Well, I'm Back

Home again, safe and sound. And tired beyond all comprehesion! I've been utterly useless for the past two days because I'm plain wiped out!

It's really strange being at home. I remember sitting in the Detroit airport wondering why there were so many Americans around! And American Coke doesn't taste very good--we need to use sugar in our sodas, clearly. Also? CNN sucks. It's incredibly obnoxious and I could do a better job with political commentary than their commentators, even after having been out of the country for 9 months! (I mean, come on--if you can't recognize the misogeny that's rampant in a lot of the opposition to Hilary Clinton, you should not be allowed on national news. That's just stupid.)

It is good to be back in my house with all the animals and people, but I kind of like living alone, or with only one other person. And I have way too much crap here. I do not need most of what I have, and yet, I have it. I don't even know where to start with it all.

Clearly, I have a lot of adjusting to do...

Homeward Bound

or, It's Never Easy to Say Goodbye.

Tonight is my last night in Norwich ever. I'm facing a giant mental chasm I can't quite cross. I know that, tomorrow night, I'll be home. It's just the time until I get there that I can't wrap my mind around.


It's so strange to be finally leaving. This year has been hard, really hard. Yeah, it's been great--I've seen so many things I've always wanted to see, and have met so many cool people--but it's been difficult as well. I've been looking forward to going home for a long time, but now that it comes to it, I don't want to. Leaving home was much easier. I'm leaving the UK indefinitely. I don't know if I'll ever see these friends again--in fact, I'm pretty sure I won't. I'm excited to come home and see friends and family for the first time in 9+ months, but I don't want to leave this life.


"There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same; for I shall not be the same."

See you in the States!

Last Few Days

I got back from Portugal Thursday mid-day. It was fantastic. Lagos was gorgeous. It would be cloudy in the mornings, but clear up by the afternoons. We sat on the beach and wandered around town and watched movies in the hostel. I actually ended up meeting another Ole, who had lived in the same building our freshman year and was in the Great Con with me. I didn't even know she was abroad! So that was really cool.


Friday, I had my second exam. It went fairly well. I did a good job on the first essay, which was close-reading (and consequently easy), but I had too much to say in the second essay. After all, the topic was "escape in Austen and/or the Brontes," and I decided to write on Wuthering Heights. Um, who's NOT trying to escape in that book?


Friday night, I went out to dinner with Teri, and then we went out to the Belgian Monk. The only beer Teri will drink is Belgian fruit beers. So we hung out there for a while, and got told that we have "soft American accents". ??? That was fun, but I didn't get much packing done.

(Un)Fortunately for me, I couldn't sleep Friday night, and so got up at 4 AM and proceeded to pack up almost all of my stuff. I've got two bags filled, and still have more! Not much, though, so I'm hoping it will all fit! Saturday, I went down to London to visit a few friends I met while in Killarney. We had a great time. I got to see their places (Sue lives right on the Thames, with a balcony looking over the river, just down from the Tower Bridge. She also has a giant kitchen and living room. I'm jealous) and watch TV, which is way more exciting than it sounds. We hung out on Brick Lane, by Liverpool Street Station, and had a good time talking to another guy from New Zealand. Finally got back to Sue's at around 2, and got up the next morning at 11. Oops. Anyway, we had breakfast and went to the Dali Universe, which is about as crazy as it sounds. After all, it is Dali, and he was a crazy, crazy man. There was some cool stuff there, including one of the lobster phones (yeah, I said he was crazy) and a bunch of sculpture. Lots of people with drawers coming out of them. Oh, and it had some of his illustrations for Alice in Wonderland.

Came home yesterday afternoon, "studied", and went over to Teri's to watch a movie. We ended up talking for a while instead, which was nice. Today, I had my exam, which was okay--I've done better, but my paper was graded leniently, so I have hope (and I wrote an essay involving The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Frankenstein--it better be good!), then I picked up some food to bring home, finished packing, and went to Teri's again. We actually watched the movie this time, and then went for raspberry beers at the Belgian Monk. And tomorrow I leave. But that's for another post...

Odds and Ends--and Portugal!

Tut, tut, folks. Last post was my 111th--the eleventy-first post õn this blog. And I did nothing. Anyway, I have a lot to catch up on!



Last weekend, I ran down to London to meet up with another friend from the Barrowdowns. She had been living in the Netherlands for the semester, and was finishing up her trip in London. So we decided to go see the Lord of the Rings musical together. It was, simply, amazing. I loved it. Absolutely loved it. Okay, yeah, there were some plot issues--Denethor and Theoden were combined in weird, confusing ways--but it was visually stunning, the music was amazing, and, not going to lie, I was moved. (Also, we went to the science museum, which was fun, but not as fun as expected. Such is life).



Then, I had my first exam, in Norman and Plantagenet England. It wasn't as bad as I expected. I definitely wrote two high B/low A (at least) essays, but they do history differently here, so I don't know what will come of it. But I didn't die...



Wednesday, after my exam, I took off for Oxford, meeting Teri in London. Oxford was great. Thursday was ridiculously hot, but we wandered around some of the colleges and hung out in the city center, and it was fun. I liked it better than Cambridge because the weather was nicer, though I can see how you'd think Cambridge was nicer. And, I got to take in a lot of Tolkien sights, which made me quietly happy.



Friday, we flew to Lisbon. Lisbon is absolutely gorgeous. I love it. While it isn't as warm as I wanted it to be, especially after Thursday, the weather is lovely. Today, we went out to Sintra to see a mansion out there and run around in the garden. I can't even describe how cool this place was. You'll just have to wait for pictures!



Tomorrow, we go down to Lagos, on the south coast of Portugal. I'm pretty excited. Lisbon is great, but it'll be nice to get out and see some countryside!

I'm actually in Lagos right now, and it seems nice. I haven't been out much yet. I wrote this post a few days ago and didn't get a chance to post it. I'm still having fun!

Portugal!

In two and a half weeks, I am going to take off for Portugal. This will be my last big trip before coming home. I'm really excited. I'm hoping it will be warm and sunny and that we'll be able to just hang out and relax. I know that, no matter what job I get, I'm going to have to do some real work this summer (unlike what passes for work here in the UK), so it'll be great to have a week or so to just hang around and do something cool at the same time.

We're actually going to go to Oxford first, so I will have completed one of the major life goals I have set for myself. I will have been to Oxford. If you know me at all, heck, if you've ever looked at this blog, you know I adore pretty much anything J.R.R. Tolkien ever wrote. I am ridiculously excited to go the the city where he lived, wrote, and taught for so long.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I should tell you about last week. Last week, my dear friend Whitney (another Ole) came down to Norwich to visit for a few days. We didn't really do anything amazing--just hung out, which was amazing in and of itself. It was really good to see her and talk to her again. Since we're drawing to the close of our time abroad, we talked a lot about going home. It had been far too long since I had last talked with another Ole.

Life has quieted down quickly though. Registration and roomdraw for next year are done, and the year is winding down. I go home in four weeks or so. Norwich has been my home for such a long time, it feels. It's hard to imagine I have a home anywhere else. I may not be 100% happy here 100% of the time (but is anyone, anywhere?), but it's where I live! It'll be so strange to leave and know I probably won't be back.

