"before you go back to London town..."

And I still haven’t said a word about London.  Well, it was pretty much fantastic.  Isabel and I flew in the second Wednesday of spring break, so close to two weeks ago.  That went fast.  My friend Nick met us at our hostel, the Generator.  The hostel was fine, it was nice enough because it was being remodeled, but it was a little noisy at night because it sat above a nightclub and bar.  But it wasn’t too loud to sleep, so I’m not really going to complain.  It was also crawling with world-traveling hipsters which I will put in the 'pro' column to balance out the noise.  Anyway, Nick met us there and we walked around Soho and the West End for the day.  That night, our friend Mike made everyone pancakes for dinner, I was a fan.  Thursday we did some more walking around, and triumph of triumphs, I finally made it to the Globe Theater! 

 

For those who may recall, I was in London just over four years ago with the HGM and after a lovely two weeks in the British Isles we were getting ready for one of the final excursions, the Globe Theater.  As the precocious young nerd who took her grandfather’s series of Yale Shakespeare books off the shelves late at night to try and read Henry IV part II at 7 years old, I was pretty pumped.  Unfortunately, this day came on the heels of a day of inexplicable and unshakable hunger.  A multi-course Indian dinner at a restaurant near Covent Garden was quickly followed by cheap blueberry cheesecake from a little café stand, which was then followed by a Starbucks smoothie and a slice of Domino’s pizza from Piccadilly Circus, topped off by an uncountable number of chips and bagels later that night in the hotel.  Needless to say, I wasn’t feeling well the next morning but, I was determined to make it.  My stomach, however, was not.  I can't tell you which turnstile I hit just before I threw up on my teacher's shoes.  I can, however, say that I have had the distinct pleasure of getting a guided tour through the employee restrooms of the London Underground.  I was then escorted back to the hotel where I spent the day in bed and never made it to the Globe.  

That is, until now!

 

Yes, I finally made to the Globe, and I paid a pretty penny to get my guided tour, but goshdarnit, nothing was going to stop me this time.  I enjoyed it.  I took a lot of pictures.  I was the epitome of the English-major tourist, and I didn’t care.  I finally saw the Globe.

 

Then I went to the Tate Modern.  That was pretty cool too, and right next door!  I wandered through some rooms with art that didn’t make a lot of sense to me.  Oftentimes, I find looking at modern art is something like trying to speak a foreign language.  Except that I don't speak much modern art.  However, I wish I'd taken notes because after some frustrated wandering, I found this fantastic room where I just LOVED everything I saw.  In this one particular room I got the classic museum experience I haven’t had in a really long time.  I could just sit, stand, and stare at every piece in that room, examine them close up and far away and see something familiar and something novel.  I’d like to think it was a little more than fatigue and dehydration, but they made sense to me.  The first one drew me in because I turned a corner and WHAM, it was Los Angeles on a canvas.  Not in any conventional or obvious way, but I just recognized home, so I looked at the plaque and sure enough it was a collage created by an artist who lives and works in Los Angeles. I’m still upset that I didn’t write down the names and titles, but it’ll just have to rest a pleasant memory until I figure out how to find out what was hung in that part of the gallery.  None of the pieces were by the same artist, and they all looked really different, but they complimented and informed each other in a way I’d never seen before.  I wish I could describe it more carefully and more accurately, but each work would take more time and space than I have, so I hope you can take my word that it was pretty cool.  

More later.

we'll go ahead and call last weekend a wash

With a peep melting in my mouth and the Beach Boys in my ears, my thanks to everyone who sent an ND care package, they meant a lot to me.  I’m still having a wonderful time in France, but I do miss everyone back home.  Leo and I really should have worked harder on that teleportation device…alas.  I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to properly recount spring break, Isabel and I got back to Angers around midnight the night before classes started.  This was only partially our fault.  Yes, we did buy train tickets that were supposed to bring us back to Angers late, but late was 10:30, 11pm.  We were delayed in Lyons when the power went out for a little while, but Isabel spent the night and we made it to class alright the next day, more or less.  Then, of course, we were hit with a ton of work and stories of impending tests and dossiers.  I don’t think there’s an exact translation for “dossier,” but I’m not sure.  My dictionary says “file, folder” and this is pretty accurate as far as I can tell because “Documents” folder on the French computer at schools say “Dossier,” however, the big/final papers in our classes are also called dossiers.  I guess ‘file’ could cover the concept of a final paper, with a little imagination.

