Saturday night, naturally, we had to celebrate being done with finals... so I went out with a bunch of my friends. Unfortunately, Chelsea was sick so she didn't make it out as she was trying to sleep whatever it was off before we went to London. I made it home around midnight ish, but didn't fall asleep until sometime after 3 am (counting crows reference anybody?), which sucked since we had to leave to catch the bus at 6:15 am. So, exhausted, I woke up, grabbed my bag, and left... when I promptly realized that I had forgotten my cell phone. Oops. Ran back upstairs, then back downstairs and met Chelsea on the corner outside the Croft, and we walked up to Waverley to get on the airport bus. We got to the airport wayyyyy early. Security was a breeze, except when Chelsea realized she had forgotten to pack her toiletries in the travel friendly sizes. We had a little funeral for all the stuff she had to throw away, after trying to figure out every possible way that she could get them back somehow.
We got to our gate, then they told us the flight was going to be delayed. But then it wasn't going to be... then it was cancelled... then it was back on. EasyJet is weird. Finally, we got on the plane, and we flew into sunrise as we got to London one short hour later. After a little confusion, we ended up pretty close to my friend Osman's place, where we would be staying. On the walk from the train station to his flat, Chelsea and I started a game where we took a picture of Chelsea with any signs we saw that said Chelsea. Once, we found something that said Claudia, and we took my picture next to that... but it was at the British Museum, so it doesn't really count. Osman made us tea, and we made a gameplan for the rest of the day. We decided to walk to Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was a pretty long walk, and it was pretty cold, but I was really glad we did it. When I was in London in August, I took the tube absolutely EVERYWHERE, and so I missed the heart of the city, which was silly of me. So, we sightsaw all the way to Buckingham Palace, where Chelsea was a little disappointed that you couldn't get very close to the guards, but it was cool to see them anyway. In Hyde Park, we stumbled upon the Christmas market, which was delightful. We tried to find the statue of Peter Pan and failed miserably, and after being a bit lost, we made it to the V and A, which was super duper cool. There were some obnoxious ladies in one of the exhibits, but we got over it, and Chelsea found this one sculpture thing that a professor (adviser?) of hers said she had to see. Anyway, the whole museum was really fabulous.
The last thing we did was go to Harrod's, which is splendiferous at Christmas time. There are lights everywhere, and sooooo much decoration. And amazing toys. I almost died of amazingness in their toy sections. Plural. So many toys. So many expensive, fancy, awesome toys. And giant teddy bears. And cute guys selling weird fake snow. Yeah.
We walked back, planning to go to the giant Tesco we had seen earlier, but it turned out that it was closed at 4 on Sundays. So stupid. So, we had to go without meat for the stir fry we were going to make. We popped over to the corner market and invested in stir fry sauce and ben and jerry's, then Chelsea and I made dinner. The three of us played Scrabble over our stir fry and had an all-around lovely time.
The next day, I had been hoping to meet my dad's friend, Clare, who as you may recall, helped me out at the beginning of my odyssey by allowing me to store my bags in her office. Clare had just had a baby, and unfortunately we ended up not being able to meet, which was sad! However, Chelsea and I, walking in the direction of her office, ended up getting to see the changing of the guards, which was great fun. We then decided to walk in the vague direction of the British Museum, via the National Gallery. There were soooo many cool things in there... it was huge and a little overwhelming. We saw some Van Goghs and lots of other art that I cannot at the moment specifically recall. On the way to the British Museum, we decided to stop at hte post office to exchange money as we had heard that debit cards without electron chips tend not to work in France. This was an ordeal... we waited in line for over 45 minutes! This was especially painful when we saw the commission free Euros ATM at the train station the next day. Anyway, we had just enough time to look at the super awesome clocks, the Elgin Marbles, Rosetta Stone, Mausoleum, and some of the Far Eastern art before we had to jet to the British Library. There, I got to see the Lindisfarne Gospels, which was amazing, since we had been reading about them in Latin last year. Unfortunately, the manuscript for Alice and Wonderland was not in at the moment, but Chelsea thoroughly enjoyed seeing the Jane Austen stuff and some of the original musical compositions. In the meantime, I lent my voice to a study on pronunciation of the English language.
When the library closed, we went to King's Cross to take pictures at the silly Harry Potter platform 9 3/4 wall. We were miffed because this platform was NOT between platforms 9 and 10, and it was just a picture of bricks in a back alley wall... so tacky. We called Osman, but he had already eaten dinner, so we decided to go to a pub that had a dinner special on Fish and Chips, so we had those. Mmmmm mushy peas. When we got back to Osman's, there was a really big football match on, so Osman went to the pub to watch it with some friends. Chelsea and I showered and were pretty much asleep by the time Osman got back at the half. We were exhausted! We said our goodbyes since we were leaving so early in the morning. It was sad to say goodbye, since Osman had been so nice as a host!
We woke up ludicrously early, took the tube to King's Cross/St. Pancras, and managed to locate the Eurostar terminal. We got our passports checked, and then we were on our way to Paris!
Showing posts with label CouchSurfing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CouchSurfing. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Hill-Walking, Reflections on Safety, Costco, Working Hard, Hardly Working, Not Necessarily in that Order
I haven't written in what feels like ages. Oh well, I guess I'll make up for lack of quantity with some high quality blogging. I'm going to start this post out on a serious note, and then move on to the goings on in my life. Also, I apologize for the weird layout of this post. I'm not sure what's up with that. Here goes...
This week, with all of the terrorist threats, Butler sent us a ton of emails and urged us to register with the American Consulate. Normally, I tend not to take things too seriously, but I decided to register right away, because I plan on travelling as much as possible, even with these warnings. I'm pretty sure that most of the places I want to go are not really huge spots. Some of the other Butler kids and I have talked about whether we think there is really any sort of threat or not, and it seems like most people are kind of worried, but still proceeding with plans anyway (my friend Liz is going to Paris this weekend, and other people had already purchased tickets for upcoming weekends to various places). While I don't feel really personally threatened or anything, the volume of information we've been receiving about safety and travelling are really making me consider safety in my travel plans a lot more. Not only did we get emails from all of the Butler people here, we got one from the director of IFSA Butler. I feel like there's not so much we can do differently, and I'm not going to lie, I am very American. I open my mouth, and people know I am American as soon as I say one word. If I travel, I'll be travelling with a group of American students, and there's really very little I can do about that. I try not to draw attention to myself, but I feel like I'm very bad at sinking into a crowd, especially because of my tendency towards brightly colored hats. I don't know where this train of thought is headed... just thought I should probably remark on how seriously Butler is encouraging us to take these travel alerts. Okay, enough of that, and back to your regularly scheduled blog programming.
Since my return from England, and realizing that time moves very quickly here, I've been working on getting myself to do things more frequently. Tuesday was our Butler reunion dinner, which was fun (mmm free food!), but I've just decided that I'm not going to go absolutely day-by-day here because I have been spending a lot of time doing school work (that's a surprise!), so things have been pretty low-key. So, the highlights of the last week and a half:
Wednesday: Getting lost, chilling out, emerging victorious!
Wednesday provided me with much excitement. I had my first tutorial, for Scotland and Orality, and I was a little nervous because I wasn't sure if we were going to be quizzed on the reading or what, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. Our tutor is very warm, friendly, and laid-back, so I think it is going to be a good experience. Starting next week, I'm moved back to Thursday tutorials, because they ended up unable to cancel the date as there was one girl who couldn't make it on a Wednesday. This means that the tutorial will probably consist of me, two other students, and our tutor. After that, my friend and I decided that we should go to the travel "fayre" that Butler was having at their offices, which are located in the New Town (relatively new... it's Georgian. I will write an entry just talking about Edinburgh itself sometime in the very near future), which is a good distance from where our classes are. Having only a vague notion that Rutland Square was on the west side of New Town, we set off, and walked for a long time, eventually (after a call to my roommate for help, and randomly deciding to walk down an alley that fortuitously led into the square) made it to the Butler office. The travel fayre turned out not to be so helpful, as I am pretty savvy at researching destinations and travel options on the Internet, but there were sweets, and a guy to tell us about travel within Scotland, which was actually helpful. When we left, my friend realized that we could have come a much easier way, and went back that way, but I had to do some shopping on Prince's Street, so I went back the way we came. I was looking for a sweater or sweatshirt, which led me to H&M, where I came out with a belt and some hairclips. Oops.
