Spain and Revision

I said I would update more often, but I lied.  It's been another couple weeks since my last update, and it's been a couple weeks since I got back from Spain, but here goes nothin'.

My adventure in Spain started in Malaga, a fairly good sized city on the Costa del Sol, in southern Spain.  I stayed outside the city at a place called Benalmadena.  While the beaches and accommodations were great, Benalmadena was FILLED with older Brits on holiday.  Not exactly what I expected.  When we went into the city, and went to the beach there (the beach was not NEARLY as nice in the city) we found many more people our age.  It would have been nice to see people closer to my age, but I was on holiday, and was relaxed as person could possibly be.  I got a little tan (you know, bro, a nice base for the summer), watched some food network, and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

After a week on the beach, my adventure continued in Granada.  Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, a couple hours north of the coast.  From the city, you could see houses built up onto the sides of mountains and snow capped peaks in the distance.  The city has been around for quite awhile, so there is some great history and it's most notable example of this is Alhambra.  Alhambra was built in the 14th century, and it is essentially a castle.  It's also much harder to get tickets to than we anticipated.  It's a huge fortress, how do tickets sell out?!  Anyway, we got a workout hiking up and down hills and exploring.  There were some excellent views over the city and into the mountain range.  It made me miss the mountains and Denver.  Since I was travelling the week before Easter,  there were the very strange parades that followed us from city to city to city.  I say they are strange because I don't understand them and they are a HUGE deal to the spanish people.  Streets are completely blocked off on weeknights, sometimes multiple nights in a row, and the people in the parade seriously look like they are members of the KKK.  They wore hoods very similar to those worn by members of the KKK, which would be strange to any american. A quick google delivered me a short explanation of the rituals.  They obviously were in no way affiliated with the crazy racist cult, but it was weird to see nonetheless.

While football (soccer) isn't big in the US, it's almost a religion in Spain.  The two biggest teams in Spain (Barcelona and Real Madrid) were playing in the Spanish Cup Final while I was in Granada.  The game was on EVERYWHERE, and everywhere people were watching it.  It ended up going into extra time, but while we were walking back from watching the Arsenal game (hehe, I found a bar in Spain, on the night of the Copa del Rey final, that was playing Arsenal on one of their tvs. win.), we were walking through a square and the was an explosion of cheers and shouts.  SOMEONE SCORED!  I couldn't see the tv, but I KNEW someone had scored.  Real Madrid went on to win, but as the final whistle blew, I stick my head out of the window of my hotel room and could hear loud, synchronized cheers across the city.  It was something I won't forget.  And to think if the game had been the next day, we would have been IN Madrid.  THAT would have been something to remember.  The streets in Madrid were lined with people cheering as the players rode through the city on a double decker bus after the win (I saw videos).  It was a huge deal, especially to come against Barcelona.

From Granada, a 5 hour coach ride brought us to Madrid, the final stop on my 'Spring break' if you will.  The weather in Madrid sucked.  It was cloudy and chilly most of the time with intermittent showers.  Highlights from the capital of Spain include:
1. Parque Retiro- a huge park, very enjoyable.
2. Tapas
3. Black paella against my will, it was still good though.
4. Sangria, lots of it
5. Not being able to choose where to eat.
6. Long lines and Museo Prado (an art museum)
Madrid was nice, but I think the weather kind of ruined my impression of it and it wasn't as good as it could have been.  Granada was my favorite city of the trip, and one of my favorite cities that I have been to thus far.  I didn't know what to expect, but it didn't let me down.

I'm happy to be back in London.  I feel comfortable and safe here.  It is honestly the only city I have been to that I can actually see myself living in.  This may have something to do with language barriers, but maybe it doesn't.  May is finals month, and I have four finals, the first one in a week.  So if you will please excuse me, I have some revision to do.

ADIOS!

A tourist in the city I live in and Southwest England

England and london

The length of time between this post and the last one is in no way respective of the actual length of time between the trips and events that are depicted in the following.  In actuality, the events in this post begin IMMEDIATELY following the end of the last post.  

fade in.

The scene opens on a train from London to Salisbury, a small town a couple hours outside of London.  Two people, a male and a female are sitting next to each other as the train blazes past a train traveling in the opposite direction.

Tessa: Did you just eat that entire baguette?

Andrew: Yep.

end scene.