Easter Break

I'm finally back from all of my Easter travels. Mom, Dad, and Wes came for 10 days, and then I took off again with a few friends to go back to Europe. I had an absolutely amazing time.

Seeing my family again was really nice, and I had a chance to show them around where I've been living for the past seven months. We went to London, Paris (totally against my will, by the way), Hastings, Canterbury, Stonehenge, and Norwich. So I got to see some new things as well, including the place where Harold Godwinson (last king of the Anglo-Saxons) was killed and the place where St. Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury was martyred. Oh, and Chaucer's grave, in Westminster Abbey. Dear old Chaucer.

My second trip around Europe was much, much better than the first. First of all, I much prefered the countries we visited. I didn't like Spain, France was just okay, and while I loved Italy, I wouldn't want to spend too much more time there. But I absolutely adore Switzerland (still), and really want to see more of Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Also, they have better food, but I might just think that because it's more like what I'm used to. Really, a bratwurst is not that foreign to me (though the onion sauce that I got with it was, and it was AMAZING). And neither are potatoes...

Also, traveling companions make all the difference. I didn't get as tired and cranky this time around, despite catching a bad cold. I was also much more relaxed and more confident. I didn't feel like the entire trip would fall apart if I screwed up.

So, yeah, we had a lot of fun. We didn't go see too many museums--just the Museum of Communism in Prague, the Albertina and the Freud Museum in Vienna, and the Pergamon in Berlin. I got to see the outside of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna and the statue of Wenceslaus in Prague (of Christmas Carol fame. He's hiding in a mountain and will someday save the Czech Republic--what's not to like?). We sat in a field in Interlaken for 3 hours and stared at the Alps and watched and old couple and their cat. We took a 12 hour train from Interlaken to Vienna and played cards with a guy from Salzburg on the train. We strolled through a daffodil garden in Bruges. Dave accidentally got left behind in a church in Vienna. We finally found a beer Teri actually liked. Astonishingly, no one got run over by a crazy Belgian or Dutch person on a bicycle (seriously, this is a miracle).

I really would prefer to still be traveling. I really did not want to come back to Norwich. I've been back for two days now, and I feel stifled. I can't imagine how I'll feel when I get back to the States. Do I have to come home?

Ireland

I don't think I've ever done something quite so depressing as getting on the plane home from Dublin today. Getting to Ireland was a huge hassle, but I had the time of my life. Seriously, I think this has been the best week ever, and I really didn't want to leave. Everyone was so nice and welcoming and helpful! I met tons of people--I was only really lonely in Dublin and the first day in Galway. It was just fantastic.

Dublin wasn't exactly to my taste, but I didn't realize it until I actually left. I thought it was great when I was there. I didn't do anything particularly spectacular or interesting, but it's a nice enough city. I don't even want to talk about the process of trying to catch that plane, though. It was really hard Wednesday night, because I was exhausted from trying to finish all my coursework and pack and everything. I got in and crashed. I read all of the Hound of the Baskervilles that night and went to bed at like 10:00. Sad. People kept banging on the door, though, because they forgot their keys. I didn't get hardly any sleep. The next day, I ran around and went to musuems and stuff. I took a bus tour (so I would actually learn something for once, instead of wandering around like a fool), and met some people from Long Island. They were all really impressed that I was there alone. That night, I met a guy from Galway who had to be about my dad's age. I talked to him for two-three hours. He tried to tell me that my Irish family were from around Galway because my last name sounds kind of like a name from around there. I was like, you're only saying that because that's where you're from. Anyway, that was nice.

Killarney was absolutely fantastic. I adored it. It's my favorite place so far. I went hiking in the national park one day and biking the next--and I don't bike. I also met a couple of Australian girls who let me latch onto them for the weekend, which was really cool. I (fortunately) did not end up out way too late either night. Also fortunately, they failed in their goal to get me drunk. Thank god. I did have a bunch of drunk Irish guys hanging off me one night, which was not exactly fun...oh well. I had a good time anyway. I also went to the St. Patrick's Day parade in Killarney. It was pretty small, which I liked. It was like a parade we'd have back home.

Galway was pretty cool too. The first day, I wandered aimlessly. Galway's a lovely little city. It's pretty laid-back, too, which is nice. I'd really like to live there, actually. Anyway, that night, I met a brother and sister travelling from Chicago, and they invited me out with their friend and her family who were also travelling Ireland. It was a bit awkward, but fun, and again, I wasn't in the hostel by myself! Yesterday, I went to Inis Mor with these two (which was beautiful, just stunning), and then went out with them again.

It was absolutely crazy and totally out of character for me (and I definitely spent way more money than I should have), but so incredibly fun. I'm still just trying to process everything. I mean, it would have been amazing even if I had been alone for the entire week, just because I've wanted to go to Ireland my entire life. But it was surreal, to say the least. I loved it.

Oh, and my mom's booked my ticket back. I leave on May 20th. I don't want to go home anymore!

Free!

I'm finished with all my work. Now I just have to print out my papers, give a presentation, and I'm free to run off to Ireland for a week. See you all later!

One down...

Hah! One of my two papers due tomorrow is completely finished! Now I just have 300 words left on the other one, and a presentation to gather together, and I'm all set to leave!

Why I Love UEA Sometimes

This morning, my Austen and the Brontes instructor compared Sir Walter Elliot of Persuasion to Pontius Pilate in Monty Python's Life of Brian. What more could you ask for, really?

Earthquake!

Apparently, there was an earthquake in the UK early this morning. To be honest, I didn't know until Allie emailed me about it, because I didn't check the news this morning when I woke up, and no one in my class talked about it. So obviously, I'm fine, and I didn't even notice. There hasn't been much damage reported in Norfolk, though the police did take 180 calls from people wondering what was going on.

New talent: sleeping through earthquakes.

Some news sites:

Eastern Daily Press article
BBC Norfolk article
BBC general article

Aw...

My flatmates just knocked on my door to wish me a happy birthday and gave me a card and a UEA sweatshirt. It was really cute...I have a really nice flat, and I really appreciate it, even though I don't hang out with them that much. They're all really sweet.

Lancaster and the Lake District

I went up to Lancaster this weekend to visit my friend, Whitney. We had a great time (well, I did. I'm pretty sure Whitney did, too. We did some random things...). First of all, the train ride over there is 6 hours. This is because Norwich is in a pocket and you can't get out of it. It basically makes every train ride two hours longer than it has to be. Oh well--Norwich is a nice city. And I have easy access to better shopping!

I finally got to go to the Lake District! We went to Windermere and Grasmere--where William and Dorothy Wordsworth lived for a time. That was really cool. We got to go to their cottage. We learned that people used to sleep sitting up, because they thought it was better for the respiratory system, and that William Wordsworth makes the kind of stupid mistakes that I would make. He tried to write his name on his suitcase, but ran out of room, so he had to stick the "h" in above the rest of his name. This made me feel much better about myself. Anyway, I really love Romantic poetry, in particular Wordsworth, so it was really cool to see his house.

Other than that, we hung around Lancaster, doing the sort of thing we probably would have done on a normal weekend at St. Olaf. It was really nice, except there were more castles involved. Among other things, we:

• watched Schoolhouse Rock (with a British person! Yay!)
• watched Bride and Prejudice (the Bollywood version of Pride and Prejudice)
• made brownies
• ate spotted dick. It was good. I thought it tasted like coffee cake without the crusty bit and with raisins.

