CIAO!!

     I didn't take many pictures this week so I figured I'd take an opportunity to show you a couple pictures of where I live.  This first picture is of our favorite Kebab Shop where we "kebauch" or where "kebauchery" ensues.  I have a special kebaby boyfriend who already knows my usual (hummus and pita with cucumber in it) and he always shoos the other workers away to make me my pita delight.  The second picture is of the beautiful Wood Green student halls... picturesque isn't it?

     This past week has been rather uneventful as far as weeks in London go.  I've been, for the vast majority of my waking hours, in social isolation writing papers.  I turned one in on Monday and one in on Wednesday, exciting, right?  My last two papers are due the next two Mondays so I'll be writing this Sunday and next (because let's face it, I'm not giving up my entire weekend for a 1500 word paper).  

     After spending two days with historiographic metafiction (cheers to my hefty vocabulary) I decided to try to go to bed early Wednesday night.  I hopped in bed at 10pm and realized I had, as usual, picked the worst night of the week to try and accomplish sufficient sleep.  Everyone was running amuck in the halls and around 12:30 I got up,  very grumpily, to go to the bathroom and told the girls that I knew I was being grumpy but I was super tired from writing a paper and could they please shut their doors, that lasted about 5 minutes. At 1:30 I heard some of them yelling at Paul so I knew he was up, so I got up and walked down the hall and Becky looked at me after saying WAZZZUUUUUPPP! In her best non-British gangster accent and all of a sudden a horrified look went across her face and she said "oh my gosh why are you frowning like that I'm so sorry!"  I went into Paul's room, complained a bit, and then went back to bed.  Next morning Becky was like "I'm so sorry, please tell me you don't hate me you looked like you were going to kill us all last night!"  Apparently I'm capable of giving the first floor at large the look of death.  That didn't help me sleep any though.

     Last night was a rather enjoyable night as I had a date with a guy I met at a club before I left for Barcelona.  He's, of course, a Brit originally from Manchester.  We met in Covent Garden (a very trendy area with outdoor shopping of the best sort: a mix of middle end shops and boutiques coupled with little restaurants and street performers during the day).  First we went to a nice little pub and had a drink outside on their balcony that overlooked one of the main squares in Covent Garden, it was a really nice view so we got to people watch a bit.  Then we went walking to find somewhere to eat, ended up at an italian restaurant and stuffed ourselves with garlic cheese bread, salmon and avocado fettucini (so delicious), and tiramisu.  After dinner we went to a bar for cocktails.  At around 12:15 we realized we'd lost track of time and that the tube might be closed, which meant I had to take the bus home.  We left and went to the tube stop and to my good fortune there was one door still open and I made it in just in time to get on one of the last trains.  The whole thing was really great and he's quite nice so we are going to go out again sometime next week, should be fun!

     Today I went and saw Grandma Eileen and she grandmothered me to death.  It was wonderful.  I met her boyfriend Gordon, she made me a ham and cheese sandwich, tea, had bought me a cream-filled pastry and sent me home with birthday cake, maltesers, brazil nut toffee, and californian raisins.  I think we're going to go out for a proper British meal in the next couple of weeks.  We looked at pictures and talked a lot, it was wonderful and made me feel very homey.  Tonight Paul and I are staying in and watching a movie and tomorrow we're going back to 4th Floor (Saturday nights are student nights and it's cheap and a whole lot of fun).

A man fell a mile, thank God he only sprained his ankle.

For the full story you can read the blog below this, but here are some separate pictures from Barcelona!

This is a picture from the Parc de la Ciutadella, it was so beautiful there!

This, if you couldn't tell, is the Dali Museum, it was just as weird inside as it was outside and I loved every second of it.  I would love to sit down and have a conversation with him, or even just have the opportunity to hear what is going on in his head for five minutes.
This is Paul in our tiny little cubby holes of beds, I was above him.
This is La Sagrada Familia, I could post 20 pictures of it and never do it justice, if you look it up on the internet (or go there and see for yourself), it's simply amazing.
This was St. Josep market, so delicious!

Dream of Californication!

