Fantastic London!

I'll now attempt to capture the entire essence of my fun-filled week in London, though I'm sure I'll find it an impossible task...

The first night I arrived was rather uneventful, except I saw Robin!!! However, the weather was less than enjoyable so we spent our time in the hostel doing my laundry and trying a pint at the pub around the corner.

The next day I joined Robin and her class at Hampton Court for a tour of the palace. The infamous Henry XIII had lived there and it was later added to by William... II? Some rich King that wanted to be extravagant of course... After a tour of the kitchens, the chapel, Henry's Great Hall, and William's half of the palace we got to explore the glorious Palace grounds, the garden! It was such a beautiful day, and there were even some flowers in bloom. There were swans on a giant lake, and beautiful landscaping. I only wish the statues hadn't been wrapped in white plastic. We also saw the world's largest grape vine! And I giant wisteria that I took a picture of for mom :) Unfortunately there were no flowers on it yet. Then we walked around to the gardens on the opposite side of the palace and did the most famous maze in the world! It wasn't actually very big, I think originally it was larger, but we certainly got frustrated enough before finally making our way to the center! After the maze we were ready to leave the Palace and head back into downtown London. We took the train back and then hopped on the tube and when we got off Big Ben was RIGHT THERE. Some old ladies wanted me to take their picture but they were standing right in front of Big Ben so it was impossible to get them and all of Big Ben in the picture, but they didn't speak English so I couldn't really explain it to them... oh well, I hope it turned out okay enough. Then we walked around that area and saw the Queen's Gate, which the Queen is only allowed to enter and she only uses once a year... (silly England) Then we saw the outside of Westminster Abbey, but didn't want to pay a ridiculous amount to get inside... Heading back to the tube station we saw a ticket booth for musicals and my friends from the Strasbourg trip that were also in London for the week had told me they were going to Lion King so I bought a ticket for the show that night. Then we had to head over to Covent Garden right away to pick up the tickets because they only reserved them where we were, you had to pick up the physical tickets somewhere else... then once I got my tickets I ran out of credit on my phone so I spent the next couple hours wondering around Covent Garden trying to get credit on my phone and waiting for the show to start. Eventually I just headed over to the theater and took my seat.
The show was AMAZING! The costumes and puppets and scenery and everything was just incredible. The script actually followed the Disney movie really closely, though there were a couple new songs, one which was really cheesy and lame, and another which was really good and I wish I had on my itunes. I met up with Maia and Yan (the girls from the Strasbourg trip that were also in London) at intermission and planned to meet up the next day since my phone wasn't working to call them. After the show we were too tired to do anything else so we went our seperate ways.

The next morning I met Maia at the British Museum. That place is HUGE! First thing we saw was the Rossetta Stone! That's pretty cool to see in real life. Then we wandered amongst giant Egyptian statues for a while, and saw some mummies. I'm sure we saw a lot more, but I don't remember it all right now. You can see it in my facebook photos. Yan was going to meet up with us but by the time she got there we were ready to leave. Then we decided we should hit up some Indian Food place since it's apparently the National Food of London right now. So we had a delicious Indian lunch, though it ended up being a bit more expensive than we expected...
After lunch we met up with Robin and went to Abbey Road! That was really cool to see. The wall in front of the recording studio is covered with writing and drawings from Beatles fans.
After Abbey Road Robin took us to Westminster Chapel, which is in a totally different place than Westminster Abbey, I have no idea why... But it was one of the most amazing churches I've ever seen! Parts of the ceiling are covered in beautiful tile mosaics, some with real gold tiles. They're trying to raise enough money to cover the entire ceiling of the chapel with these mosaics... good luck! There was also a choir singing some Gregorian chants or something while we were there. Very beautiful.
After the chapel we saw a theater for Wicked, which I've wanted to see for a long time, so we headed to the ticket booth to see if we could get some tickets for a reasonable price, and we did! We got to sit front and center too! It was an amazing show, and reminded me of a couple friends back in highschool who were always singing songs from Wicked :)
Exhausted after another whirlwind day of fun in London, we headed back to our beds after the show.

