The London Life

Stonehenge and Newbury

This next one will be short because I want to leave separate posts for Highclere Castle and Bath and Bristol. I will do a combined one of Wales, and then a combined one of London with my grandparents.

We woke up in the morning and got breakfast at the hotel. Already getting used to traveling with my grandparents where we make sure we have time and room for 3 meals a day. We then had to go back to the airport to catch a bus that would take us to the car rental. I warned my grandparents about driving in the city and even though they did drop it off once we were back in London and we were solely picking it up for driving out to the country and Wales it was still a disaster. Driving was mostly a disaster for the first 4ish days. My grandmother gets really anxious and doesn’t pay attention to the GPS and therefore gave my grandfather wrong directions a lot. My grandfather gets really snippy fast, so that always fun. My grandmother frequently wanted me to sit in the front seat so that she could sit in the back and say nothing so we didn’t get lost. Also we had initial problems with the GPS, seeing that my grandparents don’t know how to program it and I HATE them but “Jane” the name we gave to our GPS ended up helping us out in the long run once we figured out how to work it.

Ever seen European vacation when the dad drives around Trafalgar Square because he can’t get out of his lane? That was us because there are so many round-a-bouts and we never knew which one to take. So while I was trying to program the GPS and figure out which way she was telling us to go, my grandfather kept driving around the round-a-bouts. I think we went around one 4 times….

Finding Stonehenge was the hardest thing ever to do. It wouldn’t come up as a point of interest in the GPS- in fact all the points of interest were in another language even though the rest of the things on the GPS was in English. My grandmother was at the point of giving up and she just wanted to go to our cottage. But we kept going and FINALLY found it. Another place, like the bus company in Paris, that I would like to work for. They put fences up outside Stonehenge and charge you to get in. Making bank because if you want a picture of your with Stonehenge then you have to go in. We decided since it took us so long we might as well pay. It was cold, rainy, and windy thought so we got some pictures and on our way out realized we could have got a free audio tour. My grandfather went back to the car to sleep and we went back out and listened to the guide.

After enduring the cold long enough, we went back to the car and tried to make our way to the cottage we rented. It took awhile as well, but went easier then us getting to Stonehenge.

The lady had upgraded us to their newer cottage without charging us for it. It was huge, all completely new. Modern kitchen, dining room, and living room along with a full bathroom downstairs. Plus we each had our own sides to the cottage. My grandparents had an upstairs with a Queen bed and their own bath. And I had my own upstairs with two twins and bath. We also had two patios that overlooked a farm with… LAMBS!! and jumping LAMBS too my favourite!! It was the nicest place we stayed at. It was located right outside Newbury in a place called Hampstead Norreys, a small cute little town with the town community shop located right next door to us which was convienient for picking up a couple of groceries.

The kitchen

My room. I would also like to point out that the time stamped photos are my grandmothers.

We decided to eat out rather than cook after our long day so we went down the street to the White Hart in. Got a drink (with every meal!) along with a very good steak and ale pie, and then sticky toffee pudding for dessert. It was homemade and the best that we found our whole trip (we tried almost every place) we were disappointed that we shared one and tried to go back the next time again for more but it was sold out :(

YUMMM

My grandmother and I eating our sticky toffee pudding. This was our “rose” for the day!

After that we went back and called it a night because the next day we had tickets for Highclere Castle (Downton Abbey!). Post to come :)

Putney and the Cambridge/Oxford Race

Once I got back from my trip all I wanted to do was relax. The couple of days after getting back (the 5th and the 6th) I just spent time doing laundry, catching up on my Global Connections blog for class at home, and getting a couple grocery things. It was nice being the only person in my flat as well so I really got to relax and enjoy being back.

On the 7th was the Oxford/Cambridge boat race which began in Putney. One of Geneva’s flatmates, Livie, had been promising us a trip to see a real London town/house and I was excited when she invited us over for the day to see her hometown and the race.

She met up with us at the station, having already been home for Easter break. Putney was a cute town with the commercial/business street but also the cute old homes quintessential British houses. Her house even had a cupboard under the stairs!

We got lunch at Putney pies since after all of our traveling and foreign food all we wanted was traditional British food. I got Shepards Pie- just what I had been craving!

We were going to watch the race outside, but we would have only caught the very beginning and it was a bit cold/windy outside that day so we went back to Livie’s house to watch it. Her mother was so nice, who insisted she give us tea :)

The race proved to be exciting, which they said usually isn’t. First a man was swimming in the Thames as a form of protest against the elite, so the race had to be re-started. Not from the beginning but they did have to row back to a bridge. Seconds into restarting Oxford tried to get close to Cambridge while rounding the corner and ended up breaking one of their (Oxfords) oars. Because it was their own fault they were forced to continue without getting a restart, allowing Cambridge to win easily. Oxford finally crossed the line, and soon after one of their teammates collapsed and had to be rushed to the hospital. Three pretty big things to happen during this race, and it was exciting to see. We spent a little more time visiting before heading back to the dorms.

The next day I had to make sure I was all packed because my grandparents flew in later that night. Since it was also Easter, Geneva and I decided to make crepes which were delicious! I’m not sure why we decided to make something we had just eaten in Paris but at least they were easy and simple.

I took the Tube out to the airport, which takes about an hour and half. My grandparents were supposed to land at 840 and when I had arrived I had landed, picked up my bags, and gone through customs all by the time I was initially supposed to land. So I planned in case they were a little early and got in at 8:20. I ended up waiting until 10:30 when they finally came through the gates. Apparently Heathrow has been having custom line problems with only 2 or 3 people working. My grandparents flight had also arrived early but circled the airport for almost 40 minutes waiting for a place to land. They had got a hotel room at the Hilton, located at Terminal 4, so we took the free train terminal connector to it.

My grandmother went up to the counter to check-in and my grandfather’s first words were “Where is the bar?” so we went over and ordered a drink. Something I will miss when being back home, at least for about 3 months. We enjoyed a drink together, got caught up a bit, and then went to bed. Off to Newbury the next day!

Also sorry for the lack of pictures. I realized I didn’t take any of Putney and nothing else I did was worthwhile of a picture. Next one though!

Un Jour en Paris

Paris was an exhausting day. Day? Yes day. We did most of Paris in ONE DAY and that includes travel time. But first I have to describe our problems again at the airport.

Having left the city of Barcelona, a little tipsy I might add because of the jug (and I’m not exaggerating) of wine that we got as part of our meal deal at lunch, we were on our way to the airport with Geneva wearing about half her clothes on her body so that her bag weight wouldn’t be a problem again. We took the “wrong” bus to the airport. It was the right one because it brought us to the airport but the wrong one in that it didn’t go to the terminal that we needed it to go to. We had to find the free transport bus that would bring us to the other terminal but that took multiple attempts at trying to find maps/an info booth and we finally asked a car rental desk. They told us all these directions as we began to race through the airport because we had already been a little late than planned. We finally find the bus, get on it, and get to the right terminal. We go to the Ryanair desk and ask if they need to see our boarding pass (already printed) if we aren’t checking bags. They tell us no and to continue to security. We did that, and get all the way to security when they tell us that no we do in fact need our boarding pass to be stamped despite the fact that we were just asking Ryanair if we were ok. We raced back downstairs and get told we have to go to the desk used to buy tickets (because thats obvious) and get it stamped and rush back up to security and get through. By the time we find the gate they had already started boarding and we got shit seats, oh well at least we made it.

