Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009
In Ireland I drank a lot of booze, in Italy I ate a lot of gelato
Mm'mm yeah, it's a good life.
I've been on hiatus for the last ten days. From Friday to Wednesday I hitch hiked around Ireland with my friend Cullen. I got back to London late Wednesday night, and then left early Thursday morning to go to Venice. I'm pretty exhausted...
When Cullen and I were telling people we were hitch hiking, we got a lot of mixed reactions. There were a few people who thought it was cool, but mostly people were convinced that we were going to die and were saying their last goodbyes Thursday night. It was actually really easy, and we got everywhere we wanted to go, even though it got off to a really rocky start.
Cullen and I were taking separate planes to Dublin because he messed up booking his flight. He got to Dublin around 8am, and I wasn't getting there until around 2pm. We didn't really make plans to meet anywhere. We kind of left it as "well, if you want to hang around the airport, whatever. If you don't I'll call you when I get there and we'll meet up." Helllooooo foreshadowing.
I dropped my cell phone in an airport toilet before I even left London. Of course I didn't know his phone number, so I couldn't use a pay phone. Hell, I don't even know my own phone number.
It gets worse. I have a US passport and I was so anxious about getting to Dublin that I didn't read the fine print on my boarding pass. I was supposed to go to the check-in desk at the airport, before I went through security, and get my boarding pass checked and stamped. Did I do it? No. So when I got to the gate and tried to get on the plane, they wouldn't let me. I cried. Crying is how I passed my drivers test, so I figured it might work at the airport. It did. And thankfully, Cullen took a nap at the Dublin airport and was there when I got there. Yay!
We spent Friday night in Dublin, had some drinks, and headed out Saturday morning for our hitch hiking "adventure". We took a bus to the outskirts of Dublin, walked up the motorway to a gas station, sat on a picnic table with our sign destination sign "Blarney", and within two minutes the lovely Miguel picked us up and drove us the two and a half hours all the way to Cork. We hung around Cork for a while, listened to some good jazz, kissed the Blarney Stone, then hopped on a bus to Galway.
Galway was amazing. We stayed there for three nights. Good food, good music, good alcohol, good people. Good times. Fantastic. We took a ferry to the Aran Islands and spent an afternoon bicycling around the island. I hadn't biked in years. It made me want to go out and buy a new bicycyle. We did get caught in a few rain showers, but it was beautiful. The island is covered with a never ending web of stone walls, and the beaches are so, so clean. We climbed up to the top of Dun Angus, which is some sort of old stone fort. I think I could see my house from the top! It was a perfectly clear day by then (after getting caught in a rain shower) and you could see the whole island practically spread out at your feet.
The next day we took a bus tour to The Cliffs of Moher and hiked in The Burren. It was so windy in The Burren that I got blown over a couple times. The Burren is essentially a stoney, sort of mountain region. You're not allowed to take anything, no rocks (sorry Mom!), flowers, bones... nothing. It's a several hundred euro fine if you get caught. The Cliffs were beautiful. They go along the coast for 8km, I think, and they're about 700' high. Our tour guide said 11 people have fallen off the cliffs so far this year. Obviously, you don't fall from them and live. We got caught in the rain there too. Once again, if you don't like the weather in Ireland, wait 15 minutes because it'll change. Yup, just like New England!
To end our trip, the next day we thumbed a ride from Galway to Ennis, about halfway to Shannon Airport. The arrangement for thumbing rides was simple. Cullen held our destination sign and stuck out his thumb. My job was just to look pretty, and ocassionally stick up my thumb in some cute sort of way. I did a good job! The guy that gave us a ride was super creepy, but I think that's a story more appropriate for Christmas dinner (Mum, I know you're grimacing, but I also know you secretly love it!). After we got out of his car (thankfully), a woman named Kate picked us up and told us all about her seven grand children. It was very relaxing conversation for right before getting on another ryanair flight.
So we got back to London late Wednesday night, and away I went again early Thursday morning. Venice is great, except it might have helped us a little bit if atleast one of the four of us spoke more than one word in Italian. Or Thai. The owners of our hostel only spoke Thai. There was a lot of communication through hand gestures! I think all the weight I've lost being in London I gained back eating gelato. Mm'mmm. Mint, nutella, biscotti.... Delic'.
Lots of new pics! Check 'em out!
I've been on hiatus for the last ten days. From Friday to Wednesday I hitch hiked around Ireland with my friend Cullen. I got back to London late Wednesday night, and then left early Thursday morning to go to Venice. I'm pretty exhausted...
When Cullen and I were telling people we were hitch hiking, we got a lot of mixed reactions. There were a few people who thought it was cool, but mostly people were convinced that we were going to die and were saying their last goodbyes Thursday night. It was actually really easy, and we got everywhere we wanted to go, even though it got off to a really rocky start.