Salisbury was smallish, about the size of my hometown, but more interesting and had fewer suburban homes and walmarts.  On this part of our adventure we stayed in Bed and Breakfasts (4 in 4 nights), and our first was in Salisbury.  We were in Salisbury about 18 hours before heading to Cornwall. While in Salisbury we…

1. Celebrated Britain's Mother's day. (Free bottle of wine? Yes please.)

2. Saw an original copy of the Magna Carta (Published in 1215, only 4 copies still exist today.

3.  WELSH CAKES

4. Streamed the St. Louis Blues game live. (They won.)

and 5.  Rented a Vauxhall Astra.

Our adventure continued to Stonehenge, a quick 15 minutes north of Salisbury.  Stonehendge is old, and it ROCKS!!!!!! (get it?)  Stonehendge is now known to be a landing platform for aliens from distant worlds whom originally contracted humans to build it for them.   The humans were paid in sheep, that is why there are so many sheep in Great Britain.

Somewhere in Cornwall was our destination.  We ended at another bed and breakfast, walked to the sea, ate at a pub, walked back in complete darkness, chatted with our hosts (call me anytime, Alice), went to bed, woke up, ate full english breakfast (delicious and somewhat nutritious) then squeezed all our luggage back into the tiny vauxhall and made our way.

We stopped off at Land's End (the most westerly point in England), I found where the Top Gear episode that started at Lands End was filmed, then headed for B&B number three (that just rhymed).  My least favorite B&B, it smelled kind of like a nursing home.

Tintagel Castle is supposedly one of the birthplaces of King Arthur.  It was built centuries ago built high on a cliff overlooking the sea.  I like cliffs, and I like exploring so this was probably one of my favorite stops of the trip, and afterward we got ICE CREAM!  Oh, history lesson, King Arthur wasn't PHYSICALLY born there and that is because he is  not real (c'mon guys, he hung out with a WIZARD, and everyone knows magic isn't real.).

Our final B&B was more like an Inn, but tomatoes toMAHtos.  My parents got a sea view while Tessa and I overlooked some ugly courtyard with empty kegs and dirt everywhere.  We hustled back to Salisbury, caught the train for London, and our Whirlwind adventure of "Thomas Hardy Country" as my Mom would say, but Normal people would call it southwest England, ended.

Tessa was in London for 2 nights, but my parents stayed for 5.  I won't go into detail about each and every thing we did (happy?) but I'll give you the main points.


While Tessa was there:

1.Billy Eliiot: The first of 3 shows I saw in the west end while my parents were in town.  A fun musical based on the movie.  The actor playing Billy was brilliant.

2. In a forest, Dark and Deep: 2 person play starring the one and only Dr. Jack Shepard from Lost. I had to constantly repress the urge to scream "WE HAVE TO GO BACK!!!"

3. London Eye: for those of you that don't know, it's the huge ferris wheel thing.

4. Walks through Westminster.

5. Brindisa's chorizo roll: one of the best sandwiches I have ever had.

6. Tower Bridge and Tower of London

After Tessa left:

1. Les Miserables: This was the first time I had ever seen this, even though my mom has probably seen it some 15 times.  Brilliant.  The story, the music, the actors, the set.  I could have done without the lady next to me singing along, but it didn't ruin the experience.

2. Byron: An american style burger place that I have been dying to go to since I got to London (but didn't want to foot the bill myself). Delicious.  I miss good burgers.

3. Hyde park, a little shopping, Arsenal finally winning a game, and a lengthy bus tour capped off the trip.  While they were here I was as much a tourist in London as they were even though I (currently) live there.

They day after they left (less than 24 hours later) I was in Spain for my last long (more than 4 days) adventure of my semester abroad.  Currently, I'm making my way towards Madrid (via a 5 hr coach ride), having already been to Granada and Malaga.  And in less than 2 months I will be making my way back to the U S of A.  Where has this semester gone?

Paris

PARIS

My last post ended as I was chunneling towards Paris, France with my Mom, my Dad and Tessa.  Since then I have returned from Paris and continued my adventures in England, but this post is not about England.  This post is about Paris.