So, that's about all I have to say. I'm starting to worry about my papers that are due in two weeks, so I don't think I'll be doing anything interesting for the next two weekends. But after that, I'm off to Ireland, so it's okay!

Ireland

What a loser! That last post was my 100th post, and I didn't even notice!

Anyway, I'm going to Ireland for 8 days: 12 March-20 March. I'll fly back into Norwich with time to repack, sleep, and catch a train to London to meet my family. I don't know where in Ireland I'm going yet, though. I've got the plane tickets, but nothing else set. So more planning is in order--and I've only got three weeks!

I Am Smart.

I read all of Jane Eyre today (and didn't turn the computer on until now). I am two books ahead of schedule in my Austen and the Brontes class! Now I just have to start my paper...

Travel!

Next Weekend: Lancaster, to visit Whitney

29 Feb-2 March: ???

7 Mar-9 Mar: ??? (I do have two papers to write, so I probably ought to stay at home and do that...)

14 Mar-21 Mar: Completely open. First week of Easter Break.

21 Mar-30 Mar: Running my family around. London, Paris, probably Oxford and Norwich.

31 Mar-13 April: Running around like a crazy person with Teri from Arizona (I met her 3 days ago. Crazy). Woot! Anyway, itinerary:

31 Mar: To Frankfurt

1 April: To Bern, to meet Teri, then to Interlaken

2 April: Interlaken

3 April: To Vienna, stopping off in Liechtenstein for a bit.

4 April: Vienna

5 April: To Prague

6 April: Prague

7 April: To Berlin

8 April: Berlin

9 April: To Bruges

10 April: Bruges

11 April: To Amsterdam

12 April: Amsterdam

13 April: back to London, then hopefully Norwich, eventually.

Places I have left to see (and no current plans to do so):

• Canterbury
• Hastings
• Winchester (because Jane Austen lived nearby, of course!)
• Cornwall
• Haworth (home of the Brontes)
• Wales
• Ireland. All of it.
• Inverness (because when you have a chance to see Loch Ness, people, you do not turn it down. Ever. This is just a general rule of life.)
• Krakow, Poland
  

I would have liked to see Greece or Turkey, but I don't think I'll make it this time around. Maybe at some point in the future, I'll get there, but not yet.

Pictures!

Finally, I have finished putting up my pictures from Christmas break. Yeah, yeah, it took me long enough. I've also got pictures from visiting Allie up, as well, and will get pictures from London and Bath up as soon as I can. Enjoy them!

Ennui

I've reached the point in the year where, traditionally, I fall to pieces. February is the cruelest month, cold and wet when you're sick of winter, short, and grey. February is the month when I get hit by absolute boredom and hatred of, well, pretty much everything (except the internet. Oh how I love the internet). Strangely enough, I still havethe February sense of life, even though the weather here seems more like April (but is as fickle as March). February is marked by ennui.

Last week, if I had written this post, I would have told you about how homesick I was, how jealous I was that Allie got to go home, how tired and bored I was...but not this week. This week, despite a nasty chest cold, I feel much better. I woke up this morning and felt at home for the first time in a long time. However, February is working its cruel charms, and I am still tired and bored with my work. But we are already halfway through, and soon enough February will be gone, and I will have two papers due.

In other news, it's Abraham Lincoln's birthday today! And Charles Darwin's, as well. So a happy birthday to two hugely influential, intelligent, and dead men.

Jane Austen and Guess Where?

Jealous yet?

Firstly, let me just say this: I am separated from my email for an entire weekend, and then I come back, only to find that there is an issue with Roundcube and I cannot check my email. I feel so empty!

Edit (7:54PM): Roundcube's working again! I think I'll go dance.

Royal Crescent

Anyway, I had an absolutely fantastic weekend with Whitney in Bath. It was so great to see another Ole who isn't leaving soon! This means I can say, unabashedly, that the weekend was amazing, and untainted with jealousy or sadness (because the other person gets to go back/will be leaving me). We both got in late Thursday night, caught up, and went to bed. The next day, we toured. We were so efficient--it wasn't even funny. We toured Bath Abbey in 15 minutes. We saw the Roman Baths, the Pump Room, the Jane Austen Centre, and the Assembly Rooms/Fashion Museum, all before 2:00. We even got to take tea in the Assembly Rooms, and then I felt really cool. Oh, and we also learned to how to speak with fans and I had to try on a corset. I got a headache soon after--I wonder if this may have something to do with the incredibly prevalent "brain fever" in Victorian literature...(which is pretty much my favorite disease of all time. I mean, brain fever? It's pretty much hilarious). Then, we wandered around Bath for a while, looking at the flowers and the Georgian architecture, and the "bird aviary" in the Royal Gardens. That evening, we hung out at the hostel for the most part, though we did venture out to find the Wetherspoons (because it was called the Kings of Wessex--the most powerful Anglo-Saxon kings during the bulk of the Viking invasions through to the Norman Conquest), only to decide that we were not, in fact, hungry.

One of Jane Austen's homes in Bath, now dental surgery.

Yesterday, we decided to go on a day-tour. We met our group at 8:35 AM to drive through the misty hills to...guess where. No, really, guess. I'll give you a hint:



Yep. I got to go to Stonehenge! I'm still so excited about being there. It's kind of ridiculous. But good lord, people, it's Stonehenge!! And we were there early in the morning, so there weren't that many people there. We spent about an hour there, before driving on to Avebury, another stone circle in Wiltshire. That was almost cooler, because you could walk among the stones and even touch them. Next, we went to Lacock, which is a historic little village now owned by the National Trust.

A house in Lacock, used as the Potter house in the films

They've used it for all kinds of different movies, including Harry Potter and the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice. Finally, we headed on to Castle Combe, in the Cotswolds, which has also been a movie set, for the Dr. Doolittle with Rex Harrison and for Stardust.

Castle Combe

I was really excited about that. There's also a Crusader buried in the church there, and according to the little sign in the church, he had been on two Crusades. How do they know this? The legs of his effigy are crossed. Does anyone else feel like they make this stuff up sometimes?


When we got back that night, we decided to go see a movie (so we wouldn't be quite so pathetic as the night before!). So we went to National Treasure. Whitney had never seen the first, but I assured her it would be fine. After all, neither had Catie, and she seemed to do just fine watching it in Italian! I'm so glad I got to see it again--it's really nice to see it in a language I understand. Besides, I love the first one so much...anyway, after the movie, there were about twenty million people in our room, so we headed out to a pub and sat there for a while before going to bed.

Today, we got up and wandered aimlessly before deciding we had pretty much covered Bath in a matter of hours on the first day and just going to the train station. I caught a train to London that was so crowded that I had to lean against the luggage rack for two hours. It was absurd. Then, I had to catch a bus to Colchester and finally a train to Norwich. I just got back (and found out my email doesn't work). So, yeah. I had a great weekend. I saw a ton, and I'm so glad I went.

Pictures: The Mediterranean

I have pictures up (finally) from Marseille, Nice, Monaco, and Cinque Terre. Go look at them!

