What's the definition of Juxtaposition?

     At the moment life is much more boring than "business as usual."  I've been stuck inside the past week writing papers (or rather, doing the preliminary sit-in-front-of-my-computer-and-get-distracted ritual that I go through for about a week before my mind is ready to do any actual work).  My papers are due the 6th so now I've actually got to do something about it.  However, not before I write this exceedingly boring little update.  

     So what do people talk about when they have nothing to say?  The weather, which, as it were, has made paper writing all the more difficult because it's been absolutely beautiful out.  Paul, Liz, Erica, Chris and I walked to the top of Alexandra park the other day just because it was a wonderfully nice day out.  Now that classes are done (ended last Friday) I've been filling my free time with the gym, I'm really glad I got a pass when I did because otherwise I'd have no structure in my life after these papers.  At this point I'm actually craving structure, I'm done flying free and lacking productivity.  I want to get on with my travels (which I'm so excited about) and get home to start my last year at Chapman.  I registered last week and I'm really excited about my classes: Major Authors: Tolstoy; American lit from 1950 to present; Writing about Diverse Cultures (with Van Meter, yeay!); Intro to Poetry.  All of the professors are men and women I've had before and they're all quite brilliant so it should be a pretty challenging and interesting semester.  It will also be my first semester (not counting this one since I'm in another country) living near campus versus at home and I'm really quite pleased that I'll have the opportunity to do so, and with Erica, who is a really neat girl so I'm sure we'll have a lot of fun together.  We're both big nerds and have already sat down and discussed "house rules."

     Speaking of travels (so I digress...) I got an email the other day from EasyCruise saying our cruise was cancelled because the boat wasn't ready!!!  I'm so upset!  BUT, we do get a full refund, plus refunded for any "reasonable" travel accommodations (ie my flights) and a complimentary cruise, so I'm going to try and rebook Paul and I for a 4 night cruise running the same weekend.  That's all up in the air based on availability though, since it's so close to now.  

     OOOH, found a new area last weekend.  Went to dinner off the Angel tube stop and it's a really great, trendy little area with antique and vintage shops, lots of bars, coffee shops, pastry shops and interesting people.  I actually ended up talking to the owner of one of the little vintage stores for near an hour on Sunday.

     Saturday I met Chris at the Natural History Museum to see the photography exhibit there, we also watched the end of the Man U. and Chelsea game, yahoo.  Chris's friend went with us to the exhibit, quite a character, we actually lost him at one point and never found him.

     Anyway, that's the long and short of it, Paul gets here the 7th so that will be a nice way to celebrate turning all of my papers in and then hopefully life will be much more fun and interesting.  Miss you all and really can't wait to see you!!

Half the clothes and twice the cash

     Last week my parents were here.  It was really great to see and spend time with them and finally share my life here with someone from back home.  We did a lot of walking (far more than they anticipated) and I am happy to say that both they and I got to see a lot of great stuff.  After picking them up from the airport and having their first (very long) tube experience, we got them checked in, went to Pret for some sandwiches and wandered the city.  Their hotel was right by Green Park, which connects to Buckingham Palace, so we went there, then through St. James Park and saw the Horse Guard Quarters, Westminster Abbey, Parliament and Big Ben, and then walked into Trafalgar Square to find a pub.  This was at about, well, it was before dusk anyway.  So we go in and get drinks, sit down and a very nice, very drunk man starts talking to us, particularly to my mother about the US and shepherds pie, at one point we thought he was actually going to order her one.  That night we ate at Wagamama's and then went down the street to meet some of my friends at the Sports Cafe because Thursdays are £3 wing night (20 of them!).  They got to meet Liz, Paul, Chris and Ben before they knocked out for the evening.

     Next day after class they met me at Wood Green so I could show them around where I live, we never got to my campus but no biggy because I don't spend much time there anyway.  Mother packed me an entire suitcase full of goodies, homemade cookies, pretzels, wheat thins, See's chocolates, clothes, toiletries etc.  I hope she knows how much that meant to me because I still look at my shelves stocked with nonperishable food and get really excited!  They got to see my 5 star accommodations (which, amazingly enough, lost hot water for 2 days right when they left).  We attempted to find dad a scarf at the Wood Green mall before heading to the Tower of London.  We got there and realized we wouldn't have time to see it before it closed so instead we walked (and walked) to Cafe Pacifico (amazing mexican food in Covent Garden), ate our hearts out and met up with Andreas for some Ben's Cookies before we parted ways so that Andreas and I could go see Chromeo at KoKo.  Chromeo put on a phenomenal show.  Their sound is very electro/funk type music, they're two best friends who claim they are the only successful Jewish/Muslim duo in the music industry.  Afterwards Dave 1 and P-Thugg (the two guys in the band... obviously) were signing autographs and if the pictures would load you'd be able to see the picture Matt and I got with Dave 1.