We arrived in Paris around 7pm, and after an interesting train station experience we made it to our living arrangements for the next three nights.  The apartment was on Montmartre in northern Paris, but far enough away from Sacre Couer and the busy square at the top to still be quiet. But boy, was it cozy.  Too small for 4 people if I do say so myself.  Perfect for 2, too small for 4.  Herve, the man we were renting from, took us on a walk to show us the area.  He was very helpful and his english was just good enough!  He had some good stories too.  Apparently, Picasso and Pissaro, while living in Paris, had lived on the top floor of the building in which we were renting an apartment.  When they went out, and got too hammered to climb up the stairs of the building to the top floor (there was no lift), they would rent the apartment that we were renting. Prettfy effin' cool.

After the walk, which was incredibly helpful, we had a little snack, settled down, and went to sleep.  The next morning started early with the most awkward shower I have ever taken.  This is because the shower was tiny, and the shower head was handlheld.  You had to half sit half stand to bathe, it was a process, and whenever someone used water elsewhere in the apartment, even if it wasn't hot water, the shower water would turn to ice in a fraction of a second.  That really kept me on my toes.  Afterwards we headed up Montmatre for breakfast and coffee, then our day and adventures in Paris began!

We took the metro to the Tuileries and walked through them towards the Louvre.  Although it was early in the spring, there were still flowers in the Tulleries, but i'm sure if you were to see them in full bloom it would be spectacular and beautiful.  The weather could have been better too.  Cloudy and 50 is not my optimum sightseeing temperature.  We reached the Louvre, took photos (required outside the Louvre), and went in to get our tickets.  Being a student at UCL, I got in free!  We started wandering through the halls of the huge museum, admiring and appreciating the priceless paintings and sculptures.  Now I like art, but I don't know enough about artists and their styles, influences etc. to feel like I came away with something REAL from that experience.  I had a great time and liked a lot of the art and collections (maybe a few too many religious pieces), but I just felt like I wasn't educated enough to TRULY appreciate what I was seeing.  There were a couple more famous paintings I recognized, and of course Mona is chillin' in her own little room and large group of phototakers around her (I think I took a picture with 15 people taking photos. a new personal best.).  From the Louvre, which also houses multiple Starbucks and an Apple star, we went to lunch and then to Notre Dame.  Notre Dame (Know-trah Dahm) was crowded, but magnificent.  Much more stunning from the outside than inside, but that is just my personal opinion.  The inside was PACKED with people.  One thing that gets me sore (I'm currently reading Catcher in the Rye, hence the use of 'sore' in this context.),  is the exploitation of historical and even religious buildings for monetary gain.  I'm not religious, but placing vending machines, where you can buy souvenir coins, at every corner in the cathedral seems wrong to me.  I know places like that cost money to upkeep, but there has to be a classier way of making money than that.  We left Notre Dame, walked around a little, got our bearings, then headed to the Eiffel Tower.  We didn't go up, but we did get to see all the people selling trinkets run away when the police came up, so that was a treat.  We took the required photos, admired it's greatness (it really is cool and to see it in real life, close up, it really was something), then headed back to Montmartre before dinner.  I will say one thing about the food we had in France and then not mention it again.  They food was amazing, and that might be an understatement.  Most of places we went were recommended by this book we had, but even the ones that weren't recommend were out of control good.  ALL THE FOOD WAS TOO GOOD.  They know how to cook, and eat,

The next day started at the catacombs (after breakfast of course).  This is a kind of tomb for people that died.

I have never seen so many human bones in my life.  It was eerie, creepy and interesting at the same time.  This was one of my favorite places in Paris.  There weren't tons and tons of tourists, like the other places we went, which was a breath of fresh air, and I took some cool photos.  After the catacombs, we had lunch, I almost had an anxiety attack and found our way to Mussee d'Orsay.  This museum houses much more impressionistic art (more my style than all those religious paintings).  I was more familiar with a lot of the artists here: Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, etc.  I actually recognized some of the paintings here.  I also recognized the high powered automatic rifles that the French  soldiers were holding outside the museum (Thanks CS 1.6.  B-4-1, if you are interested in what gun it was, and if you aren't using binds, noob.).  Our last full day ended by marching up steps to Sacre Couer on the top of Montmartre, dodging all the bracelet makers.  There were TONS of people there watching the sun set over Paris.  My trip to Paris was capped off with a delicious crepe and a view over a beautifully lit-up city.  We left the next morning after breakfast (2 free baguettes!), and channeled back to London before we caught another train, 3 hours later to Salisbury, England.  That began the next chapter of this 12 day adventure, but that elicits another blog post.