London

Since I already did a post from Sheffield, I'm going to skip over that weekend (though it was a lot of fun!) and head straight on to London. I got up ridiculously early Friday morning and got on a train from Norwich to London. Luckily, the train is only 1 hr 56 min (exactly). Then I took the Tube to my hostel, and wandered down the wrong street trying to find it...so much for being able to find my way around!

Finally, I got to the hostel and hung out while I waited for Allie to repeat the exact same mistakes I made trying to find the place. Once we checked in and got settled, we headed out for the Tate Britain museum. I must be honest, my already limited concentration for art museums is pretty much shot by this point. So we mostly just wandered aimlessly and talked. I did get to see some work by William Blake (who, along with being an artist, is one of the Romantic poets I'm studying in my Romanticism class. However, I happen to not like his work very much) and some by George Stubbs, who apparently does not actually know what a horse looks like. Unfortunately, he's praised as one of the premier horse painters. Okay, so some of his stuff is good, but a lot of it is just odd. Once we finished up there, we headed over to the British Museum. It was open late, thankfully, and I got to see the artifacts from the Sutton Hoo burial mounds, which was pretty cool, to say the least! Allie and I got a little obsessed with the Anglo-Saxon and Viking stuff. We also went to look at the friezes from the Parthenon (because Allie was just there. I'm jealous!). We went to a few of the gift shops, but missed the kid's shop by a hair. The other ones were disappointing. We came back to the hostel, went to Tesco, and had dinner, then went to bed.

Saturday morning, we got up and headed out to Windsor Castle. This was also pretty cool. We got the audio tour and again, wandered aimlessly for a while. It was impressive. I've decided that I like the Georgian style of decorating. We came back, went to Oxford street (to find the John Lewis flagship--this is apparently a tradition with us), and then tried (again) to go to the kid's gift shop at the British Museum. Again, we failed. So we went to the Tate Modern. It broke my brain, people. I mean, I'm not much of one for modern art, anyway, though I do like Surrealism (to a point), but this...especially when we got to the minimalist bit. One room had a film where the filmmaker had put paint directly on the film and had deliberately scratched it, setting it to really energetic, almost ear-splitting music. The next room was painted black with white pinstripes on the walls. In the stripes were different shapes--a triangle, a trapeziod, a square. The third room had various sculptures on the wall made out of neon lights. I couldn't handle it. It gave me a headache, and I came out of those rooms only to stare blankly at Allie and say, "It broke me." It was crazy. There was also one woman who did a series where she took a job as a cleaner at a hotel in Venice for a few weeks, and dug through the guests' stuff and documented it. It was creepy. Anyway, we got back late that night, and went straight to bed.

Sunday, we walked though Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park to go to the Victoria and Albert museum, which houses decorative art. We went through an exhibit on fashion (and I have decided that almost everything from the eighties should be trashed. Except me. And select other people). There was also this bit with plaster casts of famous places/things. This was incredibly exciting, because there was a cast of the Ruthwell Cross, as well as casts from Rosslyn Chapel, Notre Dame, and tons of other places Allie and/or I had visited. It was basically a short stroll through my travels of the past six months.

After that, we walked down the street to the Natural History Museums. We got to see dinosaurs! Pretty much, I just geeked out for a while and babbled incoherently about DINOSAURS! Um...yeah. Sorry, Allie. You ought to be used to it by now. So anyway, that was fun. And they had the best gift shop of all. To Allie's disappointment, they did not have many plant fossils, and none of what she was looking for.

Shortly after that, we picked up our bags at the hostel and head our separate ways to go home. That's the last time I'll see Allie until the summer, at the earliest (hopefully). I can't say I'm not jealous that she gets to go home, but there's a lot I have left to do.

Routine

It's now week 4 of my second semester abroad. Life has slowly settled back into some semblance of routine--I go to class, run errands in town, pretend to do my homework, and so on. There is one significant difference: I have been doing something interesting every weekend so far. Liz came down, I went up to visit Allie in Sheffield, and I went to London. Next weekend, I'm going to Bath and Salisbury with my friend Whitney, currently studying in Lancaster.

Classes have been going well. I have much less work this semester, due to the lack of a third-year course. It's so nice! I'm taking Austen and the Brontes: Reading the Romance, Romanticism, and Norman and Plantagenet England. I've read everything we've looked at so far in my two lit classes before, which is also really nice. Not only do I get to take a bit of a break, but I don't have to pay such close attention to generic details and can get more specific. My Austen and the Brontes class is composed entirely of girls. This is strange to me. However, it doesn't make me any more comfortable participating in general class discussions. I love my instructor for Norman and Plantagenet England--he's constantly making really random statements that have only tenuous relations to the subject at hand. He doesn't seem to be a huge fan of undergrads, though.

Hopefully, in a few weeks, I'll get to go on a Host UK weekend. I've sent in my application, and I'm just ironing out the details before they process my application entirely. Host UK is a program where volunteers host international students for the weekend and show the students around their towns. I don't know yet where I'll go, but I'm really excited!

Other than that, I don't have much more to say. Hopefully, I'll put up accounts of the past few weekends soon, and I really need to get working on putting pictures up. I'm busier now than I ever have been before, and it's taking a toll on me. I barely get a chance to recover during the week before I'm gone again! So we'll see.

London

Right, folks, I'm off to London for the weekend! I've been really cold the past few days (for no reason--it's 40+ degrees!), so I'm wearing a ridiculous amount of layers. Have a good weekend!

Pictures: Spain

I've got my pictures from Spain up! Well, some of them. You can only have 200 pictures up on Flickr with the free account, it turns out, so I've had to ruthlessly cut out some of them. Anyway, they're up, so go check them out!

Switzerland and France: Bern and Paris

Monday morning, we got up to catch a 6:30 train to Milan (don't worry, I slept for most of it!) and from Milan on to Bern, Switzerland. We got to take a train through the Alps and saw a bunch of little Swiss towns. It was fantastic!

I'm pretty sure that Bern is my favorite city from that trip. It was quite compact and clean. I just loved it. Monday we didn't do much. We got to Bern around 2 or 3, checked into our hostel, got some Swiss francs, and went to a grocery store to grab dinner. We met an Australian woman in the hostel who is a teacher back home, and explained the Australian education system to us. That was pretty cool. Also, it was lovely to meet a math person who doesn't lord this fact over us poor humanities people. Because math is clearly SO much more practical. Anyway, we also met a group of guys from St. Thomas, traveling during their interim. We watched the Italian Job and Boiler Room with them and talked for a little. It was nice. They told us about how they had a big party when the new pope was named. At least St. Olaf isn't THAT weird!

The next day, we went to the Bern Munster, after taking a picture of the crazy statue outside our hostel. It had an ogre eating babies. Who makes a statue of that and sticks it in the middle of town? I mean, really. Anyway, the Munster was pretty amazing. It was quiet and sunny and someone was practicing the organ (which always makes a church visit much nicer). Above the main doors, however, there is a sculpture depicting heaven and hell. It's pretty hilarious, because it looks kind of like what we Americans see as that sort of Germanic folk-art sculpture, that's always cheery and whatnot (like in cuckoo clocks), except that the figures are being roasted alive. It's quite the disconnect.

After that, we swung by the bear pits. They were pretty much the cutest things ever. I really kind of wanted to cuddle with them, but then I thought about how they would probably eat my face if I tried. They're pretty lazy bears, too. They just sit around and wait for people to throw fruit at them. If they can't catch the fruit with minimal effort, they just let it fall and ignore it.