 

Also, as much as there is at home that I can’t wait to get back to, it also scares me how fast the time is passing and how little I have left.  It seems like it was only a few days ago that I was struggling through my first dinner with my host family.  Even now I have trouble understanding my host parents, but that’s because they’ve started speaking faster.  On the good side, I still understand about 75% of what they say, on the bad side, I’m still missing 25%. But my host mom will take calls during dinner if I’m finishing up a course and it never used to matter whether or not I listened because I couldn’t understand anyway, but I find myself catching bit and pieces by accident.  The best part, something I haven’t experienced since I got back from spring break, are those happy times when you’re engrossed in a conversation and you honestly can’t tell what language you’re listening to because the mind is finally comfortable enough to understand the ideas without having to translate the words.  The last time this happened, I was eating with some friends at the home of our program direction, Madame Menyard.  We started talking about families, childhood, and raising children. We were discussing the differences between American and French families and I forgot what language I was listening to and speaking.  In all likelihood, I was speaking abominable frenglish, but for a few minutes I had just a little taste of fluency and it was very nice.   

 

When I first got back to France after spring break, it felt familiar, even after London, which I had been to twice before.  It was a relief to find out I hadn’t actually forgotten every French word I’d ever learned.  Even more than that, my first dinner with my host family after spring break was pretty easy.  I use dinners to gauge how well I can speak.  I thought I’d retained my French skills over spring break.  However, after about two or three days in class, I quickly realized this was not exactly the case.  That, combined with a sleep debt I owe to Spain, Italy, and England, it was a hard week.  And the weekend didn’t really make it any better...

 

Slept in Saturday, spent about four hours in a McDonald’s (or in French “Macdo,” with a French accent) trying to get some work done, finally paying to wash clothes in Angers, and eating microwavable paella on the floor of my “salle de bain cuisine” (salle de bain cuisine à manger?) with Isabel.  I can now say that 3 euro frozen paella is truly one of the most disappointing ends to a mediocre day, especially if you’ve just been to Spain and spent 8 euros on a really good plate of fresh paella. 

 

Sunday? Isabel and I spent the day in her studio once again trying and failing to get much done (her room is in the backyard, detached from the house itself, I probably mentioned this a while back).  We were waiting to leave with her family to her go to her host sister’s confirmation which was supposed to be around 5:30pm.  Unfortunately, after a significant amount of worrying and awkward eye-contact with her host family, 5:15 came and went.  To further complicate matters neither one of us knew the correct word for “confirmation” in French.  It might be the cognate, quite frankly I’m still not sure, but we finally got up the courage to text Isabel’s host mom around 5:20.  It was nearly an hour later when she texted us back to say that it had actually been the day before… Foiled again!  But wait, there’s more!  After I left around 9pm, Isabel found out that her family knew we were in her room the whole time, including when we sent the text message…

 

The one thing that narrowly saved the weekend for me is that I got the chance to cook.  I can use the kitchen chez moi if I ask ahead of time, but I never think to do this until it’s dinner time.  Isabel has a kitchenette in her studio/apartment situation and I used it to make omelets for brunch both Saturday and Sunday.  And these were no run of the mill, ordinary omelets; you can’t make these kinds of omelets in the dining hall. Oh no, these omelets were excellent.  We’re talking fresh eggs, salt, pepper, fresh broccoli, fresh mushrooms, emmental, and deliciousness.  The secret ingredient being deliciousness.  Plus, I finally learned to properly butter the pan so that the omelet gets just a little golden and folds perfectly.  In general, but especially against the backdrop of this weekend, these omelets were simply lovely.  

sagrada familia 2

Here's the exterior, this time from the back.  It was really striking in person, just by the sheer size and novelty of the design. 

The construction is going on inside as you walk around, it's a little strange because the workers and their construction site then become a tourist spectacle unto themselves.  
Hehe, I found this inside as we were walking around, it's supposed to stop tourists from sneaking into the worksite, I just thought it was amusing.  
Forest-inspired columns, Gaudi was all about nature, or so the little museum attached to the temple told me.
Another interior shot, I love the use of light.

sagrada familia

This one goes out to my mom, who requested that I add some of the pictures I took from Spring Break.  Here are some pictures from when I saw the Sagrada Familia, or the Temple of the Holy Family, designed principally by Gaudi, started in 1882, not finished yet.  For more info, I'm a big fan of wikipedia: Sagrada Familia

Anyways, my pictures, here's a detail of the doors into the temple

Once inside (sorry, I can't figure out why this looks like a link), I was struck by the elaborate stained glass, it gave the interior a lot of color, because otherwise, everything is roughly the same shade of off-white. This was one of the more colorful windows. 

And here's the exterior from the front.  In between the towers you can see the construction crane...

