinburgh Castle. It's by far my favorite castle in the world. The world! I know, it's a pretty bold statement, but I think it has very little to worry about. I mean, just look at it!

It was built on an inactive volcano and overlooks the entire city. Someone complained that the weather was a bit gloomy, but I think that the ominous clouds make it look even more awesome.

Almost exactly 4 years ago my high school band took a Europe trip -- here I am at 16 in front of Edinburgh Castle. Thought it'd be funny to include a picture from back in the day, so here it is! I think I look really young.

Vanessa, Kevin, and I being silly in Edinburgh Castle. It was fun to take a tour again and I enjoyed seeing it all again. There was a cool Royal Scots Dragoon Guards regimental museum and a really impressive war memorial. I've got to admit, I'm a really big fan of flags that were used in battle on display at memorials. The ones they had made the whole memorial more somber and impressive. I also got to see the Scottish Crown Jewels (which are no longer used... God Save the Queen -- of England) and the Stone of Destiny (which comes to England for coronations).

After Edinburgh Castle, I made my best purchase in Scotland (at the whiskey store, of course). Yum! The store was huge and I made a point of finding the most expensive whiskey they had so I could laugh at whoever would be stupid enough to buy it. 525 pounds for 700mL!! That's almost 25 pounds per shot.

After spending some quality time in the whiskey store, we walked through the a park beneath Edinburgh Castle. I think this is one of the prettiest views in Edinburgh. When I was in high school, we performed in this park.

What a beautiful fountain! I'm telling you, this is the best castle ever! A few of us played on some of the park equipment for a few minutes. They had swings, monkey bars, things to climb on. Only in Europe would there be a park with such a view.

We all met up at a Chinese Buffet for dinner, paid for by USC (hooray!). I love Chinese food, so it was really great. We introduced Caitlin to wine (haha), stuffed ourselves, and took as much advantage of the free drinks as we could. Plus, they had great desserts. After dinner, the USC students studying in Edinburgh showed us around. Appalled that we had never had fried Mars bars (apparently they're everywhere in Edinburgh?), they took us to a little place and opened our eyes to what we had been missing. It was delicious, but I'm glad I only had one... I think only a Tommy burger has made me feel like my insides were clogging more, haha. After that, we went to a pub with live folk music and watched as a small local folk band drank scotch and performed. It was really a great experience.

We ended the night at a jazz bar where one of the USC students played the sax. It was really great! I was really glad that the University of Edinburgh USC kids showed us around. It was a part of Edinburgh I definitely hadn't seen before and it made me love the city even more.

The next morning, we started our group tour... this is our tour bus. Vanessa and I are wild and sexy. Literally.

Out first stop on the tour -- Dunkeld Cathedral! It was very woodsy, which was different from any cathedrals I've visited before. I felt like it was Robin Hood's church. I really liked the feel of it, though. There was a cool cemetary in the back that was kind of falling down. Plus, it was right by the water and had beautiful trees everywhere!

I cropped Robin Hood out of the picture, per his request. He's a wanted man, you know.

After that, we drove by Loch Ness for a photo opp. Our tour guide told us a bunch of stories about people who claimed to see Nessie. I didn't, but no one's disproved her existence, so the jury's still out! ;)

Castle Urquhart, one of the many castles we drove by. Location, location, location! And it definitely has prime real estate. How pretty!

Before we headed to the hostel, we stopped by a store which had a clansman show. The guy who worked there dressed a few of us up in traditional highlands clothing and showed us how to battle with the types of weapons they used back in the day -- longswords and huge shields with spikes on them! Ouch.

The men's kilts were surprisingly versatile. It reminded me of when my friends and I established "kilt day" at my high school (haha!).

After the presentation, we drove to hostel by Loch Ness and had dinner there. The rooms at hostel were named after different Scottish films -- mine was Rob Roy. I thought it was a cute idea.

Vanessa, Caitlin, and I walked to Loch Ness to enjoy the view for a bit. We're adorable. =)

After a good night's rest, we drove to Eilean Donan castle. It's one of the most famous castles in Scotland and it's no wonder why -- it's so pretty! Plus it's in pretty good condition, so you can tour the whole thing. We learned a lot about different clans and walked the grounds. The banqueting hall was impressive with swords on display and many clan shields hung on the walls. They also had the kitchen set up with wax people, which was fun, but also a bit distracting.

I climbed on the rocks right outside the castle. This is one of my favorites from the trip... I look so pensive.

Best kilt ever!! Hahaha. Random, I know, but I wanted to include this picture and it was taken in the Eilean Donan castle gift shop.

That afternoon, we continued our tour of the Highlands to the Isle of Skye!

One of the stops we made was to a magic stream. Apparently two battling clans were going to marry into each others' family. Unfortunately, on the eve of the wedding, the bride was attacked. Her beautiful face ended up disfigured, so she started to cry. But all of a sudden (what great luck!) some fairies came to her and told her to put her face in the stream and she would be healed. Once she followed the fairy's instructions, she was healed! So now the guys in the picture are testing their luck. ;)

We stopped in a little town for lunch. There was an adorable place whose outside was painted blue plaid. Obviously I couldn't resist, so that's where my friends and I had lunch. We spent an hour or so walking around the town and found an amazingly cheap and delicious bakery. We all stocked up on goodies for the ride.

Here's another legend... there once were two friendly giants who were married. The giant and his wife went on top of a mountain every day to tell stories to their fairy friends. But over time the wife got older and couldn't keep climbing the mountain. The husband told the fairies that they'd have to stop telling their stories, but the fairies convinced to come up again one last time. After the giants obliged, the fairies turned them into stone so they could never leave! The tall rock on the right is the male giant and the ones to his left are the wife (she fell down).

The rest of the day was spent driving to amazingly beautiful glens. The tour guide would park the bus and let us explore for the better part of an hour, so Kevin Maloney and I would hike up the tallest thing we could find and hang out there for a bit.

I LOVE this picture! =) This was one of the first glens we explored. There was a beautiful waterfall there, too!

Jump! This view at Cuith-Raing was absolutely incredible. I'm so glad that Kevin and I climbed all the way up here -- it was really peaceful just enjoying the view with no one else around.

That night we stayed at "Saucy Mary's" lodge, a great little hostel/bar. The dinner there was great, the beer was cheap, and they had a pool table! A bunch of us played pool (as usual), and had a couple of their specialty shots, (my favorite was called "Beam Me Up, Scotty"). Later in the evening, a nice Australian couple taught Vanessa, Caitlin, and I how to play darts. Personally, I'm not sure who thought having darts in a bar was a good idea, but luckily no one was hurt. ;) I got a bullseye once, though! Pure luck, I assure you.

The next morning began our drive back to Edinburgh. We made a few fun stops along the way and had lunch at McDonalds. I played the Monopoly game they run and won -- porridge. Honestly, why would McDonalds give away free porridge?! Oh, right. Because no one will eat it if it's not free! Needless to say, I did not claim my prize, haha.

We visited a WWI memorial and walked around Glencoe, the site of a massacre in the late 1600s. Apparently, the MacDonald clan leader refused to sign an oath of allegiance with England's King William III.

My favorite stop was definitely to pay a visit to Hamish, the most famous Highland cow (pronounced "coo"). Our tour guide told us that someone fed him a carrot using his mouth (ew) and ended up with a case of bovine herpes (double ew), so I kept my distance.

MOO!

Once we got back to Edinburgh, Vanessa, Caitlin and I hopped the first train to London to begin another set of adventures. The Scotland trip was such a fun way to begin my 2 weeks of straight travel... I'm so excited for the adventures to come!!

On the Town

2009-03-29T21:52:00.000+01:00

Last night, my friends and I decided to go see a show on West End. We had been planning the next few months we're going to be spending abroad and realized that we have very few days left in London all together.

On a serious note, my time here is going by way too quickly. I knew that it would be this way, but realizing that I only have a few weeks total left in London (the rest of my time will be spent traveling) is a bit depressing. I'll be happy to go home and see my friends and family of course, but I know I'm going to hate to leave. I feel like I know London now... I'm familiar with the layout of the city, I know which buildings are which, I've adjusted to and have embraced the culture, and I no longer feel like as much of an outsider. The first time I gave directions to tourists, I was so proud of myself. I'm not sure when the switch came about, but after experiencing a lot of the local things East London has to offer, being spontaneous in central London, and just living here, London became a home away from home -- not just the location of an extended vacation. I'm also going to miss the friends I've made here. A fair amount of them also go to USC, but knowing that Kevin and Emily will be completely across the country and that Haider is an ocean away is very sad. It's incredible how close I've gotten to a few of my friends here in the past few months and I know I'm going to be very sad when I can't see them nearly every day.

Moving away from that sad topic... my friends and I decided that we should spend a night on the town, and what better way to make use of the days we have left than to go see a show? =)

Second on our list of shows to see together was Spring Awakening (Rowan Atkinson was on vacation, so Oliver was out of the question). We ended up getting great seats from the half price ticket booth, so we grabbed dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant first.

This was the only Mexican restaurant I've seen (let alone been to) in London, and ordering Mexican food made me feel like I was back in LA at El Cholos. Their margarita list wasn't half as extensive, so Kevin and I got pina coladas instead!

Yummy! The pina coladas were delicious -- the best I've ever had! The food was great, too, but the waiter forgot to put in my order. Oh well, I was still happy to get fajitas!

Spring Awakening was great, I'd recommend it to most anyone, but am glad that I didn't see it with my mom. Sex on stage, song titles including "The Bitch of Living" and "Totally Fucked" aren't necessarily the most family friendly, but I really enjoyed it. It's a story about growing up and challenging the ideals instilled from birth. The show managed to cover a lot of really tough issues, but was able to make me laugh so hard I doubled over and missed the next few lines. =) All in all, a great success!!

The next day, we all went down to the Thames to watch The Boat Race (yes, it's capitalized) -- Oxford v. Cambridge! It was a big ordeal -- there were tons of people lined up on the river to watch, plus TV crews and lots of parties going on in front of pubs. We got off the tube at Hammersmith and took a nice long stroll along the banks of the Thames looking for a nice spot to watch the race.

We ended up walking around 2 miles along this path, but it was beautiful and definitely worth it!

Once we ran into a few pubs and a nice place to eat, we found a permanent spot to watch the race.

