Our Brighton trip was awesome! We got on the train Friday evening, checked into our hotel, and headed out for some sushi. We ended up having a pretty fun evening that ended in a gay bar with performing drag queens! The next day we got to see a bit of the parade since it was the Brighton festival. Lots of kids all dressed up, which reminded me of the Los Gatos parades that I don't get to see anymore :( We then headed over to the Pavillion, which is a Georgian Palace. It has an Indian-inspired exterior and a Chinese-inspired interior so it's not the typical royal palace. The grand insides were awesome and the audio guide was one of the best I've heard. Lots of juicy details about the royals that lived there over the years! We headed to the rocky beach afterwards and hung out on the lounge chairs. We then headed to the pier to check out the rides. It was a mix of modern rides and attractions with what looked like some architecture from the early 1900s. After that, we headed to The Lanes which is a shopping area. Then it was time for a nap before a Mexican dinner. The next day we hopped on the train at 11am and headed back. Brighton definitely reminds me of San Francisco a bit since it's on the ocean, has a large gay community, and has a fun pier/wharf area!
I was able to get to Portobello Road with Katherine, Alex's friend from American University in Washington D.C. Then it was our farewell dinner with GSE which was delicious Indian food. The next day was Ashley's last day so we went to Spitalfield market, got Wagamama for lunch and Italian for dinner.
Monday I went to the Victoria and Albert museum with Jamie and then went to the ORIGINAL Hard Rock Cafe and saw "The Vault" where they have all their priceless guitars. Afterwards we went to our first pub quiz night, where we came in last place :( Oh well, it had a British bias! We didn't grow up here!
Tuesday, Wednesday, and today have been just running errands, turning in assignments, and studying for anatomy. I finished printmaking and computer programming assignments, now all that is left is an anatomy exam tomorrow. I need to go in and pick up my prints and get feedback, and then that's completely it! This last week will be used to pack and see the last museums and such that I didn't get to.
Thursday, 14 May 2009
Sunday, 26 April 2009
Spring Break WOOO!!!
Our journey began on 4/3 at 3am, after I had about two hours of sleep. I was frantically ditching shirts as the taxi arrived because I KNEW I had overpacked. And I discovered that I was very right-my bag was pretty heavy at first and I think I didn’t even wear a shirt or two. We flew out of Stansted airport where Ryan Air was SO very helpful about what line to be in…not. Ryan got searched and relieved of all his toiletries. We didn’t have our gate yet so we stopped by Boots and Starbucks for supplies and then waited at the gate. Erin was smart and got priority boarding so we got an exit room with more leg room. The flight was only an hour though, and I slept through basically the whole thing. We got money as soon as we deplaned and took a bus to Hamburg. It was crowded so we ended up standing the whole 45 minutes. Good thing it was only 9 euro. We left our luggage at the train station and started walking in search of lunch. One thing I’ve learned from my travels? Never judge a city by its train station. They’re usually pretty sketchy, and this doesn’t reflect on the city as a whole! We learned this quickly when we walked out in the wrong direction and discovered we were surrounded by sex shops and the like. We figured out that the center of town was the OTHER way and quickly got out of there. We got some Italian for brunch and walked around and saw lots of towers, the Rathaus (town hall), and canals and bridges. We went to the museum which had sections on naval history, the Holocaust, culture, fashion, music, and trains. We definitely needed lots of coffee to keep up going after that early flight! We also took a little nap in the grass outside the museum-it was a perfect day for it. We went to what the map said was the largest fair in Northern Germany and had fun checking out the rides and eating Bratwurst! There was also this Renaissance-fair like area that had this hardcore bagpipe band. We caught some of them on a youtube video, and thus started a tradition of recording street music wherever we went. We then got on the train, where we discovered our tickets were first class-score! Erin had won these passes on a Facebook contest. We found a hostel for two nights and figured out the underground system to get there. We ended up having our own room.
The next day in Berlin we took a 3 ½ hour free walking tour. The guides just work off tips, and ours was a guy named George. When we were organizing for our walk, I saw one of the guys in my Art in London class and said hey. Small world! We saw so much in those few hours and learned a whole lot about the city’s fascinating history. Afterwards we HAD to get Haagen Dazs because they had free wifi. Then we did things in reverse and got some Mexican food. We made some German friends in the lobby who I tried to converse with in my broken German and then we checked out the scene in Orianienburger strasse.
On the 5th we left our bags at the train station and went to the Ancient History museums at Museumsinsel. We got to see the Ishtar gate! After that, it was time to head off to Prague. We got there and Erin randomly found her roommate at the McDonalds at the train station! We then successfully navigated our way to the hostel on the subway and tram systems. The hostel we stayed at was probably one of our favorites because it was really new and clean and had free wifi and a comfortable lounge area. The guy at reception was really nice and wanted to know about California since he wants to move to LA. We named him Joaquin Pattinson since he looked like a Joaquin Phoenix/Robert Pattinson lovechild. He told us about a club to go to…I’ll just say I REALLY felt like I was in the Czech Republic when I was there. We had a married couple and two American girls as roommates in our dorm. The girls had just met on the train.
The next day we had breakfast at the hostel, which was pretty good. We met a woman at breakfast that was anxious to leave Prague because she had an ex-boyfriend that she tried to visit and all sorts of drama ensued. We saw her again on the subway later. We took the tram and subway into town again and took a long walk through the Old Town Square, Old Jewish Cemetery, Charles Bridge, and the palace and cathedral on the hill. We stopped to go inside the Old Jewish Cemetery museum. The cemetery itself has graves going back to the 1300s and is really interesting looking with headstones going every which way because of all the layers of graves. The cathedral had beautiful stained glass windows. After we were all done with the palace grounds, we stopped to sit up on top of the hill and could see how far we walked and were quite impressed with ourselves. We were also able to eat at a restaurant right along the river and the weather was perfect for it. We had a funny moment when we were walking past a shop and one of the employees was yelling out from the door about sales etc. He takes one look at us and goes “You must be from California!” What it is about us?! How could he tell?!
The next morning we continued our trend of meeting nice people at the hostel breakfast by chatting with an Australian guy. We left our bags at the train station and headed to the National Gallery only to find that it’s close on the first Tuesday of every month for a “sanitary day”. Of course. So we just strolled down their more modern business district and had lunch on the main square. There was lots going on and they had a big market because it was close to Easter. We went up one of the towers and got lots of great shots of the city. We grabbed some gelato and ran into Erin’s roommate again. We wandered a bit more and hit up a grocery store for supplies before parking it in a Starbucks to use their wireless again. We got caught in one of our few rainstorms of the trip before having a pretty fancy dinner. Then we got on our first sleeper train and had a lot of fun trying to make the beds into seats and vice versa. The set up was pretty much three bunk beds on one side, and a sink and closet area on the other side.
On the 8th we arrived in Krakow. We all had a bad night’s sleep because of the bumpy ride. We had a hard time figuring out where to get our tickets to Vienna (the next stop), managed to mess up the locker and pay twice, and Ryan somehow lost his tour ticket but they believed him and gave him another. We had time to get a big buffet breakfast before heading out on our tour. It was about a 1 ½ hour bus from Krakow to Auschwitz and Buchenwald. We had a tour guide that showed us around the camps as well as inside the buildings. It’s hard to put into words the kind of things you feel when you’re there but I’ll try with a few impressions that I got. When the guide would state the facts and numbers about Auschwitz I would sometimes uncontrollably get the chills. When she would state how many people died in Auschwitz I just uncontrollably felt the gravity of the fact that this happened HERE. That this WAS the Holocaust since Auschwitz killed the most people. Seeing the original furnaces that they used to burn the bodies and the actual firing wall where executions took place was really hard. Another moment took my breath away-when you first walk into one room, you see a small display case of shoes. Then, unsuspectingly, you round the corner and see this whole massive ROOM of shoes. THEN, the tour guide told us that this was the amount of shoes of the people they killed in Auschwitz in ONE WEEK. I couldn’t believe it. The amount of people became very real when you could see a representation of it. The second half of the tour was at Buchenwald, which is just a few minutes away. There, most of the barracks are gone because they were wood instead of brick. All that was left was smokestacks as far as the eye could see. That camp really helped to visualize just how many people were at the camp at one time. The guide showed us the blown up gas chamber there that is still just a pile of rubble and probably looks very much like it did right after it was exploded. Another thing that surprised me was that the camps were open to visitors just two years after the war ended. There is also a large monument to all those killed there as well. You could see the train tracks that led through the camp and we were told that they extended the tracks straight to the gas chambers so that they could kill people faster. That kind of cold, calculated way of thinking how they could kill more efficiently was absolutely frightening and chilling. Overall, not a happy stop but I think really important to see.