I bought a kindle recently, and have been reading books I have always meant to read.  So I will leave you with an excerpt from one of the books I have recently finished.

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to always tell the difference." - Serenity Prayer (I read it in Slaughterhouse Five, hehe)

Amsterdam and Bruxelles

First of all I would like to apologize for the HUGE delay in between this post and my previous one.  March became pretty busy with classes ending, coursework being due and friends visiting.  Since Wales, I spent most of my time in London, going to class, writing papers, finishing lab reports, getting sick, etc.  The past 5 days, however, were spent abroad.  On Saturday the 26th, I ventured from London, through the chunnel, to Brussels, Belgium.  I traveled with 5 friends I met here in London, 3 of whom also go to UCL.  

I woke up prior to the crack of dawn (5am) to shower, finish packing, and catch a bus to St. Pancras train station.  I arrived with time to spare, but some of us didn't.  After some security fast-tracking by the kind Eurostar security staff, we all made the train in time.  OFF TO BRUSSELS!  The train was uneventful, but I did get to go UNDER the English channel in the "Chunnel Tunnel" as the train manager called it.

Our train was a little late to arrive, but when we did arrive we began our adventure in Belgium.  A long walk from the train station took us to Grand Place which is a major attraction in Brussels.  It is a huge open square surrounded by old, majestic buildings, and filled with tables for restaurants and people selling flowers.  We found our hostel nearby, but needed to check in at an alternate location.  We ventured fourth, eventually finding this location, dropped our bags off and went to go find waffles.  Belgian waffles in Belgium did not dissapoint.  I went for a waffle with bananas and nutella (a boat load of nutella. She loaded that stuff on, but I wasn't complaining.).  They supplied you with a little miniature plastic fork which didn't make things easy and I eventually took a more hands on approach as I felt like I could not eat this treat fast enough.  After waffles, we took a seat at a nearby cafe to enjoy a coffee and figure out our plans for the evening.  The hostel supplied us with a map with white font and a neon orange background.  As you can imagine it was pretty difficult to read, but it worked out in the end.  We decided to try and find this creative street with some stuff that sounded pretty cool (a robot chicken comes to mind, but I can't remember exactly. Maybe an electric waterfall?), but we ended up only finding closed shops (it was a saturday), a little square, and prostitutes (WOO!).  We kept walking.  We found the main shopping drag, which seems to go on forever and a supermarket IN a mall before checking into the hostel and figuring out dinner plans.  CHEZ (shay) LEON was apparently the place to go for Mussels in Brussels, which we decided was the thing to do, and we couldn't have been more right.  Mussels, cheese, snail butter (sounds gross, but let me assure you it is NOT, and a little garlic comprised my dish.  My trip was quickly becoming a tour of food, but once again I was not complaining (but my waistline might be).  Post-'Mussels in Brussels' we headed to Celtica, a bar with 1 euro bottles and 2 euro pints. YES PLEASE.  After being used to the outrageous prices of pints in London, to get a pint for 2 euro felt like Christmas.  We waited around for my boy Stuart Innes's live acoustic stylings, but he sucked, so after plenty of dollar beers we headed back to the hostel, but not before an order of famous fries.  It is customary to put mayonnaise on your fries in Belgium and Holland, but I opted out of that (I tried it later and was actually really good. Their mayonnaise is completely different than mayo in the states.) and went for a garlic sauce.  The fries hit the spot and I went right to sleep.

The next morning started EARLY once again.  It was daylight savings time in Europe, so we needed to be extra careful and make sure we woke up at the right time in order to catch our train to Amsterdam (which had to be no more than 24 hours after our arrival in Brussels, because of how our train tickets worked.).  There was a little mix up initially, we thought it was 7am when it was really 6am so instead of being late we turned out to be extra ambitious and we ended up catching the first train to Amsterdam for Leg 2 of this adventure.  Our walk to the train station took us through Grand Place again, but it was much different this time around.  Since it was barely 7am on the day of daylight savings, there were about 10 people (including us) in the huge open square.  It is probably one of the coolest things I have seen on this trip.  The sun was rising and it was just so cool seeing two completely different settings: the bustling, busy mid-day and the desolate early morning.  We continued to the train station, through a market being set up, and onto the train. Onward to the Netherlands!