I thought that Fish and Chips would be the most appropriate thing to eat at such a traditional British event! =)

Group picture! I decided to root for Cambridge because I've actually met someone from there and had no other ties. It was very hard to root for a team which had light blue as one of its colors, though. ;)

The team to the left is Oxford (those jerks... they won) and the one trailing is Cambridge. Our spot was about 2/3 of the way through the race, so Oxford ended up killing them. Oh well. As an aside, I was looking through one of the programs and it turns out that some of the races have been won when the other team sank... I may or may not have been rooting for that to happen in front of us, haha. ;) How funny would that have been? Tee hee.

Kevin rooted for Cambridge, too, so he decided to throw Vanessa into the water to vent his frustrations (just kidding. But seriously, I swear he thought about it, hahaha). I'm lucky to have survived the semester with him as my flatmate -- although I guess I shouldn't speak so soon.

So the day on the Thames was wonderful! It was a great way to spend my last full day in London for 2 1/2 weeks, hang out with friends, do something cultural (woo!), and just enjoy life. I've reaffirmed my desire never to swim in the water itself, but it's nice to walk by it and seeing The Boat Race was an experience that I'm glad to say I've had. =)

Canterbury Tales

2009-03-21T20:09:00.004Z

Caitlin and I decided to spend her last day in England in Canterbury so we woke up early, made a nice breakfast, and took a train there. The town itself was moderately quaint, but also touristy and at some times, metropolitan. The main thing to see there was Canterbury Cathedral.

I couldn't get the entire cathedral in the picture... but believe me when I say that it was even more beautiful and impressive in person!

When we went into the cathedral, we happened upon the beginnings of a choir practice. There was a performance of Handel's Messiah scheduled for that night, so they were doing a full run through. Caitlin and I decided to watch them for about a half hour -- BEST DECISION EVER.

How many people can say that they've performed (let alone practiced) in such a beautiful place? I was floored. The sound was amazing (and I'm sure the brilliant acoustics helped). It was probably the best choir I've ever heard live. The soloists were phenomenal... I got chills at least 2 or 3 times.

I love this picture of us. See how happy we were to sit and listen to the choir? =)

The detail inside of the cathedral was amazing. This doorway lead to another chapel and (I think) a practice room.

We wandered around the rest of the Cathedral, looking in the maze of chapels they had downstairs. They also had a display of 14th-18th century artifacts from the church, which I found really interesting. There was an old septre, lots of silver goblets, and a few ancient Bibles. I love seeing old artifacts like that.

We ended up spending more time in the cathedral than we had expected, so we grabbed dinner at a pasty shop (side note: I'm going to miss pasties soooo much in the states! It's like a hot pocket, but a million times better and much more fresh). We wanted to go to

The two of us wanted to make it to St. Augustine's Abbey and a few of the other local attractions, but most everything was closed by the time we finished with dinner, nothing was open. Instead, we window shopped and walked around the town. I ended up buying a pretty green and gold scarf. It's shiny, so that explains a lot of my love. ;)

We headed back to London that night and spent the evening talking and looking at pictures from her trip to Paris. Early the next morning, Caitlin left for LA and took the wonderful California weather with her. It was great to have her company over those few days. =)

Paper Faces on Parade

2009-03-19T18:51:00.002Z

Draper's was hosting a Masquerade party for charity, so my friends and I decided to put the masks we got in Venice to good use. Caitlin and her friend were spending a few days in Paris, so she wasn't able to come. Anyway, we got all dressed up and headed to Drapers, where there was a chocolate fountain (!!!) and the bar was lit up with disco lights. Because it was for charity, I felt even better about eating the chocolate covered fruit and drinking the glass of champagne included in the cover price than I would have otherwise. =)

They had all sorts of different things to dip in the glorious chocolate fountain, but I definitely favored the strawberries... YUM.

I know it's impossible to tell (because our identities are so cleverly hidden), but this is our group! Huzzah! We definitely had the best masks.

The group putting on the event had a few fun things planned for entertainment. The dance group performed a Viennese Waltz (with masks on). It was pretty fun to watch a choreographed dance. There was also a DJ, so the rest of us were able to dance, too (albeit not as gracefully). The last entertainment for the evening was a mask competition. I didn't win, but Emily got 4th place! I'm thoroughly convinced that it was rigged. ;)

The next night, while waiting for Caitlin's triumphant return from Paris, I decided to bake cookies. Remember my horror stories from earlier in the semester? Well, it turns out that I'm still absolutely horrible at baking cookies from scratch. I ended up with one giant cookie.

See? On the plus side, Meghan pointed out that if I were to eat it all, it would only count as one cookie... =)

After this, Kevin started taking a ton of pictures of me, so I tickled him until he gave my camera back. Revenge is sweet, haha. I thought this picture was hilarious, so I had to include it.

Blarney!

2009-03-18T12:09:00.001Z

When I came back from Stratford, I hosted my friend Caitlin for a few days while she was on Spring Break from USC!! It was really great to see her and we had an amazing time. =)

The first night Caitlin was in town, all of us went to Brick Lane to show her and the girl she was traveling with a bit of East London. The food was delicious (as usual). I'm getting better at handling spicy things, I think... but that's not to say that I'm not a wimp anymore. I'm just less of one. ;) Anyway, Haider got us a great deal (he's definitely the best at haggling) and we decided on a nice place. I'm also starting to get a bit better at ordering food at Indian places. I've discovered that my favorite thing (so far) is Kabahi Kosht. It's basically lamb marinated in spices with peppers and onions. I have to make it more mild by adding lots of rice and naan, but it's delicious! I'm also a big fan of mango lossi, which is kind of like a very sweet, milky fruit smoothie.

After dinner, we grabbed bagels at the Bagel shop (what trip to Brick Lane would be complete without it?) and then got dessert at Cookies and Cream, our favorite dessert place. Once we had finished, we walked to Hayfield's and met up with Damien and his friends for his 21st birthday party. Having Caitlin there made it 10 times more fun. We were joking around and laughing the entire time. =)

Caitlin and I definitely used the pool cues as microphones, haha. We played pool, too... (and the two of us won!).

After Hayfield's closed (of course we stayed until it closed!), Caitlin, Haider and I decided to continue the merriment by hanging out by the canal and then lighting off some fireworks at the park right by campus. It was hilarious -- Haider misplaced a stand for one of htem so he held it at arms length (away from us, of course), lit the fuse, and lost hearing for a second or so as it screamed away, haha. =)

The next day was St. Patrick's Day! I spent most of the day working on a paper (booo), but Caitlin went out and did touristy things in London with her friend. We met up that night and decided to go out to an Irish pub in Leicester Square.

Vanessa and Caitlin took the advice on my button. ;) I ended up taking it off in the tube after a few sketchy guys passed by me (as a side note, a hobo had come up to Vanessa and I a few days earlier, blown both of us a kiss, given us what he thought was a seductive look, then smiled and walked away. The worst part is that my instint is to smile, "catch" the kiss, and put it in my back pocket... luckily, I caught myself that time and -- just barely -- didn't do it, haha).

The pubs at Leicester Square were ridiculously crowded (although probably not near as crowded as Dublin was -- Kevin spent St. Patty's Day there), and a ton of people were wearing green Guiness hats. I was jealous. We ended up leaving Leicester Square after about 45 minutes or so and headed back to campus to have a drink at the New Globe. I ordered an Irish car bomb with a few friends and went to bed early (hey, I was still tired from the night before!). Despite my lack of energy on St. Patrick's Day itself, I think the Irish car bomb was a significant tribute to my heritage. That, and I also wore a bit of orange. ;)

Such Stuff that Dreams are Made On

2009-03-16T10:36:00.003Z

This weekend I went to Stratford-upon-Avon with a bunch of people from USC (some studying in London, others in Edinburgh) to visit Shakespeare's birthplace and see The Tempest! I was able to room with Vanessa, so that made it even better.

Vanessa, Sammy, and I took a train up to Stratford on Friday afternoon and got in to the town with just enough time to check into the group's hostel and head to dinner.

This was our B&B. The woman who owned the house cooked us a full British Breakfast every morning -- that's poached eggs, bacon (which is more like Canadian bacon than the regular kind), roasted tomatoes, and baked beans. I was a bit wary of it at first, but it was actually quite delicious. =)

That evening we met up with all the USC students for a group dinner. One of the best things about USC trips is that they're meant to be "free" to us, so USC covers everything. That means that we get to eat at a nice restaurant and order whatever we'd like! Hooray! I've been eating pretty cheaply as of late (it gives me more money to travel with), so I definitely got a fillet mignon, some red wine, and a delicious slice of chocolate mousse cake for dessert. YUM.

After dinner, a group of us went to a Weatherspoons and hung out. The town was pretty quiet, it seemed like there was only one pub open and very few people were out on the streets. It was pretty fun though and when we went to bed that night it definitely felt like a sleepover, haha.

The next morning, Vanessa and I got backstage tickets to The Courtyard Theatre, where our show was going to be played.

The theatre itself was tiny, but very intimate. It featured what's called a "thrust" stage, which means that the audience is on 3 sides of the stage. Our tour guide told us some of the history of the theatre (it started out as a tin shack!) and we were able to walk around backstage a bit and take a look at the props. They also let us wander around the stage itself, which was really cool. I really enjoyed the guide's stories about stage blood (there was some splattered on one of the walls backstage). I think it'd be fun to bags of it under my clothes and stage fights with my friends to get reactions out of strangers... hehehe.

We weren't supposed to take pictures inside, but I was sneaky. This is a closeup of one of the props they had -- it was supposed to be a dead body on the island. I thought it was neat that the teeth were made out of tiny shells.

I love this picture, haha! It was very windy, which explains my glorious hair. ;)

Vanessa and I met up with everyone else from USC and took a walking tour of Stratford. Most of the things we saw had something to do with Shakespeare. We saw where he was born and baptized, where he lived and was buried, his secondary school, and various places where he was said to write. It made me wonder -- wouldn't most people find it strange and a bit creepy to find out that 100s of years later, people make pilgrimages to the places they've been? Moving on...

This is the Church of the Holy Trinity (better known as "Shakespeare's Church"), where Shakespeare was baptized and buried.

Once we were inside, we got to see Shakespeare's grave! The man who was in here speaking about it was crazy... he spoke very slowly, but in a mystical kind of way. It was pretty funny because he was difficult to understand. The church had copies of the actual records of Shakespeare's baptism and burial on display.