When we got back to Krakow, I had to have pirogues…too bad it was in a mall. We then walked around the city center, wall, and park. We were pretty worn out after our long day and bad night of sleep so we hung out at a café before it was time for our train to Vienna. We were awoken when the train crossed the border into Austria by “*knockknockknock* AUSTRIAN POLICE! PASSPORTS!” When the border police guy saw our passports he was all “California! Arnold Schwarzenegger is a good president of California!” It was quite hilarious. I stupidly didn’t shower the night before and neither our night train to Vienna nor the train station had showers so we were pretty grubby. We really backpacked it and just sucked it up and washed our hair in the sink to tide us over! We took the U Bahn to the city center and came out right under the big cathedral. We got some breakfast and then headed to the Natural History Museum, which was a lot of fun. By the time we were done with that and took a nap in the park, the art museum was open so we checked that out. Then I was satisfied with lunch because I finally got wienerschnitzel (breaded veal cutlet) and sacher torte (rich chocolate cake). We walked around the city some more and ended up in a park where we saw a little kid get hit by a bike! A kid around age 13 or so was riding his bike where he wasn’t supposed to and smacked into this probably 2 or 3 year old who promptly started crying. We were all kind of in shock but couldn’t do anything. The 13 year old looked like he felt SO bad. After that we just kept walking around the city center and all the Mozart-themed tourist traps and street performers. The weather was great again so we ended up by a fountain in a park. We were a little shocked when we got to the train to find we were in a car with SIX beds, no sink or closet. Luckily we were with three very nice Columbian girls but it was pretty cramped!
Once we were in Venice we were so glad to get a hostel and SHOWER right away. Venice is a great city for just walking around and getting lost, so we did just that. I was so excited for the Italian food and it didn’t disappoint! We must have been exhausted after all the night trains and we took around a 3-4 hour nap! We went to Santa Margherita square and met some American military guys who were really excited to find some other young Americans. Somehow, we ended up playing beer pong in Venice! I don’t know how we get ourselves into these things…
The next day was the 11th and we went to the main San Marco square again and inside the Basilica. Then we trekked on over to the Guggenheim exhibit which had really nice grounds as well. We went to a recommended restaurant for dinner that had nice food but we got a really pissy waitress who wouldn’t bring our bill after like a half hour and asking twice. We had to resort to asking another waitress! Too bad that kinda spoiled the evening for us. For the rest of the trip the service was fine though.
The next day was Easter so I went to San Marco for mass, all in Italian of course. But it’s a Catholic mass, so I got the gist. It was amazing to go to mass in such a huge, beautiful basilica. It was surprisingly uncrowded so everyone must have assumed that everyone else was going there for Easter and avoided it. After I got back, we checked out and headed to Florence. There weren’t many hostels available (we were booking as we went) but we ended up at this villa kind of outside the city. It was really pretty! It was a little difficult to get to though because public transportation was closed on Easter. Besides getting to airports, it was the only taxi we took the entire time, I think, so it wasn’t so bad. We ended up staying at the Villa that night and ate a kinda cafeteria-style dinner and sat our on the porch and read.
The next day we made friends with a guy named Andreas. He’s 19, from New Mexico, and taking a year off between high school and going to college at Emory. He came with us as we did our usual touristy stuff all day. We went to the center and checked out the Duomo, baptistery, and famous golden doors. Déjà vu! We walked over the Ponte Vecchio a couple of times and went to the Uffizi where they have The Birth of Venus. We kept moving throughout the day and just grabbed pizza and kebabs and hung out back at the Villa.
The next day we tried to go to the Academia but they wouldn’t take our bags and there was a long line at the train station to drop off bags that would have made us miss our appointment so we decided to just get on the train. It’s okay though because we went to the Academia last time we were in Florence so I can say I’ve seen The David once in my life. We took two trains to the Cinque Terre. We went straight to Manarola, where our hostel was situated up on the hill. It was a sustainable hostel which means there was organic food, we had to take short showers etc. Our roommates turned out to be our twins! One was from Pittsburgh, and one was from Frederick, Maryland (where Erin, one of my travel mates was from). They kept tossing around names of people they went to high school with. We checked out the town and ate at a (Rick Steves approved) restaurant with them before hanging out at the dock area and watching the sunset. We sat out on the porch and chatted with them and Ryan’s roommate, Edward, who was from Portugal.
The next day we emailed Jamie to make Amsterdam plans and then headed out to check out the other towns. We hiked up the 300 and something steps to Corneglia. Then we went to Monterosso and laid out on the beach. I gathered up the courage to jump in the Mediterranean which was actually not that bad for April! We went to Levanto before heading back to Vernazza where we ran into our friends again and ended up having dinner with them again.
The next day it was rainy so we decided to head straight to Milan where we would catch a train to Amsterdam. We booked a sleeper and this time specified a private sleeper instead of a 6 person “couchette” like we got when we shared with the Colombian girls. We dropped our bags off and then took the Metro to Milan’s city center and just walked around and ate for a couple hours while waiting for our train. We saw their Duomo and walked through the Galleria area. People definitely are better dressed in Milan! We headed off on our 14 hour train trip to meet up with Jamie.
We figured out Amsterdam’s trams after awhile and made it to the hostel. I got an omelet for lunch which made me extremely happy. Erin had a mix-up when paying and somehow lost a 50 euro note, which sucked. And poor Ryan was really sick and couldn’t stop sneezing! So he went back and took a nap while Jamie and I went to the Anne Frank house. It was really amazing to be in the area where she hid-I felt claustrophobic after an hour, I couldn’t imagine never leaving that place for months! They had her original diary there, which was really cool. Ryan still wasn’t feeling well when we got back to the hostel so it became a girls night. We had Chinese for dinner and then kind of wandered around the Red Light District, just taking it all in. You have to see it at least once if you’re in Amsterdam! Prostitution is legal and regulated there, and the girls rent out a window that they stand in as people walk by. It’s really strange and I felt like I was in the locker room and shouldn’t stare. Definitely a unique experience!
The next day Jamie left early and we went out for breakfast near the Anne Frank museum. The canals in Amsterdam are really pretty but of course very different than the kind in Venice. Ryan and I went to the Van Gogh Museum which was really amazing. Van Gogh was one of my first favorite artists and it was amazing to see so many recognizable pieces in person! We had to switch hostels and then we grabbed Mexican for lunch/dinner and everyone split up to do their own thing. I went back down to the area near the museums and wandered back up towards the Spui neighborhood and the main Dam square. Walking around alone on a Saturday evening was kind of an experience since I got talked to by weird people twice.,.one that tried to steal my waffle and one that started singing “Baby you can drive my car”. Yeah. I got back to the hostel and we took Ryan out to see everything, which probably made the poor guy more sick.
The next day we got breakfast at the hostel, checked out, booked our last train, and dropped our bags. We hung out at the Vondelpark until it was time to go. We took two trains…to the wrong airport. We all just knew we were flying out of Dusseldorf but had no idea there were two airports! So we had to take 180 Euro cab ride to the other. Then once we got there, Ryan found out he had booked the wrong flight, one that was for the morning so he had missed it and had to buy another flight. Our trip went really smoothly up until the end! Our flight was pretty quick-technically it was only 10 minutes because of the time change! We took the Stanstead express back to the tube and got home and collapsed.
I got sick basically as we were getting home, and spent pretty much Monday through Thursday in bed. I had a bad fever and then just felt bad, couldn’t eat, had a runny nose and cough. I went to the doctor but it was just a flu pretty much. I felt a lot better by Friday so I went out to the park and enjoyed the weather with some friends. Then yesterday was GSE’s Cambridge trip. It was really cool because some of the students were graduating so we saw them in their robes. We mainly just walked around all the colleges and heard a bit about the history from our organizer, Mike, because he grew up in Cambridge. We saw the “punting” on the river which is kind of like gondola rides where they push the boats with long sticks. We also went into the chapel at Kings and shopped around the markets. All in all, it was a good day. As soon as I got back I passed out for about 6 hours until 1 in the morning! I hung out with people for a couple hours and then went back to bed until 10am, which definitely helped my cough. Today we went out for Spanish food for brunch which was quite tasty. I booked my flight home today for May 22nd, which is basically the latest that I can stay! I can’t believe it’s coming up so fast! I’m going to try to get as much studying done as quickly as possible so I can have some time to enjoy London!
Gold star if you read all that!
Monday, 20 April 2009
Catching up to spring break
Whew, I have a lot to catch up on. I promise that for the next few weeks that I'm here I won't leave such a huge gap between entries. It's crazy that I'm only here for a little bit longer though! I think my finals are done May 15th or so. I'm still figuring out the dates of my last classes (the UK system does final assignments, "revisions", and last classes kinda confusingly for a newbie). After I do that, I can finalize what I'm doing this summer, and book a ticket home. But now to dive in WAY back. Dates might get fuzzy, but I'm sure you'll forgive me.
On 2/25 we celebrated Frank's 25th birthday. He turned 25 on the 25th and I turned 21 on the 21st! He's a friend of my New York friends because they're all doing a Sports Management masters program. Of course, we went to The Sports Cafe because they're Sports Management. Then we headed over to one of our favorite places, Tiger Tiger. Definitely a fun night.
On the 27th a group of us went to a delicious Italian restaurant in Piccadilly Circus and then hung out at The Rocket. On the 29th I came down with a bad flu/cold. It ended up being quite the saga because it turned into strep throat, I got the wrong antibiotics which prolonged the agony, and then by the time I got new ones, I had an eye infection. I was basically sick for two weeks and missed out on celebrating St. Patrick's Day, which sucked! I was able to make it to programming but I skipped my morning class on Tuesday to try to get better. That night I was able to plan spring break a little bit at least.