We arrived in Amsterdam around 11.  This train was much slower and made many, many more stops, but the Belgian and Dutch countrysides were beautiful.  After arriving we decided to walk to our hostel again, even though our directions told us to take a tram.  This gave us an understanding for the city and allowed me to form the following first impressions.

1. Let's start with what everyone knows: Marijuana is legal to sell, distribute, and use (not in public, but in "coffee shops").

2. The people of Amsterdam really, REALLY love their bikes.  There are way more bikes on the road than cars.  They don't have parking garages for cars, but they do have parking garages for bikes.  I'm not kidding.

3. Amsterdam is gorgeous.  The city is similar to Venice, but in a much more organized fashion.  There are many canals filled with tour boats and canal buses.  Ok so it isn't that much like Venice, but it has a lot of canals.

We found our hostel after much walking and map consulting and set our bags down.  The stairs were super narrow and steep, and the hostel was just what I expected for 14 euro a night.   We ventured fourth, hungry (believe it or not), and continued our food tour-- I mean adventure.  Pannenkoeken, or dutch pancakes, are a speciality of The Netherlands, so that's what we went seeking.  After a helpful local pointed us in the right direction, we happened upon "Pancakes!" for our first taste of food in Amsterdam.  "Pancakes!" set the bar pretty high, too high in actuality.  For those of you that aren't too familiar with pannenkoeken, it is a huge plate sized pancake (similar to a crepe, but thicker) and can be sweet or savory.  I went for savory as it was lunchtime: cheese, tomato and bacon.  This, to date, is the best pancake I have ever had.  It was perfectly crispy on the outside, the bacon was one with the pancake, but crispy at the same time and the tomatoes were juicy and delicious.  Afterwards, we headed back to the hostel to check in, ended up napping and we met our bunk roommates, a lovely couple from Melbourne who were traveling the world (literally) for, get this, AN ENTIRE YEAR.  They were so nice and very cool.  Bridget and Olmo were their names.  From the hostel we met back up with the rest of our group, and formulated evening plans.  We wandered around Amsterdam, enjoying the scenery and each other's company before deciding on dinner.  After dinner, Greg and I went to find a place to watch the Kentucky v. UNC game (Greg goes to UK) while the others turned in for the night.  After a very exciting game (I never though I would be able to watch march madness, live, in Amsterdam.) we headed back to the hostel for some shut-eye.

The next stay started pretty late in the morning, but started with a nice pancake from 'Sara's Pancake House.'  Sara was actually the one to make our pancakes, and while they were good, I didn't like it was much as my previous one.  From there, we went to the Anne Frank house.  This is the house that she kid in for two years during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.  It is also where she wrote all? of her journal.  This was really amazing, and really well done.  They had descriptions in each of the rooms with videos from people that knew or worked in the house with the family.  The original, movable bookshelf was there along with the original wallpaper in Anne and Margot's room.  The original red-checkered, diary was also on display.  It is such a tragic story and to see the house was really breathtaking and thought-provoking.  After this depressing shock to our system, we did some more exploring before dinner.  That night we why wanted to find a place to watch a little live music.  Across from the hostel was a little bar that promised live music every night. PERFECT. We watched the B-Funk jam session for a few hours before walking across the street to the hostel from some shut eye.

My last full day started with a pancake (believe it or not), and after that we went to THE HEINEKEN EXPERIENCE, which is located at the brewery which was formerly used to brew the world famous Heineken beer.  This was pretty cool.  We learned the history, went through a simulation where we got 'brewed' into beer, and, of course, received some 'free' samples at the end.  A couple people even gave us their tokens, so instead of only getting two samples we each got three!  We kept of this afternoon buzz b heading to another bar before heading to a little italian place for dinner (delicious but expensive).  My last night ended with traditional dutch fries (Vlammse fries), with ketchup and mayo (i'm serious, it was good.)