Our group walk ended at Shakespeare's birthplace. I took a tour of the inside, but they wouldn't allow pictures. The house was pretty small, but we were told that it was large for its day. It had a room for his father's glove business and they set it up to include sample gloves. Shakespeare was probably born in one of the rooms upstairs. One of the coolest parts of Shakespeare's birthplace was the museum upstairs where they had taken down some of the windows from earlier periods when the house was being shown. There are signatures and dates scratched onto them and you can pick out other famous writers and politicians who visited.

After Shakespeare's birthplace, we wandered around Stratford a bit until it was time to meet for dinner. There were some great giftshops around town selling all sorts of touristy Shakespeare things. One of my favorite souvenirs is an eraser that says "Out, damned spot!" on it. =)

While looking around, I chanced upon an amazing find: the complete works of Shakespeare -- illustrated. The best part? It was pretty cheap, too! =) I was really happy with myself. I have absolutely no idea how to get it home (the current plan is to ship it or have my mom take it home with her when she visits... it's between 5 and 10 pounds).

Dinner was delicious! Sammy and I got exciting cocktails and I ended up having duck for dinner and a blackcurrant tart for dessert. On a side note, the English love their blackcurrants -- there's no grape jelly in any of the stores in London, only blackcurrant.

After dinner, we went back to the Courtyard Theatre to see The Tempest. The Royal Shakespeare Company paried up with the University of South Africa for this rendition of the play, and the result was fantastic. They put an African spin on it, which was pretty interesting. I had read the play in high school and loved it, so it was really great to see it live. They had a lot of African music and I think the tribal feel to it helped make Ariel's character (and Prospero's magic) more believable. Also, the actor who played Ferdinand was really handsome and performed one of the scenes shirtless, which I appreciated. Yum. =) hahaha!

When the play was over, most of us went to a pub called the Dirty Duck (renamed from the Black Swan) for a few drinks. It was overpriced, so we ended up just sitting outside an talking for a few hours before going back to the B&B. Most of the actors came to the pub because it was their last performance and all of the girls jokingly made a big deal about Ferdinand being there ("I have to *cough* use the restroom... Anyone want to come with me? It's right across from the private room in the back...").

The next morning, Vanessa and I decided to stay for a bit before heading back to London so we could see Anne Hathaway's cottage.

Anne Hathaway was Shakespeare's wife. They married when she was 28 and he was 19, which made me giggle. The cottage itself was beautiful! I would have loved to see it in the spring when the gardens were in full bloom. Again, we were told that the cottage was pretty large for its day (and was built onto in the years that followed), but I think that if the rooms hadn't been built in miniature, it wouldn't have seemed as tiny. I had to duck to get through doorways! Also, some of the floors weren't on the same level, so it felt like you would have to go up a step to get to another room in the house, which I thought was pretty funny. The cottage was very quaint and I'm really glad we went. =)

Before we took a train back to London, Vanessa and I stopped for lunch at a corner pub in the town called the Old Thatch Tavern. They were having a special featuring the British traditional Sunday roast, so both of us got that. What an enormous amount of food! They filled my plate to the brim with beef, pork, vegetables, yorkshire pudding, potatoes, and lots of gravy. It was SO delicious!

And so with high spirits and full tummies, Vanessa and I ended our trip to Stratford-upon-Avon and came back to lovely East End! What a wonderful trip!

Back in London!

2009-03-10T11:18:00.000Z

I realize that I've been neglecting this blog since my reading week trip, so I'm going to try to catch up! Class has been more demanding as of late (how rude... doesn't Queen Mary know that this is my semester off?). I've had a few papers due and need to finish the next three (Three?! See what I mean?) in the next week and a half. My classes officially end at the end of March, at which point I'll have an entire month to travel and forget absolutely everything I should've learned over the term. Then my finals will be during the month of May and I come home in early June! Time flies.

Anyway, when I got back from reading week I had to research and write a paper on Westminster Cathedral for my architecture class. The building itself is pretty interesting.

My professor describes the layered red brick and stone as "streaky bacon," (a very technical term, I know). It's not my favorite -- I tend to like traditional architecture. Bentley built it in the early-Christian Byzantine style with some inspiration from St. Mark's Basilica in Venice (which I saw while I was there).

There are over 120 different types of marble in the interior, but it is still unfinished (see the dark roof? It's just brick). I thought that was kind of cool though -- it's being built over the ages. Ok, enough about Westminster Cathedral. It's a landmark for a good reason, but after writing a paper on it, I've had enough of describing it. ;)

Not very long after turning in that paper, my friends and I went to The Hayfield (which has quickly become our favorite pub) for karaoke night. It was a lot of fun! They didn't have the best song selection, but as the night goes on it seems better, haha. =) The most interesting story of the night was when two guys (one from Latvia and one from Estonia) decided that they were both interested in me (best quotes: "How you no have boyfriend?! In Russia, you have boyfriend," and "After drink, I hook up, yes?"). I let one of them buy me a drink and walked home with my friends about 10 minutes later, haha. All in all, a very fun night.

The next weekend, I decided to get back into the groove of exploring London, so a few friends and I went to the Tate. I loved all the paintings and had a great time exploring.

I got to see a lot of beautiful artwork, but this was actually my favorite. A bit more modern than I usually go for, but I thought it was pretty cool. If you look carefully, you can see that the mushroom cloud is made up of pots and pans.

At the tail end of February, my friends and I went to Brick Lane (it was my first time, but they had gone while I was in Prague). It is definitely now one of my favorite things to do in East End.

The restaurants have people standing outside soliciting you to come in -- it reminded me of Brazil, but people here actually give you deals instead of just hassling you to come inside, haha. The atmosphere of Brick Lane and haggling is always fun... cheap (and delicious) Indian food with friends just can't be beat. =)

After dinner, Kevin found the fabled Brick Lane 24-hour Beigel Shop! It turns out that it's incredibly inexpensive and even yummier than I thought it would be. East End used to be a big Jewish community, so I thought that I should stay true to my Jewish roots and get a bagel with lox and cream cheese. It was great! The shop also sold a bunch of desserts, but we were too full to have anything else. I'm definitely going back!

The next week, I had a field trip to the Royal College of Physicians (another building that I can tell you far too much about). Suffice it to say that it's a Brutalist building that cost way too much to make. The library is really cool, smells like old books, and has dried human veins varnished on wood and framed, hanging on the walls (they were 17th century teaching aids for physicians). It sounds kind of creepy, but it was actually really cool. There was also an interesting room whcih had old remedies for different sicknesses (among the tools were leech containers, various blood letting devices, old hearing aids, early stethoscopes... the list goes on and on). I would have put pictures up of the interior, but we weren't allowed to take them.

The following Friday, I had dinner with friends at Caitlin's apartment (lemon chicken - yum!) and then went to Drapers (the bar on campus) because they were having a "UV Rave," complete with blacklights and face paint! It was really hard to get the glow in the dark paint to show up on camera... so just imagine us all glowing in the dark, haha. It was pretty cool. =)

Kevin and I being silly, hehe. Great minds think alike -- we wore white because it'd glow the best. =)

I love this picture! Haider jumped in the middle of the picture as a joke, but it definitely made it 10 times better.

The next day, a bunch of us went to the London Zoo! I had a great time. It almost felt like I was traveling back in time. It had a very open feel to it... similar to how it was portrayed in Lady and the Tramp, now that I think of it. There were a lot of open areas, tons of grass, and a lot of the time there would just be an iron fence separating you from the animals. Pretty intimate, but at the same time it is a very old zoo and I wish the animals were able to have more space.

We walked through Regent's Park to get there... isn't it pretty? I can't wait for the flowers to start blooming! It'll be great to go to all the major parks to see the seasons turn.

We spent a pretty good amount of time in the Reptil House (where they filmed for Harry Potter). One of my favorite exhibits was where they tried to make it look like the Soutwest U.S. for a desert rattlesnake.

I think someone forgot to mention that Budweiser is now owned by a Belgian company, haha.

Kevin should really watch where he puts his hands, haha!

What a cute baby monkey! He was really frustrated because he couldn't figure out why he couldn't run away... (his mom's holding his foot down, hahaha!)

We caught the otters at feeding time -- adorable!

This is definitely my favorite picture of the day. It just looks like he's looking at me saying, "What the HELL are you doing?! Did I SAY that you could take a picture of me??" hahaha.

The original Winnie the Pooh and me! Winnie was a black bear cub at the London Zoo around WWI. A.A. Milne's son loved the bear and named his own teddy bear after it... and now we have Winnie the Pooh! =) Yay!

After the zoo, my friends and I went to Byron, this great little hamburger place by Kensington High Street. They advertise that their burgers are "proper" hamburgers and they were delicious! They also had amazing chocolate milkshakes. Yum!

Before I finish this up, I'm going to vent. I've been writing this on a train and the guy who sat next to me just left. He had a brand new unread copy of The Economist (in the plastic!) and decided to read the tabloids instead. Bah! I wanted to take it from him while he was wasting his time on that garbage. *Grumble*... I miss my subscription to the best magazine in the world.

Geneva

2009-02-28T17:14:00.003Z

Here's the last installment of my epic reading week trip!

Geneva wasn't nearly as exciting as Rome, Venice, or Lucerne, but you can't ask for everything in one trip! We ran into a few snags, so I've decided that I have to go back at some point to really see Geneva.

We were able to stay there for about one day. After arriving in Geneva, we found our hostel (which was right by a Ferrari dealership!), walked around a bit, and grabbed lunch at a Pizza Kebab place (we decided to eat cheaply for lunch so we could splurge on dinner and have fondue). I'm really going to miss good kebabs when I get home, they're great here! Haider and Kevin ordered a pizza one, so the shop basically just used a pizza instead of a tortilla to wrap the kebab. Yum!

After lunch, we decided to get our train tickets to Paris (our flight back to London was cheapest from Paris), but ran into a few problems. We ended up having to buy expensive tickets through Lyon because all of the Paris ones were booked. But once everything was all sorted out, we headed out to do more sightseeing.

First on the list: the U.N. building. we took a bus there, but found that a group from Sri Lanka was holding a protest there ("Those cheeky Tamils!" Haider said while we waited on the bus).

We all decided not to get off the bus at that stop because they were holding up signs with Obama's face on them (as well as other leaders of G8 nations) and we knew it wouldn't be the safest thing to do. I was pretty sad that I didn't get to take a tour of the U.N. building (or even see it -- there were too many people), but that's one more reason to go back!

We were able to make it to CERN, though (CERN is a huge international experiment... a superconductor. It's basically trying to discover what electrons are made out of by running two of them into each other.