Just got back from 4 nights in Barcelona and let me just say, I have never had a vacation remotely like the one I just experienced.  For one, this was "vacation on a budget" so of course, it was always interesting to see what we could work out.  (Side note:  I'm going to do a separate post with pictures because uploading at the moment is taking forever)  We left late Saturday night and were lucky to find that the Metro doesn't close on the weekends, after about 20 minutes we figured out that we could buy a 4 day pass to the Metro (perfect!), we got to our stop as per STA Travel directions and began walking towards the beach.  We had some issues finding the address and the directions said to go until the road ended so after asking a wary restaurant worker, we walked down a street that we likely should have been stabbed on.  Being as smart as we are we kept walking down said deserted dark street and ended up at the Spanish Naval Base, clearly not Sea Point Hostel.  So we walk back and there it is, right on the beach like we thought.  The location was amazing, literally at the edge of the beach so every morning we had free breakfast looking at the water.  This is the point where I should add that the only good things about this place were the location and the free breakfast and internet.  Here's where I complain a bit... our first night, by the time we traveled, ate and got to our rooms (where you're warned to be SILENT) it was about 4am.  We were in a 7 person dorm which was full and went to bed.  7:30am roles around and the people next to us are YELLING (WHO DOES THAT?!) so we can't really sleep.  About an hour later we actually get out of bed, ill rested and eat breakfast.  

Paul woke up very sick so he stayed in and slept all day while us girls, Erica, Liz and I, wandered the city to try and get our bearings a bit.  We saw some different cathedrals and walked through La Rambla (the big touristy avenue with street performers and dead turtles in outdoor tanks) and I bought €3 worth of cookies (a lot of cookies) and ate them within an hour (the theme of the trip was "make yourself feel better by eating a lot").  Eventually we found Parc de la Ciutadella, which is an amazing park in the middle of the city.  We paid €2 each and went on these paddle boats... that was an ordeal because apparently none of us have sufficient enough talent to row properly, the entire thing was hilarious because for the most part we just went in circles and ran into people.  That night we went to dinner at Princesa 23 (recommended by Paul's friend) and ate tapas and drank sangria (SO delicious!), again, lots of food.  We saw other people with nachos so we decided to go back the next night to eat some.  After that everyone was tired, Paul was still sick so we went home and went to bed.

Day Two: NOTHING

Well, that's what it felt like anyway.  Here's how it went down:  Erica and I got up early Monday to eat and catch a train to Figueres to go to the Dali Museum there.  It's about 2 hours by train so we went, got our tickets and realized we didn't know which train to get on, so the nice shop lady in the train station told us where to go.  So after 2 nights of sleep deprivation (oh right, so unbeknownst to me, some hostels don't provide sheets... we were given a fitted sheet to go over the mattress and that was it... so I slept under that and my coat all week freezing my bunz off, awesome) I fell asleep on the train, as did Erica.  Well Erica all of a sudden woke me up and I flipped because I thought we missed our stop... which could have been possible had we been on the right train, but we definitely weren't because we hit the last stop for that train and ended up in Sant Celoni, which is about half way to Figueres. So we decided that, while we waited for the right train there, we'd wander the town we'd come across.  Erica went to buy a book for the rest of the ride, picked one of the 6 books they had in English and found out through the book store owner that the Dali Museum is closed on Mondays... AWESOME!  So we buy some truffles and head home.  At home we were starving so we stopped at the Arc de Triomf to say we'd been, took a picture and went to lunch on the beach.  It was amazing, there was a lunch special for €9 where you got an appetizer, entree, dessert and drink.  We got chicken salads, pizzas and profitieroles (these balls filled with cream and covered in chocolate, so delicious).  Later that night we did as promised, went back to Princesa 23 and ate nachos.  We met up with Paul's friend Gabby who is studying there and went to a nice little student bar for some sangria, then out to a really horrible club and then home.  The men are vultures!  I couldn't hack it.

Day three we were again woken up by the neighbors at about 7:30, this time by the Red Hot Chili Peppers... who blasts Californication at 7:30am when they're alone let alone when they share a hostel with 24 people?! (oh right, the walls don't reach the ceiling, so while the actual room houses 7-8, we share noise with 24)  I violently pounded on the wall and then they shut up.  Erica and I attempted the Dali Museum again and this time were very successful.  I'm so glad we made a second trip there because it made my trip.  He's so fascinating and this particular museum is the one that he designed himself shortly before he died to house a huge collection of his work.  There were eggs on the roof and so many details in the architecture.  I was in awe pretty much the whole time.  By that night we'd all almost run out of money as far as our initial budgets went so I had a veggie pita for dinner and everyone else ate cheap at this seafood place.  At this point Liz was sick along with Paul and so we just hung out in the hostel cafe area and went to bed.