On 3/4 I was feeling a little better so I had crepes with Sheena, worked out, napped, and was able to go to the GSE event which was Fulham vs. Hull City. The game wasn't that great, but I got a taste of what English football is all about! The cheers were great and completely from the crowd, with no prompting like they do in the states.
The next day was my second Human Structure and Function practical which was all about measuring parameters of the respiratory system. We celebrated Allie's 21st birthday with our English friends with a marathon-Roadhouse to Stables (where I saw Mischa Barton, omg celebrity sighting!) to Barfly to The Big Chill. Definitely a fun night and I hope she had a good birthday.
The next day we took the train to Edinburgh as a part of a GSE event. We checked into our hotel and had an Italian dinner and checked out the neighborhood nightlife. The Scottish music was fun! The next day we grabbed breakfast at the hotel and walked to Waverly Bridge to catch a tour bus. The tour guide was barely understandable but I caught the gist of the history of the city. We sat outside on the top of the bus which was pretty windy, which probably contributed to me getting sick again. We went to the Edinburgh Castle which was just as cool as I remember (we went to Edinburgh when dad was working in Bath). We did some souvenir shopping and had a late lunch around the Royal Mile. We explored and walked back home because I needed a nap. We had some pretty good Mexican food and (expensive) margaritas for dinner. We walked out to George Street but it started pouring so we soon were taking a taxi home. Strangely, we met two separate forty year old Scottish women that both had 4 year olds. It was awesome talking to them and one prescribed a "hot toddy" for me which she said would help with my cold since it was acting up pretty bad. Nice ladies! In the morning I tried the full Scottish breakfast which included haggis. I would basically describe it as peppery grease. I knew it was something gross, but I'm glad I wasn't told it was sheep guts until after I ate it! We then hopped a train home, which took about four hours.
When I got home I met Sheena's Barbados friend David who had been visiting. I caught up with everyone after the long weekend and got some groceries. I spent some time in bed watching Knocked Up since I was sick again. I found out that my friend from CMU, JW, was coming to London for his spring break and was going to crash at my place on Tuesday.
The next day I went on a hunt for new headphones since mine broke and went to this place called Argos. It was really different from any place we have in the states because its like a modern version of a general store. You pick what you want from a catologue, write down the number, and then present it to the clerk and pay. Then you wait for someone to bring your item up to the front. After class, I picked JW up at Kings Cross station and brought him over to Nido and introduced him to people. We then headed over to O'Neils to see Liverpool beat Madrid. We walked around Angel a bit before calling it a night.
On 3/11 I finally got a doctors appointment (but would later find out I got the wrong antibiotics once I didn't respond to them). I was dissapointed to find out that GirlTalk tickets were sold out. He's a DJ from Pittsburgh that I really wanted to see, but someday I will! I met up with Erin down by where she lives and we did some spring break planning. Then we met up with the gang at Lock Tavern in Camden because Ryan's friend works there.
The next day I mainly rested up and tried to get better and then in the evening we THOUGHT we were seeing Friday the 13th….but had actually bought tickets for the next day. DOH.
The next day I hung out with JW on his last day. We went to Pizza Express and saw the West End play, Three Days of Rain with James McAvoy. It was SO GOOD. Good writing, good acting. And now I’m completely in love with James McAvoy. Mainly because after the show, all the actors came out in support of a charity foundation. One of them said that James usually warms up by doing handstands and that he was going to do one and if he stays up five seconds, we should donate 5 pounds, if he stays up 10 seconds, we should donate 10 pounds etc. James looked like he TOTALLY didn’t know this was going to happen but was a good sport and did it anyway. The entire play he had an American accent but he said ONE thing with his normal Scottish accent before he did the handstand and it was quite exciting J. I then met up with Ashley and her friend AGAIN to finally see Friday the 13th. Jared Padalecki (from Supernatural, one of my favorite shows) was in it, and Ashley actually knows one of the actresses in it because they lived on the same street and are Facebook friends! Haha.
I desperately needed some new jeans because my only pair were ripping at the seams so I set out with the roomie, Sheena. As soon as we got out, we realized that the weather was super nice so we took a detour to Regent’s Park, walked around, got some coffee, and laid in the sun for a bit. We then went to Oxford Circus and I got some jeans at H&M. Sheena had a ton of spring break visa issues for her Barbados passport because she couldn’t get appointments in time, there were all these complications and paperwork, and was constantly on the phone and getting nowhere. It totally sucked because she had to scrap the spring break she was planning and plan a new one to countries that didn’t require visas. But it all worked out because her mom came and visited and she went to Istanbul and Switzerland.
Once my antibiotics had also run out and my throat still looked bad, I made another appointment and got the right antibiotics. Things cleared up and I felt a lot better quickly.
Then there, were a couple of weekend trips in quick succession.
GSE had a day trip to Oxford and Stratford. We took a bus out to Oxford and had a guided walking tour. We saw plenty of Harry Potter landmarks and decided to have a traditional meat pasty for lunch. Lots of reference to Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and plenty of old houses at odd angles as well! We also ended up checking out the science museum which had a lot of old navigation equipment. We then hopped back on the bus and went to Stratford upon Avon. We stopped at the Hathaway Cottage first, which is where Anne Hathaway (Shakespeare’s wife) and her family lived from about 1400-1900. Really low doorways, creaking floors, and the typically whitewashed walls and thatched roof look that you’d expect of an English countryside cottage. The gardens were really pretty too! We then went to the town of Stratford itself and walked around the main area and got some fish and chips along the riverside. We walked over to the church where Shakespeare is buried and saw his grave. We found a really pretty landscaped garden with a lot of flowers in full bloom and hung around there before we realized we had to figure out where the heck the bus was! I definitely napped on the way home after that long day.
The next weekend a few of us had an Ireland trip planned. We got in late the first night so we barely had time for the guys to pick us up in the (stick shift! Driven on the left side of the road!) rental car, check into our hostel (where we discovered we had one roommate, Mike from Pennsylvania), and check out the Temple Bar area we were staying in before it was time to get back to bed. The next morning Danielle and I took a stroll around the area and took some pictures. We gathered up all our stuff and walked to where the guys reparked the rental car that morning….and discovered the car was missing. After an intense “DUDE WHERE’S OUR CAR???” moment, we figured out that the guys had parked illegally…it stated so right there on the sign. DOH. So we had to figure out who to call and paid our 80 euro fine over the phone by credit card and they told us where we could find our clamped car and that someone would be by soon to unclamp it. Once we FINALLY got moving, we started our journey to Galway. Once we finally got there, it was worth it because the Cliffs of Moher were absolutely gorgeous. Everyone was making me nervous by walking so close to the edge though! Of course, we found an American bar in Galway and Danielle and Sheena rode the mechanical bull! Much hilarity ensued. The next day we drove back to Dublin and checked out the grounds of Malahide castle, which were gorgeous. The sun was starting to set so we had fun frolicking around. Ireland had just won a rugby championship that they hadn’t won since 1948 and also won a big boxing match, so everyone was in a pretty good mood back in Dublin! The guys had a super early flight that they missed, and I nearly lost my iPhone in the rental car but they recovered it, luckily. But we all got home in one piece!
That was pretty much it before spring break, but that’s the next entry!
On 2/25 we celebrated Frank's 25th birthday. He turned 25 on the 25th and I turned 21 on the 21st! He's a friend of my New York friends because they're all doing a Sports Management masters program. Of course, we went to The Sports Cafe because they're Sports Management. Then we headed over to one of our favorite places, Tiger Tiger. Definitely a fun night.
On the 27th a group of us went to a delicious Italian restaurant in Piccadilly Circus and then hung out at The Rocket. On the 29th I came down with a bad flu/cold. It ended up being quite the saga because it turned into strep throat, I got the wrong antibiotics which prolonged the agony, and then by the time I got new ones, I had an eye infection. I was basically sick for two weeks and missed out on celebrating St. Patrick's Day, which sucked! I was able to make it to programming but I skipped my morning class on Tuesday to try to get better. That night I was able to plan spring break a little bit at least.
On 3/4 I was feeling a little better so I had crepes with Sheena, worked out, napped, and was able to go to the GSE event which was Fulham vs. Hull City. The game wasn't that great, but I got a taste of what English football is all about! The cheers were great and completely from the crowd, with no prompting like they do in the states.
The next day was my second Human Structure and Function practical which was all about measuring parameters of the respiratory system. We celebrated Allie's 21st birthday with our English friends with a marathon-Roadhouse to Stables (where I saw Mischa Barton, omg celebrity sighting!) to Barfly to The Big Chill. Definitely a fun night and I hope she had a good birthday.