The visitor's center had a cool museum inside with hands on activities. I think they tried to explain what was going on, but I understood very little of it. It definitely wasn't made for children (which is probably the only way I would have understood all the displays).

Look, a smiley face! When I don't understand things, I make stuff up.

We spent a few hours poking around the museum. The engineers in our group (Vanessa and Haider) got a lot out of it, but the rest of us liked it too. =)

By the time we got back to the center of town it was dinner time, so we grudgingly ate at McDonald's (those train tickets were very expensive). But the fun thing about eating at foreign US fast food chains is that they have different fun menus! My favorite item on it -- "Le M," a fancy schmancy burger. I ordered a Big Mac though. You can't beat the classic.

Our evening was spent walking around (I found a Swiss Bank!). We stopped at a crepe shop and then decided to walk around the lake to see the Jet D'eau. It was turned off though, so we just admired the view.

Here I am by the lake with Geneva behind me. =)

So Geneva wasn't as exciting as the other places we went, but I still really enjoyed it. I got to put my French to good use, which was probably the best part. It was actually really rewarding to use French... I was able to get directions and correctly follow them (gasp!) and made friends with a French couple on a train (they thought I was Australian). I was pleased that I was able to carry on a pretty good conversation with them. =) I even read a few articles in French in their local newspaper... some were just light reading, but a few were about economics. I was a little surprised that I could grasp them, but mostly proud.

So that's it! The next morning we hopped a train to Lyon, continued on to Paris, and then grabbed a flight back to London!

Lucerne -- Life is Great!!

2009-02-26T18:12:00.014Z

And now onto Lucerne! When we all arrived in there, it was snowing! Trying to get to the hostel from the train station was an interesting experience (my suitcase handle had broken), but we finally made it to the hostel. There was a big plaster cow downstairs by the check-in desk. We met up with Kevin's friend Katie and checked into our room.

Swiss money is officially the coolest looking money in the world. I'm completely convinced that this is why people bank there (never mind anonymity -- yay pretty colors!!).

The hostel staff was very nice. They told us about Lucerne's Carnival (which we had happened to stumble upon), and what we should do in town. The hostel had internet access, which was nice, but the computers in Switzerland mix up the y and z on the keyboard! Very confusing... I'm pretty sure I signed an email or two "Hilarz," haha.

In the morning, we all had breakfast in their huge dining room. I discovered strawberry yogurt and granola, which became my staple breakfast for the duration of my time there... yum! That morning, we went back to the train station and found a walking tour of the city to join. It was a great experience -- we saw a bunch of famous parts of the city and the tour guide gave us even more good advice for the festivities of the Carnival (called Fasnacht).

This is Chapel Bridge, one of the most famous landmarks of Lucerne.

In front of Lake Lucerne. You can see the Hof Church (with the twin spires) in the background.

Inside the Jesuit Church. The interior is a mix of Baroque and Rococo (the design itself is Baroque and the coloring is Rococo), according to our tour guide (and Cogsworth?).

After our tour, we stopped by a small restaurant for lunch and (most importantly) hot chocolate. lunch was amazing - I tried barley soup for the first time and it was amazing! Hot chocolate in Switzerland is the best I've ever had. Later, I found the brand they used online (Coatina), so I'm really tempted to buy some as a treat for when I get home.

Once we had finished lunch, we all wandered around the town, spending a lot of time by Lake Lucerne admiring the view making friends with the swans. =) Afterwards, we headed to the Lion Monument, which was really moving.

It was created to commemorate the Swiss Guards who died in the French Revolution.

While we were admiring the statue and trying to translate a carving in the mountain in French, a guy holding a huge mask opened a gate off to the side of the monument. Naturally, we were intrigued, and Haider made conversation with him. It turns out he was on his way to drop off the mask at a secret bunker in the side of the mountain. He happened to be a trombone player in one of the bands performing at the Carnival and invited us to see his group's practice room inside the bunker! Of course we all agreed and went inside. It was really exciting! They had it done up with different halloween decorations and pictures of the group from previous years in the festival. The group was called "Noteheurer," which he told us translated roughly to "Bum Note... because we're not very good," haha.

We thanked the man for letting us wander around the bunker and promised to try to find him in the Carnival the next day. After that fun detour, we went back to a place the tourguide had pointed out during our tour and saw a really interesting 360 degree painting called "Dancing with Death." It was supposed to be comforting to people because it depicted that everyone had to face death, no matter your social status.

After that, we all dropped off Emily at the train station (she had to go back to London to take a midterm - what poor luck), grabbed dinner, and went back to the hostel. The next day was going to be very long, so we decided we needed the most sleep as we could get.

Back at the train station, we were less weirded out by the paper mache pigs and even more excited for the Carnival starting the next morning. We even found the pig that Noteheurer submitted -- it's the one in the middle that looks like a zebra.

The next morning was the beginning of Fasnacht -- "Dirty Thursday." The festivities officially begin at 5am at Fritschi Fountain, where a cannon is shot and the mayor throws oranges to the thousands of people packed in the square, but we didn't get up that early. Instead, we got into the city at around 8am and walked around looking at all the fun costumes and listening to bands.

There were a lot of impromptu parades going on. This band was walking down the main road right by Chapel Bridge. Traditionally, Fasnacht is held to "scare away the winter demons," which explains the scary masks (well, some were scarier than others... most were just absurd).

This monkey got really friendly... this was taken right after he pretended to pick stuff out of my hair, hahaha.

Vanessa and I in front of one of the street bands. We all danced to a bunch of the songs the bands were playing. On another note, notice that the director has a battleaxe. I'm glad Bartner doesn't have one, haha.

How very Swiss! =)

Here's another street band. They were everywhere! We'd be wandering around the streets and all of a sudden we'd hear another band playing, so we'd head to another square to check it out. It was so much fun!

Some other random and exciting things that happened at the Carnival: meeting a man dressed like an Indian who offered us "coffee" (a very strong hot alcoholic beverage of some sort) from his teepee (turned bar), attending a Fidel Castro rally (complete with Cuba flags and a piped speech mimed by a guy in a Castro paper mache mask), random bars set up along the streets playing music (my personal favorite, "Live is Life," which we thought said "Life is Great" -- it became our theme song for the rest of the trip), seeing men dressed as Snow White on 3 separate occasions, bunnies pushing airplanes giving carrots to Vanessa, and feeling out of place because we were the only ones not in costume.

At about 10, we left the city to take a train up to Engelberg to go skiing. Yes, that's right -- I skied the Alps (!!!). It was absolutely breathtaking.

Action shot! Vanessa and I were the only ones who had skied before, so we helped teach the others. It was a lot of fun!

On my way up the run. We were able to ski for a good 4 hours or so before we all got tired and took a gondola to the top of the mountain to see the view and get some hot chocolate.

Isn't that an incredible view? It looks like we're photoshopped in, but I promise we're not. ;)

Kevin and I by the lodge where we got DELICIOUS hot chocolate!

This is the current background on my computer... how pretty!

I was a little excited, what can I say? But I definitely love this "I'm king of the world!" picture.

When we returned our ski gear, we asked the woman helping us for advice on where to eat dinner. She told us that there was a great little restaurant in Engelberg called "chuchchsleishchcheugh..." or at least that's what it sounded like (imagine someone clearing their throat and then expecting you to recognize that sound as an actual word). The real name was Chuchichäschtli. Not much better, right? Anyway, the food was fantastic -- Kevin and I shared barley soup and a delicious stew while some of our friends ordered Rösti (great traditional Swiss food). I guess the cheese on that was especially delicious because Kevin asked the waitress what kind of cheese it was after trying a bite. Her response -- an incredulous look and "um... from the Alps?" as if that were the most obvious thing in the world, hahaha.

When we got back to town after dinner, we stopped by the Carnival again to see what was going on. We managed to find "Batman's" group, Noteheurer (they were just as terrible as he had promised, haha). We wandered around again listening to bands and going back to the teepee to get more "coffee" before heading back to the hostel to crash.

The coolest part about Switzerland is its great public services. The next morning at 7am when we went into town to take our train to Geneva, all of the streets which had had an inch of confetti covering the ground were completely clean! I officially love Switzerland. We all had an AMAZING time in Lucerne and wish we could have extended our stay!

Carnevale di Venezia

2009-02-25T12:52:00.000Z

Another installation of my reading week travel blog!

After our train to Venice, Caitlin and I met up with our other friends from Queen Mary. We found our way to our hostel (which was AMAZING -- double rooms with private bathrooms, a huge kitchen, plus it was very clean and cheap to boot!). After settling in, we grabbed a quick dinner at a nearby cafe. It had a billiards table and a few guys brought their dogs with them while they played a game. I've noticed that the US and the UK aren't dog friendly when compared to the continent. People bring their dogs in small restaurants, on the metro, and in shops.

After dinner we headed back to the Grand Canal, got gelato, looked at Carnevale window displays and walked around the canals.

Some of the simpler masks we found. We planned to come to Venice during their famous Carnevale and it ended up being even better than we had hoped!

It was nice to just wander around that night, espeically after tearing through Rome for 2 days. Venice is a great place to just walk around... I think you can't really experience it unless you let yourself get lost in the canal system and find new shops, homes, and buildings you never expected.

We found a small-ish street party in a big square and after hanging out for a bit, decided to head back to the hostel. The next morning we woke up early to buy food from a local grocery store, made breakfast and packed a lunch (don't forget -- we're all broke college students, despite the international travel), and headed back to the center of town.

On a side note, the Venetian does a pretty good job imitating parts of Venice. Vanessa and I kept having trouble believing that it was real and we weren't on the strip. ;)

The first thing on our list of things to do in Venice: a gondola ride!! It was so much fun! I now have a lot of respect for the gondoliers... the boats are tough to maneuver, but we never hit anything - even in the tiniest canals. It was a beautiful day and all of us had a ton of fun. The gondola ride was such an incredible way to start off an even more incredible day.

A nice group picture on the gondola ride (minus Haider, who graciously took the photo). I resisted the urge to ask the gondolier to sing to us, haha. He told us cool historical things about Venice and answered our random questions about the canals instead.

Right after we finished our gondola ride, something caught Kevin and my eye -- chocolate. A little shop was selling chunks of chocolate so Kevin bought one and I bought some champagne (my favorite kind from home) and we shared for the rest of the day while we walked around Venice. Classy, I know. =)

One of my favorite pictures from Venice... how pretty! I had already thought the little bridge was beautiful with the hanging flowers and then a gondola appeared, making it that much better.