Once in Paris we realized we flew into the worst airport ever. Way outside of the city and too small to have multiple options of traveling into the city we got forced to pay 15 euros to travel by bus in (literally we had no other option, and I wished I was working for that bus company). The ride took close to an hour and half and dropped us off in the random outskirts of the city, still making it so that we had to pay more transport by Metro to get anywhere. Despite it being late I wanted to go straight into the city because that was our only night in Paris and I really wanted to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle which it does every hour on the hour (after dusk).

We just missed the 10 light up so we were able to take some pictures and relax while we waited for 11.

That picture looks really blurry, but it was hard to get a clear one. After it sparkled which was absolutely amazing and probably my favorite thing I have seen, we walked up closer to it.

We checked the opening time, and then tried to find our closest Metro stop. We started to get a little worried that we were going to miss the last metro because the Tube closes really early and then we would be stranded. But we made it thank god. We found our hostel, which was probably the grossest one we have been too. But it was Paris and we kind of expected it. We got our own room, which was nice, but we were all a little afraid of going to sleep because it was so grimy. Thankfully we only spent that one night there and it was only for a couple of hours.

We got up early the next morning since we were leaving that night and had a list of things that we wanted to see beforehand. We stored our bags and set our for the Eiffel Tower. The line was long, but we got there at the right time because it just kept getting bigger and we only had to wait about an hour or so. You can pay either to take the elevators up or you can walk. We probably would have climbed it to save money if we had been there longer, but we went for the elevators which scared me a bit (I’m starting to become my grandmother with not liking heights).

We stopped at the first level and roamed around it, then continued to the top level. It was a little cloudy that day (it drizzled on and off), but we still got to see amazing views.

The Sienne

The Arc de Triomphe

The Louvre is to the left of my shoulder.

And finally at the bottom:

After that we set off for the Arc de Triomphe. We found a crepe place and decided that 1. to save time and 2. because we just wanted to have a bunch of crepes that we would find creperies along the way and pick one up as we saw them. I had about 4 crepes that day yumm. My first was banana and nutella, then I got a cheese one, and then two grand marnier!

The Arc de Triomphe, because of its location and closeness to the Champs-Elysees was incredibly packed. We got our picture and handjive video, walked underneath it and continued on our way.

Being in the shopping district and tourist area we decided to find our items- mug for Geneva, charm for Abby, flag for me. We did it all within two shops that were pretty much right next to each other and continued to our next crepe stop.

We walked along the Sienne towards the Louvre, and saw monuments and the Jardin des Tuileries.

We also finally found the lock bridge that we didn’t see in Venice

We stopped at a restaurant thinking we would all get a meal since we had just had crepes. Nope we all ordered crepes instead ;)

Next stop: Notre Dame. We crossed the river, took a couple pictures of Notre Dame and tried to plan out the rest of our route. Then I heard someone mention that it was free to go in so we waited in the line which only took us about 30 minutes. It was also kind of disappointing because we hadn’t gone into the Louvre knowing that we would have wanted to spend more time in there then we had and because it cost to go in. Emily told us afterwards though that it was free to get in for all EU students. Oh well, I really only would have cared to see Mona Lisa.

Here is Notre Dame, inside and out (we didn’t see Quasimodo though ;) :

We began running out of time so we found the closest Metro stop and took it to Moulin Rouge and then walked from the Moulin Rouge to the Sacre Coeur (which we didn’t have time to go into).

Our hostel was a short walk from the Sacre Coeur but in a very bad area of town. Oh well, we made it grabbed our bags and walked to the train station leaving Paris for the airport. We got there with plenty of time; however, the gate was weird and there was individual security for each gate. We had saved some Euros planning on going to the duty free shop once in the airport but didn’t realize there was nothing once going through security. Now I have 15 or so euros :/

And that completes my European trip! Only took my long enough to write about them all. Next I will be posting about my grandparents time here.

Barcelona: The Other American City

We were in Barcelona from the 1st of April until the 3rd which really meant we had two half days and one full day to explore. Barcelona, along with Venice, was our least planned location. Mostly because Geneva was first, Paris we had such a short time and needed to plan well to make sure we saw it all, and Rome we had a lot of people traveling with us and wanted to make sure everyone saw what they wanted. Leaving Barcelona and Venice to take the side-burner. Venice was definitely done at a slower pace than Rome and Geneva, and we soon realized that Barcelona was the stereotypical “spring break” location. Palm trees, booze, and naked people on the beach. But I will get to that.

We left Venice the morning of the 1st having arrived in to the airport very early. It ended up being good though because we had been previously flying with EasyJet for the past flights but our flights from Venice to Barcelona and from Barcelona to Paris were booked with Ryanair. It wasn’t our first experience with Ryanair but we had never had as many problems flying to Dublin as this time. We had each been careful to pack one bag, but we also had separate small purses for everyday travel. Rules with both Ryanair and EasyJet say that you can have only ONE carry-on not including a handbag. We had been lucky and gotten away with it on EasyJet- and even if not EasyJet checked your bag for free once at the gate. No biggie. However, Ryanair wanted to just give us problems because we were the only ones in line and time to kill before our flight. They questioned the size and weight of Geneva’s bag. And she did a lot of shifting to Abby’s bag and shoving stuff into pockets. She questioned my bag at first but when it easily fit into the size checker she then saw my second handbag which I had been somewhat trying to conceal with my coat and she said “Now put that bag into it.” Oh she was just testing me at that point. I had to give Abby my jeans to shove into the side pocket of her backpack but I fit my other bag into my duffel and proved her wrong. And we finally made it through security. Learned how to play Blackjack and Poker while waiting (we bet with pretzels being all that we had in the airport).

Got into the airport and found the bus that would take us into centre city. And you wouldn’t believe who I saw on the bus. A group of Arcadia students. I didn’t actually know who they were but I’m pretty sure they were FYSAE- I only knew because one was wearing an Arcadia shirt (one of the free ones they give away at accepted student day) and ones of the girls she was with looked familiar from campus. Still weird, and shows how much of a small world that it really is.

Our first stop in Barcelona? You might think well duh of course you would stop at the hostel and take off your coats that you carried around Europe with you and didn’t really need or you know to drop the heavy stuffed duffel bag packed with a week+ worth of clothes. But no we stopped at DUNKINS!! I think this is what I had been waiting for the most sadly. They could have left me at Dunkins for the entire time we were in Barcelona and I would have been good (and the rest of Barcelona was great, but well it’s Dunks…) We stopped in every day.