We spent the afternoon at the Swiss Alpine Museum. It was interesting, but they couldn't decide if they were glad they were out of the past (because life in the Alps was so hard) or not (because all these stupid tourists are ruining the environment). So they just held both opinions. I really wanted to tell them to just make up their minds already, because you can't have it both ways.

That night, we didn't do much. We hunted down the ticket counter of the train station to buy our tickets to Paris, and I wasn't feeling well, so we watched Sideways (which annoys me, in general. I don't like people like the characters in the film. There are better things to spend your time and money on than wine and food. Really.) and went to bed.

We had to get up relatively early again the next morning to go to Paris. We got in around 1 or 2 and checked in to our hostel, then went out to the Pantheon. I got to see murals about Saint Louis and Clovis and Charlemagne (which makes me a happy history student) and I got to see the tombs of Rousseau, Voltaire (who I love), Dumas, and Hugo. And Marie Curie. So that was pretty cool. Oh, and Foucault's Pendulum, which was also cool. After that, we went to Notre Dame and wandered around there for a bit, before stopping at a grocery store and heading back to the hostel.

The next day, Catie and I split up. She went to the Musee d'Orsay and I went to the Musee de Cluny, which had all sorts of religious art. It was pretty amazing. I got to see tons of tapastries, including La Dame et La Licorne (The Lady and the Unicorn, a series of 6 tapastries about the five senses) and some pretty cool miserichords. Miserichords are little ledges they put on the undersides of the seats of the quire (or choir) of a cathedral, so that you could lean against them and still look like you were standing during mass. They would carve neat little symbols into them. I like medieval art because, well, firstly, because I like medieval stuff, and because it's mostly decorative art and has a purpose. After that, we climbed up to the top of Notre Dame. The views were amazing! Then, we went to Sainte-Chapelle. This is the chapel Louis IX built to house the crown of Thorns, apparently. there was tons of beautiful stained glass, depicting stories from the Old Testament, mostly. There was a window for Judith (who's in the Apocrypha, and cuts off the head of Holophenes. It's a pretty amazing story) and Job. It was cool.

That night, we walked down to see the Eiffel Tower. It was lovely, but really far away and I refused to take the metro (I was running out of Euros and didn't want to take out more money. Anyway, what good are feet if you don't use them?). After that, we came back to the hostel, booked a train home, and ended up going out with some people we met from Los Angeles. So that was nice.

The next day, we got up and went to the Arc de Triomphe. Then, we went to the Opera Garnier, where the Phantom of the Opera was set. It's so ornate! It's really hard to believe until you see it. Then, we did some shopping, went to take pictures of Thomas Jefferson (though that was mostly me. But can you really pass up taking a picture of one of our Founding Fathers anywhere? No. If you can, they should take away your citizenship.) and got to the Louvre by 6:00. See, on Fridays after 6, if you are under 26, you get in for free. The problem was, this was literally the last thing we did on our trip. We were tired and didn't really care anymore. I, at least, just wanted to be back in Norwich, where I knew what's going on and had my own bed and shower and could be gloriously alone for an entire day if I wanted. So we didn't really appreciate the Louvre the way we felt we should have. I think it's too huge for anyone to really appreciate it the way they ought, though. Same with any giant art museum. There's just too much. Anyway, so I got to see the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo, as well as a bunch of Egyptian stuff, some statues from Ancient Iran, and a really cool room on Coptic Egypt. When we were done, we went back to the hostel and I collapsed.

We got up early again the next morning to catch our train to London. It was weird, because the sun hadn't risen before we got into the Chunnel, so I couldn't tell we had even gone in until we got out of it. You have no idea how absolutely wonderful it felt to be back in England. Even looking back on it now, I love this country so much more for having been gone for so long. I don't stick out quite so much. Anyway, then we took a train to Ely and from there a train to Norwich (which was much cheaper, incidentally, than buying a day-of ticket from London to Norwich, AND I got to use my young-person's railpass. Yay!).

So now I'm home, settled into a new class schedule and back into eating pasta and eggs and potatoes every single day. I'm glad I am.

Sheffield

I'm visiting my roommate Allie in Sheffield right now. We're having a good time. We went out to the Peak District yesterday, and we climbed a giant mountain. We got stuck in 70 mph winds at the top--I'm surprised we didn't blow off! Also, Allie fell down 5 times. The Peak District is really cool--you should go. Anyway, so that's why posts have been scarce (also, my friend Liz visited last weekend) and why I haven't put pictures up...sorry! And next weekend I'm going to London with Allie. I'll try to get things finished up by then!

Italy: Venice and Rome

Venice was fantastic. I absolutely loved it. I spent two days just wandering the streets, looking at all the glasswork in the shop windows and popping into every church I passed. It was great. I went into one church that had an exhibit on Vivaldi and instruments from his time. Where were St. Olaf music majors when I actually needed them? Nowhere. I also went to St. Mark's Basilica and the Doge's Palace. Now, I had already been to the Palacio Real in Madrid. I thought I knew what I was in for when I stepped into the Doge's Palace. Nope. There is absolutely no way of comprehending the splendor of the Doge's Palace until you get there and see it. It was crazy.

I also met a few Canadian girls when I was in Venice. It was really nice, because I was there by myself and when I met them, I had someone to talk to. I went out to dinner with them one night and we ended up sitting around talking about world affairs for three hours. Fun times!

After three days in Venice, I took off for Rome. The first day in Rome, I went to the Vatican Museums. That was the day I was there by myself. I felt really guilty about going by myself, because I was meeting Catie's family the next day and they all really like art. But they didn't end up going at all, so I'm so glad I went! The Vatican Museums were amazing. First, I practically ran to the Sistine Chapel so I could get there while there was still room to breathe. It was pretty amazing, but I'm still convinced that Michelangelo was on some sort of drug when he painted it. I don't care if he is Jesus, NO ONE has that many muscles in his arms. I also randomly stumbled on the School of Athens in the Raphael rooms (because I don't like to actually READ my guidebook, and so didn't know it was there). I turned the corner, and, all of a sudden, OH MY GOD! It's Plato! Yay! So, yeah. I spent 5-6 hours in the museums before I went to St. Peter's. St. Peter's was also really cool. It was huge. There were a lot of people there, and I felt kind of bad being a tourist with limited interest in the current religious significance of the basilica. Oh well. I feel worse when I'm in smaller churches that have fewer tourists. I also got to see the tombs of some of the popes. None of the medieval popes, which I would have liked better, but I did see John Paul II's tomb and Pius XII (known to me as the "Holocaust/evil pope), as well as the tomb of the Stewarts, a line of Catholics in England pretty close to the throne. It was interesting.

Saturday, Catie's family came in from Florence. I met them at the train station and we moved to our (nice) hotel. A real hotel! We set out for the Colosseum, picking up a Roma pass on the way (which is a good plan, though--for 20 Euro, you get entry to 2 museums/sights, discounted entry to any included sights after that, AND free transportation. Oh, and you get to line-jump). However, once we got to the Colosseum, it started to pour. We walked over to the Forum, but could barely see anything through the rain. We ultimately ended up walking back to the hotel, hanging out there until setting out for pizza.