The next day we took the train to Edinburgh as a part of a GSE event. We checked into our hotel and had an Italian dinner and checked out the neighborhood nightlife. The Scottish music was fun! The next day we grabbed breakfast at the hotel and walked to Waverly Bridge to catch a tour bus. The tour guide was barely understandable but I caught the gist of the history of the city. We sat outside on the top of the bus which was pretty windy, which probably contributed to me getting sick again. We went to the Edinburgh Castle which was just as cool as I remember (we went to Edinburgh when dad was working in Bath). We did some souvenir shopping and had a late lunch around the Royal Mile. We explored and walked back home because I needed a nap. We had some pretty good Mexican food and (expensive) margaritas for dinner. We walked out to George Street but it started pouring so we soon were taking a taxi home. Strangely, we met two separate forty year old Scottish women that both had 4 year olds. It was awesome talking to them and one prescribed a "hot toddy" for me which she said would help with my cold since it was acting up pretty bad. Nice ladies! In the morning I tried the full Scottish breakfast which included haggis. I would basically describe it as peppery grease. I knew it was something gross, but I'm glad I wasn't told it was sheep guts until after I ate it! We then hopped a train home, which took about four hours.
When I got home I met Sheena's Barbados friend David who had been visiting. I caught up with everyone after the long weekend and got some groceries. I spent some time in bed watching Knocked Up since I was sick again. I found out that my friend from CMU, JW, was coming to London for his spring break and was going to crash at my place on Tuesday.
The next day I went on a hunt for new headphones since mine broke and went to this place called Argos. It was really different from any place we have in the states because its like a modern version of a general store. You pick what you want from a catologue, write down the number, and then present it to the clerk and pay. Then you wait for someone to bring your item up to the front. After class, I picked JW up at Kings Cross station and brought him over to Nido and introduced him to people. We then headed over to O'Neils to see Liverpool beat Madrid. We walked around Angel a bit before calling it a night.
On 3/11 I finally got a doctors appointment (but would later find out I got the wrong antibiotics once I didn't respond to them). I was dissapointed to find out that GirlTalk tickets were sold out. He's a DJ from Pittsburgh that I really wanted to see, but someday I will! I met up with Erin down by where she lives and we did some spring break planning. Then we met up with the gang at Lock Tavern in Camden because Ryan's friend works there.
The next day I mainly rested up and tried to get better and then in the evening we THOUGHT we were seeing Friday the 13th….but had actually bought tickets for the next day. DOH.
The next day I hung out with JW on his last day. We went to Pizza Express and saw the West End play, Three Days of Rain with James McAvoy. It was SO GOOD. Good writing, good acting. And now I’m completely in love with James McAvoy. Mainly because after the show, all the actors came out in support of a charity foundation. One of them said that James usually warms up by doing handstands and that he was going to do one and if he stays up five seconds, we should donate 5 pounds, if he stays up 10 seconds, we should donate 10 pounds etc. James looked like he TOTALLY didn’t know this was going to happen but was a good sport and did it anyway. The entire play he had an American accent but he said ONE thing with his normal Scottish accent before he did the handstand and it was quite exciting J. I then met up with Ashley and her friend AGAIN to finally see Friday the 13th. Jared Padalecki (from Supernatural, one of my favorite shows) was in it, and Ashley actually knows one of the actresses in it because they lived on the same street and are Facebook friends! Haha.
I desperately needed some new jeans because my only pair were ripping at the seams so I set out with the roomie, Sheena. As soon as we got out, we realized that the weather was super nice so we took a detour to Regent’s Park, walked around, got some coffee, and laid in the sun for a bit. We then went to Oxford Circus and I got some jeans at H&M. Sheena had a ton of spring break visa issues for her Barbados passport because she couldn’t get appointments in time, there were all these complications and paperwork, and was constantly on the phone and getting nowhere. It totally sucked because she had to scrap the spring break she was planning and plan a new one to countries that didn’t require visas. But it all worked out because her mom came and visited and she went to Istanbul and Switzerland.
Once my antibiotics had also run out and my throat still looked bad, I made another appointment and got the right antibiotics. Things cleared up and I felt a lot better quickly.
Then there, were a couple of weekend trips in quick succession.
GSE had a day trip to Oxford and Stratford. We took a bus out to Oxford and had a guided walking tour. We saw plenty of Harry Potter landmarks and decided to have a traditional meat pasty for lunch. Lots of reference to Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and plenty of old houses at odd angles as well! We also ended up checking out the science museum which had a lot of old navigation equipment. We then hopped back on the bus and went to Stratford upon Avon. We stopped at the Hathaway Cottage first, which is where Anne Hathaway (Shakespeare’s wife) and her family lived from about 1400-1900. Really low doorways, creaking floors, and the typically whitewashed walls and thatched roof look that you’d expect of an English countryside cottage. The gardens were really pretty too! We then went to the town of Stratford itself and walked around the main area and got some fish and chips along the riverside. We walked over to the church where Shakespeare is buried and saw his grave. We found a really pretty landscaped garden with a lot of flowers in full bloom and hung around there before we realized we had to figure out where the heck the bus was! I definitely napped on the way home after that long day.
The next weekend a few of us had an Ireland trip planned. We got in late the first night so we barely had time for the guys to pick us up in the (stick shift! Driven on the left side of the road!) rental car, check into our hostel (where we discovered we had one roommate, Mike from Pennsylvania), and check out the Temple Bar area we were staying in before it was time to get back to bed. The next morning Danielle and I took a stroll around the area and took some pictures. We gathered up all our stuff and walked to where the guys reparked the rental car that morning….and discovered the car was missing. After an intense “DUDE WHERE’S OUR CAR???” moment, we figured out that the guys had parked illegally…it stated so right there on the sign. DOH. So we had to figure out who to call and paid our 80 euro fine over the phone by credit card and they told us where we could find our clamped car and that someone would be by soon to unclamp it. Once we FINALLY got moving, we started our journey to Galway. Once we finally got there, it was worth it because the Cliffs of Moher were absolutely gorgeous. Everyone was making me nervous by walking so close to the edge though! Of course, we found an American bar in Galway and Danielle and Sheena rode the mechanical bull! Much hilarity ensued. The next day we drove back to Dublin and checked out the grounds of Malahide castle, which were gorgeous. The sun was starting to set so we had fun frolicking around. Ireland had just won a rugby championship that they hadn’t won since 1948 and also won a big boxing match, so everyone was in a pretty good mood back in Dublin! The guys had a super early flight that they missed, and I nearly lost my iPhone in the rental car but they recovered it, luckily. But we all got home in one piece!
That was pretty much it before spring break, but that’s the next entry!
Tuesday, 24 February 2009
Up to my 21st
Hi all! Sorry for the long time between posts. As I'm procrastinating finishing up my personal statement for my last internship applications, I thought I might as well do something useful!
I think I left off on the 11th, a Wednesday. It's so nice to have Wednesdays off because Tuesdays I'm gone from about 10am-5:30pm since I have two classes and my lunch break isn't long enough to go home. So Wednesday is usually my workout and get some work done day, since, like tonight, I'm pretty beat on Tuesdays. Sheena, Danielle and I met up with Sheena's English friend Samara at one of our usual haunts, The Big Chill. It was nice to talk art with her (I believe she's into sculpture and such) and talk about the different school systems. She also had some good stories from when Sheena and her were in Barbados. We then went to another of our favorites, The Other Side for some food. We grabbed some dessert at the convenience store on the way back to Nido, where the owner loves us and gives us free stuff whenever we go in. This time it was one of those MASSIVE Toblerone bars. Toblerone and Ritter Sport will always remind me of when we lived in Munich. And Kinder Eggs! We also caught the end of a football match back at the cafe in Nido.
On the 12th I checked out the library at the North Campus on Holloway Road. They didn't have the art textbook I needed but I found it later on the other campus. Once the apps are in, I'll have to catch up on my Art in London research from that. After hitting up the library, I went to Human Structure and Function and had my first practical. Practicals are basically short labs where you have some work to do, fill out a worksheet, and complete a quiz at home afterwards to get credit for completing them. There are only two a semester so it isn't like a full lab class. This one was on the heart and we got to take out blood pressure and hook ourselves up to an ECG machine (with all the wires and graphing of your heartbeat) before and after exercise. After class, I went to The Sound of Music, which was amazing! I went with Alex, who is a theater major, and Jaime. The sets were gorgeous, the kids were totally adorable, and the singing gave you chills at times. And I realized that the Alfs are totally the Von Trapps-5 girls and two boys haha. Except for the whole singing, being Austrian, and nun/stepmom situation. Otherwise exactly the same!
Friday the 13th was your typical Friday-nothing scary!
Saturday was Valentine's Day! We had a GSE event during the day which was fun. We went to the National Gallery in the morning and then Michael gave us a really interesting history lesson about how Charing Cross is the official center of London that everything is measured by. He also told us the story of and how legend has it that "Charing" comes from from the French chère reine or "dear Queen", which is what Edward I called his wife Eleanor. He has crosses placed at each night's stop on the procession of her body from outside London to where Charing Cross is now, and the cross still stood there until the revolution. It's a pretty fascinating story-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_of_Castile#Queen_consort_of_England.