Afterwards we finally made out way to the hostel. To make it sound better we did have to walk right past Dunkins to get to the hostel, so we were just stopping in for a little travel/walking break ;) They did however refer to it as Dunkin Coffee not Dunkin Donuts.

Everything on Las Ramblas- the main street with Dunks- was Americanized. Certainly this was a spring break location, and reminded all of us of Miami Beach in many ways. Spain was the only place to get American brands like Lays chips (They are called Walkers in England even though its the same logo) and Nestea and Dunks and much more.

It was already starting to get later in the day by this point in time so we decided to walk to the beach. Heading to the beach we saw palm trees everywhere. People spoke pretty good English, better than any of our other destinations. Carnivals were set up along the beach area. People biked, skateboarded, and roller-bladed all around the “boardwalk” area. We saw a couple of naked people on the beach, and a bunch of load, rowdy teens clearly there on break from uni.

Some of the palm trees we saw on the way… and a guys head.

A cool sculpture on the beach

And of course the beach!

We stopped at one of the restaurants along the beach to get tapas- I ended up with octopus in a garlic butter sauce and canapes. I didn’t know what canapes were, tried them, and they were delicious. Octopus I had had before, they look gross, but were sooo good. Geneva ordered them as well but was a little grossed out by actually seeing their whole body.

Yum yum yum!

After that I really wanted to go to the Hard Rock for a drink. I knew they would be expensive but Barcelona was definitely the one place were we let ourselves indulge in food and wine. We hadn’t really had anything to drink anywhere else besides a limoncello in Rome. Mostly for budgeting money reasons (I’d much rather pay to go into the Colosseum then get a drink, wouldn’t you?) But we had multiple drinks in a day in Barcelona (because of their great meal deals) and there were many times were I was a little tipsy doing touristy stuff.

I got a Hurricane drink at the Hard Rock, don’t really remember what was in it besides a lot of alcohol. After that we thought we should keep drinking so we stopped at a local Mercat (grocery store) and picked up a couple of boxes of Sangria for 1.50 (euros) and brought it back to our hostel. We went up to the roof of the hostel and sat and drank our sangria while looking at stars. It was pretty relaxing.

I failed to tell about the Venice hostel- which was ok and nice to have our own room, but a little fallen apart. But so was the rest of Venice. The Barcelona hostel was very nice and clean. The staff was helpful. It sucked not having our own room, but the lockers were well done with our room key being our locker key as well. Bathrooms were always taken, but we did get free breakfast.

After breakfast, day two, we set out for the castle which involved climbing a really steep hill. It was less impressive when we got to it because the castle’s view overlooked the industrial area of the city. We tried out the Metro after (again using another cities public transport) to get to the Sagratta Familia which was somewhat far away from our hostel and I still had my blisters.

I didn’t wrap my feet that day, and got more blisters. Just my luck, I have no clue why it kept happening to me. I wore the same shoes on other trips and no blisters.

Anyways, we ran into the same problem in Spain as Venice. We were ready to eat lunch early, and least early for people in Spain who usually close up shop for their siesta.

But we did find this place, and it was the best food for the best deal that I have eaten since being away from home. We got fideua which is basically paella with noodles and it had seafood in it. It was rich, creamy and had the best flavors even though its hard to describe. Plus we got a whole pitcher of sangria and dessert for 8 euros. Really, really amazing food.

Since leaving the sagratta familia we had been making our way back down into the main part of the city, slowly stopping to take pictures of pretty architecture which floods Barcelona. We again stopped at Dunks on the way by it, getting my fill of coffee for the next 3 months when I could then again get it in the states. We headed to Old City which was just amazing and didn’t match with the rest of the motif of the city. One of the old churches said it was free after 5 so we decided we would come back. We also found the arch de triomphe of Barcelona, and saw some green colored birds outsmart pigeons by stealing their food which was fascinating to watch.

We went back to the church at 5 and then went to dinner for more tapas.

We went back to the hostel early to finish off our boxed sangria and to pack smartly for our next Ryanair trip (and also because we had to store our luggage at the hostel for the next day).

In the morning we realized it was raining- the first time during our whole trip. So I was okay with it, it still sucked but we had had some great weather. We planned on going to Park Guell that day which was again far from our hostel. We took the metro there, and immediately after stepping outside I realized I’d made a mistake at going. Because of my old and new blisters I had wrapped my feet in gauze again which immediately got soaked and I knew would be bad for them healing. Also none of us had planned the rain and brought any coats or umbrellas. So I let Geneva and Abby go ahead and I went back and waited in the metro station. Sad that I missed it but glad I didn’t mess up my feet anymore than they already were.

We went back to pick up our luggage and for my last Dunkins trip. We then continued on hoping to find a place for lunch on the way to the bus stop back to the airport. We tried Hard Rock but the wait was too long and we knew we would miss our bus, so we found another place. A little more like a chain restaurant than the one for lunch before but we got another meal deal. Geneva and I both got wine with our meals and we were certainly feeling it on our way to the airport.

That quickly subsided as we kept running into problems at the airport, but that will be in the next post about Paris!

Venice: The City of Gelato

It seems like forever since I was in Venice.. but then again it is getting close to a month since I was there. The fact that my grandparents came soon after getting back has delayed me from blogging and now I am way behind. I would be more motivated to do it if 1. I didn’t have to blog for Arcadia’s online course and 2. It didn’t take me so long.

Anyways we were in Venice from March 29th-April 1st. We arrived early in the morning having left our hostel in Rome around 4 am. By the time we got into Venice, found the bus, took the bus to the island, and found/checked-in to our hostel (which they let us do early thank god) we were starving. But it was only around 10:30 in the morning. This was the moment that we realized we were now on an island and things happen at a leisurely-I’ll-get-around-to-it-eventually kind of way. Every place that was nearby said they opened at 11. No problem we thought, we will look at some shops for a half-an-hour and come back. But 11 came around and the restaurants said they were open but as soon as you stepped in you were told they weren’t open yet. Upon asking why their open sign was up, they said they would be ready in another 20 minutes or so. But 20 minutes came and went and they still weren’t serving. And this wasn’t just one place, this happened with about 7. Some of them were eating themselves, most were just not in a rush to start serving. But we were dying of hunger so we finally found a place that was open. Packed with people because they were the only ones in a ten minute walking distance that were serving. Good for their business.

After lunch we roamed through all the streets. It was so surreal being in a place with no cars, and the “streets” were narrow little winding passageways that led right out to the canals. Most had steps leading right into the water, and I remember making a comment that in America there would be gates up everywhere to make sure someone didn’t fall in. Some of the passageways led to deadends, but it was just fun exploring and getting lost (which we did!). If you did fall into the water though, I found out the Grand Canal is only 15ft deep so it wouldn’t have been too bad- but the water is a bit dirty!

We got some gelato- which happened to be our worse the whole trip, and continued back to the hostel so that Geneva and Chris could pick up their stuff to check-in to their place. Because of the distance between were they stayed and were we stayed we all figured it would be easier to by a vaporetto pass (and also because it was expensive to get a gondola ride and we wanted to be on the water). The vaporetto was the public transportation system on the island because all modes of transport include the water. By the end of our entire trip we had almost accomplished every mode of transportation.