Our last day was probably our best day there, we had to check out by 10 so we knew we'd have all day to be out and about.  Erica and I dropped Paul and Liz (who'd already been) off at Starbucks and went to La Sagrada Familia, a temple/church of sorts designed by D'Antoni Gaudi and let me just say it was the most intricate and amazing piece of architecture I have ever seen.  My pictures won't do it justice, it's just... breathtaking.  Construction started in 1882 and it isn't finished.  When you tour you can see everyone in the middle working on the place, ridiculous!  After that we went back to Las Ramblas and dropped Liz off at a cafe to rest while we went to St. Josep market, a world famous outdoor market and got a lot of cheap food.  We bought bread, cheese, nuts, salami and some chocolate and sat down to create sandwiches with all our fresh goodies.  It was delicious.  We flew in and out of Girona, which is an hour and a half bus ride away so we hopped on the bus and were at the airport about 4 hours before our flight... so responsible!  Got to Luton and on our bus to London at just before midnight and got home around 2, we were SO glad to be home!

Amidst all the complaining I really did have an amazing time on our trip, I can't wait to see what else happens next time we go away and I look forward to sharing!  Love and miss you all!

Are you a professional bubble blower?

     The last post I wrote was written half heartedly because I was quite distracted.  But in a good way because I was talking to my parents!!!  So I will start by explaining the title to my blog because it really should be with the last blog time wise.  London is one of the greatest places to people watch, there are so many interesting characters here and they're so wonderful to observe and experience.  On the tube on the way to the Imperial War Museum Andreas and I were sitting across from each other and the guy next to me, about our age, turns to me and asks "are you a professional bubble blower?"  and proceeds to flirt with me for quite some time.  Later on he asks where we're from and we say Orange County and he says "NO WAY!  I should have guessed because you're both wearing orange!!!"  WHAT?!  So this is hilarious to Andreas and I because, well, for obvious reasons, but also because we were both wearing scarves with orange in them... both of which we bought IN LONDON.  Andreas, being the charmer that he is, secretly took a picture to remind him of this happy occasion.

     Anyways, friday night we went to a little comedy club to see what London comedy shows are like.  It was in the basement of this pub and it was a lot of fun because they did what's called a "gong show" which is where, in this case, you hold up little red cards and if 4 of the 6 are up at the same time this music plays and the person is finished.  If they last 8 minutes they move into the finals.  Anyways, there were some good and some bad but very entertaining overall.  The other reason we were there is for Chris because eventually he is going to perform some of his stand up material while we're here!  I think he might go back to this place and do it next month, so exciting!  So after that we came back to Wood Green (where I live) and everybody brought their comforters and pillows into my room and Andreas, Chris, Paul, Liz and I had a sleepover and watched Love Actually.

     All weekend there have been events going on for the Chinese New Year so Saturday we went to Trafalgar Square to walk around and see all the decorations and what not.  We apparently missed a pretty good firework show Sunday night but oh well!  So we walked around and then ate at Wok in a Box for some excellent chinese food.  Jenni and I spent a bit of time in Soho looking in the vintage shops and ended up at this amazing cupcake place that is comparable to Sprinkles at home (but in my opinion way better!).  Later that night we went to a club called 4th floor and had an excellent night dancing.  I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before or not, but here the all night Taqueria is replaced by an all night Kebab shop on every corner so usually if we're out late we're hungry by the time we get home so we go get Kebabs (or in my case, hummus and pita).  So on this particular night we decide to engage in Kebauchery and get the usual and take it back to our kitchens. (Paul is going to kill me for telling this story)  He goes in to go to the bathroom and somehow drops his meat and chips/fries into the toilet.  Such a dork!  It was absolutely hilarious.