We then stopped for Italian for lunch, and then continued on to cross the Millenium Bridge over to the Tate Modern. We were pretty wiped from the National Gallery so we only did half of the museum. Luckily, most of the major museums in London are free so we can always go back. Plus, we did the Tate Modern last time we were here. On our way back over the bridge I randomly ran into one of my friends from Nido. Small world in a city of 8 million people or so. I then headed back for a quick nap and dinner at The Other Side again as I was desperately needing to go grocery shopping at that point. Some of the girls took a trip to Bournemouth and met some of Samara's brother's friends a few days before this. They decided to come visit us in our neck of the woods on Valentines day. So a big group of us got dressed up and went out to this place called Barfly in Camden Town. The event photographer showed us that the actor that played Fogell ("Mclovin") in the movie Superbad had JUST been there and she'd snapped a picture. It was pretty funny since we had just watched Superbad the night before.
The next day was very busy spent out and about in London. I went with a friend to Covent Garden, which had a ton of street performers and markets since it was Sunday. We grabbed some Italian and then walked around some more and grabbed coffee. We walked to Trefalger Square and around Picadilly Circus before deciding to take the tube to Shepherd's Bush, which is this HUGE, ultra modern mall. We just looked around for a bit but didn't really shop. We then went to another Walkabout near Shepherd's Bush which was a lot bigger and had a stage and live music.
Last Monday I got up early to go to City Campus to finish shellacking my prints for printmaking. Then I worked at lunch and headed to the other campus for programming.
Tuesday was another long day. I got a little lost finding the Wallace Collection for Art in London, but it was really beautiful! It's a converted old house that holds a private collection. We were looking at the Rococo and Dutch art. It also has all sorts of armor and arms. I completed my first prints and they're dry now so I just need to buy some tape and I'll be able to decorate my walls with them! Then we had another GSE event: seeing the West End show The 39 Steps. It's adapted from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. It was pretty silly humor but the actors did a great job because there was only 4 of them playing something like 120 roles. Lots of quick changes and rapid dialogue! Tons of fun.
On my day off I did my usual gym, laundry etc routine. I made some plans for my birthday outings and invited everyone. I also was unsuccessful in my search for a roommate for next year when I'm a CA off campus in the Fairfax building, so I'll probably get a random person. A group of us also saw He's Just Not That Into You, which was really good! We met another one of the New York crew, Zoey, as well as a random friend of a friend that had been talked up, ANOTHER Sebastian.
Thursday was a frustrating day at human structure and function because we were only told how to access the lecture online AFTER our homework was due. Plus, pretty much the whole class didn't realize that we didn't have tutorial and that it was a "self directed learning day" until we all sat there for about 20 minutes. I did have a good conversation with someone in my class, so it wasn't a total loss!
Friday we went out touristing. We finally all got going and headed to The Tower of London. I think all the medieval history is absolutely fascinating and it's always cool to see the guards, Beefeaters, and guys dressed up like royalty. I loved seeing the medieval graffiti and original chopping block and axe. I'm glad I went again. Afterwards we tried this tasty Japanese noodle place, Wagamama. Then we walked around Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.
And now on to my 21st birthday! The day before I got a note in my mailbox that I had a package. It was flowers, a balloon, and chocolates from my mom! The RAs kinda gave the "FLOWERS" box a look over and I explained it was my birthday. They said they had thought that SOMEONE forgot Valentine's Day, which was funny. I was online when it turned midnight so I got all sorts of messages and well-wishes. I got a birthday wake up call early in the morning from Morgan, Chris, Candi, John, and Sarah, which was amazing. A friend took me out for omelettes (yum!) for my birthday breakfast. I then went back to bed and celebrated in my laziness. I watched a movie with the guys before it was time to start getting ready for the festivities. I got a happy birthday chat with my family back home, so I got to celebrate with them for a little! Everyone started meeting up at my room at 6pm, and then we went out for Indian food which was really delicious. We then came back to Nido where I was surprised with cards, wine, and a CAKE! Luckily they didn't set off the smoke detector with the candles. We then headed out to Cafe de Paris in Picadilly Circus. Luckily we took someone who knew maps so we could get the night bus home. Overall, a WONDERFUL birthday and I felt so loved all day <3
Sunday I did absolutely nothing since I was still recovering. I skyped some more with Morgan, I love getting to see my friend's and family's faces!
Yesterday I was awoken at 9:15am by the stupid drilling and construction that seems to be going on right near our room. So loud! Then I had programming. Afterwards I booked a weekend trip to Dublin! I'm really excited and we're picking out our tourist attractions we most want to see. Then I finalized the last internship applications I'm applying to. I just need to finish off my cover letter and submit them all.
Today was Art in London, which brought us back to the National Gallery to see Neo-Classical and Romantic art. I gave a short presentation, so I'm glad that I have that done. I also finished the rest of my collograph prints, and next week we're doing color!
Not too many upcoming plans, tomorrow we'll probably go out and watch the Liverpool game. I hope you all are doing well at home! Cheers!
I think I left off on the 11th, a Wednesday. It's so nice to have Wednesdays off because Tuesdays I'm gone from about 10am-5:30pm since I have two classes and my lunch break isn't long enough to go home. So Wednesday is usually my workout and get some work done day, since, like tonight, I'm pretty beat on Tuesdays. Sheena, Danielle and I met up with Sheena's English friend Samara at one of our usual haunts, The Big Chill. It was nice to talk art with her (I believe she's into sculpture and such) and talk about the different school systems. She also had some good stories from when Sheena and her were in Barbados. We then went to another of our favorites, The Other Side for some food. We grabbed some dessert at the convenience store on the way back to Nido, where the owner loves us and gives us free stuff whenever we go in. This time it was one of those MASSIVE Toblerone bars. Toblerone and Ritter Sport will always remind me of when we lived in Munich. And Kinder Eggs! We also caught the end of a football match back at the cafe in Nido.
On the 12th I checked out the library at the North Campus on Holloway Road. They didn't have the art textbook I needed but I found it later on the other campus. Once the apps are in, I'll have to catch up on my Art in London research from that. After hitting up the library, I went to Human Structure and Function and had my first practical. Practicals are basically short labs where you have some work to do, fill out a worksheet, and complete a quiz at home afterwards to get credit for completing them. There are only two a semester so it isn't like a full lab class. This one was on the heart and we got to take out blood pressure and hook ourselves up to an ECG machine (with all the wires and graphing of your heartbeat) before and after exercise. After class, I went to The Sound of Music, which was amazing! I went with Alex, who is a theater major, and Jaime. The sets were gorgeous, the kids were totally adorable, and the singing gave you chills at times. And I realized that the Alfs are totally the Von Trapps-5 girls and two boys haha. Except for the whole singing, being Austrian, and nun/stepmom situation. Otherwise exactly the same!
Friday the 13th was your typical Friday-nothing scary!
Saturday was Valentine's Day! We had a GSE event during the day which was fun. We went to the National Gallery in the morning and then Michael gave us a really interesting history lesson about how Charing Cross is the official center of London that everything is measured by. He also told us the story of and how legend has it that "Charing" comes from from the French chère reine or "dear Queen", which is what Edward I called his wife Eleanor. He has crosses placed at each night's stop on the procession of her body from outside London to where Charing Cross is now, and the cross still stood there until the revolution. It's a pretty fascinating story-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_of_Castile#Queen_consort_of_England.
We then stopped for Italian for lunch, and then continued on to cross the Millenium Bridge over to the Tate Modern. We were pretty wiped from the National Gallery so we only did half of the museum. Luckily, most of the major museums in London are free so we can always go back. Plus, we did the Tate Modern last time we were here. On our way back over the bridge I randomly ran into one of my friends from Nido. Small world in a city of 8 million people or so. I then headed back for a quick nap and dinner at The Other Side again as I was desperately needing to go grocery shopping at that point. Some of the girls took a trip to Bournemouth and met some of Samara's brother's friends a few days before this. They decided to come visit us in our neck of the woods on Valentines day. So a big group of us got dressed up and went out to this place called Barfly in Camden Town. The event photographer showed us that the actor that played Fogell ("Mclovin") in the movie Superbad had JUST been there and she'd snapped a picture. It was pretty funny since we had just watched Superbad the night before.
The next day was very busy spent out and about in London. I went with a friend to Covent Garden, which had a ton of street performers and markets since it was Sunday. We grabbed some Italian and then walked around some more and grabbed coffee. We walked to Trefalger Square and around Picadilly Circus before deciding to take the tube to Shepherd's Bush, which is this HUGE, ultra modern mall. We just looked around for a bit but didn't really shop. We then went to another Walkabout near Shepherd's Bush which was a lot bigger and had a stage and live music.
Last Monday I got up early to go to City Campus to finish shellacking my prints for printmaking. Then I worked at lunch and headed to the other campus for programming.
Tuesday was another long day. I got a little lost finding the Wallace Collection for Art in London, but it was really beautiful! It's a converted old house that holds a private collection. We were looking at the Rococo and Dutch art. It also has all sorts of armor and arms. I completed my first prints and they're dry now so I just need to buy some tape and I'll be able to decorate my walls with them! Then we had another GSE event: seeing the West End show The 39 Steps. It's adapted from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. It was pretty silly humor but the actors did a great job because there was only 4 of them playing something like 120 roles. Lots of quick changes and rapid dialogue! Tons of fun.
On my day off I did my usual gym, laundry etc routine. I made some plans for my birthday outings and invited everyone. I also was unsuccessful in my search for a roommate for next year when I'm a CA off campus in the Fairfax building, so I'll probably get a random person. A group of us also saw He's Just Not That Into You, which was really good! We met another one of the New York crew, Zoey, as well as a random friend of a friend that had been talked up, ANOTHER Sebastian.