The canal closest to our hostel.

The Grand Canal!

The vaporetto

I thought it was a picture break time!

After buying the passes which we are pretty sure we got ripped off 4 euro for, we went with Geneva and Chris to drop off their stuff while on the way to the lock bridge which ended up being pretty lame because they must have cleaned it off recently of previous locks. People put locks on this specific bridge with the name of them and their loved one, it would have been cool to see but we ended up finding one in Paris later.

We were desperate for dinner that night and ended up going to this awful Indian place that served us microwaved dinner that wasn’t even warm. It was awful and I cannot relive so I will move on…

We deserved gelato after that and I will say I would never had got the best gelato I will ever have in my entire life if we weren’t at that awful restaurant. It was white chocolate, almond, and coconut flavored and it was the best thing in the whole world. I went back the next day for more.

Day Two started off with meeting up in St. Marks Square. We went up to the top of the tower (another thing besides taking every mode of transportation, we also saw a sky view of every city we traveled to).

The view from the top of the tower.

After that we went into the Palace museum and saw something being filmed. Found lunch, and went back for the good gelato afterwards. Since we had purchased a museums pass we went to the art museum next making a complete tour of St. Mark’s Square. Even saw this:

I had been wanting to go to the island across the canal from St. Mark’s Square that basically just consisted of a church hence the reason I called it Church Island for the entire trip. A quick vaporetto ride over and this was our view looking back on the island of Venice:

And the church.

The other thing I really wanted to do was eat by the water, so we went back to the main island and found a restaurant on the water. To fit the motif I ordered salmon pasta and we got to watch a beautiful sunset.

Our next stop was seeing the Rialto bridge at night.

Another gelato finished off day two.

Day three we spent most of the day traveling out to another island- Murano- famous for its handmade glass which was sold everywhere in Venice. We got to watch a live demonstration, where they scared the shit out of us by breaking glass right in front of us.

We went shopping afterwards. Everything from the tiny, cheap tourist shops to the grand, expensive glass shops. We decided to get lunch on Murano before heading back to Venice. I got the best pizza- it had parmesan, bacon, and egg. Yummm

We went back to St. Mark’s Square because we had been told the day before that our pass would let us in to see a certain part of the museum that we had missed because it was closing. However, we got there and realized we had been lied to and our passes didn’t cover it. It was frustrating but we decided to go back to the area that we lived in so that we could shop. We all had things that we wanted to get, so we split up but somewhat tried to stay in the same general area so that we could find one another. In the past locations I had just purchased a flag, but Venice was the location where we all got something for ourselves. I ended up with a flag, earrings for my grandmother, a bracelet and ring for myself all made of Murano glass. We found someplace to eat and then got gelato afterwards. My second best- Disarrono flavor which started me on getting drinks with amaretto in them.

We called it an early night because we had to wake up fairly early (but not as early as our last flights) to go to Barcelona the next day.

“When in Rome…”

We were in Rome and Venice the majority out of our whole vacation. It wasn’t planned that way because we knew there would be a lot to see, and generally our time spent in each place was reflected based on the cheaper plane tickets. Despite having more time in Rome than we did in Geneva, we were still worried about fitting in everything we wanted to see because Rome was fairly large and we all wanted to see different things through the city. Our group had grown considerably big as well by Rome because Chris had joined us in Geneva and Molly joined us in Rome.

Had a really early flight out of Geneva and into Rome, which we thought would start our day off nice and early but we got stuck in major traffic on the bus from the airport into the city and it took us almost an hour and half in contrast to the half an hour it takes without traffic. Chris and Geneva were staying in a different area of the city than Abby, Molly, and I plus we had decided to meet Molly at the hostel around 12 because she flew in a little later than us. We parted ways to drop off our bags, but we weren’t allowed to check in until 3. We roamed our neighborhood for a bit while we waited around for noon, and then finally met up with everyone. While we were waiting though I went to a couple of banks to try to withdraw money and found out that Italy doesn’t like cards- let alone American cards. Almost every place we went took cash only- even museums wouldn’t take my card. And the ATMs were even worse- because it was out of “area” it wouldn’t let me withdraw money. I only found one atm in my area that would let me withdraw cash.

Anyways we were ready for lunch by the time we met up with everyone, so we went to the closest restaurant we could find. The food was okay, but kind of a disappointment for our first Italian meal, plus the waiter was completely rude. He was constantly rushing us and when Geneva said “Can I get the margherita pizza?” His response was “No.” No explanation why and there was an awkward silence as if well why can’t she get the pizza? This would later happen to me in Venice and I think someone else in Rome as well. I thought a lot of the Italian people were very rude, and I have never been stared at more in my life. You certainly know too when they are all talking about you, and they didn’t try to hide it. It was one thing I did not like about Rome, made me feel uncomfortable the whole time. Plus I think Rome was the one place where we had the hardest time trying to communicate, English was not as widely spoken and even when it was it was broken up.

After lunch we went to the main attraction of Rome: the Colosseum! At first we weren’t planning on going inside because it was somewhat expensive, but we were able to buy a pass that allowed us to go into the Roman Forum and Palatino too plus we were in Rome and had to go into the Colosseum. It was absolutely amazing to be standing in such an old building, and I think it is one of the oldest I have ever been in. We think it’s old when it is from the 1600s but the Colosseum is from 80 AD!

We spent a good deal of the day in the Colosseum. Chris was still jet-lagged so he left after the Colosseum to go back to the hotel, while the rest of us went to check-in at our hostel. On the way back we noticed a good place to stop for gelato- one of my main attractions of Rome. They were a little on the expensive side but the waiter was nice and we got huge portions. I tried the tiramisu. Wasn’t my best gelato which I would later have in Venice.

They screwed up on our room and ended up putting us in another building down the street and around the corner. It was super odd, and a little weird/sketchy. But we were able to have our own room, the downside was that we had to technically check-out the next day and wait until 3 again to check back in. Meaning more lugging back-and-forth luggage and worrying about storing it in their creepy garden shed outside.

And checking in we called it dinner time since we were still exhausted from our morning flight. Pizza time! We all got pizza that night, and I had prosciutto on mine.

Day number two we all met up at the Palatino, which was part of our tickets to the Colosseum. The Roman Forum was part of it as well, and the whole thing was basically the old ruins of the city of Rome. It was really cool that they were still around and fascinating how tall they were able to build everything without machinery. We did find out with some of the bad weather they had this past winter though, a lot of it was under construction because pieces were starting to deteriorate and slip away. The other nice thing, which we started to realize in the Palatino, was that there were public fountains (or bubblers ;) ) all around Rome, making it easy (and free!) to fill up our water bottles. Also super nice because it was ungodly hot (at least for my British skin), really though it was probably in the mid-70s.

We went to lunch after the Palatino, and that was the first time my order was messed up. I think we all took turns throughout the vacation of this happening, but it was an easy fix. Note to self: pointing to the menu to emphasize what you are trying to pronounce does not always help in the ordering process.