My last day felt too rushed and I didn't enjoy it as much as I should have.  My flight flew out of Amsterdam-Schipol at 240pm, but I didn't know what train to take to the train station or what train to take to the airport, but I still wanted to see the Van Gogh museum.  No pancake this morning, which is upsetting, but I feel like 3 was sufficient.  The Van Gogh museum was very cool.  They have the largest collection of Van Gogh paintings in the world, and it was interesting to see his style grow and develop.  They did a good job explaining his techniques and influences in a lot of different pieces.  I would have liked to spend more time there, but I needed to make it to the airport in time.  It ended up being really easy, and I got to the airport about 20 minutes earlier than anticipated.  Too easy.  I had an amazing time in both Brussels and Amsterdam.  I could not have asked for better food, adventures and company.

At this very moment, I am on my way to Paris, going backwards at 120 mph and typing a blog post like a champ.  My family is around me and I couldn't be more excited to continue my adventures.  Sorry that this post is so.damn.long.  I won't be mad if you didn't read all of it, or if it took you a couple tries.  Thanks for reading!!  I promise my next post will be sooner and not so lengthy.

Wales

This past weekend I traveled to the western coast of Wales, north of Haverfordwest, and spent the weekend at an adventure lodge called 'Preseli Venture.'  I departed from London midday on Friday and arrived in Wales late Friday evening.  We were served dinner when we arrived (the trip was all inclusive, except alcohol of course), and everyone started to get to know each other.  I only knew one other person on the trip, but all the students were Arcadia study abroad students in some way shape or form.  The first night was pretty laid back a group of us played jenga (some pretty heated games of jenga as well).  Eventually, however, some people thought it would be cool to walk to the beach from the lodge, about a mile, IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT. It was so dark.  While the walk ended in a failure after we trudged a half mile on muddy terrain, there was one thing that I enjoyed.  STARS.  I had forgotten how awesome it was to see millions of stars in the night sky.  In London, I don't even notice them, they don't exist, but in the middle-of-nowhere, Wales they do exist and it was breathtaking.  It reminded me of lying on the dock at Lake Placid just looking at the stars.  Good memories.

The next morning after breakfast I was scheduled to go hiking.  Since I didn't really plan on doing much hiking in London, I wasn't exactly prepared for this.  I ended up hiking in jeans and indoor soccer shoes, but it wasn't a too strenuous or tough hike.  It was beautiful though. The sun was shining bright, and the path followed the right along the coastline where Wales meets the Irish sea.  To one side was the blue/green ocean and to the other side were infinite rolling hills of green.  This reminded me of Ireland.  We walked along the cliffs that just seem to explode out of the clear water, past pebbly beaches and eventually back to the lodge where we relaxed before lunch.  I passed the time by reading a book about kayaking (an event I would be partaking in tomorrow).

After lunch, it was time for a little coasteering!  It's kind of a mix of hiking and climbing on the coastline, where the water meets the land.  We prepared by suiting up in cold water wetsuits, wetsuit vests and shorts,  cold water socks, life vests (buoyancy aids, as the brits call them), and helmets.  Eventually I looked something like this...

Coasteering was brilliant.  A once in a lifetime oppurtunity.  We swam into caves, climbed along rocks, jumped off cliffs and got really cold.  The water was freezing, but it was a great time.  Our guides were fantastic as well.  Steve was a quirky, fun adventure nut who kept having us eat the local plants and sea creatures and enjoyed power lunging.

(Steve lunging, i'm in the white helmet)

After coasteering, we warmed up, drove back to the lodge, showered, ate dinner, some people got HAMMERED (not me), and went to bed.  Next morning, my last day, was sea kayaking. We wore a smaller wetsuit for this, and a cool windbreaker that looked like it was from the 80s. REAL HIP!  Kayaking was cold, but not nearly as cold as coasteering, because you didn't need to get wet if you didn't really want to.  We went over the basics in a lagoon before we went out venturing fourth.  We kayaked along the coast, went in some caves, saw a gigantic seal, had a hot chocolate break and battled the wind and waves on our adventure.  This was another thing I never thought I would be able to do in my lifetime, and I am grateful I was given the chance to do things like this.  

After returning to the lodge, we packed up, said our goodbyes to the staff (they were great, each one of them, so much fun) and made our way to the train station.  We had to take a bus to Swansea because the train union was on strike, but made it back to London around 930.  With plenty of time to write my paper that was due monday night, hehe.

link for the pictures posted by the lodge:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=288448&id=45235119669

Thanks for reading!

My tour of Italia (Milan and Venice)

Once again sorry for the delay.  This past week has been busy with Arsenal games, biology labs (they call them PRACTICALS here), and social outings.