     Saturday we actually met at the Tower of London and had a fabulous audio tour before seeing the crown jewels.  That was my 3rd trip to the tower and I still learned new things, I love it.  Another bit of walking and we were at St. Paul's Cathedral where we spent a bit of time looking around before heading over towards Harrods.  Before going in we sat down for afternoon tea (I'm definitely going to miss clotted cream, so delicious!) and scones.  We ate and set up a meeting point with Dad so that he could go off and be spared a tour of Harrods.  Mom and I wandered the chocolate (thank God we were full so we didn't buy any) got some sweets and then spent a lot of time in the shoe department.  Typical. :)  If I recall we weren't very hungry after the tea and scones so we headed to Oxford Circus, dropped my Dad off at Bonds, which is where Liz worked (I say worked because that was actually her last night) and Mom and I did a bit of shopping along Oxford Street.  After that we went and ate at Bonds with Dad and they left while I waited for Chris and Paul to come hang out.  After Liz got off work we left and stayed up all night watching youtube videos, wild Saturday night.  

     Woke up at 6 on Sunday to meet the parents for our big day of bus touring.  First stop was Windsor Castle, which is very beautiful.  The Queen was expected later in the day but she wasn't in her apartments while we were touring, we got to tour the state apartments and caught the end of the changing of the guards there.  Mom and Dad took a not so silly picture with the not so silly guards.  Next stop was Bath to visit the Roman Baths, I found them quite interesting but I wish that I hadn't stayed up so late because I retained next to nothing as far as learned information goes.  The Romans were phenomenal with the things that they did, especially considering the time period (and they were everywhere!).  Last stop was my personal favorite (and my Dad's, I think) Stonehenge.  Mom was decidedly less impressed.  I've wanted to go and see Stonehenge for a very long time so I'm really glad that I finally got to experience it and do so with my parents (Dad wanted to see them since he was a kid so that made it even better).  We met Chris for dinner for sushi attempt #1, closed, so we went to Bella Italia for what was definitely the best meal of the trip.  After eating The Godfather Parts I and II Chris and I sent my parents on their way and headed back to Wood Green.

     Our last full day was a bit of a lazy day, I finally met up with my parents around 2:30.  Mom and I set up a meeting point with Dad at Covent Garden and Mom and I went to the National Gallery to meet up with Paul.  We did a quick walk through and then headed to Covent Garden to attempt some more shopping and really just ended up in a coffee shop until it was dinner time.  Sushi attempt #2, sushi joint was open to reveal the ultimate 7/11 of sushi bars.  We ended up having Spaghetti House instead before parting from paul to see Jersey Boys.   Jersey Boys was an absolutely brilliant production, the Brits nailed the Jersey accent (as commented on by a woman from Jersey in the bathroom).  The guy who played Frankie Valli had a wonderful voice and definitely brought the Four Season to life.  I'm really glad that we ended up seeing that instead of Les Mis.

     Our last day we met at Oxford Circus, walked a bit and then checked them out.  I was a bit sad to see them go but I'm so happy that they got to come and see London.  Now I'm on my last week of classes and then finals/final papers are due the week after that.  I have so much reading and writing to do it's insane!!!  But it will be great when it's over because a few days after my deadline I'm off to Greece!!!

Merci. De Nada.

     Okay, bare with me because these pictures, for whatever reason, didn't upload in order.  Right, now that that's been discussed we can move on amicably.  For the first time since I've been traveling I can honestly say that words cannot describe how beautiful my trip was.  The Loire Valley was beautiful in its entirety.  It seems that every town we entered, every chateau we visited, was more beautiful than the last.  I kept thinking that the next one would surely disappoint (and, my add getting the better of me, the last one did... but I think that was more my attention span's fault than anything else).  

     We arrived in Tours Monday and walked outside realizing we hadn't figured out how to get from the airport (so small that there was only one flight in and one flight out... we're talking middle of nowhere tiny airport, so cute) to our hotel.  Luckily I had Jenni with me and she speaks a bit of french.  We got a taxi to the main train station in Tours thinking that we'd have to take a bus somewhere and found out that our hotel was around the corner from the station, which was really convenient.  We immediately found some yummy French pastries to eat and dropped our stuff off before wandering the town for a few hours.  Like true party animals we ended up in bed and asleep at 7pm... how sad.  There were full intentions of waking up at 10 and going out, we just never actually got up when the alarm went off.  Needless to say we were well rested for our first full day of exploration.

     We attempted to prod the tourism office for wine tasting information and were largely unsuccessful.  While we received a map of vineyards as well as wine houses we didn't receive any information on how to get there or any tours that might run there.  We were actually told that the best way to do wine tasting, because of their spread out locations, would be to rent a car (who rents a car to spend a day with alcohol?!).  So we picked Saumur from the map, known for their red wines, and took a train there hoping to figure it out.  We got there and saw the Chateau Saumur from the station at the top of the city and it looked absolutely stunning.  We got a glass of wine in a local bar and found both liquor and wine tasting venues on our place mats so we asked the bartender how to get to them.  Before heading there we hiked to the chateau and walked around a bit.  After that we went to the liquor house, which turned out to be a really neat experience because we tried some local spirits and learned a bit about how the French enjoy their alcohol compared to how others do so.  I ended up buying a bottle of Fruits des Bois, which is a dark mixed berry liquor that is typically mixed with white or sparkling wines, delicious.  After that we realized we didn't have time to venture to the winery, which was a bit further away, so we just shared a bottle of wine at a bar before catching our train home to have crepes for dinner. (SO GOOD!)