After we started to make our way to the Trevi fountain when coming across the Capitol building and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It was about this time- or really from the point of being at the Colosseum the day before till this time- that I was in considerable amount of pain because of my feet. In a way it was hard to enjoy everything. Just the same feeling of being sick and just wanting to be at home in your own bed. I couldn’t tell you how many times we went to a pharmacy, and good thing there was one on pretty much every corner. In Paris I could see 5 of them from standing in one location. I had gone to the pharmacy early that morning and spent twentyish minutes just trying to read packaging to see the right kind of bandaides/plasters and trying to see if they had the equivalent of moleskin or neosporin which they didn’t. I settled with just getting bandaides, but it was so hot out that they were starting to stick to my flip flops (which actually were more comfortable to be wearing with my blisters). Causing me a lot of pain by the time we had reached the Capitol. It was a pretty amazing building, but finding out it was built more recently than the area that surrounded it, kind of threw off the appeal. We did get some amazing views of the city from the top of it though.

By the time we got to the Trevi fountain we were stopping in the pharmacy again. This time to get gauze so that I could still use the bandaids but so they wouldn’t fall off or stick to my shoes. I would later wrap them at the hostel before dinner. I looked a little silly for a couple of days, but my feet felt a lot better because of it. I still had to move at a slow pace, but at least more blisters weren’t being caused. You can somewhat tell from the picture below…

Anyways back to the Trevi fountain…

Probably my favorite stop, other than the Colosseum of course. And I had the brilliant idea to get gelato and eat it by the fountain. Also the best gelato up till this time. I believe I got pineapple and coconut flavor. The Trevi fountain was just amazing. There were, of course, a lot of people. So many in fact that they had cops watching to make sure people weren’t doing anything stupid, so there was constant whistle blowing. We did get to do a video (for a project that will be completed by the end of my study abroad time) and take a picture in front of it. We also threw coins in!

Most of the pictures of me are stolen from Geneva by the way because it has just been easier when we travel for her to take pictures of me and for me to take pictures of her, that way we are not constantly swapping cameras all the time. And I figured I should give her photo cred since I know she reads my blog.

After we went to the Trevi fountain we made our way to the Spanish Steps where were way over-talked. There were just too many people, you could barely see any steps, and there wasn’t anything overly pretty in the background. Even (somewhat) behind it was the Medici house- the old ruling family of Rome. But that building as well was just plain with no decoration on it or design to it, which is odd considering how many works they hired Michelangelo for. Lame.

Unfortunately we had to go back to the hostel to check-in again because they had messed up our room. Irritating, but it allowed me to wrap my feet before dinner. We roamed (get the pun ;) ) for a bit to find dinner and decided to sit outside someplace. Wrong choice, we ended up freezing. It was a combination of it being so hot that day where we all got a little bit of color and the fact that the nights actually got quite chilly. We really wanted gelato after dinner, but were too cold for that. So we settled going back to the first, mean restaurant that we originally ate at. We couldn’t help it because the desserts just looked so good there, plus it was really close to our hostel. Super expensive, but it was worth it because we all got a different type of pastry and coffee.

Finally onto day 3… the main event: the Vatican. Which would end up being terribly disappointing- I know surely for me and I think everyone else didn’t find it as expected. I know Geneva said if she were to do Rome again, she certainly would not have gone to the Vatican. It’s great to say that we saw it, but I would have to agree with her on that.

Especially because of the way we had to get there that morning. The Vatican was close to were Geneva and Chris were staying but not for the rest of us, so we got to brave the Metro which is possibly the worst designed system of transportation that I have ever been on. Plus we were there for rush hour. The city is so big, but the major hubs of the city don’t have a couple of stops- they have one. Meaning everyone gets on at the same stop and gets off at the same stop and besides that NO ONE is on the metro. So of course the stop we got on was the hub stop and it was PACKED. I have been on the Tube many a times during rush hour where you have been on top of someone practically. This was worse. I had to wait for 3 trains just to attempt to get onto the Metro, and trust me that was an effort. Absolutely the worse thing ever. Plus I think a good half of the city was standing on that same platform as me.

I could talk about that experience all day so.. moving on… once we got outside the Vatican we got to wait.. and wait… and wait. For an hour or so, it was predicted we would be there for 2 so we kind of made good time. We first got in and tried to escape the crowds we had just been standing in for a while so we went into the part of the museum that no one else was in. This was our first, but unfortunately not last, time dealing with Italian museums which seem to be linear. Meaning that you can never go through the museum and reach the end, but rather go through it and hit a wall forcing you to go back through everything you just saw to get out. The oddest thing.

We then got thrown into the crowd to see the Sistine Chapel, again with only one way in and no way to escape any crowds. So we continued as if on a moving platform. And we got to the Sistine Chapel… it was cool to see it because the whole ceiling had been done by Michelangelo but I thought it was a little hyped up- like the rest of the Vatican. Plus there were so many people it was hard to just stand there and observe for a long period of time. Also as a note.. we saw someone throwing up in the Sistine Chapel. That was something I never expected to see :/

The Pope’s first ride :)

We realized we had to leave that area of the Vatican in order to see the Basilica but beforehand we saw another museum that contained all the Pope’s rides over time, which I think I was the most excited to see in the whole of the Vatican unfortunately. We were starving after leaving and found the closest restaurant, and right in time too before the school group came in after us.

Around the corner from the restaurant was the gelato place that Emily had recommended that we go to. Great deal, but it wasn’t the best gelato I had on the whole trip. Up to that point Trevi fountain had been the best gelato, but the best was yet to come in Venice.

We sat by the Basilica while we ate our gelato, but we had had our fill of crowds and decided to move on for the day and did not go inside. We headed towards the river, crossed it, and walked along it on our way to the Pantheon. Since many of the buildings and things that we saw were so old, the rest of Rome had been built around it. So you would be walking and all of a sudden down this tiny little street out would pop the Pantheon, which was really pretty cool. The fact that they still run some of these churches amazes me. And of course what makes the Pantheon special (besides its age) is the opening in the ceiling.

The Pantheon from the outside. And the inside:

We continued back to the river (Flume Tevere) so that we could see the part of the city on the island (Isola Tiberina). However, we didn’t go to the island.

You can somewhat see the corner of it here. Trees got in the way of most of my pictures, and it is hard to tell it is an actual island. We made our way back to the Metro because we were quite a distance from our hostel, where we were trying to find someplace close to eat near so that we could get an early night’s sleep considering we had another early morning flight. Got a beautiful view of the Palatino from the distance.

Dinner was the same on the menu: pasta of some sort. I differed between pasta’s and pizzas and now I am about sick of them. I couldn’t wait for some British food when I got back, and ordered shepherds pie for lunch today :) Plus for dinner (in Italy) we finally got some limoncello which I gracefully spilt all over the place but the waiter poured me a new one :)

Bed early, for another adventure to… Venice!