The next day was probably the busiest yet. I woke up and went to try to find the Dickens' House Museum but got distracted by a souvenir shop. After taking my purchases back to the hostel I headed out again, but never found the Dickens House Museum... I did find a cute little church called St.-Giles-in the field or something like that... where I found a little brown church mouse and shared a snack with him. I named him Albert. Then Robin called me so I met up with her at St. James Park and we headed over to Buckingham Palace. The changing of the guard wasn't happening that morning so we decided to come back again the next day to watch it. We walked over to Trafalgar square and had some lunch then went and looked around in the National Gallery. I liked seeing William Turner's paintings, because when I was studying Debussy I learned that Debussy was really inspired by Turner's work.
After the Gallery we caught a double-decker bus over to the south bank. We saw the London Eye and walked all along the south bank to the Tate Modern. On the way we saw street performers and a skate park. Once at the Tate Modern we only looked around at two big exhibits because our feet hurt terribly. I saw some Jackson Pollock paintings and Picassos. After that I was begging Robin to get back on the tube so we could sit down. We decided to go back to her house and make some dinner.
So we headed across the Millenium Bridge to get on the other side of the river. We passed by St. Paul's where the lady sings "Feed the Birds" in Mary Poppin's. Finally we got on the tube and headed to Robin's house. From there we walked to a cheap supermarket and bought some microwave dinners, and candy, which I think I left at my hostel :( After eating and resting my feet a bit I headed back to the hostel to get some sleep.

The next day we got up bright and early because we had a lot of things planned. First we went to Portabello Road, which has a lot of outdoor vendors. I got some scarves and a big bag because I needed another bag to take things back home with me. But we didn't stay very long because we wanted to get to the changing of the guards! So we hopped back on the tube to Buckingham Palace. There were TONS of people but we managed to squeeze our way up to the gate to get a better view. Mostly all we could see was the marching band though. And they played songs by Enrique Iglesias, Ricky Marting, and The Beatles, which was really strange...
Of course no London tourist experience is complete without platform 9 3/4 so we went to Kings Cross to get that photo op taken care of.
It was a reasonably nice day so we went for a walk around Hyde Park. There were a bunch of people rollerskating on the road through the park and doing some pretty cool tricks. After walking the entire length of the park and back our feet were hurting again so we hopped a doubledecker again and headed to Harrod's, the giant famous shopping mall in London. I don't think I would have wanted to do any shopping there but it was pretty interesting to see. We decided to get some afternoon tea, since we were in England after all. I got a Darjeeling tea with a delicious raspberry pastry with a rose petal on top. It was absolutely scrumptious! Though the rose petal didn't really taste that good...
We had finally run out of ideas of what to do and our feet were killing us so we just went back to the hostel for a few hours till dinner time. For dinner I had to have some Fish & Chips so we went back to the pub around the corner from the hostel. Their fish & chips were pretty tasty! Then Robin and her friend, Heather's, friend called them asking if we wanted to go see Watchmen so we decided to go with them. I thought Watchmen was pretty good, there were some pretty bad scenes, but overall a pretty good movie. Robin's friend hated it though. Whatever. Robin and Heather live a ways out from downtown so they had to catch a bus after the movie so I went back to my hostel.

The next day I slept in (YAY!) and then grabbed a sandwich and ate lunch in Russell Square, about a block (if that even) away from my hostel. I watched little kids play in the fountain and wrote in my journal a bit. Then it got windy and a tree branch almost fell in my lap so I decided to get out of there... I took the tube to Camden Market to meet Robin. It was beautiful and sunny when I got there but as I was waiting it started pouring rain so I found a Starbucks and sat there eating cake until I heard from Robin. We decided to brave the weather a bit so we could look around Camden Market. We ended up running from stall to stall trying to stay dry. I ended up buying a jacket because it was cute and cheap and I needed something a bit more fashionable since I hadn't brought my peacoat with me.
We eventually got fed up with the thunder and rain so we headed back into the tube station. Robin wasn't feeling well so she headed home and I decided to check out the Victoria & Albert Museum. It ended up being one of my most favorite museums. There were such a wide variety of exhibits, unfortunately I didn't have time to see them all. My favorite was the sculpture gallery. I took some pictures of my favorites you can see on my facebook. I also liked the fashion and jewelry exhibits. I wanted to see the glass works but they were closing by the time I figured out how to get there.
By then all the other museums were closing as well so I went back to my hostel to get dinner. Robin still wasn't feeling well so I just went to the grocery store and got some cheap sushi. And some breakfast for the next morning, which I also forgot at my hostel... The rest of the evening was pretty laid back. I ate some sushi and ended up playing Blackjack and hanging out with two guys from San Francisco and Los Angeles who had just gotten to London. We hung out around London for a little while because my taxi was coming at 3:30am and I figured going to bed was kind of pointless.
Once we got back to the hostel they waited with me till my taxi came and then began my heinous journey home.
I hadn't slept in 30 hours, my train left at 4:30 am and I didn't get back to Strasbourg until 5 pm that evening... over 24 hours of waiting and catching trains and busses and flights and eating airport food because I left my delicious bagel and OJ somewhere... ugh.