My friends and I decided (unanimously) that the most important thing we needed to do while in Venice was for each of us to buy a mask and wear it the entire day. So while we were walking toward St. Mark's Square, we stopped by a bunch of mask shops to find ones we liked. Some of the masks were simply incredible. None of us got full masks, but the more ornate ones were absolutely beautiful. They were so detailed! We walked into a few mask shops that were very expensive just to take a look at them. It was too bad that most shops didn't allow pictures (although I snuck a few!).

After all of us had found masks, we made our way to St. Mark's Square, pausing when we passed an interesting place or a gelato shop (by the end of the trip, we could tell when Emily had found a gelato shop because we'd hear the bells on her mask as she skipped off to see if they served the Nutella flavored kind, haha!). My friend Haider and I began playing a game where we would stare at people menacingly from under our masks just to make them uncomfortable. It was so much fun!! We got a bunch of really great reactions, haha. =)

This is the mask I got. It was honestly one of the first ones I found when I actually started looking. I fell in love, but decided to keep looking for a while, just in case. Obviously I ran back for it. If you look really closely, you can see music notes on it. How perfect!

When we got to St. Mark's Square, there were thousands of people there for Carnevale. The entire square was packed with people there to see all the great costumes and masks. I had seen some pictures of Carnevale, but seeing the intricate costuming in person was incredible. Regular people spent months working on their costumes for Carnevale. You could barely tell that some of them were homemade. Most looked professionally done -- delicate, beautiful, and one-of-a-kind.

Posing with a masked couple. There were so many great costumes!

One family dressed up their little boy as a gondolier and let everyone fawn over how cute he was and take tons of pictures. ADORABLE!

A family of clowns! One of the running jokes of the trip was "Il Maximus de Circo ha rubato Hilary!" which translates roughly to "The Circus Maximus has kidnapped Hilary!!" I guess that's not much of a stretch on some days, haha.

There were three raptors running around the square at one point. Their mouths even moved and they shrieked while chasing and attacking people! It was really fun to watch.

This was my favorite costume of the day. He just looks so regal! The costume was just incredible.

After looking at the costumes for a while, we went into St. Mark's Basilica. The entire ceiling was covered in mosaics and plated in gold. It was spectacular. The designs on the interior served as an inspiration to Bentley's designs in Westminster Cathedral in London (I had to write a paper on it for my Architecture class). They wouldn't allow pictures inside, but the entryway gives you a good idea of what the ceiling looked like.

Bits of the domed ceiling in the entryway... it was gorgeous! I can't even imagine how long it took to assemble that...

When we were done looking around the Basilica, we went back to the Grand Canal and watched the sunset on the Ponte di Rialto, one of the most famous bridges in Venice (this picture is of Vanessa and I right before the sun went down. We're pretty much adorable). After the sunset, we met up with one of Emily's friends from home (who was studying abroad in Venice) and had dinner by the canal.

We sprung for fine Italian wine at dinner. Yum!

There were some parties going on throughout the city at a bunch of the different Piazzas. One of the more interesting ones had professional dancers doing the tango on stage. We dropped by a few of those then caught the last buses back to the hostel.

The next morning, we had breakfast and headed up the campanile across from St. Mark's Basilica. We could see the entire city from there -- it was so pretty!

See? Beautiful. =)

That afternoon we left Venice and took a train to Lucerne, doubting that Lucerne could be as exciting as Venice had been... but we were wrong! So there's your cliff hanger. ;) Even though Venice was AMAZING, Lucerne still managed to be even more exciting (albeit in a different way).

When in Rome...

2009-02-24T20:39:00.001Z

One more reason why QMUL is fantastic: Reading Week. We all have a week off to catch up on our reading (theoretically...), which meant that my friends and I got some extensive traveling under our belts. I spent 10 days in Italy and Switzerland, visiting Rome, Venice, Lucerne, and Geneva. As I get the time, I'll post about my amazing trip!

Here's my first installment: Bella Roma! Rome was, in a word, fantastic. It was kind of surreal to be there -- it's a place I've always wanted to go (especially since becoming a Trojan) and to see everything in person was an amazing experience.

On Thursday afternoon, my friend Caitlin and I flew into Rome. Our flight was a bit delayed, so the train station was rather deserted when we got there (and no one spoke English! ahhh!). We asked directions to the nearest bus stop from anyone and everyone (I ended up drawing a sketch of a bus on my hand so we could use that as a visual aid when asking for directions, haha!). After wandering around for a bit, we finally found the right bus stop and were on our way to the hostel. We stayed at Hotel Lodi, which ended up having a very intimate atmosphere and wasn't too far out of the way, especially once we knew how to navigate the buses.

On Friday we woke up early and had a delicious breakfast at the hostel. The manager of the hostel said that all of the transportation would be down that day and Caitlin and I had a minor panic attack, but luckily the strike that was going on during our stay didn't end up affecting transportation. A side note about Rome's public transportation system: the buses never announce which stop they're at (and sometimes skip stops), so it can be really confusing, especially if you don't speak the language... we may or may not have gotten lost a few times, haha.

Our first stop was the Coliseum. The inside was closed because of the strike, but it was still great to walk around it. Caitlin and I took a tour of the Coliseum, the Arch of Constantine, and the Palatino. Fun fact: the holes on the outside of the Coliseum are left over from the iron poles put in there to help with its stability. The iron was looted when it became valuable. Also, some of the marble was taken to help build St. Peter's Basilica.

Apollo posed for the picture. ;)

I was a bit sad that I had not been able to go on the band trip to Italy (it was the summer before my freshman year), but this trip to Rome completely made up for it! Being at the real Coliseum was such a great experience. The tour we took was great, even though we weren't able to go inside. It made me see the Coliseum as a public works project (skip ahead if you'd rather not read my Econ tangent, haha). I had though that tickets to see matches in the Coliseum would have been fairly expensive, but the emperor built it to be accessible to all classes (slaves had the cheap seats, obviously), so it was completely free. Scheduling regular matches would decrease the likelihood of revolt among the lower classes and increase their productivity. Having a say in the fate of some of the gladiators would have been empowering to the slaves watching the matches. It got me thinking: Rome was the founder of democracy, could it have also been the father of the first public works projects? And if so, is the Coliseum the first grand-scale public good? I think I might look into that a bit. You know, in my spare time.

Go Trojans!!

The latter part of our tour took us through the Palatino, where we were able to walk through some ruins, see where Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus on Palatine Hill, and learn more about Roman history.

The view from the top of the Palatino. You can see the Wedding Cake building on the back left-hand side of the picture and a bunch of the ruins (but by all means, not all) at the bottom.

Among the ruins behind the Palatino.

After walking around the ruins for a bit and grabbing some lunch (pizza, of course), we took a bus up to Piazza del Popolo and walked back down to the Coliseum, stopping to see the fountains, monuments, and the occasional ruin. Probably one of the coolest parts of the trip was when we would get lost (a regular occurrence...) and manage to bump into another ruin site or ridiculous monument/fountain.

This is Piazza del Popolo. It had a huge Egyptian influence (as did much of Rome) because Cesar had the hots for Cleopatra and brought a bunch of Obelisks back from Egypt with her. The obelisk had some hieroglyphs and there were sphinxes along the side of the piazza by some fountains.

Trevi fountain was gorgeous. This picture doesn't do it justice at all. It was definitely my favorite (we also saw the fountains in Piazza Navona and the Triton fountain, among others). Caitlin and I got some gelato here (the first gelato stop of many... yum!!), so maybe that's one of the reasons why I'm so fond of it. ;)

Yours truly in front of the Pantheon. The inside of it was much more Christian than I had expected... I had thought there would be more statues to pagan gods, etc., and ended up finding a lot of Christian relics in there. I'm not sure which I would have appreciated more.

After the Pantheon, Caitlin and I wandered around the city until it got a bit dark, then headed down the Forum towards the Coliseum (seeing that at night was beautiful as well). We took the bus back to our hostel and immediately crashed... what a long (but amazing) day!

We spent the next day in Vatican City, braving the lines to see St. Peter's Basilica, the Vatican Museum, and the Sistine Chapel. St. Peter's Basilica was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. I must have stood in front of the Basilica for a full 10-15 seconds just gawking at the entrance alone. It was just stunning.

This was taken while standing in line for the Basilica. Yes, the line was that long. And yes, it was worth it.

The entrance to St. Peter's Basilica. Check out the marble and gilded ceiling!

Michelangelo's The Pieta. It was so moving in person!

Bernini's Baldacchio, which stands over the Pope's altar. You can see the Cathedra Petri (also designed by Bernini) behind it. Again, absolutely gorgeous.

I took a ton of pictures of the Basilica, but considering the fact that there are about 20 pictures in this post already, I'm going to refrain. Go there yourself... I really think it's something everyone should see at some point in their lives, and I'm not even Catholic!

I didn't take as many pictures in the Vatican Museum, but here's one that I liked. I saw it in the Room of the Signature (painted by Raphael). It's an angel with a lyre! =)

They didn't allow pictures in the Sistine Chapel, which I was expecting. It's something everyone's heard about and read of, but seeing it in person gave me an even greater appreciation for it. Some of the less famous scenes on the building were even more impressive than the ones everyone is familiar with.

After exploring Vatican City for most of the day, Caitlin and I went to the Wedding Chapel, which had a gorgeous view of the city from the top. We got another glimpse of the strike at the front of the monument (let's just say that we didn't dally... it went something like this, "Ooh, a rally? What's that all abo-- SWAT TEAM?! Um, let's go.").

What a beautiful view! I'm in front of the Coliseum and a bit of the ruins (from the top of the Wedding Cake).

A view of Vatican City at sunset.

That night we had a nice dinner and treated ourselves to more gelato. I asked to try a flavor I had never heard of. When I asked what it was, the guy serving me said that the name of it was Italian for "kiss" and that since he had given me some, I should give him one in return. ;) Haha! Anyway, flirting with him got me about double the amount of gelato that I paid for. Another reason why I love Italy, haha! =)

Next up, Venice... but for now -- ciao!!

Prague!!