Geneva, Switzerland

So I should really start off with a little before Switzerland… like the night before…

Meghan left London on March 25th (Sunday) and I was going to be leaving on the 24th for my vacation so she wanted to go out one last time before both her and I left. That was the last night for most university events because they were all closing down for spring breaks (which lasts a month here!). Meghan, Jenn, and I met up with Emily at her student uni bar where the pitchers of cider were just 6.50. We split a lot of them… and needless to say slept at Emily’s that night because we didn’t want to travel back to New Cross.

What a kicker to start off my vacation because I got to wake up with a hangover early in the morning to cart myself back to New Cross because I still hadn’t packed anything and we were leaving around 2:30 that afternoon. I made it back and got everything I needed to do on my list done- plus I even had time to go out to brunch with everyone. We said our final goodbyes to Meg and boarded the train to Gatwick.

That time everything went smoothly for travel- we would later have some problems- and we even got to see the sunset on the plane. The time messed us up a bit- we left the night that England had daylight savings plus we were going ahead an hour thus making us lose two hours while traveling.

We got in and Chris met Geneva at the airport so we had a tour guide into the city and to our hostel (which was named City Hostel). This was probably one of the nicest hostels we’ve had. We had a rating system of the 7 hostels we have stayed in since being in London and this would have made our top choice had it been more creative with the decor and had free breakfast. But it was clean, the bathrooms were nice, we had a private room, and we got a free transport pass. It was a little on the expensive side, but we soon learned that everything in Geneva was expensive. A typical meal cost 22 Franks (and Franks are close in value to the American Dollar). Checking into the hostel was the only time my friend, also named Geneva, got noticed for her name!

Switzerland is really pretty interesting because you picture it to be similar to Germany or Austria however it really just depends on where you are in Switzerland. Because Geneva is on this little peninsula surrounded by France they spoke French, but there were some German customs and German-style houses. People there were overall generally nice, and we didn’t seem to have too many problems with the language barrier even though we were only there for a little bit at night, one full day, and then left early the following morning (of the 26th).

We woke up early the morning of the 25th to start our day out. We headed down for Lake Geneva first, but the Jet d’eau hadn’t started running yet. So we decided to head to the old part of town. First though she stopped to see the flower clock which was a working clock completely made of flowers and shrubs.

The numbers were somewhat spread out all over the place so it was hard to capture them all together. We began roaming through old city, which did remind me of a typical German town built up on a hill with narrow little corridors linking the upper streets to the lower streets. We saw an old church and watched all the locals on their way to service since it was a Sunday. Around 10 we decided to go back to the jet since it was supposed to be running.

It was just a power jet of water shooting into the sky that continually ran for a certain amount of time throughout the day. We actually thought it ran all day but we were down by the lake later on in the day and it had stopped again. Even though it was man-made and not like Old Faithful, it was still pretty cool.

And you can even see the rainbow it makes!

It was warmer than we expected it to be in Switzerland- it got to a high of about 67ish that day. After seeing the jet we crossed back over to the main part of town on the other side of the lake and went to another peninsula that had a “lighthouse” (I use quotes because we were on a lake) and were memorized by some swans for a while. They were making a nest and it was fascinating to watch them pick up large stones and move them into a nest shape. Geneva was the city of swans- they were everywhere. The weather must have been exceptionally warm for locals because a lot of them were swimming at 11, and I put my hand in the water- it was cold….

After we started to get hungry so we began to roam towards the United Nations in search of a fondue restaurant that Geneva had looked up. Again we thought it was expensive until we realized that it was typical pricing. But we all split a fondue despite the persistance that it was only meant for one person. We ordered two and split between four people. It worked out pretty well since fondue is filling to begin with. They are very proud of their fondue I believe and told us not to drink the water we had ordered because the bread would then expand in our stomachs. After fondue we got desserts- and I got profiteroles. Yummmm.

After lunch we went to the United Nations! Even though you couldn’t get past the gate it was still pretty cool looking at all the flags and we spent some time just trying to guess some of the country flags that we in our view.

Next stop.. the Red Cross! Only to find out that it was under construction and closed. Just the 10 millionth place we have been where major sites are under construction. It was about this time fittingly enough that I started to get blisters. I had stupidly worn my oxford shoes which I still hadn’t quite broken in. Plus it had been a warm day and my feet just gave out on me. I tried to catch it soon enough by going back to the hostel after the Red Cross to change shoes- but I already had the two blisters. This would be just the start of my problems. Because I didn’t wrap my feet up right away from this and take care of those blisters I just kept getting them. I would get a total of 8 blisters on this trip and have the for the entire duration. Rome I was in the worst pain though and seriously thought of flying back early or missing the sights for a day. More about that later.

We roamed along the lake next and went into the botanical garden which I always picture to be tropical… and they weren’t. We still hadn’t seen a clear view of the Alps and realized you could only see them from the other side of the lake so since we had free transport we took a boat over to the other side. I missed getting a picture however because the next boat was at the dock when we got in and didn’t want to have to wait a half an hour for the next one so we immediately got on. Geneva did get a picture though…

They are hard to spot expect for being able to see the snow on top of them. Because we only had one day our next stop was shopping! We all have come up with something that we have been collecting every place we travel. I decided back before I came to London that mine was going to be flags with the hopes of being able to hang them in my future classroom- or at least some of them. Geneva has been collecting mugs, and Abby has been collecting charms for her bracelet. I didn’t think I would have many problems with finding flags (and didn’t in Scotland or Ireland) but I had some problems in the rest of Europe. Plus they seemed to just get more and more expensive for me. In Scotland I paid almost 7 pounds and Ireland I only paid 3 Euro, but Switzerland cost me 20 Franks! Oh well, I had started the trend and couldn’t give it up.

We made a final pit stop back at the hostel because it had started to get a bit chilly, and then set off to find a restaurant. My feet were already starting to be a pain as I began holding everyone up because of walking slow. I surely saw all of Rome and Switzerland on the slow side before my feet finally started to get somewhat better in Venice.

That night we had fondue, yes again, for dinner. This time with some house wine. I have become a fan of white wine- probably because it is so similar to cider in England. We called it an early night because we had a 6am (or 7, I forget because of all of our flights) flight out to Rome the next day!

Edinburgh! “The abridged version is that we are all from America”

This is my second time writing this because my internet went out.. whats new. Where to start? We left on March 1st which was a Thursday and meant that we had class. Basically we had to make sure that we had everything ready to go because class got out a 3 and we had to catch a 3:40 Tube to West Croydon. Once in West Croydon we had to take a train to Gatwick. Sounds complicated but it was much easier to get to the Gatwick Airport than Luton and it was a more “legit” airport with big companies such as British Airways flying in and out of it and not just little ones like Ryanair and Easy Jet.

No problems getting there, and actually it was a really nice day out- 55ish and sunny. Not typical for British weather. Though we did have that kind of weather in Scotland. The whole weekend it was constant off and on sun and rain. And it was pretty much constantly windy and pretty cold as well. On Sunday it even hailed on us! But it made some pretty nice pictures surprisingly. All you had to do was wait ten minutes for better weather to come around.