I hustled back to Old Town, to leave my books and stuff in my flat before I went back to the campus area for the Classics Society Pub Crawl, starting at our patron pub, the Greenmantle, where we are always presented with very free food and very low-cost beverages. I started the night out classy with a glass of wine, fried food (it seems like everything is deep-fried here, which is why I tend to do my own cooking as much as possible!), and Haribo gummies (they are HUGE here. every store has a big display of Haribo, which is pretty funny to me). I spent a delightful hour or so with the few people who had shown up at the beginning (Who starts a pub crawl at 6 pm?!?), before I had to go to a different pub to meet up with my flatmates for the Hermit's Croft charity pub quiz. I got there before the rest of the team, so I tried to stake out an area, which was hard, since the pub was terrible and had no more than five tables. We ended up sitting on the floor, which was not particularly comfortable, but oh well. We were presented with a sheet of aluminum foil and the paper for our answers, and the pub quiz began. Our team consisted of me, flatmate Katherine, flatmate Caroline, her boyfriend Liam, and two other girls from HC, Jess and Becky. We stole a team name from a team that had won the FreshAir pub quiz during Freshers' Week: Quiz in my Pants. They told us to use the aluminum foil to make a sculpture incorporating sport and veg(etable), so Becky suggested we make a man benchpressing a carrot or courgette or cucumber. Somehow, I became in charge of making the guy, and we ended up with a lovely little sculpture.
The team was an excellent combination of talents, because we ended up coming in second (1st place in the sculpture category with 9.5/10!!!) and we won a box of variety chocolates. We went back to our flat to celebrate (by eating the chocolate, yum!)
, and ended up giving most of it away, which was probably a good thing.
Friday: Harvest Festival and a Lovely Dinner
On Tuesday, Ying, Sarah, and I had decided that we would have dinner together at my place and class things up a little bit. I decided I would make a roast pork loin with rosemary, accompanied by a spinach salad and roast sweet potatoes with sage and rosemary. I'd already bought the pork when Ying decided she didn't want to go out since she'd be busy all weekend (sadness), so I invited my flatmates to join our dinner party. But, I have gotten ahead of myself. In the afternoon, I went to the Harvest Festival and learned about various environmental programmes in Scotland, as well as some of the different groups on campus. I wanted to go to a talk about sustainable food, but it didn't happen at the time it was supposed to happen, so I settled for my piece of free pie and then left to go shopping to buy some plates and a roasting pan. All of this was achieved at Poundland, and our plates, as you will see shortly, are quite fashionable. At Poundland, we had our first real unintelligible Scottish experience. A lady kept talking to us, and we were trying to hold up the conversation, but we really,really couldn't understand most of what she was saying. Something about being a bookbinder, but then they moved it to Harvard. I was trying to ask questions, but I'm not sure she understood me either. It's amazing how much difficulty there can be between people speaking the same language...
I started cooking and dinner was ready a little late, but it was okay, because it was DELICIOUS.
I am an amazing chef, and modest too. It was a very nice evening, and then Sarah and I decided we would go out to the Hive, which is a club on the Cowgate. However, we couldn't find it, and in the end, we decided that we're boring, so we went back to her room at Pollock Halls and watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It was an entirely worth while choice, and I was so tired by the end of the movie that I got home and fell asleep right away.
Scottish Party Lifestyle
Saturday was a pretty laid-back day in the daytime. I got a little work done, tidied my room, hung out with my flatmates in the kitchen for a while. Katherine and I walked around looking for dinner for a while, but mostly just ended up exploring, because we didn't find anything that we deemed cheap and tasty enough. I stopped at the store to pick up some ciders to take to a friend's birthday party later that night. Sarah was going to come to the party but had work to do, so I went over to the party myself. I got there before my friend who knows the hosts much better than I do, so it was a little awkward, but I was talking to this guy, Yuri, whom I had met last time these people had a party. Fun fact: Yuri was on the Austrian National Basketball team, but now he is getting his PhD (I think) in mathematics. Later, Yuri's flatmate Anthony, who is getting his PhD in classics (but Greek stuff, not Latin) showed up, and we all talked for a while. I had promised Katherine that I would go up Arthur's Seat with her on Sunday morning, so I left fairly early and went home and slept.
Sunday: Muddy Sunday
I woke up later than I meant to, and woke Katherine up to go up Arthur's Seat. She had not realized that I actually wanted to do it. So, we got our act together and went outside. No sooner had we walked out the door than the sky opened and burst forth with torrential rain. No, I'm exaggerating. It was just a cold drizzle, so it was pretty unpleasant, but we were committed to doing some hill-walking. We couldn't figure out where the easy path was, so we started walking up some stairs on the side of the hill. These stairs just so happened to terminate at a random point, leaving no path to follow. However, there was a lovely view of the Salisbury Crags
and of the city as a whole.
So, naturally, we decided it would be a great idea to climb up the rock face and see if there was another path at the level ground that we could see probably 30 feet above us.
That is the view looking down from when we found the path at the top that actually did exist. So, we walked until we saw more people walking, and then followed them to what we thought was the top, but was not actually the top. There's a little grassy area between the three peaks, and so we had to walk across it to get to the highest peak on Arthur's Seat. While we were doing that, we saw all the messages that people had written with rocks they found, and we decided to add our own.
At this point, I realized that I was supposed to meet my friend LeeAnn at 1 to make a pilgrimage to Costco, and that we would never make it back down on time, and I didn't have my phone. Oops. So, we went up to the summit and had a grand old time looking all around the city and the surrounding areas, and trying to point out the buildings we knew. There's a map sort of thing that tells you what the big things in the distance are, and how far away they are. We were trying to figure out if we could actually see some of the things in the longer distances, but we still aren't sure.
Then I had a go at trying to pull the sword out of the stone...
On the way back down, we tried to go the "easy way" and failed miserably, facing the choice of sliding down a bunch of rocks or going back up and trying again. We ended up walking down the really steep stairs that go straight down the face of the mountain, and we were puzzled by the people who kept passing us at faster speeds, because we were afraid of falling and dying. It was SO slippery, because it was raining, and the steps are really uneven, and there's nothing to hold on to. It was pretty much my nightmare, but we made it down okay, and then we hustled home so I could get a hold of LeeAnn and tell her I'd be late.
I showered, then ran to the bus stop, where a nice man helped us figure out how to take a bus other than the one we'd planned to take that wouldn't be coming for a while. We were concerned that my card wouldn't work for European Costco, but oh, did it work. After shopping at Tesco Metro for the last month, Costco was heavenly. I ended up not really buying too much because I knew I couldn't carry a lot, but I was pretty proud of myself for purchasing liquor at Costco on my own. The checkout guy was really friendly, and amused that we were Americans at Costco in Edinburgh buying large quantities of liquor. Then, we had hotdogs. It was divine. Mmmmmm...
The Week
It's been a good week, but a busy week. I've been in the library getting things done quite a bit these last several days. You have to do a lot of reading here. A lot a lot. And you actually have to do it. It's been absolutely gorgeous, for the most part, all week, so I have been doing my reading outside and breaking it up with short strolls. Lovely. Tuesday was my first archaeology tutorial, and it turned out just fine. My tutor is nice, and I met an Aussie named Hannah who is quite lively, and I think we will get along very well. Wednesday I did more work, and then decided to go to the Edinburgh CouchSurfing meetup, which was a good plan. Something interesting was pointed out to me as we were all talking about having out of the ordinary names... my name is cool because I can just change the accent and pretend I come from pretty much anywhere in the world. I don't feel like too many names can go entirely unaltered in spelling and general pronunciation throughout so many languages. So, maybe I'll pretend to be German for a while. I was responsible and didn't go dancing afterward, but we were at the pub until they kicked us out just after 1. I forgot how many people you meet at once when you go to CS events! That brings us to today: I got SO much done today. I was proud of myself. After all my classes were done, I went to Spanish Society, because somehow, Ying, who does not speak Spanish, is the president of the society. There was free food. Mmmm. I met a girl from Italy, and a girl called Camille from New Zealand. We hung out for a while after the meeting, and then I went back to my flat to cook up some salmon with Katherine. We blasted Disney music and Motown while cooking, and it was a generally good time.
Now that you're all caught up, I am going to go to bed, because tomorrow I have to meet the bus at 7:30 to go to the Highlands!!! I'm going to go catch the Loch Ness Monster, you betcha.
This week, with all of the terrorist threats, Butler sent us a ton of emails and urged us to register with the American Consulate. Normally, I tend not to take things too seriously, but I decided to register right away, because I plan on travelling as much as possible, even with these warnings. I'm pretty sure that most of the places I want to go are not really huge spots. Some of the other Butler kids and I have talked about whether we think there is really any sort of threat or not, and it seems like most people are kind of worried, but still proceeding with plans anyway (my friend Liz is going to Paris this weekend, and other people had already purchased tickets for upcoming weekends to various places). While I don't feel really personally threatened or anything, the volume of information we've been receiving about safety and travelling are really making me consider safety in my travel plans a lot more. Not only did we get emails from all of the Butler people here, we got one from the director of IFSA Butler. I feel like there's not so much we can do differently, and I'm not going to lie, I am very American. I open my mouth, and people know I am American as soon as I say one word. If I travel, I'll be travelling with a group of American students, and there's really very little I can do about that. I try not to draw attention to myself, but I feel like I'm very bad at sinking into a crowd, especially because of my tendency towards brightly colored hats. I don't know where this train of thought is headed... just thought I should probably remark on how seriously Butler is encouraging us to take these travel alerts. Okay, enough of that, and back to your regularly scheduled blog programming.
