City of Lights- Day 1

Paris is so hyped up in literature, movies, music, everything really. I had in my mind Paris was so overhyped and wasn't actually going to be all that great. I hadn't really planned to go to Paris, but when Chelsea and I decided to go, I have to admit, I was pretty damn jazzed about it. Mainly, I was very excited to go to the Louvre... being a huge museum buff/nerd extraordinaire. When we got on the Eurostar, and emerged from the Chunnel (SO EXCITING), catching our first glimpse of France, I was a little breathless. It was our second sunrise in three days, and let me tell you, readers, sunrise over the French countryside is gorgeous. I was so tired, though, that I couldn't really do anything except poke Chelsea and say "look, pretty."

As we pulled into the terminal, I was incredibly worried that my credit card wouldn't work and I wouldn't be able to pay for our hotel, or the hotel would have lost our reservation, or I wouldn't have enough money to pay for the fancy dinner that my mom and dad sent us to eat for my birthday present (because in my head, my credit card would not work in France). I knew I had to get over it, but sometimes it is really hard for me to relieve anxiety or stop all the thoughts that swirl through my mind. We started off our time in Paris by climbing up the hill to Sacre Couer, a basilica that is the highest point in Paris. It was breathtaking. The sun was shining through the clouds and making rays of light all over the city, sprawled beneath us. But you know, even moments like that can be ruined. By gypsies. Now, I hate to be prejudiced here, but these people will stop at nothing to try and hook you. One lady literally tried to block Chelsea from continuing on the stairs.

Inside Sacre Coeur was beautiful as well, and I've been in a lot of basilicas, so I declare myself a fit judge. From there, we decided to go see the Moulin Rouge, just because it was nearby. That is one hell of a sketchy area. Every store pretty much was a really sleazy looking sex shop. So, basically we saw Moulin Rouge, and then we went to the Metro as quickly as possible to find out how to get to Montparnasse, where our hotel was. We got to the metro, and I had a little difficulty getting tickets. My card didn't work in the machine, which scared the crap out of me. In the end, I used cash and got my ten tickets. The Metro is so cute... it has tires. Awww. So we got off near the Montparnasse cemetery, and looked for famous dead people. We only found a few of the ones we were looking for, but it was so weird how packed the cemetery was. I guess that is what you have to do in a city where space is at a premium, but after the sprawling park-like atmosphere of the cemeteries in Sweden and Denmark, it was especially strange.

By then, it was about time to check into our hotel, so we found it and then waited until our room was ready. Chelsea was absolutely chuffed to be able to speak French to somebody, and we got up to our room, which was about the size of a closet. I had some serious claustrophobia issues with the bathroom, but it didn't really matter because we were only using the room for sleeping, and it was clean. After dropping our bags off, we set out again to accomplish the Hardcore Paris Sightseeing Mission™ (HPSM). I had ostensibly been in charge of picking out what we did in London, but we really left that to wandering about. Chelsea, on the other hand, was super organized and had a plan. The HPSM. We started by walking through the Luxembourg gardens, where apparently my father enjoyed playing with boats in a pond when my grandparents took the kids to France back in the day. I imagine they are much more beautiful in the summer. From there, we went to the Pantheon, which was absolutely amazing. It's basically a secular monument to France's greatest people. There is an extensive crypt, and we saw Marie Curie's tomb... among MANY others. Including Voltaire! Foucault's Pendulum is in the nave of the basilica. Super amazing physics/science geeking out occurred on my part.

Following that, we walked to Notre Dame. We were so excited when we found out that Notre Dame is free to enter (The Pantheon cost money!), so we went in and walked around. It is exceedingly beautiful. However, this volunteer lady cornered us and kept asking us Bible questions. Chelsea and I didn't really have much ability to answer most of them. Eventually, we managed to make our excuses, thank her, and continue walking through the cathedral. The rose window is one of the most awe-inspiring things I have ever seen. I have to say that I find it much easier to understand how people follow a religion when their worship takes place in a grand structure. Rather, I guess I understand how the building could inspire so much awe, especially at the time when it was built, as to really add to the whole deity power/mystique thing.

Next on the list was the Champs Elysee. I'm so glad we were there around Christmas, because it was lit up and awesome. The lights were icicle lights, but they were animated so they looked like falling stars. Sublime. The Arc D' Triomphe (did I spell any of that right?) was equally impressive, floodlit and surrounded by about a bazillion lanes of traffic as it was. Behind that, there was another huge Christmas market, and we enjoyed browsing through it on our way to Eiffel Tower. We actually had some trouble getting to the tower, and then from the tower to a metro stop that would help us get home, but first let's talk about the tower. It's actually a little disappointing. Yeah, it was really pretty all lit up at night, but in the day time, it just seems kind of pointless to me. I think the Ferris Wheel was a better World's Fair invention, personally., So, we were trying to get home, and we knew we were walking in the right direction, but we could NOT find the metro anywhere. We were starting to get a little worried, because it seemed like we were in a sketchy area. Eventually, we kept walking and found it, but then walked the wrong way out of the metro station near our hotel and got lost there. After being all turned around, we were SO hungry that we just picked up sandwiches and desserts at the grocery store and brought them back to the hotel. They were pretty tasty for being grocery store sandwiches! Yay for French food. We fell asleep FAST.

edinburgh, at last.

I forgot in my last entry to describe taking the tube during rush hour, which was quite the experience. I was smashed like a sardine into the train, and I felt like such a jerk to be taking up as much space as I was. Oh well, it’s not like I had tried to take so much on in a crowd at any other time, and there was really no other option for getting to the train. I ended up getting there just 10 min before the train left, but I got on and it was all okay. I got to Edinburgh and hauled my crap up some giant hills to get to the orientation hotel. Straightaway, I met some pretty nice people, but I unfortunately missed the free sandwiches. Boo! We walked around the city until dinner. My camera ran out of battery for the first time on the trip, which was incredibly sad.

The hotel beds were so amazing after hostel beds/couches/air mattresses, that I slept all night and barely managed to wake up in the morning in time for breakfast. I love English breakfast. Whoever thought of eating baked beans in the morning was truly a god among men. The rest of the day was orientation stuff, the highlight of which was the Captain of Edinburgh police talking to us. He looked sort of like Craig Ferguson and pretty much spent the entire time cracking jokes about how much he liked drinking, and how much Edinburghers like drinking. But he also did have some important information for us. Today, we had another guest speaker, a member of the Scottish Parliament, who was equally as hilarious. She told a girl that she should marry her grandson, and invited a guy to come with her to an Edinburgh Hibernians football match next weekend. Everybody was INCREDIBLY jealous of the guy. That exchange led to her promising to make the attempt to get us a group rate for a game in the future so that we could all go.

When everything was done, I went out shopping with some girls. That wasn’t particularly exciting. That brings us to now… I hear people singing Don’t Stop Believin’ out the window… I bet it’s kids from this program. I am surprised that they could be drunk enough by 9 pm… but I feel like a lot of people came here solely to party. I need to get better so I can join in. I think I may have a sinus infection rather than a cold, but I don’t want to see a doctor about it or anything, because I hate taking antibiotics for something minor. I haven’t really gone out at all yet, because I just don’t want to make anything worse. So tonight, I came back the earliest yet, at like, 7 pm and just crawled into bed after I repacked all my stuff to move into my flat tomorrow. I just feel pretty gross, and it sucks because Fresher’s Week is a non-stop week of events and I don’t want to have to miss anything! I’m thinking about just going to sleep, and I’ll write a more introspective and less narrative entry later.

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.