Yes, yes, so that was friday. Getting to the hotel was followed promptly by a lot of lounging around and then some television. The only english channels available are CNN, BBC world, and Bloomberg, so I'm currently well-versed in the state of the world. Among things I've learned, people consume more chocolate and beer when the economy tanks, the high-end market for online dating is unaffected by the ''wintry economic climate,'' Croatia is looking to boost its tourism, and Macedonia is an EU candidate that really wants to attract international business.

After TV, it was time for pizza. Since I arrived in Italy the only food I have eaten, apart from breakfast, has been pizza and gelato, it's just that good. Wait, no, broke the streak last night with some pasta and soup for dinner. And then I had a sandwich for lunch. But still, before that, we're talking like 4 pizzas in a row. My favorite has been this great place Stephanie took me to on Saturday for lunch, it was a thin crust pizza with mozzarella and arugula. Oh, and after lunch we had cappuccinos, but I don't think that's enough to technically break the pizza streak. I say cappuccinos, but Stephanie has since informed me that more than one cappuccino is called cappucci. Or something like that.

Stephanie has been studying in Rome for the year as part of Notre Dame's architecture program, so she makes an EXCELLENT tour guide. Saturday Isabel and I met her at the Colosseum and the three of us walked from there, past the Forum and the Wedding Cake, through Rome to the Notre Dame architecture studio. The great thing about Rome is, and this come from both me and Stephanie, is that you can just wander down the street, going about your business, there are buildings everywhere, you turn the corner and WHAM ancient ruin, some columns, and Caesar's favorite hangout. And for the most part, its a very walkable city with an extensive bus system. A few hours after the cappuccino, it was time for gelato, naturally, so we met up with some friends and took care of the gelato situation (the gelato situation being, I need to eat as much gelato as possible in Rome because it is wonderful). The rest of Saturday consisted of more wandering through Rome with Isabel, Marvin, and John. We tried to make it to the top of the Wedding Cake but we were foiled by a 7€ elevator. Instead we hung out, took pictures, and got a little lost on the inside of the monument (and I hear this is hard to do).

Sunday morning, I got up bright and early for Easter mass at the Vatican! I got tickets through Notre Dame because I guess somebody knows somebody who knows somebody, Catholic connections I suppose, but most of the ND study abroad students had the chance to sign up to go to mass at the Vatican, so all I had to do was show up and look for the big ND flag. We got great seats, I was about 7 rows from the front, and while the front of the seating was still a ways from the alter, I could see really well. My favorite moment from the experience was from before mass started. We had to hurry to get our seats and were constantly passed by fierce nuns who were eager to see the pope (I'd heard tales about this before, short story: don't even get between a nun and the pope). But we found a good place to sit and waited the hour and a half between getting our seats and the start of mass. Meanwhile, we were surrounded by people from all over the world trying to find their seats as well, excusing themselves as they pushed by in all different languages. About three rows ahead of us was a tough and sassy Italian nun (I use these adjectives with a positive connotation, mind you). She was probably around 70 and in full habit, looking around for a friend she was saving a seat for. In order to get a better view, she stood up on top of her seat and whipped out her cell phone to call her friend. Then, still atop her chair, she gives her friend directions over the phone, arms moving in every direction in a stereotypical Italian fashion.
Second favorite moment, after mass, the pope gave an address followed by a greeting in dozens of different languages. I was surrounded by Phillipina nuns, so when he got to Tagalog, they went crazy cheering, it was very charming.
Oh, and third favorite moment, there was a group of German nuns close by who were waving a large German flag for the pope and for the camera. They were very jaunty, I saw them joking together when they walked by later.
I love nuns. When I was 8 I wanted to be a nun. Granted, at 7 I wanted to have 100 children and at 9, I was looking at around 30.

Happy Easter!

I'm in Rome, waiting 'til dinner. Got here Friday.

I booked a hotel for Rome and looked up directions to get there. The first time I looked them up, the metro stop was 4km from the hotel. The second time I looked them up, the bus stop was 250m from the hotel. I didn't look them up a third time, but I thought I did and I was reasonably certain that the metro stop was 250m from the hotel. This was not the case.

It was a little rainy when Isabel and I left Madrid, but nothing worth delaying our flight. We got into Ciampino airport in Rome 5 minutes ahead of schedule. And this is where the adventure begins...