Since my return from England, and realizing that time moves very quickly here, I've been working on getting myself to do things more frequently. Tuesday was our Butler reunion dinner, which was fun (mmm free food!), but I've just decided that I'm not going to go absolutely day-by-day here because I have been spending a lot of time doing school work (that's a surprise!), so things have been pretty low-key. So, the highlights of the last week and a half:
Wednesday: Getting lost, chilling out, emerging victorious!
Wednesday provided me with much excitement. I had my first tutorial, for Scotland and Orality, and I was a little nervous because I wasn't sure if we were going to be quizzed on the reading or what, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. Our tutor is very warm, friendly, and laid-back, so I think it is going to be a good experience. Starting next week, I'm moved back to Thursday tutorials, because they ended up unable to cancel the date as there was one girl who couldn't make it on a Wednesday. This means that the tutorial will probably consist of me, two other students, and our tutor. After that, my friend and I decided that we should go to the travel "fayre" that Butler was having at their offices, which are located in the New Town (relatively new... it's Georgian. I will write an entry just talking about Edinburgh itself sometime in the very near future), which is a good distance from where our classes are. Having only a vague notion that Rutland Square was on the west side of New Town, we set off, and walked for a long time, eventually (after a call to my roommate for help, and randomly deciding to walk down an alley that fortuitously led into the square) made it to the Butler office. The travel fayre turned out not to be so helpful, as I am pretty savvy at researching destinations and travel options on the Internet, but there were sweets, and a guy to tell us about travel within Scotland, which was actually helpful. When we left, my friend realized that we could have come a much easier way, and went back that way, but I had to do some shopping on Prince's Street, so I went back the way we came. I was looking for a sweater or sweatshirt, which led me to H&M, where I came out with a belt and some hairclips. Oops.
I hustled back to Old Town, to leave my books and stuff in my flat before I went back to the campus area for the Classics Society Pub Crawl, starting at our patron pub, the Greenmantle, where we are always presented with very free food and very low-cost beverages. I started the night out classy with a glass of wine, fried food (it seems like everything is deep-fried here, which is why I tend to do my own cooking as much as possible!), and Haribo gummies (they are HUGE here. every store has a big display of Haribo, which is pretty funny to me). I spent a delightful hour or so with the few people who had shown up at the beginning (Who starts a pub crawl at 6 pm?!?), before I had to go to a different pub to meet up with my flatmates for the Hermit's Croft charity pub quiz. I got there before the rest of the team, so I tried to stake out an area, which was hard, since the pub was terrible and had no more than five tables. We ended up sitting on the floor, which was not particularly comfortable, but oh well. We were presented with a sheet of aluminum foil and the paper for our answers, and the pub quiz began. Our team consisted of me, flatmate Katherine, flatmate Caroline, her boyfriend Liam, and two other girls from HC, Jess and Becky. We stole a team name from a team that had won the FreshAir pub quiz during Freshers' Week: Quiz in my Pants. They told us to use the aluminum foil to make a sculpture incorporating sport and veg(etable), so Becky suggested we make a man benchpressing a carrot or courgette or cucumber. Somehow, I became in charge of making the guy, and we ended up with a lovely little sculpture.
The team was an excellent combination of talents, because we ended up coming in second (1st place in the sculpture category with 9.5/10!!!) and we won a box of variety chocolates. We went back to our flat to celebrate (by eating the chocolate, yum!)
, and ended up giving most of it away, which was probably a good thing. Friday: Harvest Festival and a Lovely Dinner
On Tuesday, Ying, Sarah, and I had decided that we would have dinner together at my place and class things up a little bit. I decided I would make a roast pork loin with rosemary, accompanied by a spinach salad and roast sweet potatoes with sage and rosemary. I'd already bought the pork when Ying decided she didn't want to go out since she'd be busy all weekend (sadness), so I invited my flatmates to join our dinner party. But, I have gotten ahead of myself. In the afternoon, I went to the Harvest Festival and learned about various environmental programmes in Scotland, as well as some of the different groups on campus. I wanted to go to a talk about sustainable food, but it didn't happen at the time it was supposed to happen, so I settled for my piece of free pie and then left to go shopping to buy some plates and a roasting pan. All of this was achieved at Poundland, and our plates, as you will see shortly, are quite fashionable. At Poundland, we had our first real unintelligible Scottish experience. A lady kept talking to us, and we were trying to hold up the conversation, but we really,really couldn't understand most of what she was saying. Something about being a bookbinder, but then they moved it to Harvard. I was trying to ask questions, but I'm not sure she understood me either. It's amazing how much difficulty there can be between people speaking the same language...
I started cooking and dinner was ready a little late, but it was okay, because it was DELICIOUS.
I am an amazing chef, and modest too. It was a very nice evening, and then Sarah and I decided we would go out to the Hive, which is a club on the Cowgate. However, we couldn't find it, and in the end, we decided that we're boring, so we went back to her room at Pollock Halls and watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It was an entirely worth while choice, and I was so tired by the end of the movie that I got home and fell asleep right away.Scottish Party Lifestyle
Saturday was a pretty laid-back day in the daytime. I got a little work done, tidied my room, hung out with my flatmates in the kitchen for a while. Katherine and I walked around looking for dinner for a while, but mostly just ended up exploring, because we didn't find anything that we deemed cheap and tasty enough. I stopped at the store to pick up some ciders to take to a friend's birthday party later that night. Sarah was going to come to the party but had work to do, so I went over to the party myself. I got there before my friend who knows the hosts much better than I do, so it was a little awkward, but I was talking to this guy, Yuri, whom I had met last time these people had a party. Fun fact: Yuri was on the Austrian National Basketball team, but now he is getting his PhD (I think) in mathematics. Later, Yuri's flatmate Anthony, who is getting his PhD in classics (but Greek stuff, not Latin) showed up, and we all talked for a while. I had promised Katherine that I would go up Arthur's Seat with her on Sunday morning, so I left fairly early and went home and slept.
Sunday: Muddy Sunday
I woke up later than I meant to, and woke Katherine up to go up Arthur's Seat. She had not realized that I actually wanted to do it. So, we got our act together and went outside. No sooner had we walked out the door than the sky opened and burst forth with torrential rain. No, I'm exaggerating. It was just a cold drizzle, so it was pretty unpleasant, but we were committed to doing some hill-walking. We couldn't figure out where the easy path was, so we started walking up some stairs on the side of the hill. These stairs just so happened to terminate at a random point, leaving no path to follow. However, there was a lovely view of the Salisbury Crags
and of the city as a whole.
So, naturally, we decided it would be a great idea to climb up the rock face and see if there was another path at the level ground that we could see probably 30 feet above us.
That is the view looking down from when we found the path at the top that actually did exist. So, we walked until we saw more people walking, and then followed them to what we thought was the top, but was not actually the top. There's a little grassy area between the three peaks, and so we had to walk across it to get to the highest peak on Arthur's Seat. While we were doing that, we saw all the messages that people had written with rocks they found, and we decided to add our own.
At this point, I realized that I was supposed to meet my friend LeeAnn at 1 to make a pilgrimage to Costco, and that we would never make it back down on time, and I didn't have my phone. Oops. So, we went up to the summit and had a grand old time looking all around the city and the surrounding areas, and trying to point out the buildings we knew. There's a map sort of thing that tells you what the big things in the distance are, and how far away they are. We were trying to figure out if we could actually see some of the things in the longer distances, but we still aren't sure.
Then I had a go at trying to pull the sword out of the stone...
On the way back down, we tried to go the "easy way" and failed miserably, facing the choice of sliding down a bunch of rocks or going back up and trying again. We ended up walking down the really steep stairs that go straight down the face of the mountain, and we were puzzled by the people who kept passing us at faster speeds, because we were afraid of falling and dying. It was SO slippery, because it was raining, and the steps are really uneven, and there's nothing to hold on to. It was pretty much my nightmare, but we made it down okay, and then we hustled home so I could get a hold of LeeAnn and tell her I'd be late.
I showered, then ran to the bus stop, where a nice man helped us figure out how to take a bus other than the one we'd planned to take that wouldn't be coming for a while. We were concerned that my card wouldn't work for European Costco, but oh, did it work. After shopping at Tesco Metro for the last month, Costco was heavenly. I ended up not really buying too much because I knew I couldn't carry a lot, but I was pretty proud of myself for purchasing liquor at Costco on my own. The checkout guy was really friendly, and amused that we were Americans at Costco in Edinburgh buying large quantities of liquor. Then, we had hotdogs. It was divine. Mmmmmm...