But I made it back safe and sound and here I am!
This week wasn't too eventful, just classes mostly. I did meet with a girl, Coline, who is learning English and did some conversation exchange. We have a lot in common so that was pretty fun. Besides that, I got sick and slept all weekend and watched some rugby in which all the teams I was rooting for lost... I need to get out today because I'm getting kind of homesick. I'll let you know how it goes!

Oslo & Tromso, Norway

Well, I am long overdo for an entry! I got back from my two-week vacation this last Monday and have been very busy ever since, but now I'm sick so I have nothing better to do.

I started my trip off in Oslo, Norway, visiting my good friend from school, Warren. The first day we went to Vigeland Park, a big park with tons of statues of people during different periods of life. It was really amazing, all the statues were made by one person. There's pictures on my Facebook if you're interested. Then we went to the National Gallery and saw paintings of Norway, as well as some Impressionist paintings and a collection of Edvard Munch's paintings (because he's Norwegian!), including The Scream and Madonna. Afterwards we walked around downtown Oslo in the snow and ended up eating dinner at Peppe's Pizza, which was delicious!!!

The next day we slept in and then went to a cafe on the campus where Warren goes to school where they have cheap, delicious waffles. I met a bunch of his friends and ate like three waffles with jam and whipped cream. Mmm... Then I went to his Norwegian music class with him and learned about Edvard Grieg and other famous Norwegian musicians. In the evening we went to a Quiz at a bar on campus. It's basically like a very difficult game of trivia pursuit. You're in teams and you write down what you think the answer is on a piece of paper to 20 questions and in the end you turn it in and they find who won. After the first round we were in 3rd place! But we didn't stick around to get the results for the 2nd round because their group never wins and we had a bus to catch.

The next day we headed up North to Tromso, a city inside the Arctic Circle. It's been called "the Paris of the North"! It truly is a beautiful city, surrounded by giant arctic mountains, and the way the sun shines there is indescribable. The first day there we set up our cabins and then walked around the town a bit and did some grocery shopping. Many people in Norway do speak English, but everything is written in Norwegian and trying to find the food we wanted was rather difficult, but we managed to survive the week!
That night we trekked out trying to find a place away from any big lights so that we could see the Northern Lights. We walked down a cross-country ski trail and found a big open field so we forged a path through the knee-deep snow. It was so fun! And by the time we got to the middle and sat down in the snow we could see a glowing green stripe through sky. Such an amazing experience. We stayed there for quite a while before people started getting too cold and wanted to go back. Unfortunately, on the way back out, one of the girls got her shoe stuck under the snow and couldn't get it out. Warren and I volunteered to go get a shovel and dig it out for her. So she and everyone else went back to the cabins and Warren and I went back to the field with a shovel to try to rescue her shoe. We eventually got it out and on the way back we looked up and we saw the brightest green light stretching across the sky, it was shimmering and even had a tinge of red along the bottom! The biggest light we had seen all night! So we ran back to the cabin to grab our cameras and tell the others but by the time we got back outside it was gone.

The next day we went to Polaria, which was mostly an aquarium. We saw a lot of fish and crabs, and most exciting, bearded seals! They were so much fun to watch, and there's a tunnel like at the Newport aquarium that you can walk under and see the seals swimming above you. Afterwards we went to the Gallery of Contemporary Art which was accross the street. There wasn't much in there except for some strange short films that none of us really understood... That night we went out to eat at Egon. I got smoked salmon and it was pretty good. Everyone enjoyed their food. That night it was too cloudy to see the lights, but we played around in the snow making snow angels and exploring the area around the campground until we got too tired.