The next day, we wanted to go to St. Peter's for the Pope's blessing (even though I'm really not a fan of the current Pope--he's a bit crazy and I tend to fall on the side of Brazil in their little dust-ups). However, we decided to cut through a park to get there. Guess what? It started to rain. And rain. And then we got lost. So we missed the blessing. We did go see the Pantheon (which has a poured concrete dome from 2,000+ years ago. We still don't know how they did it. Unfortunately, it's now a church instead of a Roman temple) and the Spanish Steps. I got to see John Keat's house and Lord Byron's house. It was pretty cool.

The next morning, we took a train to Bern. We had to get up at 4 AM to catch our train to Milan at 6:30.

Italy: Genoa, Cinque Terre, and Bologna

We got into Genoa at 10:00 that night. We found a helpful cab driver who took us to our hotel and I negotiated things in Italian. I was feeling confident and proud of myself. Then, we found out we couldn't get in to the hotel. We hit the button to get buzzed in, but no one was around. We tried calling, but our cellphones weren't working. We didn't have phone cards to use the pay phones (pay phones in Italy no longer take change). We found an internet cafe where we could use a phone, but there was no one around. We were tired and cranky and cold with no place to sleep. Finally, we started walking back to the train station, intending to sleep there for the night. However, we ran across another hotel, and dropped in to see if they had any rooms. They did, and the guy at reception spoke English and was very helpful. So we were able to take a shower and sleep in a warm bed that night.

The next day, we got up and went out to Cinque Terre. It was absolutely stunning. We hiked between four of the five little towns. You're just going to have to wait for my pictures instead of having me describe it. I literally cannot. (so much for being an English major!) While hiking between the third and fourth town, we got lost, and ended up wandering around after dark, having no clue where we were going. So that was fun. We found our way back to the town we set out from and then just got a train back to the first town to have dinner. I had a giant pesto pizza--it was excellent, but really oily. I noticed this all through Italy. The food was excellent, but usually had too much oil or something and so it made me feel vaguely ill. We finally got back to Genoa late that night and went right to bed.

The next day, we went to Bologna. The train there was crazy. Firstly, it was 4 hours or something on the train. Secondly, on our second train, we didn't have reserved seats. It was so packed that people were standing in the aisles for two hours! It was ridiculous. We finally got to Bologna and walked to our hotel. It was a half hour walk from the city center--in other words, a long way away from where we wanted to be. Since we had gotten in at 3 or 4, we didn't head into the city, but found a grocery store and watched CNN International. Finally! News!

Our day in Bologna was really nice. We went to the basilica, which is only half done in marble and has walls/windows that just end halfway through, and we wandered around the city center. All the sidewalks are covered, so if it rained, you wouldn't have to get wet. That evening, we went to see National Treasure in Italian. It was really exciting, because I was able to understand far more than I expected. I loved it.

We didn't do much for New Year's Eve: we watched a movie and we watched a concert taking place in Rome. Personally, I prefer a quiet New Year's, so it was fine by me!

The next day, we got up early. I went off to Venice, and Catie went to Florence. But that's another story.

France: Marseille and Nice

After many delays and difficulties, we finally arrived in Marseille at around 1ish. This seems to be an unfortunate habit. Luckily, our hotel was very close to the train station, so we were able to get there quickly and go to bed.



We got up the next morning, intent on taking a ferry out to Chateau d'If. Apparently, the dungeon was where Alexandre Dumas had Edmond Dantes held as prisoner in his Count of Monte Cristo (which is a book I need to read again...). You know, where he befriended an old guy who was trying to dig his way out, but died, so Dantes hid in the body-bag when they chucked it into the sea so he could escape? It's a good story. Unfortunately, the ferry is closed on Mondays, so we couldn't get there. We did go to a fort--I'm not sure which one--, the Abbaye St-Victor, and the Basilique de Notre Dame de la Garde. That was quite the impressive church. It was done in stripes of white and peach, with gold mosaics covering the ceiling and a little nook filled with paintings of ships and shipwrecks. On our way back, we had to walk through a bad part of town. At one point, some guy started shouting at us in French. I didn't even really realize he was shouting at us until he started following us, still shouting. We quickly walked back to our hotel (fortunately we didn't get lost!) and eventually lost him. It was really scary.



Anyway. That experience somewhat tainted our opinions of Marseille (although for the most part, it was pretty nice. It wasn't very touristy at all though, which is still kind of out of my comfort zone in non-English speaking countries. It makes me feel guilty). Then, we hopped on a train and went to Nice. Catie spoke with a French woman on the train, who was doing a graduate degree in Paris but was originally from around Nice, I think. I wasn't really paying attention, but I caught parts of their conversation. It was very interesting, and she was very nice.



We got in, talked to the Tourist Information office about church services, and checked into our hotel. There were a few other people staying there: John from Ohio and Michelle and Anna from Ontario. By some stroke of luck, I believe we all got in on about the same day and all left on the same day. It was great to have one place to stay for four days and have the same people the whole time--none of this moving around stuff. Anyway, we ran out and went to a grocery store (Monoprix, our second home while in Nice), then came back, changed, and went to church. We went to Mass at a strange little (relatively) church where they didn't dim the lights at all (and the interior was blindingly white) and they had people come up and put roses and carnations in the mesh seas of some giant map. Basically, even though I know how a church service is run and I had some clue what was going on, I was completely lost. It is quite possibly the most surreal experience of my life: to simultaneously know what's happening and have no clue what's going on. Also, the priest gave a very involved, very dramatic sermon that had him shouting and gesticulating as if Jesus was returning then and there. I was really interested by his actions, but I didn't know what he was saying. I had a hard time not giggling through the service. Fortunately, we escaped afterwards without having to talk to anyone. That would have been awkward.

Christmas day, we woke up late, sat around, went down to the beach, and hunted down free Internet. The sky was cloudy, meaning the sea was also grey. It was absolutely haunting. You could barely tell where the horizon was. We sat there for a long time, just listening to the waves. I loved it. That night, we watched some TV. The next day, I went to the Musee Matisse (featuring the works of, you guessed it, Henri Matisse) while Catie went to another museum (I forget which--contemporary art, I think, so not really my tastes. At all). Here again I had to suffer cat-calls on my way up the giant hill. It was a really long walk. In the rain. The museum was pretty cool, though, and it had some really interesting pieces. I didn't realize that he had designed a chapel (though now that I think back, that's more because of stupidity on my part than lack of information), and there were more Roman ruins nearby. I met Catie back at the hotel and we went back down to the beach with Anna and Michelle. See, Catie and Anna had a genius plan: they were going to go swimming! So we all went down--I took pictures and served as a general witness. They said it was cold, but not too cold (I mean, it was 50-60 degrees out. It can't be that bad) and really salty. I sat on the beach (again) and picked up rocks. I also devised my own theory as to universal human traits: laughing at babies who eat lemons and uncontrolable urges to throw rocks into bodies of water. Everyone does this. Anyway, I carried around a bunch of rocks for the rest of my trip. And I wondered what made my bag so heavy!