2009-02-09T11:26:00.004Z

This weekend, I went to Prague to see Meghan!! It was a very last minute trip, but I had such an amazing time!! Just getting to see her again made my soul smile. =)

On Thursday, I packed in the morning (no surprise) and headed to the airport. I had picked up "The Magus" (John Fowles) from the QM library to read on the train. It's one of my favorite books and one that you have to read multiple times to really appreciate, so I've finally got the chance to read it again. Anyway, I landed in Prague at around 4:30pm and gave Meghan the biggest hug ever. From there we took the metro and a few trams to her homestay where her Czech mom made an incredible dinner and taught us how to make apple strudel. I think I'm going to try to replicate it later this semester... yum! =)

The next day I went with Meghan to her university and spent the morning walking around near her campus while she was in class. The campus is high up on a hill with a great view of Prague. I also wandered around a park, cemetery, and Vysehrad church.

One of the many statues in the park next to her campus. Prague is really big on epic statues. Notice the falcon on her shoulder... ridiculous.

This is Vysehrad Church. The building itself was impressive, but the doors were what really fascinated me. You can't tell in this picture, but they were colorful and gilded.

After her class, I joined her on a scavenger hunt and realized that if I thought I was horrible with directions in the US, I'm hopeless when they're given in Czech. I originally thought I could help with the scavenger hunt, but eventually settled on just appreciating Prague while Meghan and her friends tried to navigate ("Prominte... Kde je ___?" This was followed by babbling in Czech, which was met by our blank stares until they used hand motions).

After the scavenger hunt, we spent some time in Wenceslas Square. We found a place to eat lunch where I ordered traditional Czech food (goulash and bread dumplings -- yum!) and both of us got mulled wine, a warm red wine with all sorts of spices.

This is Wenceslas Square. In front is a statue to King Wenceslas (one of many... they love him) and behind that is the national museum.

From the market, we looked around a street market, where I bought a painting (which is now hanging in my room -- hooray!) and then spent some time in Old Town Square. We watied a few minutes by the Astronomical Clock so that we could see the "Walk of the Apostles," (Every hour, the medieval clock opens some of the windows at the top and you can see all of the Apostles circle through the tower).

A closeup of the Astronomical Clock. I used my advanced sign language skills to get directions ("Prominte... Kde je..." then I would point to my watch and then use my hands to indicate something really big).

That night, Meghan and I hurriedly got ready (think of getting ready to go out on the Row in 10 minutes flat -- that's the kind of teamwork we showed. It was a beautiful sight), because we had tickets to the Opera!! We went to the Statsi Opera to see "Tosca." The Opera itself was amazing and my jaw dropped when I saw the inside of the Opera house.

On our way to the Opera... this is one of my favorites of the two of us. =)

The stage... absolutely gorgeous!!

Here's the chandelier and a bit of the gilded and painted ceiling. I spotted a couple of lyres! =)

To end the evening, Meghan and I went out to meet a bunch of her friends at a club. Clubbing in Prague is pretty popular, but you wouldn't really know it from walking down the streets. It actually seems pretty quiet. But when you go into a bar, you have to head down about two flights of stairs to their basement (or second basement) to find another bar with tons of room to dance, lots of smoke, plenty of people, and disco lights. Their basements seem to go on forever. It was fantastic!

The next day, we toured Prague Castle. It isn't really a castle so much as a complex full of amazing buildings.

This is the main entryway to Prague Castle. Those gates are huge when you get close to them and the statues on either side of the main gate are of battling Titans. Epic? Yes.

The St. Vitus Cathedral, just inside the second courtyard of the castle complex. It was so big (and so close to other buildings) that I couldn't get a shot of the entire cathedral, so this is a side shot. There was also another church (St. George Basilica) and a monastery there.

The building that houses international dignitaries. My kind of building.

Golden Lane. People used to live in these houses (including Franz Kafka), but now they hold shops for tourists. It was so colorful and the houses were teeny! I could nearly bump my head on the top of their doorways.

When we finished looking around Prague Castle, we walked back down the huge hill and found our way to the other side of the Vtlava via Charles Bridge. As the sun was setting, I took this picture -- beautiful!

After that, we stopped by the Medieval Torture Museum, which was a bit unnerving... so we decided to head to the Chocolate Museum and buy a chocolate covered banana to make it all better!! Yum. This is a blurb from my favorite exhibit in the museum:

"Spanish women who had emigrated to Mexico loved chocolate so much that they couldn't stop drinking it. They even had their servants pour it for them during religious ceremonies. The constant coming and going of the servants became so annoying that the Bishop of Chiapas, Don Bernaurdus de Salazar, decided to prohibit it. Drining cocoa was banned during mass, and as a result people stayed away from church. Finally the Bishop was murdered. Poison had been added to his cup of cocoa."

The moral of the story: don't mess with a woman's chocolate!!

That night, Meghan's Czech mom made us Czech comfort food: fried cheese and potatoes. I think that if I had stayed there for a week or more all of the starch would start clogging all my arteries. But it was definitely worth it -- everything was so delicious! I'm a bit jealous that Meghan has someone that cooks so well in charge of the kitchen. I found peanut butter at the store the other day and have now graduated to pb&j.

On Sunday, we visited the Jewish Quarter. What's really interesting about this is that it escaped the destruction that normally befell Jewish ghettos during WWII. While the Jewish population was decimated, Hitler decided to leave the buildings standing to serve as a sort of museum. It's sick, but interesting. On top of that, Prague is actually the only major city in Europe that was not bombed during WWII.

The Maisel Synagoge. It was originally built in the 1500s, but remade in the gothic style in the late 1800s after a fire. Again, it survived WWII.

After visiting the Jewish Quarter, Meghan and I decided to wander around a bit. It was fun just walking down whatever road looked interesting. We found a few fun shops to poke around in and took some great pictures by the river Vtlava.

Inside the window of one of the shops in the Jewish Quarter.

Yours truly in front of the Charles Bridge. If you look carefully, you can see the statues on the bridge -- there are 30 total.

Meghan and I with Prague Castle and the Vtlava in the background... definitely one of my favorites from the trip.

That afternoon, we returned to her homestay and had an amazing lunch, followed by a tram ride to the airport where I returned to London! So that's it, folks. A recap of my first international trip while abroad! It was incredible to see Meghan and to be introduced to such an amazing city.

No updates for a while, I think. I leave Thursday afternoon for a week and a half trip to Italy and Switzerland!! =)

Toodles!

Snow Day!

2009-02-03T17:28:00.005Z

This blog is going to be very picture-heavy, but since I took a whopping 168 pictures that day (!!!), it's a wonder that I could narrow it down to this.

Yesterday, we had about 5-6 inches of snow. It started snowing on Sunday evening (Kevin and I played in it for a bit when we went out to dinner at this great Chinese place) and didn't stop at all on Monday. The entire time we were outside, these huge snowflakes were falling to the ground. =) It was great!! I read an article in the paper today about how some people were complaining about the buses being down, how much money everyone lost because of the snow, etc., but I agree with the author: all I saw the entire day was people with huge smiles on their faces enjoying the snow. I saw tons of families out in the snow: parents whose workday had been canceled teaching their children how to sled, children (and college students) making elaborate snowmen, and at least 50 people in the park adjacent to Parliament just enjoying the snow. I felt like the entire day was a gift from God; a reminder to slow down and appreciate life (and I definitely appreciated that day -- having all of my classes canceled so that I could see London in the snow? YES PLEASE). Everywhere I looked struck me with a new beauty... you'll see from the pictures.

My friends and I started off the day at noon by meeting for a huge snowball fight. The building to the back left corner is where I live. =)

I didn't win the snowball fight... haha!

After we had done that for about an hour and a half, we decided to head over to the park right next to campus to go sledding. Here, all my American friends and I are pausing for a picture right outside the gates of Queen Mary... so beautiful!

This is a view of the canal from the street. You can see QMUL's campus on the left hand side of the picture. I've never seen a place so transformed... I've seen snow before and it's been beautiful, but living somewhere and then seeing it covered in snow (an inch in Vegas doesn't really count) is really something else.

Once we were at the park, we climbed a big hill where a bunch of people were sledding (we got there at the best time -- later in the day there were about 50 people and it just looked crowded). We found an old blow up mattress to sled with when 2 or 3 people wanted to sled together.

Most of the time we used these trays that I may or may not have "borrowed" from the cafeteria. They worked great! =)

On the tray, ready to sled down! It was SO MUCH FUN.

This is a view from the park... gorgeous, isn't it?

After at least another hour and a half of sledding we got a bit cold, so we decided to head in for some hot chocolate (which was AMAZING). After we had all changed into drier clothes, we decided to brave the tube system (which had "severe" delays) and head to Westminster to see everything in the snow.

It was so beautiful! I won't bore you with tons of pictures of Parliament and Big Ben, but there were some great ones on our walk.

This is the walk by the Thames which has a view of Westminster Palace.

How pretty!

I think this is the best snowman I've ever seen. I'm kind of upset that this picture is blurry (it's of Vanessa and me), but maybe she'll have a better copy of it.

Here's Mr. Snowman with Westminster Palace behind him. Whoever built him has my thanks (and the thanks of many others -- there was a small line to take a picture with him).

When I got home I was exhausted, but very, very happy. What a wonderful day!

Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them! =) Until next time!

Time Flies

2009-02-01T13:22:00.017Z

I know it's been a while -- sorry! But here's a mini-novel to make up for it. Enjoy!

Last Sunday, I took a day trip to Bath and the Cotswolds. It was amazing! The weather was cold and rainy, but we managed to stay out of it most of the day. Our first stop was this traditional village called Castle Combe (pronounced "coom"). What a beautiful village!

We were able to spend about 45 minutes or so walking through the village. There was a beautiful church and tons of residential areas. One of the houses had biscuits for sale on a little table outside their front door. It was adorable. The houses seemed to be miniaturized. The doors were just slightly taller than me, so most men would have to duck to go inside.

Wouldn't it be nice if hotels in the US looked like this? I'm a complete sucker for hanging flowers, by the way. I will probably do that (and/or have flowers in a windowsill) when I get a house of my own.

After we wandered around the village, we piled back into the mini bus and drove to Bath, where we were able to spend 3 hours or so.

This is Bath Abbey -- so beautiful! We took a self-led walking tour of the Abbey.

Yours truly in front of Bath Abbey. If you look carefully behind me, you can see angels climbing up a ladder on either side of the window. Those really intrigued me.

The inside of Bath Abbey. This is a view of the West Window (it was even more impressive in real life!), which shows scenes from the Old Testament. The organist was playing while were there, which made the experience even better.

Afterwards, we visited the Roman Baths.

The baths were really great. You could see the steam rising from them (like I said before, it was cold and rainy) and there were statues looking over the Great Bath. The temple was begun in 60AD and the bathing complex was built up over the next 300 years. It was modified in the 12th and 16th centuries and is now housed in an 18th century building. It was incredible standing there because I felt like I was in history.