The next day was Sunday, and not much is open on Sundays, just like in France, but we went to the Tromso Museum. They had a bunch of different exhibits, like how the Northern Lights are formed, rocks in Norway, and life in the Stone Ages. They also had a big section that I found very interesting about the Sami people, the native people of Northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland. We didn't do much else that day except make leftover spaghetti for dinner and play outside in the snow again, it was too cloudy to see the lights again.

The next day was our last in Tromso, but we didn't leave until the evening so we went back to downtown Tromso for the day. We went to the Polar Museum which was about hunting and trapping in the Arctic, kind of depressing, but still interesting. Then we went to the Northernmost Glass blowing studio in the world, called Blast. We got to watch a lady blow a glass wine glass. For dinner we went to Peppe's again (it's a big thing in Norway!) Then we got on our plane back to Oslo. Back in Oslo we were exhausted but I just had to try reindeer before I left so I stayed up while Warren and his friends cooked some reindeer. It was pretty good! Very tender, I think I would have liked it with some potatoes and gravy :)

The next day I headed to London! Which I'll write a post about in a bit, right now I need to get some rest.

Les vacances commencent

Tuesday our presentation went alright. It wasn't as long as the requirements said it should be, but we talked a lot during the discussion afterwards and I think the prof knew we knew what we were talking about.

The rest of the week was mostly classes. I didn't do much else. (Sorry I'm boring!)

Friday I slept in and skipped my class again (oops!) And then off to the mountain! The drive up was really pretty, we drove through small villages in the valleys and on the mountain. Snowboarding was an adventure... I couldn't really figure it out for a while. Apparently the problem ended up being that my bindings weren't tight enough so we tightened that up and it was much easier. I still fell on my butt a lot though. Ouch! I made it down 3 times without falling! I think I'll stick to skiing from now on...

Saturday I met Maia at the mall to check out this sushi place. It looked reasonably priced but ended up costing both of us at least 20€... Don't think we'll be going back there! They charge 3€ for the small bottle of water they bring you! I miss SushiLand... Then we went to the Médiathèque, which is really cool! We watched a guy watching Thriller for a few minutes and that was entertaining. They have lots of movies and music that you can sit down and watch or listen to while you're there, or you can buy a membership and check things out. (They have books too, of course). On the way home we got a few bottles of wine then invited some friends over to watch movies and drink wine. It really helped me forget how sore I was from the snowboarding!

Yesterday I met Konstantin to go to the train station because I needed to print out my ticket for tomorrow and he wanted to look at tickets for Paris today. Then we came back here so he could look online because he doesn't have internet at his apartment. We just goofed around on the internet and checked out music until he had to leave. I spent the night eating pasta and watching a French comedian, Gad Elmaleh (well, he's actually Moroccan). He's really hilarious! If you speak French...

Today I have to pack and get all my travelling plans in order, and tomorrow I leave bright and early to get to Oslo! I have to take the tram to the train station, then a train to catch a bus to catch my plane and then take a bus... eek! At least from there Warren will meet me and help me get to his place. I can't wait! I don't know how much I'll be on the internet but I'll try to keep you updated on my adventures.

Au revoir!

post-script

Well I'm not going to the climbing gym today or to the party on Friday, but that's fine, I'm going snowboarding instead! I'm really excited because I've never been before and it's really cheap!
I'll go to the gym over break (which starts next week!)
Hooray! :)

L'Escalade

After my rock climbing class last Monday I decided to sign up for another class Thursday as well so I could climb at least twice a week. It's a nice break from my usual hum drum of classes.
Tuesday (or was it Wednesday?) night I went to a rock concert at Molodoi. None of my other friends ended up showing up, but I recognized a French guy, JP, from hanging out with Jessamy's friend, Lorrain, and his friends, so I hung out with him for a bit. The music was really loud and fun! If you want to look up the band, they have a Myspace. They're called Plus Guest.