Here is, as promised, a continuation of my last post, documenting my adventure through Italy.

After leaving Rome and arriving in Milano, the next few days were fairly laid back.  First of all, it rained for probably 36 hours straight after I arrived.  I think it was making up for all the fantastic weather I had in Rome.  Rachel had class during the day, so I hung out, did homework, ate food, and just relaxed, because I was on holiday.  When Rachel wasn't in class she showed me around Milano.  We went to Duomo, strolled through the fashion district, and ate panzerotta.  Panzerotti is a stuffed pastry, similar to a calzone but smaller and more delicious.  I could have eaten 3 or 4, but I managed with only one.  We 'saved' some money by cooking dinner every night.  Saved is in quotes because we would end up buying WAY WAY WAY too much food and probably ended up costing the same amount, but there were some good leftovers too.  On that note, trying to prepare rice when all the directions are in Italian and not knowing any italian is pretty tough.  That is one thing I am glad I don't have to deal with most of the time: LANGUAGE BARRIERS.  Sometimes in Italy it would be so hard to do simple things like order food or drinks, which is frustrating.  Towards the end of the trip I was glad to be going back to an english speaking nation, and I no longer take that fact for granted.

After Milan we headed to my final destination: VENEZIA.  The train there was uneventful, although it was 20 minutes late and we sat on the platform for another 30.  Upon arrival in Venice, I was first struck with it's unbelievable location.  It's similar to an island in the way that it is about half a mile from the mainland, but isLANDs have LAND, and Venice is just buildings built in the water.  It is an amazing sight.  Our group (Some of Rachel's friends, her flatmate Brittany, Rachel and I) decided that it couldn't be THAT hard to navigate through the city to our hostel, which google maps said was only a 15 minute walk away.  We were wrong.  The walkways are randomly placed, their names change or they aren't marked well, and there are so many of them.  After quite the adventure, we arrived and we were greeted by the owners.  The place we stayed was awesome and the owners were very nice and accommodating.  Two of them owned a nearby restaurant and gave our entire group 20% off our dinner and even made a reservation for us.

The next day was our only full day in Venice, and once again the weather was perfect, mid 50s and sunny.  We saw the sights: Rialto Bridge, Piazza San Marco, the fashion district (armani, prada, burberry any high end store you can think of and they are all in the same area.) and just enjoyed the beauty of the city.  There are no cars in Venice because there are no roads, and if you stay away from the Grand Canal and main tourist attractions, in the maze that is Venice, it is very peaceful and quiet. A polar opposite of Rome.  We ended the day with a dinner at a restaurant recommended to me by my good friend Anthony Bourdain.  You might know him from the Travel Channel or appearances on Top Chef.  The venetians are some of the nicest people I have ever met and experienced in my travels.  Claudio and Giorgio from the hostel and restaurant were so generous and the owner or host was the same way at this restaurant,  Al Mascaron.  We sample some of Venice's famous seafood and closed the restaurant down.  They even brought us more wine on the house.  The next day was somewhat stressful in that I didn't know where to catch my bus to Treviso (the airport I flew back to London out of) and Venice was still confusing.  After getting lost a couple times I figured it out and made it to the airport to fly back to London, which feels like home.

My trip to Italy was simply amazing, but it is only the beginning of my adventures abroad.  I am so thankful for this opportunity and especially thankful for those people that made it possible (that's you Mom and Dad).  This weekend I go to Wales and only have 3 full weeks of classes until I have all of April off and until my family gets here!  Yesterday I met with some friends and planned my next adventure, after wales and before my family arrives, to Brussels and Amsterdam.

My tour of Italia (Rome)

So as I previously mentioned, I spent my 'Reading week' (UCL's very early spring break) traveling around Italy.  This post could be epically long, so bear with me.