Thursday was a frustrating day at human structure and function because we were only told how to access the lecture online AFTER our homework was due. Plus, pretty much the whole class didn't realize that we didn't have tutorial and that it was a "self directed learning day" until we all sat there for about 20 minutes. I did have a good conversation with someone in my class, so it wasn't a total loss!
Friday we went out touristing. We finally all got going and headed to The Tower of London. I think all the medieval history is absolutely fascinating and it's always cool to see the guards, Beefeaters, and guys dressed up like royalty. I loved seeing the medieval graffiti and original chopping block and axe. I'm glad I went again. Afterwards we tried this tasty Japanese noodle place, Wagamama. Then we walked around Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.
And now on to my 21st birthday! The day before I got a note in my mailbox that I had a package. It was flowers, a balloon, and chocolates from my mom! The RAs kinda gave the "FLOWERS" box a look over and I explained it was my birthday. They said they had thought that SOMEONE forgot Valentine's Day, which was funny. I was online when it turned midnight so I got all sorts of messages and well-wishes. I got a birthday wake up call early in the morning from Morgan, Chris, Candi, John, and Sarah, which was amazing. A friend took me out for omelettes (yum!) for my birthday breakfast. I then went back to bed and celebrated in my laziness. I watched a movie with the guys before it was time to start getting ready for the festivities. I got a happy birthday chat with my family back home, so I got to celebrate with them for a little! Everyone started meeting up at my room at 6pm, and then we went out for Indian food which was really delicious. We then came back to Nido where I was surprised with cards, wine, and a CAKE! Luckily they didn't set off the smoke detector with the candles. We then headed out to Cafe de Paris in Picadilly Circus. Luckily we took someone who knew maps so we could get the night bus home. Overall, a WONDERFUL birthday and I felt so loved all day <3
Sunday I did absolutely nothing since I was still recovering. I skyped some more with Morgan, I love getting to see my friend's and family's faces!
Yesterday I was awoken at 9:15am by the stupid drilling and construction that seems to be going on right near our room. So loud! Then I had programming. Afterwards I booked a weekend trip to Dublin! I'm really excited and we're picking out our tourist attractions we most want to see. Then I finalized the last internship applications I'm applying to. I just need to finish off my cover letter and submit them all.
Today was Art in London, which brought us back to the National Gallery to see Neo-Classical and Romantic art. I gave a short presentation, so I'm glad that I have that done. I also finished the rest of my collograph prints, and next week we're doing color!
Not too many upcoming plans, tomorrow we'll probably go out and watch the Liverpool game. I hope you all are doing well at home! Cheers!
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
Last Friday was a relaxing day around home, not much going on. I've been working hard on my applications for summer internships. They're mainly biology labs, and I'm applying to ones close to home first, since I'm sure I'll miss it after not seeing my family and friends all semester. I've got almost maybe 5 done, and I'll keep going as long as there are ones that work with my qualifications and the due dates don't pass! Danielle, Sheena, Ashley and I ended our exciting night by grabbing some milkshakes. Then Ashley and I almost got hit by a bus heading to The Big Chill (the closest pub to home) but left after maybe a half hour. I'm going to miss the crazy adventure just getting to my tube station everyday is. King's Cross is always mad. It was fun, but going out with a big group is definitely more fun!
I was glad to get a good night's sleep because Saturday we went to Windsor! We went through Paddington Station, which brought back memories of my last trip to London there-The Hilton, sleeping on the floor, the Sushi boat place. The train ride was only about 20 minutes which went by really fast. I remember seeing Windsor Castle as I was flying in-it's hard to miss! It's the largest inhabited castle in the world. The distinctive round tower and enclosed garden were definitely memorable. The GSE gang went through security, got our uber-nerdy audio guides (somehow by the end we were rather affectionate with them), and headed into Mary's Dollhouse to start. Everything in it is authentic-the mini vacuum works, the mini table settings are made from real silver, the mini crown jewels are real jewels, even the PLUMBING works. We all agreed that the dollhouse was about the size of our dorm rooms. We then saw a photo/memento exhibit about the royal family. I definitely learned/was reminded of a lot, like how Prince Charles served in the Royal Air Force. Also, they save mementos of EVERYTHING the royal family does haha. Then we went in the main rooms. They were absolutely gorgeous, with amazing gold, tapestries, paintings, furniture, and clocks everywhere. There was the original King's bedroom, dressing room, drawing room etc. as well as large banquet rooms that are still used for functions. There were enormous armory rooms with huge displays of guns and swords to traditionally show how well the crown is protected. The bullet that killed Lord Nelson was on display as well as many a famous figure's personal guns/swords. A large portion of the castle was burned down in a fire in 1992 and had been restored. We then walked further along to St. George's Chapel where many monarchs including Henry VIII are buried. Since we were starving we then headed into the town of Windsor to get some grub before heading out. Overall, an amazing experience that I highly reccomend. One of the GSE folks, Jessie, who has already been here for a semester, brought along a friend who was from Saratoga! Small world.
Sunday I met up with Alex and Jessie to catch the end of a Tottenham vs. Arsenal match. Gotta get into the sport while I'm here! Sadly, the game was a bit disappointing since it ended tied 0-0. We watched at a cute place called "A Friend At Hand" in Russell Square. I stopped by Angel on my way home for some quick grocery shopping before meeting back with a group that planned to go to The Hard Rock Cafe. It's actually the original one. However, the wait was an hour and forty minutes since they had a big group so we decided to skip it. We were by Hyde Park so we knew we could find some other restaurants. We ended up wandering into a little area that suspiciouly said that the police knew that a brothel was operating in the area and to call with any information. I then looked up and noticed that there were indeed red lights in a cluster of the windows. Don't you think that would be the police's first clue? Every day is an adventure here, I swear. We had a quiet Italian meal in a little hole in the wall before heading back to Nido. We all got in our pjs and went on an odyssey trying to find a TV lounge that was unoccupied and had a working TV and DVD player. It was harder than you think. We finally found one and watched National Lampoon's Family Vacation. If only it was European Vacation!
Monday was my first day of Intro to Computer Programming. It's made up of three parts. A one hour lecture, a one hour tutorial, and a one hour workshop. It doesn't really make sense to me why these all need to be in different rooms, but I guess it's good to get up and stretch. We just familiarized ourselves with some terms and did some basic making shapes and moving them around. The teacher seems like a nice one, though pretty much who you would expect to be teaching computer programming :) My roommate then introduced me to The Office and I think I still hurt from laughing. I wish I had time to watch more shows!
That brings us to today! Today we met up at a rainy Trefalgar Square to see the Renaissance paintings in the Sainsbury wing of The National Gallery. It was definitely good to get a refresher on the background as well as really thinking about the differences between the early and late periods. Need to do my writeup asap! Thursday before physio maybe I'll head into the library early and do some research. I was definitely excited to see Michaelangelos, Botticellis, and the Arnolfini portrait. Afterwards I headed over to city campus for my second printmaking class. Today we took a look at a TON of different types of prints and then were instructed on how to start making our first ones. If you have any ideas of stuff I should print, let me know! Getting back home was horrendous, however. There was some sort of signaling error on the tube which caused everything to be majorly mucked up. I had to take three different trains and it took way longer than it should have. Everything was super crowded. Oh well, it happens. It's weird what you slowly get used to here. I'm definitely starting to walk on the left side of sidewalks and stairs now, that habit will be hard to break when I come home, I'm sure.
Tomorrow will be some major application work, then hopefully on Thursday I'll be seeing The Sound of Music! Saturday I'm returning to the National Gallery and the Tate Modern. Should be fun! Love and miss you all.
I was glad to get a good night's sleep because Saturday we went to Windsor! We went through Paddington Station, which brought back memories of my last trip to London there-The Hilton, sleeping on the floor, the Sushi boat place. The train ride was only about 20 minutes which went by really fast. I remember seeing Windsor Castle as I was flying in-it's hard to miss! It's the largest inhabited castle in the world. The distinctive round tower and enclosed garden were definitely memorable. The GSE gang went through security, got our uber-nerdy audio guides (somehow by the end we were rather affectionate with them), and headed into Mary's Dollhouse to start. Everything in it is authentic-the mini vacuum works, the mini table settings are made from real silver, the mini crown jewels are real jewels, even the PLUMBING works. We all agreed that the dollhouse was about the size of our dorm rooms. We then saw a photo/memento exhibit about the royal family. I definitely learned/was reminded of a lot, like how Prince Charles served in the Royal Air Force. Also, they save mementos of EVERYTHING the royal family does haha. Then we went in the main rooms. They were absolutely gorgeous, with amazing gold, tapestries, paintings, furniture, and clocks everywhere. There was the original King's bedroom, dressing room, drawing room etc. as well as large banquet rooms that are still used for functions. There were enormous armory rooms with huge displays of guns and swords to traditionally show how well the crown is protected. The bullet that killed Lord Nelson was on display as well as many a famous figure's personal guns/swords. A large portion of the castle was burned down in a fire in 1992 and had been restored. We then walked further along to St. George's Chapel where many monarchs including Henry VIII are buried. Since we were starving we then headed into the town of Windsor to get some grub before heading out. Overall, an amazing experience that I highly reccomend. One of the GSE folks, Jessie, who has already been here for a semester, brought along a friend who was from Saratoga! Small world.