The Week
It's been a good week, but a busy week. I've been in the library getting things done quite a bit these last several days. You have to do a lot of reading here. A lot a lot. And you actually have to do it. It's been absolutely gorgeous, for the most part, all week, so I have been doing my reading outside and breaking it up with short strolls. Lovely. Tuesday was my first archaeology tutorial, and it turned out just fine. My tutor is nice, and I met an Aussie named Hannah who is quite lively, and I think we will get along very well. Wednesday I did more work, and then decided to go to the Edinburgh CouchSurfing meetup, which was a good plan. Something interesting was pointed out to me as we were all talking about having out of the ordinary names... my name is cool because I can just change the accent and pretend I come from pretty much anywhere in the world. I don't feel like too many names can go entirely unaltered in spelling and general pronunciation throughout so many languages. So, maybe I'll pretend to be German for a while. I was responsible and didn't go dancing afterward, but we were at the pub until they kicked us out just after 1. I forgot how many people you meet at once when you go to CS events! That brings us to today: I got SO much done today. I was proud of myself. After all my classes were done, I went to Spanish Society, because somehow, Ying, who does not speak Spanish, is the president of the society. There was free food. Mmmm. I met a girl from Italy, and a girl called Camille from New Zealand. We hung out for a while after the meeting, and then I went back to my flat to cook up some salmon with Katherine. We blasted Disney music and Motown while cooking, and it was a generally good time.
Now that you're all caught up, I am going to go to bed, because tomorrow I have to meet the bus at 7:30 to go to the Highlands!!! I'm going to go catch the Loch Ness Monster, you betcha.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
The End of Phase I
I'm writing this entry on the train to Edinburgh, because I feel like I probably won't have too much time to write much until orientation is over. Leaving London was actually really sad, even though I am really excited to get to Edinburgh and start the semester. I feel like you never contemplate how much you haven't seen until you are about to leave. Additionally, I made some pretty cool friends, so I am obviously going to have to go back to London (and they might come visit me in Edinburgh!). My host, Osman, and I went to the pub on Monday night to meet up with CouchSurfers and play games, and I lost at Shithead (i.e. village idiot, asshole, whatever you call this particular game), so this guy, Andy, from Australia was insistent that sometime in the future, we have to play again so I can redeem myself. He also told Osman to bring a big picture of my head when they play again this week, so that whoever has to deal the cards can use it as a mask. Haha, I'm pretty terrible at cards.
Back to Stockholm: on Sunday, Tove, Jonas' roommate, and I enjoyed some oatmeal, then caught the bus and met up with a few of her friends at the harbor to go on a hop-on, hop-off sightseeing tour. We went to the Vasamuseet, which is a museum that's main attraction is a huge warship that sunk on its maiden voyage in the 17th Century. It was really, really interesting. I could probably have stayed there all day, but we had more to do and see! So, I spent most of my time in the museum looking at the exhibit about the skeletons they found around the ship and the possessions they found by the bodies. It was quite an interesting way to learn about the life of seafarers, but also about archaeological methods, etc. Then, we went to Skansen, which is an outdoor folk museum sort of thing, and it is supposed to represent all of the different parts of Sweden in a miniature setting. I ate Swedish meatballs, saw reindeer, and saw a lot of different buildings of a Swedish sort. Tove was very excited to show us the farm representing her area of Sweden (the south).
After Skansen, we were all exhausted and happy to ride the tour boat for a while, until we got to Gamla Stan (the old town), where we walked around the palace, the Storykyrka and browsed the lovely array of shops. Tove and I went back to the flat, where we relaxed by making Swedish pancakes. Tove was getting frustrated because the temperature wasn’t getting to the optimal point, so the pancakes kept ripping or not cooking exactly the way they were supposed to. She said she felt like a failure as a Swede, but eventually, we got it down, and they were deeeeelicious. Jonas went out, and I read for a while, then went to bed early, since I was still not feeling particularly wonderful, and I had to leave the flat at 5:30 the next morning.
Now we get to the exciting part of my story, in which I have my first encounter with Ryanair. I feel like every study abroad student has this experience. I had already had an easyjet flight, which I thought was actually quite pleasant, despite having to pay an arm and a leg to get to Stansted from London. Easyjet is no frills, yes, but they don’t have a weight limit despite having a size limit for your one carry-on bag. On Ryanair, they actually weigh your baggage. Knowing this, I got dressed in the morning by putting on my leggings, then my jeans, then my boots, and my dress, and my sweater with a scarf. When I got to the airport, before going through the bag check, I decided that my bag might still be too heavy… So I took my blanket out, and put it on as another (giant) scarf. I also took out my iPod, wallet, phone, book, and a few other things, and stuffed them into my pockets. I imagine I must have looked quite ridiculous, but it was a damn good strategy, because when I put my backpack on the scale, it wavered between 10.1 and 10.0 kilos until finally settling at exactly 10.0 kg.
The plane itself is just a Boeing 737, but the inside is gross-ified. The entire trip, the flight crew is advertising various junk to buy. There is NO PEACE on a Ryanair flight. Honestly, after all of the administration fees and getting to the airport and all, I may as well have just paid for a normal flight. We’ll see about how it goes in the future, but I do not have a very favorable view of Ryanair. As soon as I got to the airport, I ran to the bathroom and stripped off a few layers so I could be a normal person again. I got through passport control no problem, and then went back to the city. I chilled for an hour or two to take care of vital communication, and then I went to the Science Museum, which was pretty cool. I met up with my friend from Couchsurfing, Osman, at the tube stop by his place, and then we waited for his other surfer, a German girl named Luisa, to get back. We watched some TV, specifically, “Are You Smarter than a 10 Year Old?” and I strengthened my conviction that all British TV is just weird. After that, the pub trip that I highlighted earlier occurred.
The next day, I had to battle the Tube strike to pick up my 60 or so pounds of luggage from the Canadian High Commission, and I was wondering how on earth I was ever going to manage to do so. I figured out that a taxi would cost me almost 30 dollars, which seemed pretty damn steep. So I found out that the Northern Line still had a good service, and since there was a stop right by Osman’s flat, I could take it to within just over a mile of the High Commission. When my dad’s friend found somebody to help me since she wouldn’t be there, I set out on my voyage. I walked the wrong way out of Tottenham Court Road station, but realized it pretty quickly. I was running a little late at this point, but I made it to the High Commission within about 10 minutes of when I said I should get there. The lady who helped me was incredibly nice, though she was very surprised I was American, because she had been expecting a German, based on my name. So, luggage in tow, I managed to get back to the tube, and back to Osman’s flat.
I was so tired that I just sort of loafed around for a while before deciding to go to the Imperial War Museum. I got there, but realized I had taken a very roundabout way. I looked at the WWII stuff, and then wandered into the Holocaust exhibit. This was a mistake. It was so interesting, but so heartbreaking. I didn’t make it all the way through to the end, and then I decided to go look at the spy exhibit to pick my spirits up. It’s strange how even though I have been exposed to so much about the Holocaust through all of my classes (even as early as middle school), but I couldn’t even get through this exhibit. I think it was the abundance of pictures and the video clips of Nazi speeches, rather than just reading about it. When I got back, Osman was cooking dinner. Yum. After we ate a little something something, we headed to a different pub for another CS party night meetup thing. There were SO MANY people at this! I couldn’t keep track of everybody I met, but there were a few people whom I’ll probably see again.
Luisa wanted to go, but Osman and I were having a good time (though again, I wasn’t drinking because I was feeling not so great), so we said we’d stay a while longer. Then, when we wanted to go, we couldn’t get Luisa to leave. Luisa, who could probably be a model, was surrounded by no fewer than 6 men, all making the googly eyes at her and clinging to every last barely-understandable word (she hardly speaks any English. It was kind of amusing, but also pretty annoying, since Osman and I both had to get up really early.
Back to Stockholm: on Sunday, Tove, Jonas' roommate, and I enjoyed some oatmeal, then caught the bus and met up with a few of her friends at the harbor to go on a hop-on, hop-off sightseeing tour. We went to the Vasamuseet, which is a museum that's main attraction is a huge warship that sunk on its maiden voyage in the 17th Century. It was really, really interesting. I could probably have stayed there all day, but we had more to do and see! So, I spent most of my time in the museum looking at the exhibit about the skeletons they found around the ship and the possessions they found by the bodies. It was quite an interesting way to learn about the life of seafarers, but also about archaeological methods, etc. Then, we went to Skansen, which is an outdoor folk museum sort of thing, and it is supposed to represent all of the different parts of Sweden in a miniature setting. I ate Swedish meatballs, saw reindeer, and saw a lot of different buildings of a Swedish sort. Tove was very excited to show us the farm representing her area of Sweden (the south).