Cullen and I were taking separate planes to Dublin because he messed up booking his flight. He got to Dublin around 8am, and I wasn't getting there until around 2pm. We didn't really make plans to meet anywhere. We kind of left it as "well, if you want to hang around the airport, whatever. If you don't I'll call you when I get there and we'll meet up." Helllooooo foreshadowing.
I dropped my cell phone in an airport toilet before I even left London. Of course I didn't know his phone number, so I couldn't use a pay phone. Hell, I don't even know my own phone number.
It gets worse. I have a US passport and I was so anxious about getting to Dublin that I didn't read the fine print on my boarding pass. I was supposed to go to the check-in desk at the airport, before I went through security, and get my boarding pass checked and stamped. Did I do it? No. So when I got to the gate and tried to get on the plane, they wouldn't let me. I cried. Crying is how I passed my drivers test, so I figured it might work at the airport. It did. And thankfully, Cullen took a nap at the Dublin airport and was there when I got there. Yay!
We spent Friday night in Dublin, had some drinks, and headed out Saturday morning for our hitch hiking "adventure". We took a bus to the outskirts of Dublin, walked up the motorway to a gas station, sat on a picnic table with our sign destination sign "Blarney", and within two minutes the lovely Miguel picked us up and drove us the two and a half hours all the way to Cork. We hung around Cork for a while, listened to some good jazz, kissed the Blarney Stone, then hopped on a bus to Galway.
Galway was amazing. We stayed there for three nights. Good food, good music, good alcohol, good people. Good times. Fantastic. We took a ferry to the Aran Islands and spent an afternoon bicycling around the island. I hadn't biked in years. It made me want to go out and buy a new bicycyle. We did get caught in a few rain showers, but it was beautiful. The island is covered with a never ending web of stone walls, and the beaches are so, so clean. We climbed up to the top of Dun Angus, which is some sort of old stone fort. I think I could see my house from the top! It was a perfectly clear day by then (after getting caught in a rain shower) and you could see the whole island practically spread out at your feet.
The next day we took a bus tour to The Cliffs of Moher and hiked in The Burren. It was so windy in The Burren that I got blown over a couple times. The Burren is essentially a stoney, sort of mountain region. You're not allowed to take anything, no rocks (sorry Mom!), flowers, bones... nothing. It's a several hundred euro fine if you get caught. The Cliffs were beautiful. They go along the coast for 8km, I think, and they're about 700' high. Our tour guide said 11 people have fallen off the cliffs so far this year. Obviously, you don't fall from them and live. We got caught in the rain there too. Once again, if you don't like the weather in Ireland, wait 15 minutes because it'll change. Yup, just like New England!
To end our trip, the next day we thumbed a ride from Galway to Ennis, about halfway to Shannon Airport. The arrangement for thumbing rides was simple. Cullen held our destination sign and stuck out his thumb. My job was just to look pretty, and ocassionally stick up my thumb in some cute sort of way. I did a good job! The guy that gave us a ride was super creepy, but I think that's a story more appropriate for Christmas dinner (Mum, I know you're grimacing, but I also know you secretly love it!). After we got out of his car (thankfully), a woman named Kate picked us up and told us all about her seven grand children. It was very relaxing conversation for right before getting on another ryanair flight.
So we got back to London late Wednesday night, and away I went again early Thursday morning. Venice is great, except it might have helped us a little bit if atleast one of the four of us spoke more than one word in Italian. Or Thai. The owners of our hostel only spoke Thai. There was a lot of communication through hand gestures! I think all the weight I've lost being in London I gained back eating gelato. Mm'mmm. Mint, nutella, biscotti.... Delic'.
Lots of new pics! Check 'em out!
Sunday, October 11, 2009
I love....
Meeting new people. Love it, love it, love it. My favorite thing is learning how they make fun of Americans. We're continually squealing "Oh my God!" using the word "like" incredibly too often, and according to New Zealanders (aka, Kiwis), we don't know how to use the word "wicked".
I was at a pub last night that was playing the Italy v. Ireland football (soccer) game. Those Irish fans are craaaazy!! It was so packed, you could hardly get in the door. I was actually a little nervous to cross the room to get to the bar because that would mean I would have had to go between the fans and the TV. Luckily, I made sure there wasn't anything to great happening with the game and I scooted through as fast as I could. Once safely on the other side of the TV, I met said Kiwis. They're pretty wicked. <-- Yeah, that's how you use it. It's not "wicked good", "wicked cool", "wicked whatever". It's just "wicked", and yeah, that's pretty wicked.