Water from the Baths is filtered to this drinking fountain. A glass of it came complimentary with our entrance fee. And no surprise -- it wasn't very tasty.

As usual, Monday was filled with classes. Yawn. But that night I went out with friends, which was fun. I played a few games of pool (I must say that I'm pretty good at it) and challenged Kevin to a few rounds of a race car arcade game. Luckily, you don't drive in the left hand lane (or on the right side of the car) in the game, because then I definitely would have ended up in last place. The night didn't end so well, partially because I lost my camera. But thankfully, the only pictures I lost were from that evening. Anyway, I looked everywhere for it and I'm pretty sure someone nicked it from the bar (that'll teach me). I bought a new camera right before our next day trip because I know that I can't survive here without one. Spending that kind of money on a stupid mistake is not a happy subject, so I'm moving on.

The next interesting thing I did was go out with friends to see a show on Thursday. We were going to see Oliver, but it was sold out. I'd still like to see Rowan Atkinson as Fagin, but we'll see if it works out. Instead, we all decided on Chicago! The show was incredible. It was pretty funny to hear them try to do American accents (imagine this: a bit of general American, a bit of Chicago, a bit of Southern, and a bit of an English accent peeking through). The performance itself was amazing. Seeing it live makes you really appreciate the physicality of the dancing in the show. I was more than impressed with the woman that played Roxie (I've got to say, I was never all that enthused with Renee Zellweger). What an amazing singer and dancer! The show was a great experience.

Later on Thursday night, my friend Vanessa came over for brownie therapy. If there's ever a problem in life, baking (especially brownies), can cure it. We made the most delicious imported brownies (thank you, Mom). I think they tasted better simply because they were "imported." Needless to say, they're completely gone by now. I had to be coerced into sharing with other people besides Vanessa and Kevin. Yum yum!!

Friday marks the return of pictures into my life. To mark the impending monthiversary of our time here in London, Kevin and I decided to hold an "Americana!" party. We made hot dogs, hamburgers, and french fries, decorated the house with red white and blue balloons, and invited a bunch of friends over to share in the fun.

Our song playlist had only American artists and all of the songs that included place names ("New York, New York," "Route 66," etc.) obviously incited a sing along. We invited American friends and a bunch of British friends we've met over our time here.

Vanessa and I at the party -- the carnage behind us is my kitchen. ;)

The party was a big success -- a bunch of people came for dinner and about 25 others came afterwards for the party. The English people liked being introduced to flip cup and beer pong, too. All in all, a great party. I think the next one (which someone else has agreed to host) is Mexicana. =)

That night I had to leave the party a few times to run some trumpet meetings back home. I ended up staying up until around 5am to talk to all the different classes about next year. It was definitely worth it because the meetings went well, but having to get up early the next morning was a bit taxing.

On Saturday morning, I woke up to go on a USC-funded trip to Stonehenge and Salisbury. A bunch of my friends here are from USC, so it was pretty fun to hang out with them there.

Stonehenge was great. I had Eddie Izzard's sketch stuck in my head the whole time. In all, it was "whelming." Not overwhelming, not underwhelming, just whelming. Almost exactly what I expected it to be: something I needed to see at some point in my life, but also not somewhere that I'd want to spend more than an hour (plus, it was freezing).

After Stonehenge, we drove to Salisbury. I did not have a steak for lunch, but I did have some excellent pizza! (We didn't see any advertisements for steak, otherwise I would have been tempted)

This is the best picture of the outside of Salisbury Cathedral that I was able to take. It was absolutely breathtaking, but there was some construction going on, so I couldn't get the whole cathedral in the picture without some scaffolding. I encourage you to look for pictures of Salisbury Cathedral online, though. It has the tallest spire in Britain and was built in 38 years, finishing in 1258. The most amazing part to me is that they still hold services.

The inside of the cathedral. It was astounding in its simplicity and beauty. Magnificent, really. It's been my favorite cathedral so far (even though I've only seen two here...).

We were also able to see one of the 4 remaining copies of the Magna Carta, but they didn't allow pictures. It was much smaller than I expected and there were no signatures on it that I could see. But there were translations nearby and it was really interesting to be able to see such an influential (and old!) document in person.

And on Sunday, she rested. But actually, I think I might see if anything fun is happening tonight (besides the fact that it's snowing!!!). If not, it looks like leftover burgers for me, haha!

Wax Patriotism

2009-01-23T11:36:00.009Z

Update update!

I don't want to say that things have been slowing down over here (because that's far from the truth), but classes are actually going on and I've had to do reading. Ugh. So less to write about (unless you'd like to hear about the theoretical bits of Public Economics -- and if you do, please go away because I don't want to talk about it).

My taco night with Kevin went well, I think he bought the hottest taco seasoning they had which turned out to be perfect because it was just bland enough for me. So tacos = amazing. I had been craving them, but we'll be making it again relatively soon because my avocados STILL aren't ripe after 5 1/2 days.

On Monday, I had classes and I wept at the thought of actually doing work. Why do they insist on cramping my style? This is my semester off! haha. But Kevin and I did bake cookies, which is always fun. I decided to go for homemade this time (partly because Matt has been making me feel guilty about not cooking from scratch and partly because the "buiscit powder" ones weren't so great).

This batch was questionable, but that was entirely the fault of their brown sugar being strange and too dark. I'm going to search for normal brown sugar and once that happens, I'll try again. Why are cookies so difficult in this country? haha

Tuesday marked the beginning of Obama's Presidency and it was interesting to see it from the British perspective. Although I remain decidedly neutral (he's a wonderful orator, but let's see what he actually gets done), the mood in the UK is very positive. And I'm very appreciative of that. It's a great time to be abroad! Obama doesn't have time to screw up too badly while I'm here and Europeans seem to be so glad that Bush is out of office that their goodwill is spilling on to their treatment of Americans. So I will gladly take their better attitudes (and the better exchange rate, which went down to $1.37 this week), thank you very much.

In this renewed spirit of goodwill, Madame Tussaud's let all Americans into the wax museum for free on Inauguration Day. It was packed with people just as rude and arrogant as myself (read: there were a lot of Americans), which was very refreshing. =) They had the inauguration live on two big projectors and we all stood in a 30 minute line to take a picture with Obama in the Oval Office.

Here, some cricketers are so famous that their likeness is forever preserved in wax. These figures were about 20 feet from Sir Isaac Newton. I'm taking that as a tribute to their relative importance.

Looking back, it was probably very foolish of me to have my neck that exposed next to Henry VIII...

There was an entire room dedicated to Daniel Craig and Dame Judi Dench -- and rightfully so.

After Madame Tussauds, I went to see Slumdog Millionaire (which is apparently up for 10 Oscars?). It was very good, but very heavy. If you're interested in devlopment like me (that's you, Dan), it's a good movie to see. It wasn't as much of a "feel good" movie as it claimed to be, but the Bollywood style dance-off at the end was great. On a side note, I think I want to see a Bollywood film while I'm here.

Whilst writing this (hell... when in Rome!), a "parcel" was delivered to my flat! For me! It's the first one and it's from my mom, so here's some live commentary. A care package... it feels like Freshman year all over again (no complaining). Sweethearts (aww. I wonder if they have them here), Popcorn, Easy Mac (oh how well she knows my cooking ability -- it's a good thing I've made friends who throw outrageous dinner parties), brownie and lemon bar mix (!!), a pan to cook them in (even better!!), tea (right-o!), a few more snacks, and a recipe for some good home cookin'. I'll thank you via skype, but here's another big thank you! xo

Wednesday was filled with classes, but I got some stuff done around the flat and went to a dance class that evening. As with ice skating, I am going to claim that I was the best one there. The instructor was in awe of my superb grace (read: I'm hoping that when they start a new dance next week, I won't have to struggle to keep up).

Yesterday, Sammy, Kevin and I went to the National Portrait Gallery. It wasn't as great as the V&A, but it held a bunch of really amazing paintings. Some of them were so intricate; the clothing, especially. We were able to see the originals of many paintings I've come across in classes (famous ones of Richard III, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, etc.), which was pretty interesting.

Afterwards, Kevin and I went on an adventure to an Indian restaurant (my first time!). We walked down the canal by campus and I agree with Kevin when he mentioned that it was the first time he felt like he actually lived in London. It wasn't in a touristy area by any means, nor was it in East End. On our way, there were apartments lining the canal and a park where people were playing football. It was nice to walk somewhere that wasn't right by campus. The restaurant itself was nice. They had indian music videos on loop the entire time and I've decided that they're much better (or at least funnier) than American ones. The food ended up being great, too (although I limited myself to the mildest parts of the menu).

Today will more than likely consist of me doing research for a presentation. It's rainy outside and I know I'll get used to it, but I actually have to get some reading done and I'd rather spend a rainy day inside than a sunny one.

Cultured

2009-01-18T12:36:00.013Z

I'm still loving life in London and trying to squeeze every bit of culture out of England that I can. That's not to say that the US doesn't have any culture, but I'm much more appreciative of it here and I love how nearly everything has a history. I've never explored LA like I've been exploring London. I may try to blame that on its lack of public transportation, but the reality is that I just haven't been as interested.

My architecture class has field trips every other week and our first one was to Parliament on Wednesday. For those interested, it was built from 1836 to 1868 in the English Gothic Revival style of architecture. What was interesting to me is that they tried to make it look similar to Westminster Abbey (right across the street) which was renovated in the Gothic style the 14th century. See, I'm learning things. =)

After our trip to Parliament a group of my friends and I went to the Cabinet War Rooms and the Churchill Museum. It was incredible... they kept the Cabinet War Rooms exactly as they had been in WWII (well, except for the wax figures). Even the maps are just as they left them.

The blue yarn on the right shows the German advancement in January, 1945.

The Cabinet War Rooms are connected to the Churchill Museum, both of which are under ground near Parliament and the PMs house.

Churchill's childhood tin soldier set. I was hoping for a plain white flag for the Frenchman in the back.

Churchill Fights On! [Tangent: USC's use of the Victory sign to mean "Fight On" dates back to WWII. Also, USC President Von Kleinsmid wrote in 1944 that "Fight On!" was played to inspire troops in the Aleutian Campaign.]

The entire museum was amazing and I couldn't help but think of Papa the entire time I was there -- it was really something he would have enjoyed. It's been one of the most interesting places I've seen here and I easily could have spent another few hours in there.