     Sunday was a lazy day and most of us did laundry... BORING!  But it was nice to relax, read a bit and then Chris, Paul, Jenni and I headed to a church called Holy Trinity, which was recommended to me by a guy I met and was absolutely amazing.  The church is right by Harrods as well as the Victoria and Albert Museum so I think next week (or rather the week after because this week I'll be in Barcelona!) we're going to go early and walk around a bit.  I'm really excited that we found a place and that so many people here are willing to go with Chris and I, it makes me feel far less alone in that respect.  Chris, Jenni, Erica and I are going to try and make the trip as often as possible, though it's not close.  I'm really happy though because I think it is very much worth the trek, it's a contemporary service but has a lot of tradition incorporated and there are a lot of ways that I can get involved.  I figure since I can't work that getting involved in a ministry of some sort is a great way to meet locals, fill time, and do (much more importantly) something worthwhile (especially once school is out and I'm still here).  One thing I thought was really great was a huge emphasis on prayer, I'm not sure if they do certain things every week or not since I've only been once but they prayed very specifically for certain things.  This week marks the half term (hence reading week and Barcelona) so they prayed for the students and teachers.  Not only that, but they had a moment when the whole congregation was asked to pray specifically and out loud so the whole church was filled with words of prayer.  At the end they do a sort of alter call for anyone who needs prayer and the same type of thing happened where the whole church is full of the sounds of prayer and it was a really great feeling.

   Today was a wonderful day, I got up early, very well rested and went for a nice long run and then Liz and I headed to Oxford Circus to walk around a bit before going to Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum!  I've never been to a wax museum so taking silly pictures with wax statues was quite amusing to me.  The only picture of Liz and I together (we manned each other's cameras all day) is this one of us with the Oceans 11 set, my cards beat George's.  After that we went to Nando's for some of the best chicken EVER.  Chicken pita, medium with a slice of pineapple and spicy rice! Delicious! (can you tell I'm sick of eating cheerios, oatmeal and peanut butter toast!?)      Now that we're done planning Barcelona (flights and accommodations for less that $200!) we're on to planning our big trip to Greece over spring break, I am SO excited for this trip!  We plan on spending some time in Athens and then island hopping a bit so I am going to book a day full of diving!  AH!!!  More info to come on that one of course.  Love you and miss you all!!

Jackie I'm Kidding!

I have started buying weekly passes to the tube because it encourages me to do more sightseeing as well as saves me quite a bit of money.  So this week  I got to go and see a lot of stuff.  Tuesday Paul, Andreas and I went to 
St. Paul's Cathedral (which is the first picture) it's absolutely beautiful,
and the inside is absolutely amazing.  I wish that you could take pictures inside, but alas, you can't.  It's so intricate, all of the domes are speckled with gold and so wonderful.  After going there Paul and I crossed the Millenium Bridge and went to the Tate Modern Museum and saw some fantastic work by Picasso among others.  When we got home we were 
told by Becky and Emma (who's in the next picture) that it was 
PANCAKE DAY!  So Emma made pancakes and I, being the piggy that I am, had 5 (3 with nutella 2 with sugar and lemon).  They were delicious!  
Wednesday I stayed in like a good girl and did homework.  Thursday 
I came back from class and Andreas and I decided to go to the Imperial 
War Museum, which was absolutely amazing as well.  (and just like the 
Tate and St. Paul's, it was totally free!)  So we went through the Blitz 
experience among other things, but my favorite was the propaganda 
exhibit.  Some of the posters, especially those from Germany during 
WWII were fascinating and really weird.  A lot of weird demons and 
night time creatures as well as really odd slogans on some of the english 
posters. The last two pictures are from the Imperial War Museum one 
of the museum itself and the other of me with a piece of the Berlin Wall.   



     

I Don't Know Nuffing

     I think I'll just pick up where I left off.  After the hospital incident things calmed down for a bit, we had a pretty low key week (much different than I anticipated, but very welcome).  Well, I suppose it was just as low key as you might expect, you know, being an American in London and all.  Monday night we went into central London for what we thought was going to be a fairly quiet night at this bar Tiger Tiger (rather than staying in Wood Green we thought we'd just venture to a bar instead) and it turned out to be much more of a loud, club atmosphere and we ended up dancing all night.  No complaints though because we had an absolute blast, at the end of the night the people at the bar started giving away free hats, we had quite a good time with that and then a bit of an adventure getting home as Jenni and Katie got lost on their way to the bus and we had to find them, not knowing where they were.  The picture is of Becky, me, Chris and Elena after the club in our sweet hats.  

Tuesday night Chris, Jenni and I went back to KoKo to watch a band, Stars, perform.  They were absolutely stunning and the vibe was very calm and soothing.  Wednesday I had class, studied most of the day and then Liz and I decided to be productive with our study breaks and traveled to Trafalgar Square to the National Gallery and spent a few hours looking around.  I was in absolute awe for two hours, first when I saw Da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks, which is monumental and absolutely beautiful.  The second time was when we got to the modern art and I walked into a room that was half dedicated to the work of Vincent Van Gogh.  The way he uses color mesmerizes me every time, I think that that room will become my happy place while I am here (most of the museums, including this one, are free so no sweat off my back if I want to go sit for a bit!).  Also, seeing some of Georges Seurat's work up close is always really interesting to examine, he invented pointillism so to first look at his work, and then to look at the work of a bunch of amazing people who imitated his style was very interesting.