Thursday was Jessamy's birthday! We went to a Moroccan couscous restaurant. It was delicious and filling :) Jessamy and I split the "duo Saharian" which had all different sorts of food to try, including kabobs, sausage, and other things I don't know how to describe... Afterwards we hung out at la Taverne Française with the French guys. They're pretty fun and say I speak the best french of the American group :)

Friday I slept in and skipped class (sh... it's not that big of a deal, I swear!) Then invited some people over in the evening since my host-mom was gone. We hung out and played "Trivial Pursuit: Passport au monde" with a natural French-speaker on each team so at least SOMEONE would understand what was going on :) We almost won! But not quite...

Saturday I went to Dubliner's to watch the rugby game. No one else from the group showed up, but it was okay, I like rugby enough to watch it alone :) France vs. Scotland and France won!!!! Hooray! Then I went home to get ready for the Opera, and my host-mom made rabbit for dinner so I had a little bit before I left. Not bad! As long as you don't think about what you're eating... and fluffy little bunny tails and floppy ears.... anyways...
The Opera was a recital of Nina Stemme, she sang Wagner and Rachmaninov and some other great artists that I don't remember.... but my favorite part was when she did an encore and sang two songs in French. I actually understood what she was saying! I hope I can go back to the Opera and maybe see something in French. I think it's so amazing what they can do with their voices!
Afterwards we went out for Donner Kebab, which is like the fast food here, except just that it's cheap and fast, it's not prepackaged and frozen like American fast food . It's just like hot sandwiches and wraps and stuff. Very yummy :)

Sunday Sam, Allison, and I went to le Salon des Vins, which is just like a GIANT room filled from end to end with wine vendors and you get to try whatever you want! We don't know much about wine or wine tasting, but we enjoyed ourselves well enough :) I found a delicious wine called Cent Visages, but when I came back to buy it they were all out, but I bought a different wine from the same people to bring to people back home. Hopefully next time I go wine-tasting I can bring an expert along with me to tell me what to do!
Not much exciting after that, I came home and worked on a presentation for tomorrow. Sam & I are presenting William James to our World Philosophy class, but it has to be 40 minutes long so it's kind of intimidating... We'll get through it though.

I had rock climbing class today, and am going to check out a gym with Ashton today. There's a party at this gym (it's called Roc n Stock) Friday and I want to go check it out and make sure I can get there okay before I try to go to the party Friday. Basically all I want to do these days is go climbing. I can't wait till it's nice outside and I can get on some real rocks!

It snowed today! But didn't stick at all. I was hoping it would snow enough for class to be cancelled but alas, that is not so. It was pretty though!

Well, I still have some more research to do to make this presentation 40 minutes long so I better get to it.

À bientôt!

Trop des tartes flambées!

Last Thursday I went to a dégustation des tartes flambées (tasting of tartes flambées). Tartes flambées are kind of the Alsacian form of pizza, but don't call it pizza or they'll get pissed! It's on a thin bread with cheese and usually ham and onions, but there were also some with mushrooms. And for dessert we had chocolate tarte flambées or apples and cinnamon tarte flambées!
It was a University event so there were lots of people but I didn't know anyone when I got there. But I very soon made some new friends :) I met Hudson from Brazil, Angelica also from Brazil, Mateo from Colombia, Stella from China, and Konstantin from Germany. They were all very friendly and fun! What's interesting is that most exchange students speak English much better than French so we tried to keep up conversation in French but spoke English a lot. We got absolutely stuffed from tartes flambées and then walked around near the cathedral a bit. I hung out with Mateo and Konstantin the rest of the night.

The next day (Friday) I had class at 8:30. Ick. But that went by relatively quickly and then I had a meeting with Beth to make sure I was taking enough classes, etc. Everything was fine there and we just hung out and talked for a while about the abroad experience and random things like psychology and religion (she also majored in Psychology in college!) I met up with Mateo, Konstantin, Ashton, and Sean (Ashton and Sean are in my group, Ashton's from De Pauw, but still part of the "LC" group) for lunch and we had more tartes flambées! After that Mateo, Konstantin and I were a little tired of tartes flambées and we were joking that we couldn't eat anymore, at least for the rest of the day, haha!
Then when I got my home my host mom had gotten back, along with her boyfriend, Wolfgang, his son Yannis, and Yannis' girlfriend, Valentine. Before dinner we had champagne and guess what... more tartes flambées! I managed to eat a little bit more :)