After Skansen, we were all exhausted and happy to ride the tour boat for a while, until we got to Gamla Stan (the old town), where we walked around the palace, the Storykyrka and browsed the lovely array of shops. Tove and I went back to the flat, where we relaxed by making Swedish pancakes. Tove was getting frustrated because the temperature wasn’t getting to the optimal point, so the pancakes kept ripping or not cooking exactly the way they were supposed to. She said she felt like a failure as a Swede, but eventually, we got it down, and they were deeeeelicious. Jonas went out, and I read for a while, then went to bed early, since I was still not feeling particularly wonderful, and I had to leave the flat at 5:30 the next morning.
Now we get to the exciting part of my story, in which I have my first encounter with Ryanair. I feel like every study abroad student has this experience. I had already had an easyjet flight, which I thought was actually quite pleasant, despite having to pay an arm and a leg to get to Stansted from London. Easyjet is no frills, yes, but they don’t have a weight limit despite having a size limit for your one carry-on bag. On Ryanair, they actually weigh your baggage. Knowing this, I got dressed in the morning by putting on my leggings, then my jeans, then my boots, and my dress, and my sweater with a scarf. When I got to the airport, before going through the bag check, I decided that my bag might still be too heavy… So I took my blanket out, and put it on as another (giant) scarf. I also took out my iPod, wallet, phone, book, and a few other things, and stuffed them into my pockets. I imagine I must have looked quite ridiculous, but it was a damn good strategy, because when I put my backpack on the scale, it wavered between 10.1 and 10.0 kilos until finally settling at exactly 10.0 kg.
The plane itself is just a Boeing 737, but the inside is gross-ified. The entire trip, the flight crew is advertising various junk to buy. There is NO PEACE on a Ryanair flight. Honestly, after all of the administration fees and getting to the airport and all, I may as well have just paid for a normal flight. We’ll see about how it goes in the future, but I do not have a very favorable view of Ryanair. As soon as I got to the airport, I ran to the bathroom and stripped off a few layers so I could be a normal person again. I got through passport control no problem, and then went back to the city. I chilled for an hour or two to take care of vital communication, and then I went to the Science Museum, which was pretty cool. I met up with my friend from Couchsurfing, Osman, at the tube stop by his place, and then we waited for his other surfer, a German girl named Luisa, to get back. We watched some TV, specifically, “Are You Smarter than a 10 Year Old?” and I strengthened my conviction that all British TV is just weird. After that, the pub trip that I highlighted earlier occurred.
The next day, I had to battle the Tube strike to pick up my 60 or so pounds of luggage from the Canadian High Commission, and I was wondering how on earth I was ever going to manage to do so. I figured out that a taxi would cost me almost 30 dollars, which seemed pretty damn steep. So I found out that the Northern Line still had a good service, and since there was a stop right by Osman’s flat, I could take it to within just over a mile of the High Commission. When my dad’s friend found somebody to help me since she wouldn’t be there, I set out on my voyage. I walked the wrong way out of Tottenham Court Road station, but realized it pretty quickly. I was running a little late at this point, but I made it to the High Commission within about 10 minutes of when I said I should get there. The lady who helped me was incredibly nice, though she was very surprised I was American, because she had been expecting a German, based on my name. So, luggage in tow, I managed to get back to the tube, and back to Osman’s flat.
I was so tired that I just sort of loafed around for a while before deciding to go to the Imperial War Museum. I got there, but realized I had taken a very roundabout way. I looked at the WWII stuff, and then wandered into the Holocaust exhibit. This was a mistake. It was so interesting, but so heartbreaking. I didn’t make it all the way through to the end, and then I decided to go look at the spy exhibit to pick my spirits up. It’s strange how even though I have been exposed to so much about the Holocaust through all of my classes (even as early as middle school), but I couldn’t even get through this exhibit. I think it was the abundance of pictures and the video clips of Nazi speeches, rather than just reading about it. When I got back, Osman was cooking dinner. Yum. After we ate a little something something, we headed to a different pub for another CS party night meetup thing. There were SO MANY people at this! I couldn’t keep track of everybody I met, but there were a few people whom I’ll probably see again.
Luisa wanted to go, but Osman and I were having a good time (though again, I wasn’t drinking because I was feeling not so great), so we said we’d stay a while longer. Then, when we wanted to go, we couldn’t get Luisa to leave. Luisa, who could probably be a model, was surrounded by no fewer than 6 men, all making the googly eyes at her and clinging to every last barely-understandable word (she hardly speaks any English. It was kind of amusing, but also pretty annoying, since Osman and I both had to get up really early.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Catching Up!
Ladies and Gentlemen, I am back. I'm sorry not to have updated on the situation lately, but it's been a busy week! The important details: my ability to access funds has been restored, I am alive, and I have a working telephone. The longer story follows:
I believe we left off shortly after my arrival in London. So, I'll pick up beginning with leaving the disgusting hostel. I checked in, left my big bags in the luggage room, and set off for the British Museum. Naturally, I forgot to eat anything, so after a few hours of wandering aimlessly through everything in the museum, I started feeling a little off, and realized that I should probably obtain some sort of nourishment. So, away I went to Pret a Manger, the land of free wi-fi and relatively cheap coffee. I think I only ended up getting a banana, since I had a granola bar in my backpack, but I frittered away the next hour or so talking to my dad on Skype and trying to make some evening plans. After that, I only had an hour or so left to visit the British Library, where I saw some handwritten first drafts of Beatles' lyrics, the manuscript of Alice's Adventures Underground, some pages from Da Vinci's notebooks, and the Magna Carta, among other pieces of interest. I was trying to read the Latin in the Magna Carta on the big screen, but the style of writing is weird, so I couldn't make too much out, but a guy behind me asked, "Can you read Latin?" and when I replied in the affirmative, he just said, "GET OUT!" Clearly, he was very impressed with my intellectual powers. The museum closed before I could see their "Maps as Propaganda" exhibit, so maybe I will go back, because it sounded very interesting.
After that, I stopped at Tesco to pick up pasta, and stuff to make a meat sauce, and then went back to the hostel, where it turned out, there was no kitchen. So I went back to Tesco to return the meat and other perishable stuff, keeping the rest, and figuring it would come in handy later. This, my friends, is where I continue to learn that nothing is perfect. So the beds were a little more comfortable, the lockers were larger and more free, and the rooms smelled nice, but you had to buy their crappy food if you wanted to eat in the hostel. When I returned the stuff I had gotten, I picked up a sandwich and ate that. They give you a buy one get one free drink coupon, so I went down to the hostel bar for happy hour to see if I couldn't make some friends. I ended up talking to a few Australians, and getting into a passionate conversation about Tim Horton's and hockey with more Canadians. I got bored of the Australians, and decided to go to bed. I went in, fully expecting my 3 German roommates to still be out on the town, as it was hardly past midnight, and felt really awful when I probably woke them up by opening the door. Oops.
Monday was the Notting Hill Gate Carnival, which occurs every August Bank Holiday, and as far as I can tell, is an excuse for Londoners to get really hammered in the middle of the day. I didn't even know it existed, but it's apparently the 2nd biggest street festival in Europe. I met up with a bunch of Couch Surfers at a pub nearby (of course, after getting lost for a while first), and met some really nice folks. We decided to go get some grub before heading into the Carnival, and ended up at a place that advertised its "Spicy, Sexy Chicken." I got a lot of mileage making jokes about that. We lost a few of our number upon entering the sheer mass of people that was the Carnival, but they were all found by the end of the day, so no worries. The Carnival consisted of a very disorganized parade, each "float" being a group of people in either very cool or very skimpy costumes. I'm pretty sure all the performers were ragingly drunk. Imagine the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade if all of the balloon handlers were quite tipsy... it was pretty hilarious.
When I got back to the hostel, I was so tired, as we had been walking all day, that all I did was pack up everything and make sure my backpack was ready to take on the plane the next day. I woke up, had breakfast, and went to drop my stuff off in one of my dad's old colleague's office at the Canadian High Commission. Silly me, thinking that since it was a prearranged action, I would have no troubles. I got to the building, and the security guard was giving me the stink eye, and I'm pretty sure he didn't believe that I was there for a legitimate cause. When I checked in at reception, the security guy inside asked what I was planning to do with the luggage. I was trying to explain that my dad's friend had said I could leave it in her office, and he wasn't buying it. They don't let luggage past the lobby. OF COURSE THEY DON'T! So, here is where I started to have a little bit of a panic attack. Thankfully, the guy I was supposed to meet came down then, checked with higher up security, and told me I should go catch my flight, he'd take care of the stuff. He was very nice, which was very helpful to my state of panic.