After stumbling our way through the two things I could remember in Italian: 'where' & 'thank you' we got to the 40 minute bus that would take us to the center of Rome. It was hot and humid, but it was the most comfortable and affordable way to get into the city at 4€. However, it was a lot more than a 40 minute ride after our bus driver got into an accident and had to try three times to pull to the side of the road because of the traffic. While we waited, the bus got hotter and the passengers got crankier, especially when it took us 20 minutes just to figure out what was going on. But eventually we were on our way only mildly irritated. We got the the metro and made it to our stop with very little trouble. However, once we got to the right metro stop, all bets were off because my google map wasn't nearly detailed enough. Thankfully I still knew the word for 'where' and Italian women seem to be pretty nice. I went into a cafe to ask directions from a women who corrected my pronunciation of Pineta Sachetti, the street I was looking for, but then gave me detailed directions from which I gleaned the general direction. It took a bit more wandering, but I made it to the right street where I asked a women who was walking her dog where Via San Lino Papa was, the street on which our hotel was located. She looked alarmed, mumbled, and walked away quickly. So I walked on farther. Following my lack of a map, Isabel and I walked a kilometer or two before finding Hotel Beethoven which flew, among other things, a UK flag. 'Surely they speak English,' I assured myself and dashed inside even though this was not my hotel. Luckily they did speak English, although not very well, but it was enough to get me in the right direction once again. Another kilometer and a half later I was sure I had walked too far. Tired, hot, and irritated by the crass Italian men driving by, I found another Italian women, and one more time, asked for directions. She spoke neither English nor French, but she was very nice and could tell I only understood her marginally. French is helpful in Italy because there are so many cognates, but her wild arm motions went a lot farther than anything else. She explained that I would need to walk further, but that the road would curve to the left, but I should take the road that curved to the right and this curving would take place in a large area with chairs...or something like that. Her directions were enough that after yet another kilometer, sweaty and tired with luggage and sore feet, we FINALLY made it to the misnamed Pineta Palace. It's a perfectly decent hotel, but unless you're an executive on the 7th floor staying in "7th Heaven," it's no palace.

Anyway, it's dinner time, so that's all for now.

because who doesn´t love a good skype chat?

so i was skype chatting madison just now, telling her about my time in madrid, as i did, i realized that as i typed it sounded more and more like a blog post. so i decided to save myself a little time and effort and just did a quick copy/paste. and here you have it, MADRID:

[23:11:47]lessee, we left barcelona last night at midnight on a 7 hour bus to madrid, so that´s more or less where we stayed last night, isabel and i were in the back of the bus with a lot of chatty people, so needless to say it wasn´t a great night´s sleep
[23:12:44] so we got to madrid around 7 in the morning and got to our hostel around 8 with our bags
[23:13:29] this was too early to check in so we dropped off our bags, had breakfast at the hostel, and checked our email (internet again! pleasant surprise)
[23:14:23] isabel, lauren, and thomas decided to take naps on the various couches in the lounge while i did a little bus tour research because our feet were too tired and sore from barcelona to do much talking
[23:14:29] and again, naturally, we were tired
[23:14:42] so i decided on Madrid Vision Bus
[23:15:35] for 17 euros you can hop on and off two different tours of the city, one focuses on the history and the architecture, the other focuses on madrid as a modern city
[23:15:57] we took one, stopped for lunch, and then took the other
[23:16:40] usually these sorts of things are too touristy for me, but i actually really enjoyed it, we got headsets with earbuds to listen in any of 8 languages, i tried french but that was just too much for me, so i stuck to english
[23:16:52] and we had a great time
[23:17:47] then i went shopping with two of kiki´s roommates for the night from her hostel, a guy from russia, a girl from canada, both college age, cool people
[23:18:11] we shopped and talked to them and then met up with the rest of the ND spain crew for dinner. the food was more or less traditional spanish cuisine, although kiki ordered cuban rice... i had tortilla a la espagña, which was translated as spanish potato omlette, actually, most technically it was spelled Sapnish Potato Omlette, but i figured it out

and there you have it.

also: we had a snack before the bus trip with hot chocolate (so thick here!) and coffee (so strong!), aaaand there are scandalous pictures of women all over my hostel, like Talouse-Lautrec type stuff but 21st century and more...well...scandalous

i'm gonna sing a song with all of my friends...

in barcelona! taking a quick break in the middle of the day so that Kiki can register for classes

we leave tonight for madrid, and we're by no means done here, but barcelona has been a great experience.

yesterday we climbed half way up a mountain. i think we might have been on our way to the castle, i'm not really sure, i was just following at this point, then we wandered around the city and had paella for lunch; eventually we made our way to the beach where i took a much needed siesta

this morning we went to sagrada familia which was amaaazing, so beautiful

so, that was a brief update, but im on my way out the door to see some more of spain!

t´ínquiete pas

The epic beginning of an epic journey...it´s spring break!