After class Friday (Feb 11), and after taking a bus an hour outside of London to Stansted airport, I flew into Milano to meet my friend Rachel.  I don't mind flying so the flight was fantastic until we got over the alps and I realized something.  I forgot something, and it was probably the worst thing I could have forgotten (besides my passport.)  When in Italy, it had been decided the cheapest way to get around would be to take trains and instead of buying individual tickets I ordered a Eurail pass to save about $100.  I forgot this pass in London.  I felt so stupid.  I tried not to let it bother me, but it wasn't the ideal way to start my trip.  Life is full of lessons, and this just happened to be one of my more expensive lessons.  When I arrived at Milano Centrale (the train station), I purchased a new rail pass so I could get to Roma the next morning.  After a proper Italian dinner (GNOCCHI and some salmon), I retired for the night.  In the morning we headed back to Centrale to board our train to Roma.  The bullet train got us there in 3 hours.  Those trains are amazing.  They cruise along between 120 and 130 miles per hour, but decelerate well too (I'm a nerd).  When we got to Rome, thankfully someone wrote down directions to the hotel from the train station, and finding it was a breeze.  The hotel was nice and cheap with free breakfast (with cofffeeeeeee) and the people who ran it were very nice and accommodating. After unpacking and getting settled, we took a little walk around northern Roma before finding a metro station and heading to the Colosseum.  As soon as you exit the metro station the Colosseum is BAM! right in front of you.  It was amazing.  To see something that has been standing since the Roman empire, especially something so big and unique, was really spectacular.  We strolled around it, took pictures, and took everything in before heading next door to the Roman Forum.

The Roman Forum was mostly ruins, that had been excavated due to Rome's many years of flooding.  The ground that Caesar walked on is now 15-20 feet (or more) underneath present day Rome.  I continuously tried to imagine what this would have looked during the golden years of the Roman Empire, but I was unsucessful.  Oh, what as sight that would be.  It will probably be one of the first places I visit after time travel is invented and made affordable (that will be in my lifetime, right?). The sun was setting in Rome and this made the Forum quite a sight to see.

The next day we started at Piazza del Popolo, where there was some kind of women's movement thing going on.  They were doing skits, but they were in Italian so I had no idea what was going on.  The weather was fantastic.  Sunny with no need for a coat.  We walked around, sat in piazzas, and I took pictures of people taking pictures.

(how many people taking pictures?)

We also saw Fontana de Trevi, a huge, magnificent fountain into which (it is estimated) 3000 euros are thrown every day.  We continued to walk around Rome, explorin'. We saw the Pantheon, not to be confused with The Parthenon.  Built in 126 AD, The Pantheon is old, and that makes it all the more incredible.  The architecture of some of these older buildings is truly amazing  There is so much history in Rome.  I kept thinking "this place has been around thousands of years before the US was even discovered." Aside from the history, there are lots of pizzerias, gelaterias, cafes, tourists, and people on the street trying to sell you weird stuff (like miniature tripods and crawling army men).  It's a busy city.  I can't even come to imagine it in the summer with MORE tourists.

The following day was dedicated to Vatican City, and turned out to be one of my favorite days of studying abroad thus far.  We got an early start on the day, excited for what it would hold.  Turns out it was lines.  There were epically long lines for both St. Peter's and Musei Vaticani and the Sistine Chapel. We actually took a tour of the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel, which I was skeptical about at first, and felt very touristy.  I understand that I am a tourist, but going all out tourist is not really my thing.  I like trying to fit in more than stick out, but in the end I was glad we went on the tour.  Our guide was british so I felt at home!  I learned a LOT more about the history of Rome, the Vatican, Michelangelo, a lot of the artwork, and much more due to the tour and we got to skip all the lines.  The Vatican's collection of artwork seems limitless.  There are many priceless pieces, including The Sistine Chapel which, of course, was breathtaking.  After the tour, we took some time to relax before heading into St. Peter's Basilica.  Fortunately, the weather was once again gorgeous.  We sat on the steps around the piazza for a little more than an hour, watching people, avoiding killer pigeons, and enjoying the sun. 

After grabbing some vitamin D, we headed into St. Peter's.  This is easily the most spectacular church I have ever seen.  The Vatican knows how to do things up, that is certain.  Once again, the architecture and just the sheer size make it one of a kind.  It's hard to explain so here are a couple pictures.

That was our last full day in Roma.  The next day we checked out and killed some time walking around  (unfortunately we had to carry our backpacks.) before taking the train back to Milano. I felt like I saw what I needed to see and had a really wonderful time, but my italian adventure was only beginning. Next up was Milano and Venezia, but that post is for another day. Thanks for reading.  I appreciate each and every person that reads my long rambling posts and I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.  Sorry this one is so long!!

Currently listening to ANYTHING BREAKBOT.