I got to the airport, got on the plane, and got to Denmark. The flight from London is so short! I dozed off for a few minutes, and we were already landing. My first impression of the airport was that I had walked into a very expensive hotel lobby or furniture store. Everything is so nice in Copenhagen! I went through passport control, and the guy just looked at my passport, said "Welcome to Copenhagen, I see you haven't been to Denmark before! I hope you enjoy it!" He didn't ask any questions, or anything. SO CRAZY after UK passport control. The Danes are nice people.
So, it turns out that the international SIM is not helpful outside of the UK, and the T-Mobile guy was wrong, but that's ok because I had 10 pounds on the card which has been plenty, even though rates are extortionate. It was pretty bad though, because texting wasn't working, then finally it was, but my host couldn't send me texts or call me. Very strange. I was freaking out until I finally got a hold of my host at 31 pence/minute, but he picked up so it was all good.
But, anyway, the first night I was in Copenhagen, Johan (my host) and I talked about education in our respective countries, and music, and what we study until his girlfriend, Marie, got home from school. Then we went to the market to buy stuff for dinner and watched a documentary about Cairo and its trash problem, which was very interesting. Johan was kind enough to translate during the entire thing!
The next day, another couch surfer was coming, and she and Johan were possibly going to meet me in the city center in the afternoon- this is where the phone problems were actually a problem. I went to the Nationalmuseet, which is their National Museum. I learned a lot about Denmark. They had a cool "stories of life" exhibit, which just had a lot of odds and ends and stories about culture. I walked all across Copenhagen and soaked it all in. I ended the day by people-watching in the King's Gardens. When I got back, I was pretty exhausted from walking all day, so I didn't go out again, I just hung out with Marie for a while and then the next couch surfer, Alice, when she showed up.
On my last day in Copenhagen, we got yet another CouchSurfer in the apartment, which is a testament to how awesome Johan and Marie are, that they were willing to have 3 people in their verrrry small apartment! In the morning, we walked around the Norrebro neighborhood where Johan and Marie live, and saw H.C. Andersen's grave in a big cemetery that is used mostly as park space! It was strange to see kids running around in a graveyard... After that we met up with some CSers from Australia, whom Johan and Marie had had to turn down because 6 surfers in their apartment would not have worked at all, and then Johan took us on a tour of Christiania, the free city. His mom had lived there for 10 years ish, and his uncle was well known as a maker of a special type of bicycle for tall people, so he knew a lot about Christiania, and made for a good tour guide. We lost him though, because he had to meet with a woman at a venue where he books shows, but then he couldn't call/text me so I texted him saying we'd meet back at his place, and everything worked out. Marie had gone to her parents' for the night, so the remaining seven of us, and one of Johan's friends cooked dinner: roasted veggies, sweet potato fries, and pasta. It was really fun, and by the end of the night, it felt like we had all known each other for years.
I was sad to go in the morning, but excited to move on to a new adventure. Being unfamiliar with how trains work, I showed up way early for my train. When I got on, I was excited to see how lovely trains are in Europe. My 2nd class seat (in the quiet compartment... no screaming children FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE!), was about a thousand times nicer than any plane in which I have ever flown. There was nobody sitting across from me for most of the journey, so I was stretched out to my heart's content. Unfortunately, I didn't get the window seat, so I don't have a lot of pictures of the very charming Swedish countryside! Also, Swedish customs was funny... the guys were very tough sounding/looking in their actions, but they didn't even check my passport (what!?). By the end of the journey, the train was moving really fast, and looking out the window was making me a little dizzy, so it was probably a good thing I didn't have the window, after all.
When I got to Stockholm, I was immediately overwhelmed. I had no idea where to go or what to do, since my CS host would not be able to meet me for 5 hours. I started by getting some kronor, and turning that into change to put my backpack in a locker and be able to pay to potty. Then, I walked in the direction of Gamla Stan, the old town island. As I was walking, the wind picked up, and it got very cold, and started pouring. Disheartened, and lacking an umbrella, as well as having stupidly locked my hat and mittens into the locker, I figured I better do something about the situation, and popped into the nearest H&M, conveniently located about a block away, and bought a scarf and a hat for approximately 14 dollars. H&M in Scandinavia is like Starbucks or Walgreen's in the US. I'm serious. I feel like anywhere you stand, there are at least 5 within a mile of you. Anyway, I felt a little more fashionable (Stockholm and Copenhagen are INTIMIDATING fashionwise...) now that I had a scarf on, and decided to try Gamla Stan Take 2. This was a good idea. The sun came out, and as I walked around, I found a mob of people outside the big old church. Somebody who was apparently very rich, judging by the two Rolls Royce's outside, was getting married, so I waited with the crowd until the bride emerged in a storybook wedding dress.
Moving on, I walked all around the island, watched some people, and had some coffee. The time came to head to my host's apartment, so I retrieved my backpack, and took the T-bana. I was concerned I was walking in the wrong direction when I emerged from the station, but I kept going, and of course, it started pouring again. The street where his building is isn't actually labelled, so I had a fun time finding the place, but thankfully I did, and my host, Jonas, was kind enough to give me some tea and dinner. I met his roommate, Tuva, who actually went to school at Lawerence, so we talked about the upper midwest a bit. Jonas took me to a concert at a club, and we stayed until 2:30. Now, if you know me at all, you know that I like to go to bed early, so this was an extreme endeavor for me. My attempts (and subsequent failures) to set up the IKEA sofa bed were clearly enough to make Jonas question my intelligence.
On a side note, at the very same club where Jonas and I were attending a concert, Jordan Frisbee and Tatiana Mollman, the world champions of West Coast Swing, were hosting a workshop on the 2nd floor. I almost bailed on the concert... but I'm glad I didn't, because I had a ton of fun. There was an awesome girl band who opened for New Young Pony Club, and I decided that if I'm going to be the cool girl bassist in a band, I have to be more Swedish, because their bassist was the ultimate in CGBs.
I woke up super late today, but I high-tailed it out of here as soon as I was up. I thought about buying a Stockholm Card, but by the time I would have done anything, all the museums would nearly be closed, since they all closed at 4 or 5, and I left at 1. So, I wandered around Sodermalm, and people watched, and ate ice cream, and had a generally wonderful time. I decided to go to Djurgarden, where I saw another very fancy event happening at the Nordiska Museum, but I am not sure what it was. I walked around and enjoyed the nature-y surroundings on the island, and then headed back to Gamla Stan, where I had decided I would eat at a vegetarian buffet that looked pretty cool. I was starving, so I figured that would be the best and most delicious bang for my buck. It was SO GOOD, but here's the thing: I haven't been eating too much lately, so I ended up being unable to finish even one full plate, and now, 3 hours later, I am still uncomfortably full. I think that bodes well for my future eating habits, but I spent 100 kr (I will still say it was worth it, because it was delicious and I love vegetables, I was in dire need of something healthy, and that is only like $15).
I didn't want to go out tonight, so that I can actually manage to wake up tomorrow morning to go on the tour boats thing with Tuva and a friend of hers who is visiting. We're going to do the boats in the morning and shop in the afternoon (since things close at 4 on Sundays, we have to start very early!). So, Jonas left, while Tuva and I had some tea, and I wrote this massive update. I hate to be thinking about going to bed so early, and to not be out taking advantage of how fun Stockholm is (though it may sound like I was partying it up, last night, I'll have you know that last night I only consumed one (1) beer... it was around $7 and cocktails were twice as expensive... I can't afford to drink here... and don't feel like getting drunk at the club when travelling alone is a great idea.. but going out was really fun without drinking). I also am afraid I might be getting a cold or something, because my throat's been a bit sore today, so I'm hoping to sleep it off.
Okay, I am cold (Stockholm is SO COLD), so I'm gonna go wrap up in blankets and read for a while... it's been a week on the road, and I haven't really relaxed at all. Yesterday was actually the first time I slept through the night without waking up, so I think it's about time for some down time.
-C
I believe we left off shortly after my arrival in London. So, I'll pick up beginning with leaving the disgusting hostel. I checked in, left my big bags in the luggage room, and set off for the British Museum. Naturally, I forgot to eat anything, so after a few hours of wandering aimlessly through everything in the museum, I started feeling a little off, and realized that I should probably obtain some sort of nourishment. So, away I went to Pret a Manger, the land of free wi-fi and relatively cheap coffee. I think I only ended up getting a banana, since I had a granola bar in my backpack, but I frittered away the next hour or so talking to my dad on Skype and trying to make some evening plans. After that, I only had an hour or so left to visit the British Library, where I saw some handwritten first drafts of Beatles' lyrics, the manuscript of Alice's Adventures Underground, some pages from Da Vinci's notebooks, and the Magna Carta, among other pieces of interest. I was trying to read the Latin in the Magna Carta on the big screen, but the style of writing is weird, so I couldn't make too much out, but a guy behind me asked, "Can you read Latin?" and when I replied in the affirmative, he just said, "GET OUT!" Clearly, he was very impressed with my intellectual powers. The museum closed before I could see their "Maps as Propaganda" exhibit, so maybe I will go back, because it sounded very interesting.