The third day we were in Nice, we climbed up Le Chateau, the ruins of an old fortress/palace made into a park. That's 400 steps up, people. Surprisingly, it wasn't that bad. The park was lovely, and I got some great pictures. There are all these yucca-ish plants all over the Mediterranean coast, and people have carved their initials and other phrases and symbols into them. This makes me unspeakably angry. The plant didn't do anything to you! It was just sitting there! It's really cruel, I think, to carve things into a living being that can't defend itself (if it could, I bet you'd quit real fast, now wouldn't you?). Anyway. We went back down and ran back to the room, where I promptly took a 3 hour nap. Yeah. Nice was great. Then we watched more TV. Okay, I know it sounds really pathetic, all the time we spent hanging out in the room, watching TV, sleeping, reading, and so on, but it was really nice to take a break and just take things slow. I loved it.

The next day, we took a train to Monaco. We didn't do much except wander around and take pictures and marvel at how much money people have. It was fun, and really interesting. They have public escalators everywhere so you don't have to climb the hills. We went back to Nice to grab our bags and headed off to Genoa.

Pictures are giving me issues today, and I don't really want to work through why. Sorry! I have to get some homework done--my dear friend Liz is coming up from London to visit for the weekend, and I won't have any time to get little things done. Have a great weekend!

Spain: Barcelona (And Figueres)

Casa Batllo, aka Casa dels ossos (House of Bones in Catalan)

We got up on Wednesday morning and caught a train bound for Barcelona. The train ride was great. Possibly my favorite part of travelling is the train and bus rides, where you just sit and watch the countryside out the window. There are no demands on you to find out where you are or where you are going, no stress of figuring out what's going on--just sit back, relax, and take in the scenery. You get to just sit and be for a few hours. Anyway, we passed through orange trees and tunnels opening onto cliffs dropping down into the sea. I loved it.

Once we got to Barcelona, I wasn't entirely sure whether I liked it or not. Our hostel was kind of crappy. Usually, hostels provide blankets and pillows, but not sheets or towels. That's fine--I (or rather, Mom) made a sleep sheet before I left and I carry it around with me so I don't have to pay extra for sheets. However, this hostel charged for blankets as well. I think that's absolutely ridiculous and completely unacceptable. There was free internet, but the computers rarely worked, and there was no common room or anything. Fortunately, there was a kitchen, and (a crappy) breakfast included. So if you're ever in Barcelona, do NOT stay at Sun and Moon hostel. It kind of sucks.

Christopher Columbus

Anyway, we were still exhausted, so we hung around the hostel for a bit before heading down to the port to check things out. The port is beautiful. There's a statue of Columbus there, despite the fact that Columbus was neither Spanish nor Catalan, and he's pointing at Africa, for some unknown reason. I love this. Not only is there a statue of him in some random Spanish city he has no connection with, but he's pointing in the completely wrong direction. Way to go, guys, way to go. Although, apparently, he wrote his journals in bad Spanish mixed with Catalan and Portugese...and later on, in Latin and Greek. We just sat on a bench by the port for a while, listening to the water. It was lovely.

Santa Maria del Mar

The next day, we got up and toured Barcelona. We went to the basilica Sant Maria del Mar, the cathedral/basilica Le Seu, a park, and Barcelona's Arc de Triomfe. We also went to the history museum of Barcelona, which was really interesting. The museum was built over some Roman ruins, so you got a audio guide that would explain all the different parts--the little church, the laundry shop and where clothes were dyed, the fish-monger's shop, and the wine factory. It was pretty cool. There were also remains of frescoes and mosaics (and mosaics are now pretty much my favorite things ever). After that, they talked about the medieval Barcelona, and you know me--I was enthralled. I don't remember a thing I learned, though, except that they talked about Charlemagne and the Carolingians, because it was a really long time ago. We also did a bit of shopping, because I needed a black skirt, as we planned on going to a church service on Christmas eve, and I felt it was inappropriate and a bad reflection on Americans to show up in jeans. Do you know how hard I looked for this skirt? Apparently, there are no reasonably priced, decent black skirts in all of Spain. It was the most annoying thing ever.

The day after that, the 21st of December, we took a train up to Figueres, the home of the Teatre-Museu Dali. Figueres was the birthplace of Salvador Dali, and where he chose to set up his museum. I expected it to be an odd place, but not quite as strange as it turned out to be. A lot of it was too weird for me to really appreciate. However, I really like how he plays with perception, and there was an exhibit on some jewelry he made that was really cool. I also got to see his tomb. That night, when we got back to Barcelona, I finally found a black skirt.

La Sagrada Familia, Passion Facade

Saturday, we devoted nearly the entire day to the works of architect Antoni Gaudi. This man was absolutely insane. First, we went to La Sagrada Familia, a cathedral he designed. Work started on this cathedral in the heat of Catalonian Romanticism, when use of the Catalan language and pride in being Catalan was at it's height in the late 19th century. Construction began in 1882. It still isn't finished. It, in fact, won't be finished until 2026 at the earliest. That's 140+ years of construction on ONE CATHEDRAL! Good lord, people, can't we hurry things up a bit? Of course, part of the problem is that Gaudi died before completion and now people are bickering about whether or not certain parts are true to his vision, and also some crazy Catalan anarchists destroyed part of the cathedral and Gaudi's workshop suffered hugely during the Spanish Civil War. Personally, I didn't like La Sagrada Familia that much, because it was way over the top and too cluttered. Not my tastes, really. But I thought the idea of making the columns in the nave look like trees was pretty cool.

Roof of Casa Batllo

Next, we headed over to Casa Batllo, which is a crazy house that kind of looks like a sea monster or a dragon from the outside. I loved Casa Batllo. Inside, there are few straight lines and it's all designed to be very organic and look kind of like the sea. The roof is apparently supposed to evoke St. George killing the dragon. And it's a decent sized dragon, too, not these wimpy little ones that you see in so many depictions of St. George! Anyway, this, I think, is my favorite Gaudi.

Park Bench at Parc Guell

Finally, we went up to Parc Guell, which also contains a lot of Gaudi stuff. There's his park bench, which is the longest in the world (quite a distinction, I know), two of his houses, some arches, statues, mosaics, and so on. Wikipedia tells me that part of Cheetah Girls 2 was filmed there. Aren't you glad you know that?

The next day, we tried to get a train to Montpellier, but we missed the early one, so didn't end up leaving until 5:30 or so. It was annoying. Anyway, I was tired, and really sick of Barcelona, so I hung around and read. Soon enough, we would leave Spain behind.

Hm. Those are monsters of blog posts. Sorry--I have a lot to share! Anyway, I had my first class of 2008 today, a history class on Norman and Plantagenet England. Basically, we're covering the 11th-13th centuries of English history. The instructor seems really cool, and I'm excited for it. Plus, I know quite a few people from my Anglo-Saxon England class anyway, so that's good.

I love the first week of class. The entire semester holds so much promise. I'm going to do my work ahead of time! I'm going to do extra readings! I'm going to read all those mid-nineteenth century novels I've always meant to read! I'm going to learn another language! I'm going to travel every weekend! And then we get to the second or third week and I'm already behind and stressed and tired and don't want to do anything anymore, and I feel like I've already shot the entire semester. College. Isn't it fun?