We had plenty of time in the airport and grabbed some dinner and a coffee at my new favorite coffee place- Cafe Nero. So far they have been the only place to make flavored coffee that tastes good and not burnt. My nickname for it is Liquid Gold.

This time we took Easy Jet.. I keep hearing bad things about Ryan Air and other than a bad landing I didn’t have any problems with it. Easy Jet was pretty awful in their landing on the way back.. worse than Ryan air…

Anyways we landed and found a bus pretty easily and got to our hostel a little before 10pm. I had plans to meet up with Jess that night because she was leaving the next day to go on an Arcadia trip. Her phone was lost and so communication was hard but thankfully I checked Facebook and she told me she was going to be at my hostel at 10 and when I went outside she was already there which worked out perfectly. She took us to Black Cat for a couple of drinks but being that it was Thursday things closed fairly early. It was nice being able to catch up and see a fresh face from home. She is coming to London in a couple of weeks so I will have to be sure to show her around London.

Our hostel was a little out of the way of “center city” but it was in a quiet area and in an old church which was really cool. A bit of a walk to the showers and bathroom because of the set up of the church. I mean they literally just put rooms in the middle of the church, looked a little half-ass but I’m glad they didn’t actually change the church. Since I don’t have a picture of the outside I will post one from online.

Breakfast in our area was almost has hard to find as a pub on George St the night before but we finally found a place. We certainly got our exercise that weekend. A lot of walking, hiking, climbing, and adventuring.

Our first thing on the list-to-do was of course the castle as it looms above you from any point in the city. We made our way to it by venturing through the Princes St. Gardens and climbing along the side of it. By the time we reached the top it had just started raining and continued the whole time we were in it only stopping once we left. Actually it was fitting now that I think of it because I think the stones being wet on at the castle gave it a different appeal.

The castle was amazing. Too many pictures to upload them all but we spent a good 3ish hours inside. Geneva even got herself lifted into a canon! We saw the crowned jewels and saw this Pirates of the Caribbean looking thing- which was odd.

And this is the hall that Harry Potter was modeled after which was also in the castle.

After wandering through the castle for awhile we took a stroll down the Royal Mile which is the road the runs straight down from the castle to the Palace at Holyroodhouse and has all the shops and pubs along it.

The suns out! And this also shows our next destination: King Arthur’s Seat, which is the highest point that you can see on that “mountain.” Geneva and Jenn were planning on just doing it another day because we figured it would take a while and it was already 2ish plus we wanted to stop for a quick snack. We did stop at the former Spoons cafe- it is now under different management- but it is where J.K Rowling started writing Harry Potter. Got a smoothie and pastry and we were on our way! I suggested we might as well climb King Arthur because the sun was out and maybe we could get sunset pictures! (Also if you look at the above picture we really walked along the edge to get our sunset pictures, then back down, and finally up to King Arthurs because the paths weren’t marked and we were a little confused at first of how to get to the top).

We got some pretty amazing pictures with the sun setting even though we weren’t at the top, and actually we almost didn’t climb to the very top and then said why not we are already here. The only problem was that it was literally straight up! And the other weirdest part is that Geneva saw one of her German exchange students from high school while climbing! What a small world!

We finally made it to the top and the view was absolutely stunning!

Also this picture that shows how the climb was straight up!

And a picture from later on in the weekend in which Geneva appropriately titled “We climbed that!”

That night, sore from climbing (which would follow us all weekend) we treated ourselves to a traditional Scottish meal. Geneva tried the haggis (said she was glad she tried it but wouldn’t get it again) and I got Shepards Pie (which was called something else) and Jenn never got any traditional Scottish food- in fact all of her food was from other nationalities.

The next day we had already purchased tickets to travel outside of the city for the day which was something we regretted not doing in Ireland. We somewhat randomly picked the town of North Berwick after seeing pictures of it online and finding out it was on the ocean. North Berwick (pronounced without the ‘w’) was about an hour train ride from Edinburgh and we got there in the early morning. We realized quickly that it is somewhat of a retirement town with a golf course and country club as its main attraction and that no one was out and about town. Also because we couldn’t figure out was o.a.p stood for when ordering lunch- but it was the senior discount.

We roamed around the beach for awhile, taking our time. Then made our way into town to look for lunch. The beef pie was really good- probably our best meal in Scotland. Roamed the shops and went to check out train times since there wasn’t much to do in North Berwick. The sun had just come out again though so we made our way back to a different part of the beach for some sunny photos.

It really was great after the sun came out (even though the last two pictures were before this) because people started coming out of their houses too, and we saw a lot more younger people as well. The clouds started gathering again though so we took an early train back.

That night we at a pub and then tried to find one afterwards that had live music. Again we found a place with mostly old people in it, seemed to be our theme for the weekend. But we met this nice old guy that was out with his wife and two other couples. He talked us up for awhile, and gave us money for breakfast and had his friend buy us drinks. It was pretty great! Then we met two drunks guys outside of the pub while leaving that asked us where we were from and when telling another guy said “She’s from America” “She’s from America”.. to each one of us so then Geneva responded with the quote in the title- long story but felt the need to explain my title choice.

Sunday proved to be kind of a dud for our last day. We were unprepared with how cold it was going to be and most of our plans involved being outdoors. Our climb up another hill- Calton Hill was successful (but there were steps thank god!).

We then walked down along till we got to the Palace of Holyroodhouse but didn’t pay to go inside. My favorite part of the day came next. We found this cute tea place. We each ordered a pot of tea- I’m not a tea fan but I got the raspberry tea and it was delicious. Then we ordered a simple lunch and then had a fresh bakery trolley to pick desserts from and of course we couldn’t pass that up. So I got orange cake to finish it off.

Our next plans involved going to the Royal Botanical Garden but as soon as we left the tea shop is when it started to hail on us. We desperately tried to find something indoors to do for free- which led us to the Museum of Scotland. We ducked in and out of stores along the way though to get out of the weather. We only stayed there long enough till it got sunny again and then we ventured out. We saw the graveyard with Greyfrairs Bobby which was a dog that sat by his master’s grave for years until his own death. Such a cute story. Scotland doesn’t keep up their graveyards so well though with a bunch of debris and broken gravestones that weren’t picked up.

You never could have guessed that it just hailed out!

Then we did some shopping- sounds like a waste while being in Scotland- but I was in desparate need of some new flats. We hit up Primark and H&M and I left with a new pair of flats and a new shirt. Plus Primark seems to be more popular in Scotland than England and everyone had bags so we were really just trying to fit in. That night we had dinner at the Hardrock because Jenn has a tradition that she eats at ones where she travels plus her dad collects the pins. Then we had just enough time to run back to our hostel to pick up our bags that we stored, make it to the bus, and head to the airport. Scotland was well worth having more time in than Ireland and everything was just so beautiful that pictures don’t do it justice.