After that, I stopped at Tesco to pick up pasta, and stuff to make a meat sauce, and then went back to the hostel, where it turned out, there was no kitchen. So I went back to Tesco to return the meat and other perishable stuff, keeping the rest, and figuring it would come in handy later. This, my friends, is where I continue to learn that nothing is perfect. So the beds were a little more comfortable, the lockers were larger and more free, and the rooms smelled nice, but you had to buy their crappy food if you wanted to eat in the hostel. When I returned the stuff I had gotten, I picked up a sandwich and ate that. They give you a buy one get one free drink coupon, so I went down to the hostel bar for happy hour to see if I couldn't make some friends. I ended up talking to a few Australians, and getting into a passionate conversation about Tim Horton's and hockey with more Canadians. I got bored of the Australians, and decided to go to bed. I went in, fully expecting my 3 German roommates to still be out on the town, as it was hardly past midnight, and felt really awful when I probably woke them up by opening the door. Oops.
Monday was the Notting Hill Gate Carnival, which occurs every August Bank Holiday, and as far as I can tell, is an excuse for Londoners to get really hammered in the middle of the day. I didn't even know it existed, but it's apparently the 2nd biggest street festival in Europe. I met up with a bunch of Couch Surfers at a pub nearby (of course, after getting lost for a while first), and met some really nice folks. We decided to go get some grub before heading into the Carnival, and ended up at a place that advertised its "Spicy, Sexy Chicken." I got a lot of mileage making jokes about that. We lost a few of our number upon entering the sheer mass of people that was the Carnival, but they were all found by the end of the day, so no worries. The Carnival consisted of a very disorganized parade, each "float" being a group of people in either very cool or very skimpy costumes. I'm pretty sure all the performers were ragingly drunk. Imagine the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade if all of the balloon handlers were quite tipsy... it was pretty hilarious.
When I got back to the hostel, I was so tired, as we had been walking all day, that all I did was pack up everything and make sure my backpack was ready to take on the plane the next day. I woke up, had breakfast, and went to drop my stuff off in one of my dad's old colleague's office at the Canadian High Commission. Silly me, thinking that since it was a prearranged action, I would have no troubles. I got to the building, and the security guard was giving me the stink eye, and I'm pretty sure he didn't believe that I was there for a legitimate cause. When I checked in at reception, the security guy inside asked what I was planning to do with the luggage. I was trying to explain that my dad's friend had said I could leave it in her office, and he wasn't buying it. They don't let luggage past the lobby. OF COURSE THEY DON'T! So, here is where I started to have a little bit of a panic attack. Thankfully, the guy I was supposed to meet came down then, checked with higher up security, and told me I should go catch my flight, he'd take care of the stuff. He was very nice, which was very helpful to my state of panic.
I got to the airport, got on the plane, and got to Denmark. The flight from London is so short! I dozed off for a few minutes, and we were already landing. My first impression of the airport was that I had walked into a very expensive hotel lobby or furniture store. Everything is so nice in Copenhagen! I went through passport control, and the guy just looked at my passport, said "Welcome to Copenhagen, I see you haven't been to Denmark before! I hope you enjoy it!" He didn't ask any questions, or anything. SO CRAZY after UK passport control. The Danes are nice people.
So, it turns out that the international SIM is not helpful outside of the UK, and the T-Mobile guy was wrong, but that's ok because I had 10 pounds on the card which has been plenty, even though rates are extortionate. It was pretty bad though, because texting wasn't working, then finally it was, but my host couldn't send me texts or call me. Very strange. I was freaking out until I finally got a hold of my host at 31 pence/minute, but he picked up so it was all good.
But, anyway, the first night I was in Copenhagen, Johan (my host) and I talked about education in our respective countries, and music, and what we study until his girlfriend, Marie, got home from school. Then we went to the market to buy stuff for dinner and watched a documentary about Cairo and its trash problem, which was very interesting. Johan was kind enough to translate during the entire thing!
The next day, another couch surfer was coming, and she and Johan were possibly going to meet me in the city center in the afternoon- this is where the phone problems were actually a problem. I went to the Nationalmuseet, which is their National Museum. I learned a lot about Denmark. They had a cool "stories of life" exhibit, which just had a lot of odds and ends and stories about culture. I walked all across Copenhagen and soaked it all in. I ended the day by people-watching in the King's Gardens. When I got back, I was pretty exhausted from walking all day, so I didn't go out again, I just hung out with Marie for a while and then the next couch surfer, Alice, when she showed up.
On my last day in Copenhagen, we got yet another CouchSurfer in the apartment, which is a testament to how awesome Johan and Marie are, that they were willing to have 3 people in their verrrry small apartment! In the morning, we walked around the Norrebro neighborhood where Johan and Marie live, and saw H.C. Andersen's grave in a big cemetery that is used mostly as park space! It was strange to see kids running around in a graveyard... After that we met up with some CSers from Australia, whom Johan and Marie had had to turn down because 6 surfers in their apartment would not have worked at all, and then Johan took us on a tour of Christiania, the free city. His mom had lived there for 10 years ish, and his uncle was well known as a maker of a special type of bicycle for tall people, so he knew a lot about Christiania, and made for a good tour guide. We lost him though, because he had to meet with a woman at a venue where he books shows, but then he couldn't call/text me so I texted him saying we'd meet back at his place, and everything worked out. Marie had gone to her parents' for the night, so the remaining seven of us, and one of Johan's friends cooked dinner: roasted veggies, sweet potato fries, and pasta. It was really fun, and by the end of the night, it felt like we had all known each other for years.
I was sad to go in the morning, but excited to move on to a new adventure. Being unfamiliar with how trains work, I showed up way early for my train. When I got on, I was excited to see how lovely trains are in Europe. My 2nd class seat (in the quiet compartment... no screaming children FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE!), was about a thousand times nicer than any plane in which I have ever flown. There was nobody sitting across from me for most of the journey, so I was stretched out to my heart's content. Unfortunately, I didn't get the window seat, so I don't have a lot of pictures of the very charming Swedish countryside! Also, Swedish customs was funny... the guys were very tough sounding/looking in their actions, but they didn't even check my passport (what!?). By the end of the journey, the train was moving really fast, and looking out the window was making me a little dizzy, so it was probably a good thing I didn't have the window, after all.
When I got to Stockholm, I was immediately overwhelmed. I had no idea where to go or what to do, since my CS host would not be able to meet me for 5 hours. I started by getting some kronor, and turning that into change to put my backpack in a locker and be able to pay to potty. Then, I walked in the direction of Gamla Stan, the old town island. As I was walking, the wind picked up, and it got very cold, and started pouring. Disheartened, and lacking an umbrella, as well as having stupidly locked my hat and mittens into the locker, I figured I better do something about the situation, and popped into the nearest H&M, conveniently located about a block away, and bought a scarf and a hat for approximately 14 dollars. H&M in Scandinavia is like Starbucks or Walgreen's in the US. I'm serious. I feel like anywhere you stand, there are at least 5 within a mile of you. Anyway, I felt a little more fashionable (Stockholm and Copenhagen are INTIMIDATING fashionwise...) now that I had a scarf on, and decided to try Gamla Stan Take 2. This was a good idea. The sun came out, and as I walked around, I found a mob of people outside the big old church. Somebody who was apparently very rich, judging by the two Rolls Royce's outside, was getting married, so I waited with the crowd until the bride emerged in a storybook wedding dress.
Moving on, I walked all around the island, watched some people, and had some coffee. The time came to head to my host's apartment, so I retrieved my backpack, and took the T-bana. I was concerned I was walking in the wrong direction when I emerged from the station, but I kept going, and of course, it started pouring again. The street where his building is isn't actually labelled, so I had a fun time finding the place, but thankfully I did, and my host, Jonas, was kind enough to give me some tea and dinner. I met his roommate, Tuva, who actually went to school at Lawerence, so we talked about the upper midwest a bit. Jonas took me to a concert at a club, and we stayed until 2:30. Now, if you know me at all, you know that I like to go to bed early, so this was an extreme endeavor for me. My attempts (and subsequent failures) to set up the IKEA sofa bed were clearly enough to make Jonas question my intelligence.
On a side note, at the very same club where Jonas and I were attending a concert, Jordan Frisbee and Tatiana Mollman, the world champions of West Coast Swing, were hosting a workshop on the 2nd floor. I almost bailed on the concert... but I'm glad I didn't, because I had a ton of fun. There was an awesome girl band who opened for New Young Pony Club, and I decided that if I'm going to be the cool girl bassist in a band, I have to be more Swedish, because their bassist was the ultimate in CGBs.