     Our last full day was our big day as we'd booked an all day tour of the chateaus.  From 9:30 to 7:00 we took a van to 5 chateaus around the Loire Valley region.  It was really the most amazing experience.  Our first stop was probably my favorite because of the gardens.  The Chateau Villandry is also known as "Little Versailles" because the gardens were constructed to mimic those of Versailles.  Both places are typical of Renaissance structures in that they mimic the Greek/Roman styles by being very geometric.  The gardens weren't in full bloom but even so I could have wandered them all day.  The second stop was Azay-le-Rideau, there was a beautiful lake and Jenni and I got to sit and eat our gummy eggs on the water.  The nice thing about the morning tour was that we were the only two in the van so we left when we were done and got back to Tours to eat lunch and wait for the afternoon portion of the tour to start.  

     In the afternoon there were 5 others with us, two sisters from Australia were among them and were really fun to hang out with and talk a bit with later in the day.  We visited some of the bigger and more famous chateaus in the afternoon.  First we went to my other favorite, (mainly because of it's really rich history) Chenonceau.  It's also called the Chateau of the Dames because of the many famous women who, at one time or another, lived there (including Diane de Poitier and Catherine de Medici).  One of the most interesting rooms was Louise of Lorraine's room where she stayed after the assassination of King Henry III.  It was her mourning room and it was decorated entirely in black: black walls, ceiling, bedding, rug... yeah, everything.  She was known as the White Queen because, as customary for royals in mourning, she was always seen in white.  Anyways, point being... the room was pretty amazing.  This particular chateau is built over the water and has archways allowing the water to flow through, very beautiful.  Jenni and I went running through the maze in the forrest, she beat me out.  The fourth house was the Chateau du Clos Luce, which was Da Vinci's place.  There were replicas of a lot of his inventions all over the gardens and it was so interesting to read all about them.  The man was such a genius!  Last we went to the Chateau Roal D'Amboise, where there is the bust of Da Vinci in the garden.  The view from this place was amazing but by then it was unfortunately a bit cloudy.  At the end we had a mini wine tasting session that was included with the tour but we weren't impressed by the wines.

     We got home and relaxed a bit, had pizza for dinner and drank a bit more wine.  We figured since we missed the wine tasting we'd make up for it by independently sampling the local wines throughout our vacation... none were all that good (clearly because we didn't buy any to bring home).  The weekend wasn't without minor incident, really more just minor embarrassment (because when do I NOT embarrass myself somehow?).  So we went to a pizza place for dinner the last night and I had to use the toilet so Jenni asked where it was and relayed that it was the second on the right.  So I go into the other room and the first door says toilettes above it, so I turn the handle and it doesn't open.  Remembering Jenni's words I continue walking and turn the corner rather fast and run straight into an antique stove that was clearly there just for decoration.  Not so bad, but as I turn around our waiter takes my arm and guides me to the bathroom, where he opens the door for me as though I'm one of the dumbest people he's ever met (which, at that moment, I might be).  I sat down and told Jenni we should leave... but instead we stayed for dessert.

     Which reminds me, last week I went out with Phoebe for high tea and left her at Tottenham Court Road station.  I walk down the stairs into the station and somehow decided that the last step didn't exist and I kid you not I did a complete face plant during rush hour in the middle of a huge central station, skinned my knees and everything.  I'm pretty sure I was laughing before I even hit the floor.  Unfortunately, no one I know was there to see it, although hundreds of people I DON'T know got a very clear view.  Enjoy my minor misfortunes!  In other news, I came home to an email from Nike saying that I have officially been picked to be in the Nike women's marathon in San Francisco on October 19th so I'm super excited to start training for that!  Mom and Dad get here next Thursday and I can't wait to see them.  I'm pretty sure Jenni got sick of me mentioning how excited I was every time I thought about it... On to the pictures!

This is Jenni and I in front of Chenonceau, aka the Chateau of the Dames.
The back of Jenni in front of Da Vinci's country home.  There were children everywhere screaming like banshees... grrr.
The Chateau Royal D'Amboise.  This is where my attention span failed me, I blame the weather...
One of the town squares in Tours where we had most of our evening meals.  It seemed that most of the young people were here either in the restaurants or bars so it was a great place to be and the building were so neat!  You can't really see, but just to the left there was a really neat black building in the corner of the square, very cool.
My snobby-flared-nostril-wine-tasting face.  Too bad we weren't ACTUALLY wine tasting. :)
These are some beautiful tulips outside the Chateau Saumur, they were such a vibrant red and looked wonderful surrounding the grey stones of the chateau walls.
My favorite, Chateau Villandry, none of my pictures even do this place justice.  It's not fair that not everyone gets to see a place like this, I was in absolute awe.
The Chateau D'Azay Le Rideau.  Also wonderful.  The ceilings above the staircases had faces carved into it... creepy.