Well hope you enjoy- a post about Sweeney Todd will probably go up at some point otherwise the next major thing (besides papers being due) is our European Adventure! A week and a half and 5 locations: Geneva, Switzerland; Rome, Italy; Venice, Italy; Barcelona, Spain; and Paris, France!

Cheers!

Matilda the Musical, Floyd Collins, and London Drinker Beer Festival

So first off, I’m slacking on blogging. But in my defense I have been busy on trips and writing papers. I have 4 papers (between 2,500 and 3,000) words due March 19th. One due March 20th. And a presentation (which is basically like writing a 2-page paper) due on the 15th. Therefore, after I am done working on an essay I don’t want to write on my blog. Just feels like homework. There is no way I am done, but I’ve got to catch up on this blog. I have 3 of my essays and half of my presentation so I am on my way to being done.. soon.

Onto what I actually want to talk about. Originally I was going to make a separate post about my theatre trips since last but decided to add the beer festival because that’s really the only other thing I have done lately because homework is taking over my life.

I’m not going to pretend I am well knowledged in theatre or that I’m an acclaimed critic; however, I do want to talk about my plays for British and American Musical theatre class. We saw Matilda the Musical on February 27th, a long time ago and before I even left for Scotland. I didn’t really know what to expect because I had heard that it was more similar to the book, which I’ve never read, and I am only used to the movie. Plus I never pictured Matilda being a musical-so I was skeptical.

Honestly, I wasn’t a fan directly after seeing it. The plot was kind of all over the place. The songs were well, but didn’t vary a lot. And it was definitely a production for children- which provided a good atmosphere. The girl that played Matilda was impressive, but since we had just seen Billy Elliot and Pippin it just didn’t compare. However, after talking about it more in class and seeing our next play I would say that it was 5-star. Now I will probably be writing my performance analysis essay on this play- or Sweeney Todd which we see this week!

The next play was Floyd Collins which we saw this past week on the 6th. Meghan wasn’t going to class so I convinced Emily to come to the theatre with me and I’m glad she did so that I had someone to complain about it with. Actually I saw Emily a lot last week which made for a lovely week :)

First of all I will have to say that the theatre (Southwark Playhouse) was absolutely amazing. It was an old Tube/train station, with the stage reflecting on the old tunnels. It made it perfect for this play, but I don’t really see that setting working for many others. I think defining the plot will help tell how terrible this play was- it was about this guy that got stuck in a cave. And yes, they made this into a musical which lasted almost 3 hours. They made disputes just for the sake of making it longer- arguments when there didn’t need to be any. It was all a little over the top. The music and the singing were great- separately. Together they didn’t make sense, it would be the same as singing Rihanna lyrics to Fall Out Boy music (ok some might like this but I’m just trying to point out that they didn’t fit together). British actors were doing southern American accents, and there was a borderline-incestous relationship between the brother and his sister. Their “love song” made me real uncomfortable. I’m not lying how bad this was- a lot of people actually left during intermission and didn’t come back for the second half. I could have told the story in the first 10 minutes- I didn’t need 3 hours of it. The best part of that whole night was the walk afterwards. Emily and I were on a search for a pub still serving food so we could get drinks too, because we needed one. However, we got out of the play at exactly 10:04 and pubs usually stop serving food at the latest of 10. So we just kept walking and walking making our way from London Bridge to Westminster (where Big Ben and Parliament is). It was a beautifully clear night and we got some great views of Big Ben and the London Eye. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera because I was just going to the theatre.

And you can see how cool the theatre is in this picture.

Wednesday, despite the fact I should have been writing, Geneva, Emily,and I went to the London Drinker Beer Festival and decided to get drunk early on in the day. It was free admission from 12-3 in the afternoon but then you paid for a glass and per drink. But we got half pints and so the drinks weren’t that expensive. I actually got pretty tipsy after 2 halfs. I tried two ciders called Rampant Ram and Double Vision. We hung out there for a bit and then went and grabbed something to eat. I didn’t get my typical bangers and mash, but I did get a pretty good fish and chips. I think it was my best that I have had so far here. Since we were right down the street from Ems dorm we went back for some tea and then trucked back to New Cross where I have been writing papers since…

Now onto Edinburgh…

Liverpool

I can’t believe I am finally getting around to write this post since I went to Liverpool back on the 18th- over a week ago. Essays are going to be due soon, so things have been very busy. I’ve started getting to the point that I have to make to-do lists for everyday to make sure I get everything done on time. This past weekend was my “time-off” because one of my essay drafts was due Thursday so I needed a bit of a break before really cracking down on the rest of my essays. Now to Liverpool:

Geneva, Abby and I left for Euston station for early in the morning. I believe our train was at 7 something. The train ride was great, we were able to see some of the countryside and our desire to leave the city became even greater (actually because of seeing the countryside on the way to Liverpool and regretting that we didn’t in Ireland has led us to book a trip outside of Edinburgh when we go to Scotland this weekend).

The train ride took about two hours and we got there a little after 9. It started pouring out as soon as we walked outside, and we had to huddle under an overhang for awhile for it to calm down so we could finish walking to the Beatles Museum. When we finally got there it was soaking. We were one of the first people there, which we found out was great because later in the day there was a line outside waiting to go in (plus we didn’t have to deal with the crowds inside). The museum was really cool with a lot of re-creations and stuff to look at.

That is a re-creation of the original Cavern Club where the Beatles first played. Once we finished at the museum we realized that it was bright sunshine outside! We were starving though and walked right around the corner for lunch. When done we realized we hadn’t really planned to do anything else so we headed to the area where the new Cavern Club was and a couple of Beatles souvenir shops.

This was the view we saw as soon as we walked out of the Beatles Museum and right outside the door from the place that we ate lunch. After hitting up the Cavern Club, we decided to go look at the River Mersey (which I consider to be more of a bay). It had gotten really dark outside again and was extremely breezy- I’ll post a picture that captures this…

About 3 minutes after arriving towards the water, it started pouring (or really it was hailing) on us. We took refugee in the Museum of Liverpool because it was close by. We didn’t spend much time in there though because we wanted to enjoy the weather as soon as it got nice out again because we had realized this was going to be a pattern all day. We did learn that these things (which are alllll over the city) are called Superlambanana (I had been calling them chicken-cows beforehand).

There is an example of one, but they all have different designs on them. After that we just roamed Liverpool killing some time and because the sun had come out again. We found this really old church with a park at the base of it, but we didn’t hang out for long because there were some shady people in it.

We then set about the task of trying to find someplace for dinner. It was almost impossible. Most places stopped serving food at 5 or were closing- it was a Saturday?! We couldn’t figure out why. So instead we went to a chain place instead (which we try to stay away from as much as possible). And then headed back to the train station. It was a long but worthwhile day.

Sorry for the difference in writing here. I wrote up until the Superlambanana about a week and a half ago and then had it saved and never finished or published it. I have been slacking with the posts because I have a bunch of papers due in less than two weeks. I will get my post about Scotland done before the end of this week and hopefully start blogging all the time again once papers are handed in!