I woke up super late today, but I high-tailed it out of here as soon as I was up. I thought about buying a Stockholm Card, but by the time I would have done anything, all the museums would nearly be closed, since they all closed at 4 or 5, and I left at 1. So, I wandered around Sodermalm, and people watched, and ate ice cream, and had a generally wonderful time. I decided to go to Djurgarden, where I saw another very fancy event happening at the Nordiska Museum, but I am not sure what it was. I walked around and enjoyed the nature-y surroundings on the island, and then headed back to Gamla Stan, where I had decided I would eat at a vegetarian buffet that looked pretty cool. I was starving, so I figured that would be the best and most delicious bang for my buck. It was SO GOOD, but here's the thing: I haven't been eating too much lately, so I ended up being unable to finish even one full plate, and now, 3 hours later, I am still uncomfortably full. I think that bodes well for my future eating habits, but I spent 100 kr (I will still say it was worth it, because it was delicious and I love vegetables, I was in dire need of something healthy, and that is only like $15).
I didn't want to go out tonight, so that I can actually manage to wake up tomorrow morning to go on the tour boats thing with Tuva and a friend of hers who is visiting. We're going to do the boats in the morning and shop in the afternoon (since things close at 4 on Sundays, we have to start very early!). So, Jonas left, while Tuva and I had some tea, and I wrote this massive update. I hate to be thinking about going to bed so early, and to not be out taking advantage of how fun Stockholm is (though it may sound like I was partying it up, last night, I'll have you know that last night I only consumed one (1) beer... it was around $7 and cocktails were twice as expensive... I can't afford to drink here... and don't feel like getting drunk at the club when travelling alone is a great idea.. but going out was really fun without drinking). I also am afraid I might be getting a cold or something, because my throat's been a bit sore today, so I'm hoping to sleep it off.
Okay, I am cold (Stockholm is SO COLD), so I'm gonna go wrap up in blankets and read for a while... it's been a week on the road, and I haven't really relaxed at all. Yesterday was actually the first time I slept through the night without waking up, so I think it's about time for some down time.
-C
Saturday, August 28, 2010
As promised, a real update.
My avid readers-
Okay, so I think I might have somewhat gotten the hang of things around here. Sort of. When I got in at around 11:00 pm yesterday, I couldn't get any money using my debit cards. My credit cards didn't work in the tube ticket vending machines. I was freaking out, and having an attack etc, etc, etc. That was quite the way to start my study abroad experience... however, I feel a little better knowing it can only go uphill from here. Last night was spent on skype with my wonderful and supportive parents until almost 04:00 London time, trying to sort out how I can get some money, and it ended up with me being able to get enough to last at least the next 4 or 5 days. So, the grand total of sleep I have had in the last 48 hours or so is maybe 9 hours on the high end. However, I've found a lovely chain with 99p coffee and free wi-fi, so that solves that problem.
I wanted to go to the British Museum, but there was apparently some sort of gas leak, and it had to be evacuated earlier in the day. Hopefully it will be open tomorrow! So, instead, I checked into my hostel and quickly learned that you get what you pay for. for £16.00 ish, I was pretty happy just to have a place to stay, but I really wonder what kind of backpacker's hostel doesn't have lockers big enough to hold backpacks! So, I put all my valuable stuff into my rucksack and threw it in, and hoped for the best on the rest of it. I don't think anybody would want to steal my suitcase full of old shoes and underwear. The hostel smells intensely like BO, and the mattress is approximately 3 inches thick, but the bed has a curtain so I can have a little privacy. And there's a free breakfast. Tomorrow, I go to a different, and most likely better hostel, so I can definitely deal with this for one night. I wish CouchSurfing had panned out for London!
After settling into the hostel, I made an attempt to find a place to get a SIM card, but failed miserably. I ended up wandering aimlessly for a while, which was interesting, though the blisters on my foot from wearing bad shoes yesterday are getting pretty painful. I ought to find some moleskin or something before I explode in a pus-filled mess. Yuck. The plus of that escapade was the fact that I found a place to get a passport style photo to use to get a 16-25 discount railcard. Being a moron, I presumably left my photos in America. I walked into a store with a sign outside, got my 4 pictures for £3.99, but then they messed one up and gave me a pound back, which was lovely, considering that most places seemed to be charging £5 for 2 pictures! The picture is terrible, but it doesn't matter. The next step is getting to a rail station to buy my railcard and a ticket for the Stansted express and one for Edinburgh. Then, I'm going to take it easy for the evening, since I am EXHAUSTED.
Monday is the Notting Hill Carnival, which I hear is a pretty huge deal. I'm going to meet up with a bunch of Couch Surfers at a pub (P.S. Responsible grown-ups reading this blog: note that though I am of legal drinking age here, and have gone through several ordeals since arriving, I have yet to purchase an alcoholic beverage. That's restraint.) and then watch the parade and listen to the Caribbean music. I am very excited for that. That leaves tomorrow to move my stuff to the new hostel, hit up the British Museum, British Library, Science Museum, and Museum of Natural History (or, you know, whichever of the above I have time to visit. They're all FREE!). I'll probably end up at the British Museum since it is just a hop away from the hostel.
Okay, this novel is over. I have a few hours in which to get to a T-Mobile store and get phone service, then figure out if I can take care of my rail stuff on a Saturday.
Over and Out.
P.S. I'm trying to think of a way better sign off. We'll see if that ever happens.
Okay, so I think I might have somewhat gotten the hang of things around here. Sort of. When I got in at around 11:00 pm yesterday, I couldn't get any money using my debit cards. My credit cards didn't work in the tube ticket vending machines. I was freaking out, and having an attack etc, etc, etc. That was quite the way to start my study abroad experience... however, I feel a little better knowing it can only go uphill from here. Last night was spent on skype with my wonderful and supportive parents until almost 04:00 London time, trying to sort out how I can get some money, and it ended up with me being able to get enough to last at least the next 4 or 5 days. So, the grand total of sleep I have had in the last 48 hours or so is maybe 9 hours on the high end. However, I've found a lovely chain with 99p coffee and free wi-fi, so that solves that problem.
I wanted to go to the British Museum, but there was apparently some sort of gas leak, and it had to be evacuated earlier in the day. Hopefully it will be open tomorrow! So, instead, I checked into my hostel and quickly learned that you get what you pay for. for £16.00 ish, I was pretty happy just to have a place to stay, but I really wonder what kind of backpacker's hostel doesn't have lockers big enough to hold backpacks! So, I put all my valuable stuff into my rucksack and threw it in, and hoped for the best on the rest of it. I don't think anybody would want to steal my suitcase full of old shoes and underwear. The hostel smells intensely like BO, and the mattress is approximately 3 inches thick, but the bed has a curtain so I can have a little privacy. And there's a free breakfast. Tomorrow, I go to a different, and most likely better hostel, so I can definitely deal with this for one night. I wish CouchSurfing had panned out for London!
After settling into the hostel, I made an attempt to find a place to get a SIM card, but failed miserably. I ended up wandering aimlessly for a while, which was interesting, though the blisters on my foot from wearing bad shoes yesterday are getting pretty painful. I ought to find some moleskin or something before I explode in a pus-filled mess. Yuck. The plus of that escapade was the fact that I found a place to get a passport style photo to use to get a 16-25 discount railcard. Being a moron, I presumably left my photos in America. I walked into a store with a sign outside, got my 4 pictures for £3.99, but then they messed one up and gave me a pound back, which was lovely, considering that most places seemed to be charging £5 for 2 pictures! The picture is terrible, but it doesn't matter. The next step is getting to a rail station to buy my railcard and a ticket for the Stansted express and one for Edinburgh. Then, I'm going to take it easy for the evening, since I am EXHAUSTED.
Monday is the Notting Hill Carnival, which I hear is a pretty huge deal. I'm going to meet up with a bunch of Couch Surfers at a pub (P.S. Responsible grown-ups reading this blog: note that though I am of legal drinking age here, and have gone through several ordeals since arriving, I have yet to purchase an alcoholic beverage. That's restraint.) and then watch the parade and listen to the Caribbean music. I am very excited for that. That leaves tomorrow to move my stuff to the new hostel, hit up the British Museum, British Library, Science Museum, and Museum of Natural History (or, you know, whichever of the above I have time to visit. They're all FREE!). I'll probably end up at the British Museum since it is just a hop away from the hostel.
Okay, this novel is over. I have a few hours in which to get to a T-Mobile store and get phone service, then figure out if I can take care of my rail stuff on a Saturday.
Over and Out.
P.S. I'm trying to think of a way better sign off. We'll see if that ever happens.
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