On Thursday I made British friends -- hooray! A guy from orchestra invited me to a dinner party he was throwing (homemade soup, roast duck in red wine sauce, and chocolate mousse = delicious), so I got to meet a bunch of his friends. It was really fun to On a side note, the use of the word "whilst" in everyday conversation never ceases to make me smile.

On Friday, my American friends and I went to a comedy club called the Banana Cabaret. It was standing room only, but well worth it. The comedians were great and we're definitely planning another trip back there (and to some other comedy clubs as well). Cheap (and great!) entertainment is always nice!

Yesterday I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum with a bunch of friends. It was really great -- they have an exhibit on the Tsars of Russia that I'm going to go back to visit. Here are some of my favorite things.

"Athlete Fighting a Python." I thought his eyes were somehow intense. Definitely my favorite statue at the museum.

I made a detour to the Musical Instruments room (surprised? I didn't think so). They had an entire floor of beautiful harpsichords, old guitars, a few lyres, brass instruments, and tons more.

The "serpent," an old woodwind instrument with a brass mouthpiece. Straaaaange.

Fancy? An old cornet from the 1830s... I think it'd be really hard to tune, haha.

The girls and I also spent a lot of time in the jewelry room, for obvious reasons.

So pretty! They had some jewelry from BC and a large collection dating from the 1300s to the present... I definitely would have been happy spending a few hours there.

After the museum, I went ice skating again, this time with my British friends. I was going backwards and doing a few tricks. Actually, that's a lie... but since I'm the one writing, you'll never know how bad I am. ;)

Here's a fun story: after skating, we all decided to warm up in a pub for a bit. We found a nice one by Liverpool Street and Matt pointed out that the pub was "older than my country." Everyone thought that was really funny. But when we went in they told us it was going to close in 15 minutes, so I pointed out that in my city, nothing ever closes. =)

So that's it! I'm having a taco party with Kevin tonight. We've been craving Mexican food (and seasoning in general), so we managed to find salsa and a taco kit. I bought avocados yesterday, but they won't be ready... they're quite possibly the least ripe avocados I've ever seen. I give them 2 weeks until they're able to be made into guacamole.

Peeved, Pubs, and Poltergeists

2009-01-14T11:07:00.001Z

Let's start with a synopsis of this morning. At some ungodly hour (7:45am? Whenever it was, it was far to early to be coherent), the fire alarms went off in my building. I was warned that this was a regular occurrence at QMUL (we have sensitive fire alarms) and was hoping that God would favor my sleeping habits by preventing them this semester.

This is a notice on the door to my bathroom. I'd hate to be the person that set it off by taking a hot shower. In a towel, outside in the cold? No thanks. Today was a drill, so that meant we had to listen to a half hour lecture outside in the cold (I was smart and grabbed a coat and fuzzy slippers as I went out the door). Needless to say, that drained all of the time I leave to ignore my alarm and get that extra half an hour of sleep (that's the best part... you appreciate the sleep more). So with that gone, I had to hurry to get to class at 9. Boo.

I'm really looking forward to the rest of the semester in my Global Development class and my EU Integration class. I've got to say, the Politics lecturers here are really great so far. Econ... not so much. But oh well, Architecture is looking to be a fun "class" (I say that because every other lecture we have a field trip, hooray!).

Last Saturday marked my first week in London, so I decided to commemorate that occasion by going SHOPPING. Hooray! I didn't buy much (mostly because I'm cheap), but it was fun walking around Oxford Circus for a bit. I think the trip can best be showcased by this picture.

That's it, guys. I don't have to take any more pictures while I'm here because I can't get any more touristy than that (haha, that's a lie -- I love taking pictures too much to ever stop).

My friend and I got back from shopping and decided to spend a few hours going over guidebooks to see where we wanted to go in London while we're here. So we stopped by an inviting pub near campus, ordered a drink, and got to work on our guidebooks (and if you don't think it's work, I still have over a hundred pages more to go through on one of the books). Anyway, some nice old Scottish man took an interest in us, bought us two rounds of drinks each, and told us to stay away from the other "pricks" at the bar and to keep out of trouble. Although we appreciated the sentiment, we left - drunk - in a hurry before he could buy us another round (it was only 7 by that time). All in all, a great (and cheap!) first pub experience.

Sunday's big adventure was grocery shopping at Sainsbury's (riveting, I know). But it taught me never to trust bus drivers. We walked the mile there to save money and decided to take the bus back to campus with our armloads of groceries.

"Excuse me, do you stop at Queen Mary?"
"Yes."
"Thanks!" All of us pile in. A few minutes later we couldn't recognize anything, so I went to the front of the bus.
"Sorry, but have we passed the Queen Mary?"
"Where is that?"
(insert blank, appalled look). "It's on Mile End."
"Oh, then it's not on my route. Also, you and your friends need to pay for the bus fare. I enjoy preying on associate students laden with groceries because I know they're desperate for a bus and will believe me if I say I'm headed their direction."

All of that conversation is accurate, save the last two sentences. That's my bit of poetic license. But we did have to pay the fare, walk to the nearest tube station (that's all we trusted at that point), and make our way slowly back to campus, at which point I made a delicious salmon dinner, had some ice cream, and felt better about life.

Mondays will consistently be boring, as I have class all day. So nothing to note there besides the fact that I actually made it to my classes this week (yay?).

Yesterday I had my first orchestra practice. One of the guys let me borrow his cornet and ended up directing the band (the conductor was out), so I was the only trumpet. The band is small and... well, horrible. But at least my chops won't wither away and die! And I'll get to play lead, which is a better setup than concert band back home. Also, it's not stuffy and serious (which is just annoying) because there's no music school at QMUL and the people in orchestra are just goofing around.

Last night a bunch of us took a Ghost Tour of London, centered around St. Paul's Cathedral. It was a pretty interesting tour, lots of stories about executions, prisons, unfaithful husbands and wives, people who were hung drawn and quartered, and (usually) friendly poltergeists. My favorite was an old priest who would make a racket when he didn't enjoy the choice of music (or the performance).

Which brings us back to the present. I've got one more class today, an architecture field trip to the House of Parliament, and a tour of the Cabinet War Room with friends afterwards.

... cheers!

Recap

2009-01-10T01:15:00.015Z

It's been a few days and a LOT has been going on. I'll keep it brief (well, for me):

I went to an orientation dinner and a show with a bunch of USC students studying at Queen Mary (I think there are 28 of us total). It was nice to get to know some of them better and 39 Steps at the Criterion was great. The show was hilarious and the acting was incredible.

Afterwards, a few of us wandered around Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square for a bit... it was so cold that some of the fountains froze over.

The next night, I took a boat tour on the Thames with the all of the study abroad students at QMUL. The view was great, but the highlight of the tour was definitely the disco floor on the boat. We danced for hours and had a wonderful time. =)

Last night, I went ice skating with friends at the Tower of London. The ice rink was put where the moat used to be (it was drained in the 1800s when they realized that the dirty water was a cause of cholera... now you can't say I haven't learned anything while I'm in London).

They still had Christmas music playing, which made it even better. I mean, it's hard to beat recreational ice skating at the site of tortures and executions. But seriously, the tourist in me was really excited.

Here's the picture of our group. Most of us are awesome and from USC.

Today I slept in (hey, I had a busy week) and finally got a phone. Hooray! Afterwards, Kevin and I took touristy pictures of the London Eye, the Palace of Westminster, and Big Ben.

The London Eye. I've got to say... I'm particularly fond of this photo.

Big Ben. Also, that's not the moon -- that's definitely Tinkerbell.

In front of the Palace of Westminster.

The Palace of Westminster reflected in the River Thames.

Lots of pictures, I know... Tonight my fingers were so numb that I actually couldn't tell if I was pushing the button or not. I'm surprised they turned out as well as they did. ;)

Busses and Biscuits

2009-01-06T02:20:00.008Z

The bus tour of London was great. Some of the pictures from the bus weren't the best, but we were able to get out a few times and see some really great sights. Here are my favorite pictures...

Tower Bridge! Ok, I'm pretty much in love with this picture. Awesome! I'm really glad it didn't rain that day.

In front of Buckingham Palace. They still had Christmas decorations up - there was a beautiful tree in the doorway. =)

The traditional picture with the guards. I think I'll visit them again when it's warmer... I'm pretty sure they wear the gray coats when it's cold? Also, you can't really tell, but they've replaced their muskets with bazookas... or something close to it.

Today marked the beginning of classes for me. I've had to change my schedule a bit (QM has this nasty habit of changing peoples class times without telling them and making it near impossible to find the room your class is located in), but I think that everything is settled now. If things stay the way they are, I won't have classes on Thursdays or Fridays. Yay!

After classes, I went on another shopping adventure with a bunch of orientation friends to buy towels, dishes, etc., and walked the mile and a half back to campus (awkwardly) with them. It was a rather unpleasant experience, but my first "homecooked" dinner was fantastic.

Yes: pizza, cookies, and cherry coke. But to be fair, Kevin (one of my flatmates) and I did bake the frozen pizza ourselves. As a side note, there is no cookie dough in England. They don't sell it in dough form, I could only find it as "biscuit powder." And who would think to ask for "biscuit powder?" The person working at the store had no idea what cookie dough was. British children are deprived - I loved sneaking cookie dough from the fridge! Powder just doesn't do it for me.

A final note before I go to bed. Kevin and I have decided that 2 of our mystery flatmates do not exist and the third is named B. Smythe (named for his residency in room B), a midget secret agent whose drink of choice is strawberry daiquiris.

Night!

Arrival

2009-01-04T09:29:00.004Z

I'm finally in London! I've been looking forward to this day for so long, but it seems like I haven't had the chance to fully appreciate it... being incredibly busy with school and finals and Rose Bowl week nearly deprived me of that opportunity.

Yet here I sit, drinking coffee out of my new Queen Mary mug, sitting in my flat just before orientation. Hooray!

I'm all unpacked and had a relatively smooth trip to England (disregarding a minor hold up at customs). I've met 2 of my flatmates - both study abroad students as well - and took a shopping trip to get some essentials. Unfortunately, I'm still in need of a towel. That made this morning's shower interesting, to say the least.

This is a picture of the very front of my apartment building. The door off in the distance is my stairwell. I'll put a picture up of my room once it's done being decorated - I have yet to learn the British term for "thumb tack," and have gotten strange looks from the clerks I asked to point me in that direction, so right now my cork board is sad and empty.

More later, but for now I'm off to Orientation and a bus tour of London! =)