Sunday I met up with Alex and Jessie to catch the end of a Tottenham vs. Arsenal match. Gotta get into the sport while I'm here! Sadly, the game was a bit disappointing since it ended tied 0-0. We watched at a cute place called "A Friend At Hand" in Russell Square. I stopped by Angel on my way home for some quick grocery shopping before meeting back with a group that planned to go to The Hard Rock Cafe. It's actually the original one. However, the wait was an hour and forty minutes since they had a big group so we decided to skip it. We were by Hyde Park so we knew we could find some other restaurants. We ended up wandering into a little area that suspiciouly said that the police knew that a brothel was operating in the area and to call with any information. I then looked up and noticed that there were indeed red lights in a cluster of the windows. Don't you think that would be the police's first clue? Every day is an adventure here, I swear. We had a quiet Italian meal in a little hole in the wall before heading back to Nido. We all got in our pjs and went on an odyssey trying to find a TV lounge that was unoccupied and had a working TV and DVD player. It was harder than you think. We finally found one and watched National Lampoon's Family Vacation. If only it was European Vacation!
Monday was my first day of Intro to Computer Programming. It's made up of three parts. A one hour lecture, a one hour tutorial, and a one hour workshop. It doesn't really make sense to me why these all need to be in different rooms, but I guess it's good to get up and stretch. We just familiarized ourselves with some terms and did some basic making shapes and moving them around. The teacher seems like a nice one, though pretty much who you would expect to be teaching computer programming :) My roommate then introduced me to The Office and I think I still hurt from laughing. I wish I had time to watch more shows!
That brings us to today! Today we met up at a rainy Trefalgar Square to see the Renaissance paintings in the Sainsbury wing of The National Gallery. It was definitely good to get a refresher on the background as well as really thinking about the differences between the early and late periods. Need to do my writeup asap! Thursday before physio maybe I'll head into the library early and do some research. I was definitely excited to see Michaelangelos, Botticellis, and the Arnolfini portrait. Afterwards I headed over to city campus for my second printmaking class. Today we took a look at a TON of different types of prints and then were instructed on how to start making our first ones. If you have any ideas of stuff I should print, let me know! Getting back home was horrendous, however. There was some sort of signaling error on the tube which caused everything to be majorly mucked up. I had to take three different trains and it took way longer than it should have. Everything was super crowded. Oh well, it happens. It's weird what you slowly get used to here. I'm definitely starting to walk on the left side of sidewalks and stairs now, that habit will be hard to break when I come home, I'm sure.
Tomorrow will be some major application work, then hopefully on Thursday I'll be seeing The Sound of Music! Saturday I'm returning to the National Gallery and the Tate Modern. Should be fun! Love and miss you all.
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
Hey again!
So Friday was our first day without a scheduled orientation activity so some sleeping in was in order. The first few days I was waking up a lot (and needing lots of water because of the dry dorm rooms!) but I've definitely adjusted and gotten comfortable sleeping in. I tried out the Nido (pronounced NEEdo, not NIdo, they get very upset about that) gym, which seemed like it haseverything I need so no need to pay the 40 extra pounds to tube over and use the fancy school gym. I'm definitely getting lots of walking in during my city explorations. Since it was Friday we checked out Yate's and Tiger Tiger in Picadilly Circus and had a great time. I was with some friends from New York and as we were leaving they played "New York, New York" so we left with smiles on our faces. Our late night tradition has turned into getting schwarmas, doners, and french fries, YUM.
On Saturday I met up with my GSE group and went to St. Pauls. My friends in other programs are getting jealous that our program has so much planned out for us. We're all already brainstorming a long weekend in France (Ryan Air has really cheap flights-like 15 pounds!) and some sort of trip for spring break. We had an adorable librarian-like lady take us around St. Pauls-she was so excited about it and really interesting! We saw where St. Pauls was hit in the blitz, learned about Sir Christopher Wren, and where Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington were buried. I am absolutely in LOVE with the wood carvings and glittering mosaics. And I marveled at how Anglican priests dress strangely like Neo from the second two Matrix movies :) We also grabbed a few post cards and had some delicious turkey, brie, and cranberry sandwiches before trekking up the 267 stairs to the whispering gallery and then the base of the dome for some amazing photo angles.
Afterwards, Jaime, Ryan, Alex, and I tourist-ed it up at the London Bridge & London Tomb experience. Pretty cheesy, but fun. And yes, I clung to my friends for dear life when actors jumped out at us in the London Tomb.
Even better was when we wandered down the Thames and stumbled upon an open air farmers market. It was HUGE and everything looked and smelled amazing. We tried tons of samples and grabbed some authentic fish n' chips. I love that there's always something going on everywhere you go in this city. It's definitely one big playground!
Monday Danielle, Sheena, "the boys" and I went to the famed Oxford Street for some shopping. I had to check out Topshop because many people who had visited before reccomended it. It was overwhelming! Just the accessories section was massive. I ended up holding back and getting one top and tights. We window shopped around and got some tasty crepes for lunch. I'll miss LG farmers market crepes though!
Jaime found a pub called The Golden Lion that had live country music on Sunday nights and it was excellent! It was also cool because it was definitely a neighborhood place with a lot of relaxed, actually British people. It really started snowing on our way there though! Afterwards, it was Superbowl time! We went to International Students House to see it. It's somewhat like Nido, except that it also has short stay rooms available. We met lots of people our age from around the globe-America, Iraq, Argentina. I found some fellow Steelers fans and I was beyond excited to see them win. The next day I was definitely checking up Facebook to see riot pictures. Pittsburgh definitely went crazy as expected. We really liked it there so we'll definitely be back for their event nights.
Yesterday I woke up to find out from my roommate that our first day of classes were cancelled. Most tube lines and busses were also closed so we spent pretty much the whole day at Nido. We watched Pride and Prejudice (sorry mom!) in a floor lounge and then tried to watch V for Vendetta in the comfy bean bag lounge but the RA couldn't get it to work :( They require that you sign out remotes to use a lounge here. We also had to be inducted into the gym to be able to use it without sneaking in haha.
Today was my first day of class and it was all really good. I found my classes pretty easily. Art in London will be great, since we will be visiting museums as a part of the curriculum. I definitely had to hold myself back from talking about the works on the slides forever! And printmaking seemed pretty awesome. Our "tutors" as they call the professors have had lots of experience with printmaking (since 1969 and 1972) and were really entertaining. They'll provide everything but the paper but we will have to carry all our work to and from the studio since they're low on storage space. Can't wait to have ink permanantly under my fingernails!
Now we're off to check out Rocket, the London Met student lounge for the International Student welcome party. Should be fun but some people have early classes so it'll be an early night. I have no classes on Wednesday and Friday, yay! Having class from 10:30-12:30 and then 2-5 will make up for that fact. Tuesday will be the worst since I have to switch campuses. Monday and Thursday I have one class each. Anyways, hope everyone is doing well at home! Lots of love and kisses <3
So Friday was our first day without a scheduled orientation activity so some sleeping in was in order. The first few days I was waking up a lot (and needing lots of water because of the dry dorm rooms!) but I've definitely adjusted and gotten comfortable sleeping in. I tried out the Nido (pronounced NEEdo, not NIdo, they get very upset about that) gym, which seemed like it haseverything I need so no need to pay the 40 extra pounds to tube over and use the fancy school gym. I'm definitely getting lots of walking in during my city explorations. Since it was Friday we checked out Yate's and Tiger Tiger in Picadilly Circus and had a great time. I was with some friends from New York and as we were leaving they played "New York, New York" so we left with smiles on our faces. Our late night tradition has turned into getting schwarmas, doners, and french fries, YUM.
On Saturday I met up with my GSE group and went to St. Pauls. My friends in other programs are getting jealous that our program has so much planned out for us. We're all already brainstorming a long weekend in France (Ryan Air has really cheap flights-like 15 pounds!) and some sort of trip for spring break. We had an adorable librarian-like lady take us around St. Pauls-she was so excited about it and really interesting! We saw where St. Pauls was hit in the blitz, learned about Sir Christopher Wren, and where Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington were buried. I am absolutely in LOVE with the wood carvings and glittering mosaics. And I marveled at how Anglican priests dress strangely like Neo from the second two Matrix movies :) We also grabbed a few post cards and had some delicious turkey, brie, and cranberry sandwiches before trekking up the 267 stairs to the whispering gallery and then the base of the dome for some amazing photo angles.
Afterwards, Jaime, Ryan, Alex, and I tourist-ed it up at the London Bridge & London Tomb experience. Pretty cheesy, but fun. And yes, I clung to my friends for dear life when actors jumped out at us in the London Tomb.
Even better was when we wandered down the Thames and stumbled upon an open air farmers market. It was HUGE and everything looked and smelled amazing. We tried tons of samples and grabbed some authentic fish n' chips. I love that there's always something going on everywhere you go in this city. It's definitely one big playground!