Saturday evening I hung out with friends... I don't remember doing much else during the day. Saturday we went to the Dubliner's and watched some rugby games! That was really fun, except France lost to Ireland :( Then we went to Jessamy's French friend, Lorrain's, friend's house and hung out with some vrais français! We played some games and tried to converse in franglais :)

Sunday I slept in the met up with Konstantin to watch more rugby. It's a fun game to watch! Most of the LC group is getting together next Saturday since it's Valentine's Day and we're all alone and we'll probably watch a rugby game and go to the opera, how culturally diverse of us :) Anyways, after the game we just walked around the town until I had dinner. That was pretty much the end of my night.

Monday I had my first rock climbing class! Alla ( a girl from the LC group) was there too so it was nice to have someone I knew there. I went with the beginners and we learned how to tie ropes etc. and then we got to climb. The beginner routes were a little too easy and my balaying partner (the say assurer instead of balay in french) kept saying I was going too fast. But I signed up for another class on Thursday so I can get right to the challenging stuff next time! After class I got my opera ticket and exchanged some money that Dad & Barb sent me for my birthday. (pst, Dad, do you know if checks expire? Because depositing that check from here is super complicated and I was just going to wait till I get back to the States)

Anyways, today I got up at a heinous hour, went to class at 8 and had eight hours of classes... I almost fell asleep a couple times in one!

So that's where I am now. Dinner is soon :) I'm excited for another rock climbing class on Thursday and Jessamy's birthday! We're going to a Pizzeria.

Hope all is well with all of you! Sorry to those of you whose e-mails I haven't responded to, I've been busy trying to get my travelling plans in order and it's a little frustrating and time-consuming but I'll get to it when I have my plans all put together.

Bisous!

J'ai 21 ans!

Merci for all the birthday wishes! I had a great time :) My actually birthday I spent relaxing in bed because I stayed up late having fun the night before. I also got the most wonderful birthday package in the mail from home!

Yesterday I had eight hours of class... Though not too bad. Our leader, Beth, had a little birthday get-together for me at her apartment between classes. I still have some of the yummy cake in the fridge! I'm glad to be in class, learning new things and keeping my brain entertained.
Some of the students and professors were on strike again today. I believe it's about some reforms the government is making concerning University finances. There's a new law changing how the state pays for schooling an requiring schools to become more financially independent. Because of this the three universities in Strasbourg joined together to form one University of Strasbourg. For some reason people don't like this... I'll try to learn more about it.
So today some of my friends and I went to a Faculté class for the first time. When the teacher arrived she said that she's on strike but is required to be there so she said she was physically there but wouldn't be teaching so we could just talk about whatever we want. So we talked about the States for a while and since she's from Italy she told us about school in Italy and Canada since she taught there. It was very interesting and I can't wait to get the actual class started next week. It's the sociology of cities or something like that...
After we left I realized 5€ fell out of my pocket and I couldn't find it so I get upset about that... then the coffee machine at my money... but I tried to forget about all that because other than that I was having a really great day.

So I came home, watched a couple episodes of 24 and then made dinner! I made pasta and some chicken I started marinating last night. It was really good! Except that I marinated it in soy sauce and some other things so it was kind of salty but I just added sweet chili sauce and it was good :) I was happy to make up my own sauce without a recipe and have it turn out okay :)

I'm not quite sure when my host mom is getting back but I hope soon because I've run out of cooking ideas... at least anything I can make with what's left in the fridge.

I was thinking about the strikes lately and had some interesting ideas. Well the French love to go on strike and it happens all the time. I learned in my culture class they basically go on strike when the government tries to make any kind of reform. But if that's the case wouldn't it start to lose it's power? If the government knows everyone's going to strike no matter what then it won't matter because maybe they're just striking for the sake of striking? The government may just come to ignore it because it's meaningless. I don't know, just my thoughts and impressions, if any people that know a bit more about France and French culture have any responses please let me know :)

On another note I'm getting really excited about climbing! I did a lot of research last night and found some good climbing spots nearby, now I just have to figure out how to get there. I also found out where the gym where my class is so I can make it there next Monday. I hope I can make some new friends and get some great climbs in!

But now it's cake time :) A bientôt!