     Thursday night was a quiet night in with some of my favorite people, Liz, Paul and Chris.  We really just spent some time hanging out around our place.  Friday night was the Riverboat Disaster (which actually ended up being quite fun).  We walked onto the boat after about an hour long bus ride (which was late picking us up by about 45 minutes) and stepped into what we referred to as Little India (we're terrible).  For a bit we all felt very much like we'd like to walk off the boat while we still could, but stayed out of obligation to our £10.  It turned into a night full of memories: we had our own little karaoke session on the dance floor to Journey, Andreas was molested by two drunk girls who thought he danced funny, and I was propositioned to the seaside by an Indian gentleman who made it a point to mention that he could come pick me up in his spacious and comfortable Lexus (which he bought because he works for BT and makes VERY good money for his age... apparently I look like a gold digger?) anyway, after talking for, well it was under 5 minutes, he said "what are you doing tomorrow?" to which I (being sick still) responded "sleeping" "well how about I come pick you up in my Lexus at 8 and take you with me to the seaside for a couple of days," to which I so smoothly responded "I would, but I'll be busy... sleeping."  Andreas came outside looking for me (knowing I'd probably be trapped by some random dude) and I grabbed his leg and shouted "HEY BABE!!!!" and he swept me away like any good stand in boyfriend would.  This picture is of Erica, Andreas, Chris, Paul, Liz and I on the boat.  The next picture is the view from the Thames of the Houses of Parliament and, of course, Big Ben.
     Saturday we spent the day in Notting Hill at Portobello Market.  I got 3 amazing scarves and two pairs of vintage shoes which I am super in love with.  Unfortunately I only managed to talk the woman down £5 so it was £35 for two pair, but my justification was that number 1 I'm in London and number 2 I'm SUCH a sucker for vintage shoes when I find good ones.  They are both sassy little pumps, one pair is a really great blue and the other is black, both are leather and have detailing around the front.  After shopping we stuffed ourselves with our first great Indian meal at this place called Khan's in Notting Hill.  It was absolutely delicious.

     Today was another fantastic day, I slept in, did some reading and then headed into central with Erica and Ben to make a trip to Borders and then eat lunch at this nice little cafe, baguettes and tea... so delicious.  We came back thinking we weren't doing anything tonight and found out that plans had been made to go watch the Super Bowl at a pub in central that had no cover charge!  We seriously had the best time rooting for the Giants, such a good game.  The only sad thing was that we didn't get the commercials (BOOOOO!)  It was Becky's first experience with American Football so that was lovely, her first question was "why do they call it a bowl?"  This picture is of Becky, Liz, me, Erica, Barclee, Andreas, Paul and Ben (who you really can't see in the bottom right corner).  It was wonderful, we ate staple American dishes (nachos and buffalo wings) and drank beer, so cliche.  We even stood when they played the national anthem with our hands over our hearts, I'm sure no one knew where we were from.  Oh man, you all should have seen Ben's face when New England scored that last touchdown, he looked SOOOO pissed!  It was fantastic, I have a picture (but it takes so long to load them on here!)  and then Erica was shocked when the Giants came back and won it, so much rubbing in the faces happened.  
     More travel plans have been booked as of tonight.  We have what is called "reading week" in mid February so some of us girls, Becky, me, Erica and Liz are taking a trip to Barcelona from the 16th to the 20th of February.  We booked it tonight so yahoo for Spain!!  We're all so excited and Becky has been there before so she knows a lot of wonderful places we can go.  We've already discussed going to the Salvador Dali museum (and some of you know how much that excites me!!!).  Man, I feel like so many wonderful things happened within all of these experiences, usually I feel pretty confident that I've relayed the best parts to all of you.  This week I'm not so sure, which makes me a bit sad.  It might be due to the fact that it's 5:21 am here at the moment (watching the Super Bowl 8 hours ahead will do that to you... especially when the tube is closed and you have to take a bus home).  The things we do for America.

Love and miss all of you!