To begin with, I apologize for any gross misspellings, the Spanish keyboard differs slightly from the American, but is much closer to the American than the French. However, I have become accustomed to typing like a French person.

I took notes along the way, so I´ll paraphrase and recopy to give you the full effect, trust me, it´s better this way.

Let´s begin around 5:30 today in Charles de Gaulle Airport de Paris...
Stuck in Charles de Gaulle Airport. Waiting. A lot. Left yesterday for spring break. Went out Thursday night for Fraga´s birthday after turning in my proposal for my senior thesis. Went for crepes for dinner, I had a sausage and apple crepe for dinner which sounded wonderful in theory but was a bit of a let down in practice. Took the train to Paris yesterday afternoon, which went pretty smoothly. We arrived at Isabel´s uncle´s where we proceeded to do more laundry, yes it seems this is STILL why I go to Paris. But we also had a wonderful dinner with her family and watched Australia with her cousin. Baz Luhrman´s Australia was a horrible let down that felt like it should have ended several times before it did and was probably about an hour too long, but we were entertained nevertheless.

This morning I went with Isabel, her family, and some guests who had just arrived, to the local market. For breakfast I ordered "juste un croissant originale" however it was loud and instead I got two croissants . I was tired and hungry, I didn't protest. Then we went back to Isabel´s uncle´s and had a very tasty lunch (so much good food, I can barely handle it!). After lunch, we took three trains to Charles de Gaulle Airport, this went smoothly enough, and we arrived a comfortable two hours and change before our flight which was scheduled for 5:25. We ran into our friends who actually just left on the flight before us after having been delayed for about an hour. We're all taking Veuling, a cheap airline few have heard of, so I guess delays come with the territory. We just got an announcement that the flight Isabel and I are on will be delayed about two hours. And so we´re waiting.

Next entry:
...And 3 hours later we´re still here. But don't worry! We got 6 euros worth of bad food. Oh! And I almost forgot, we had to go through security again in order to go to the bathroom!

In terms of more important things that I actually did forget to mention, on this morning´s train from Garshes to St. Lazar we were treated to a musical extravaganza! On the first half of the ride we were joined by a singing Spanish guitarist who introduced himself, "Monsieurs et Mesdames, I hope you are having a lovely day, I am going to play for you" (trans. from French). He wasn´t the world´s greatest guitarist, but he was pretty good, so I enjoyed it . Isabel was taking notes in anticipation of getting to Spain. A few stops later, the Spanish guitarist left and was replaced by a French violinist. Like his predecessor, he introduced himself to the passengers, except he was staring at the ground and whispering when he made his introduction. Unlike his predecessor, he really was´t very good at all...let´s just say I was having flashbacks to middle school orchestra. After playing for a while, violin man then opted instead to string together a series of movements I can only interpret as a dance of some sort. He hopped a bit from foot to foot, violin and bow waving wildly in the air. Then he played several minutes of the shortest, highest-pitched notes on his E string while leaping to the movements of the train. At one point he began large sweeping motions with his head and shoulders, the cross between a bow and a modern dance. Then he began ducking, although there was nothing to duck from and lunging his head toward various passengers. Apparently I was one of these passengers at one point, but I was drifting to sleep with sunglasses on, so this is second hand info from Isabel. In her words, I was "musically assaulted," thankfully, I have no recollection.

And now back to real time:
Lest you worry, know that I am in Spain, safe and sound, but I left you, dear reader somewhere back in the Charles de Gaulle airport after waiting for 3 hours and there´s a little more to the story. The total delay was over three and a half hours, but we finally made it on to the plane only to find that yet again, we got what we paid for. The plane was perfectly clean, bright and shiny, but the leg room was, well, lacking. Isabel and I both had to use an exotic shimmy manoeuvre to get into our row and to our seats (and there were only three seats to from the window to the aisle). Our legs fit, but there wasn´t much room to spare. Luckily the flight was only an hour and a half and Isabel slept through most of it (I don't know why I didn't, but I didn't) and Vueling gave us 20 euro vouchers for our next flight for our trouble. I don´t think there´s going to be a next flight with Vueling. Because of our delays, we just made the last train into Barcelona. Unfortunately check-in was closed when we got to the hostel, but we pounded on the door and got in just fine. It´s a very nice hostel, nice people, free internet access. After all of today´s drama, I´m once again a happy camper. Barcelona tomorrow!

spring break prep

gah! running out of time to get everything done for spring break!

bought sunglasses today

my housemate is really cool, i didnt know him, he's from michigan. correction, i know him know

spring break: paris, barcelona, madrid, rome (for Easter), london

woohoo!

one of these days i'll manage a proper update