Spain: Granada and Valencia

The Albaicin

After a beautiful bus ride, we finally arrived in Granada at around 7 PM. After trying to find our way to the hostel in the Albaicin, the old Moorish part of town, we settled in and then headed out on a hostel-led tapas tour. See, in Granada, tapas come free with a drink, whereas in other parts of the country, you pay extra. We ended up meeting a group of guys currently living and working in Barcelona (but originally from London, France, Belgium, and Germany), and stayed out with them until 6 in the morning. It was interesting, to say the least. They were actually really nice guys. Anyway, we got back to the hostel, went to bed for about two hours, got up, found out that there was, in fact, no hot water for our showers, and went out touring anyway.

A Bridge in Granada

We walked through the Albaicin for a while, gradually making our way over to the Alhambra. Apparently, there's a saying that goes, "Si mueres sin ver la Alhambra, no has vivido".

Doorway to the Alhambra

Well, you could say that about a lot of things, and while the Alhambra was stunning, I'm not sure that you haven't lived if you miss it. Now, if you die without seeing, say, the Alps or Venice or something, I'd be much more likely to agree. This may be simply because I was exhausted when we went. Anyway. It was beautiful, despite the long walk uphill to get there. On our way down, we were accosted by a woman telling "fortunes" and handing out little bits of herbs. Catie fell into her trap and the woman read her palm very cheerily, until she found out that Catie had no change and I only had two euro to give her. Then she got a little angry, but nothing too bad--just the stink-eye. It made me angry, though.

The Alhambra

We also wanted to go visit the cathedral and the chapel, but they were closed. Catie was hungry, so we tried to stop for something to eat. However, by this time, we had left the touristy area, so fewer people spoke English and she had a hard time communicating with the waitstaff at the place we visited. Everything they had had meat or eggs, which she doesn't eat, which they didn't understand. So we left, called our hostel in Valencia to see if they had another open night, and caught and 8 hour bus to Valencia. I slept for most of it.

Valencia

We got in well past 1 AM. We caught a cab to the hostel, which scared me, because I was convinced that they were going to try to cheat us. But we got there all right, even though I left my sweater in the cab (and I'm still mad about that). Once we got there and checked in, we crashed. We got up late the next morning, too.

Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciencies

We spent most of our day in Valencia at their Science museum. That was pretty cool. We saw an exhibit on the sea where you could lift anchors, and I could lift all of them. We also saw Los Alpes on Imax. Watching that made me really excited to get to Switzerland, let me tell you! After that, we went to the cathedral, which allegedly holds the Holy Grail (really, they say it's the Holy Chalice, used at the Last Supper. Equally crazy, really. I've just realized, though, that if we had gone to the cathedral in Genoa, we would have gone to three alleged resting places of the Holy Grail). However, being rather slow people, apparently, we could not get out of the cathedral. They had locked the doors, and some guy tried to tell us this in Spanish (or maybe Valencian. I'm not sure, but if it were the latter, we have some excuse for not understanding). When we told him we didn't understand, he laughed at us and then just started shouting. Finally, he pointed to the real exit.

We ran to the grocery store to make soup for our dinner and went back to the hostel. There, we met an Australian guy who currently lives in Stockholm. I talked to him for a good two-three hours, just about travelling and politics. It was pretty cool. This is why, even though they can be obnoxious sometimes, I love hostels. I've met so many interesting people just by chance.

Spain: Madrid and Cordoba

In the Plaza Mayor

Spain was, to be entirely honest, a disappointment. I was personally expecting Spain to be the easiest country for us to navigate, because Catie and I both know some Spanish. Turns out that's not the case. Also, we wore ourselves out with too much running all over the place and too little settling down in one place for a few days. Anyway. On to the stories!

We flew out of London Friday morning. That meant we left Norwich Thursday night and spent the night at Catie's friend's place. The only thing is, we flew out of Gatwick, which is way in the South. Catie's friend lives on the north side of London. So we get to her place at 9, maybe 10 o'clock PM, talk for a little bit, and then realize that, in order to reach Gatwick at the appropriate time, we have to get up at 2:30 to be out of the house by 3:30AM. So we decided that there was no real point in going to sleep and watched a movie instead. Now you have to realize, this was right after the end of term, when I had two big papers and my creative writing portfolio to hand in. I had, again, gone off traveling on less than 7 hours of sleep in three days. I need to start planning better.

We got to the airport after wandering the streets of London for a while, trying to figure out why the bus we thought we were supposed to take was nowhere to be seen. We found our way to the hostel, then set out for El Museo del Prado, one of two art museums we visited. I liked El Prado. There was an interesting exhibit of 19th century Spanish art, with some historical paintings I liked, and I also got to see some paintings by Durer and Botticelli, along with a really cool painting based of Dante and crossing the River Styx into Hell. That day, we also went to the Plaza Mayor and looked around a market there. They sell weird things in markets in Spain. Fake wigs, strange toys, and so on. I don't understand why you'd buy them.

Our hostel was nice enough, but there were some people in our room who were only in Madrid to party. So we would go to bed at a decent hour, and they would come in at around 5 or 6 AM. Then, we'd get up between 7 and 9 when they were sleeping. It made things difficult.

The Palacio Real

The second day in Madrid, we went to the Palacio Real. This was pretty interesting. It was from the 16th or 17th century, so it was incredibly ornate. One room had wall coverings of porcelain! And the armory was pretty cool, too. They claimed that there were "tense relations" between Spain and England during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. No kidding?

After that, we went to the Templo de Debod, which was given to Spain from Egypt in 1968. It's pretty random--just sitting in one of Madrid's many parks. Then, we went to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, a modern art museum. I really enjoyed that one, because there were some works by Dali and the Reina Sofia is also where Picasso's Guernica currently resides. Why it isn't actually in Guernica, I don't know.

The next day, we got up, checked out, and took a train to Cordoba. I really liked Cordoba. It was warm, there were orange trees everywhere, we saw statues of Seneca and Maimonides.

Me and my old bud, Maimonides

Here I must digress for a short while and explain something. Almost everywhere we went, I was reminded of someone we read in the Great Con (or who I knew from history or literature). I feel, sometimes, that this whole year is an extension of the work I've done in Con. People, it never ends. Anyway, we saw the Alcazar and the Mezquita, and wandered the old ghetto. It was wonderful to just walk around the old part of town. Then we took a bus to Granada. That bus ride was absolutely gorgeous--hills and olive trees everywhere, and we saw four castles just sitting up on hilltops. But I'll save Granada for another day.

Roses in Cordoba

Psst!

(Hey, I finally put up pictures from Durham and York. Yeah, from November. Go check them out...)

Basics

Here's something to tide you over.

Trip Basics:

Countries: 4
Languages: 5
Currencies: 2
Cities: 19
Books read: 2
Pictures taken: 800+
Churches: too many
Mosques: 1
Palaces: 4
Castles: 2 or 3 (does the Medieval Louvre count?)
Forts: 5
Parks: 5
Museums: 15 (I think)
Roman Ruins: tons
Stairs: thousands

Favorites:
Country: Switzerland
City: Bern
Language: Italian
Church: Munster, Bern
Palace: Doge's Palace, Venice
Museum: Vatican Museums, Rome
Ruin: Colosseum, Rome
Climb: Notre Dame, Paris
Hike: Cinque Terre
Park: Park Guell, Barcelona

Home Again!

I have finally arrived safely back home in Norwich. Trust me, I'm exhausted. My trip was absolutely wonderful, but a month is a long time to be unsettled like that. Stories to come!