Monday Danielle, Sheena, "the boys" and I went to the famed Oxford Street for some shopping. I had to check out Topshop because many people who had visited before reccomended it. It was overwhelming! Just the accessories section was massive. I ended up holding back and getting one top and tights. We window shopped around and got some tasty crepes for lunch. I'll miss LG farmers market crepes though!
Jaime found a pub called The Golden Lion that had live country music on Sunday nights and it was excellent! It was also cool because it was definitely a neighborhood place with a lot of relaxed, actually British people. It really started snowing on our way there though! Afterwards, it was Superbowl time! We went to International Students House to see it. It's somewhat like Nido, except that it also has short stay rooms available. We met lots of people our age from around the globe-America, Iraq, Argentina. I found some fellow Steelers fans and I was beyond excited to see them win. The next day I was definitely checking up Facebook to see riot pictures. Pittsburgh definitely went crazy as expected. We really liked it there so we'll definitely be back for their event nights.
Yesterday I woke up to find out from my roommate that our first day of classes were cancelled. Most tube lines and busses were also closed so we spent pretty much the whole day at Nido. We watched Pride and Prejudice (sorry mom!) in a floor lounge and then tried to watch V for Vendetta in the comfy bean bag lounge but the RA couldn't get it to work :( They require that you sign out remotes to use a lounge here. We also had to be inducted into the gym to be able to use it without sneaking in haha.
Today was my first day of class and it was all really good. I found my classes pretty easily. Art in London will be great, since we will be visiting museums as a part of the curriculum. I definitely had to hold myself back from talking about the works on the slides forever! And printmaking seemed pretty awesome. Our "tutors" as they call the professors have had lots of experience with printmaking (since 1969 and 1972) and were really entertaining. They'll provide everything but the paper but we will have to carry all our work to and from the studio since they're low on storage space. Can't wait to have ink permanantly under my fingernails!
Now we're off to check out Rocket, the London Met student lounge for the International Student welcome party. Should be fun but some people have early classes so it'll be an early night. I have no classes on Wednesday and Friday, yay! Having class from 10:30-12:30 and then 2-5 will make up for that fact. Tuesday will be the worst since I have to switch campuses. Monday and Thursday I have one class each. Anyways, hope everyone is doing well at home! Lots of love and kisses <3
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
First days
Hey everyone! This is going to be my day to day blog of my adventures in London! I'm using a paper journal also, so I'll be copying some of my thoughts and observations from there as well. Feel free to pass this link on to whoever you like, because I probably won't be writing anything in here that I wouldn't tell my grandparents (hi Grandma!).
So my first few days have been crazy busy but awesome. Saturday I had a goodbye lunch with my parents, Billy, grandparents, and Christy and then went off to use up my Macy's giftcards for some new stuff to wear in London (gotta look all posh and metropolitan!). Then I went off to say goodbye to everyone. Five weeks back home really lets you reconnect with people, so it was hard! The next morning I had my final dose of Mexican food and finished my last bit of packing. My dad drove me to the airport and it finally hit me, that I was going to London, ALONE. My 9 hour flight was pretty uneventful, I just slept and watched some TV and ate bad plane food. When I looked out my window as we were landing and saw the English countryside, I got this indescribable surge in my chest that was a lot excited and a little apprehensive when I realized I was really here and really going to live here!
I dragged my heavy luggage to the tube and got to my stop fine. Then I took the wrong turn out of the tube! My map didn't help much apparently. Once I figured out I was in the wrong place, I took a 5 pound cab ride to the place because my bags were just that heavy and I didn't want to go all the way back. I checked in at the same time as two of the other girls in my program, Allie and Ashley who are from So Cal. I met my roommate, Sheena, who is originally from Barbados but has gone to Chico and Berkeley so is pretty much a California girl too. Global Student Experience (GSE) is California based, so that might be why we have such a large percentage of Californians.
I showered up and met the group and the coordinator, Michael, downstairs to quickly go over a few things and get my phone & top up card, maps, and Oyster card (for the Underground and bus system). I LOVE the Oyster card, you just touch it and go. I'll most likely get weekly or monthly passes since they save you money if you use the tube several times a day, like I do. I'll also get a good student discount.
We met up again to go to dinner at a place close by that was quite good. There are tons of restaurants all around, and a Starbucks and other breakfast places on the way to the tube. Afterwards we decided to explore the neighborhood a bit. Up the street a bit is "Angel" which has quite a bit of shopping and restaurants. The 26th was Australia day so we just had to go to "Walkabout", an Australian bar, which was quite happening. We definitely met more Australians than British folks on our first night!
The next day we had our general London Metropolitan University (LMU or London Met for short) orientation where we got our schedules (I'm still missing one class...). I grabbed some pizza for lunch with Ryan, Pat, and Eric where the fire alarm went off for the last 10 minutes or so we were there. Then I rushed back to campus for a GSE orientation. Sheena, Ben, Sebastian, Danielle and I then made a Sainsbury shopping trip for essentials and groceries before heading out to a pub called The Big Chill in our neighborhood and then had an adventure in Picadilly Circus. A bunch of club promoters were there and after Sebastian talked to them, the cover charge that was 25 pounds was suddenly 5...they must have mistaken us for gullible tourists at first. We checked out this place called Metra.
Today we had an IT and transportation talk and then Eric, Alex, Jaime, and I checked out the gym facilities and the student bar. I came home and had lunch and a huge nap and then went shopping at Brunswick for more stuff for my dorm. I still want to get a softer blanket and pillowcase since the ones provided are a bit scratchy and Sheena and I were thinking of looking for some wall hangings at an outdoor market or something to make our (tiny) space more homey. It has a mini kitchenette with a sink, microwave, stove top, minifridge, and water kettle. We also share our own bathroom. There's not a ton of storage space, but we're making it work!
Thats all for now, I'm catching some sleep before another session, bus/boat tour, and pub night in Soho!
So my first few days have been crazy busy but awesome. Saturday I had a goodbye lunch with my parents, Billy, grandparents, and Christy and then went off to use up my Macy's giftcards for some new stuff to wear in London (gotta look all posh and metropolitan!). Then I went off to say goodbye to everyone. Five weeks back home really lets you reconnect with people, so it was hard! The next morning I had my final dose of Mexican food and finished my last bit of packing. My dad drove me to the airport and it finally hit me, that I was going to London, ALONE. My 9 hour flight was pretty uneventful, I just slept and watched some TV and ate bad plane food. When I looked out my window as we were landing and saw the English countryside, I got this indescribable surge in my chest that was a lot excited and a little apprehensive when I realized I was really here and really going to live here!
I dragged my heavy luggage to the tube and got to my stop fine. Then I took the wrong turn out of the tube! My map didn't help much apparently. Once I figured out I was in the wrong place, I took a 5 pound cab ride to the place because my bags were just that heavy and I didn't want to go all the way back. I checked in at the same time as two of the other girls in my program, Allie and Ashley who are from So Cal. I met my roommate, Sheena, who is originally from Barbados but has gone to Chico and Berkeley so is pretty much a California girl too. Global Student Experience (GSE) is California based, so that might be why we have such a large percentage of Californians.
I showered up and met the group and the coordinator, Michael, downstairs to quickly go over a few things and get my phone & top up card, maps, and Oyster card (for the Underground and bus system). I LOVE the Oyster card, you just touch it and go. I'll most likely get weekly or monthly passes since they save you money if you use the tube several times a day, like I do. I'll also get a good student discount.
We met up again to go to dinner at a place close by that was quite good. There are tons of restaurants all around, and a Starbucks and other breakfast places on the way to the tube. Afterwards we decided to explore the neighborhood a bit. Up the street a bit is "Angel" which has quite a bit of shopping and restaurants. The 26th was Australia day so we just had to go to "Walkabout", an Australian bar, which was quite happening. We definitely met more Australians than British folks on our first night!
The next day we had our general London Metropolitan University (LMU or London Met for short) orientation where we got our schedules (I'm still missing one class...). I grabbed some pizza for lunch with Ryan, Pat, and Eric where the fire alarm went off for the last 10 minutes or so we were there. Then I rushed back to campus for a GSE orientation. Sheena, Ben, Sebastian, Danielle and I then made a Sainsbury shopping trip for essentials and groceries before heading out to a pub called The Big Chill in our neighborhood and then had an adventure in Picadilly Circus. A bunch of club promoters were there and after Sebastian talked to them, the cover charge that was 25 pounds was suddenly 5...they must have mistaken us for gullible tourists at first. We checked out this place called Metra.
Today we had an IT and transportation talk and then Eric, Alex, Jaime, and I checked out the gym facilities and the student bar. I came home and had lunch and a huge nap and then went shopping at Brunswick for more stuff for my dorm. I still want to get a softer blanket and pillowcase since the ones provided are a bit scratchy and Sheena and I were thinking of looking for some wall hangings at an outdoor market or something to make our (tiny) space more homey. It has a mini kitchenette with a sink, microwave, stove top, minifridge, and water kettle. We also share our own bathroom. There's not a ton of storage space, but we're making it work!
Thats all for now, I'm catching some sleep before another session, bus/boat tour, and pub night in Soho!
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