Yesterday I went on a Beatles tour around London-- another fantastic experience. Most of the video from Hard Days Night was shot in Marylebone Station, right down the road. We saw Westminster Council House, where two of them were married, the Abbey Road crosswalk, Abbey Studios, what used to be the Apple Offices and is now Reed's Unemployment... But the best part: I TOUCHED JOHN LENNON'S DOORKNOB!
Scroll alllllllllllllll the way down the page and check out the rest of my pics!
The door to the flat at 34 Montague Square that John Lennon shared with Yoko Ono in 1968. "Eleonor Rigby" was written in the basement :-)
Me crossing Abbey Road!
I was at a pub last night that was playing the Italy v. Ireland football (soccer) game. Those Irish fans are craaaazy!! It was so packed, you could hardly get in the door. I was actually a little nervous to cross the room to get to the bar because that would mean I would have had to go between the fans and the TV. Luckily, I made sure there wasn't anything to great happening with the game and I scooted through as fast as I could. Once safely on the other side of the TV, I met said Kiwis. They're pretty wicked. <-- Yeah, that's how you use it. It's not "wicked good", "wicked cool", "wicked whatever". It's just "wicked", and yeah, that's pretty wicked.
Yesterday I went on a Beatles tour around London-- another fantastic experience. Most of the video from Hard Days Night was shot in Marylebone Station, right down the road. We saw Westminster Council House, where two of them were married, the Abbey Road crosswalk, Abbey Studios, what used to be the Apple Offices and is now Reed's Unemployment... But the best part: I TOUCHED JOHN LENNON'S DOORKNOB!
Scroll alllllllllllllll the way down the page and check out the rest of my pics!
The door to the flat at 34 Montague Square that John Lennon shared with Yoko Ono in 1968. "Eleonor Rigby" was written in the basement :-)
Me crossing Abbey Road!
Thursday, October 8, 2009
TONS of new photos
I've been busy uploading more pictures. I think there are three new albums up: "You won't live here again until you're a millionaire", "The Monument" and "Hampton Court". To get to them, scroll allllllllllllll the way down to the very, very bottom of the page, and click on where it says "Check out my London Albums!!" or something like that.
Today was a beautiful, beautiful day and I took advantage of it by doing very obnoxious touristy things. I went with my friend Kendra and climbed the Monument. It was built in 1671 to 1677 to commemorate the Great Fire, which burned most of the City. Fun fact: Everything fell into the river, so at low tide you can walk on the river banks and pick up tons of stuff-- including big bones of even bigger dead things. Anyway, the Monument is 202 feet high, which is exactly the length of the site of the Monument and where it started, on Pudding Lane. It was 311 steps up the spiral staircase, and man, were my calves burning!!
Last night I saw Billy Elliot at Victoria Palace Theatre. It was AMAZING. The seats were awfully small, and I'm luck I'm not any taller, but the dancing was beautiful and the music was great. Seeing live theatre is so much better than seeing movies all the time. We have to get a theatre company in the 'dale. It's probably one of my favorite things about being here. On Tuesday I'm seeing Mother Courage, which stars Aunt Petunia from the Harry Potter movies.
I'm bummed that this weekend is UNH homecoming-- the fourth year in a row that I've missed. Oh well, I guess it's another excuse to be a super senior!
Today was a beautiful, beautiful day and I took advantage of it by doing very obnoxious touristy things. I went with my friend Kendra and climbed the Monument. It was built in 1671 to 1677 to commemorate the Great Fire, which burned most of the City. Fun fact: Everything fell into the river, so at low tide you can walk on the river banks and pick up tons of stuff-- including big bones of even bigger dead things. Anyway, the Monument is 202 feet high, which is exactly the length of the site of the Monument and where it started, on Pudding Lane. It was 311 steps up the spiral staircase, and man, were my calves burning!!
Last night I saw Billy Elliot at Victoria Palace Theatre. It was AMAZING. The seats were awfully small, and I'm luck I'm not any taller, but the dancing was beautiful and the music was great. Seeing live theatre is so much better than seeing movies all the time. We have to get a theatre company in the 'dale. It's probably one of my favorite things about being here. On Tuesday I'm seeing Mother Courage, which stars Aunt Petunia from the Harry Potter movies.
I'm bummed that this weekend is UNH homecoming-- the fourth year in a row that I've missed. Oh well, I guess it's another excuse to be a super senior!
Sunday, October 4, 2009
I remembered something important. I learned it at the Ain't Nothin' But (blues bar) last sunday. It goes a little something like this:
Everyone hates the US because of The World Series. The US is the ONLY COUNTRY that plays baseball, thus the rest of the world has nothing to do with it. So what gives the US the right to call it the world series?
Yeah, that's right. I've cracked it. Get rid of baseball and I won't feel the need to tell people that I'm from Canada when they ask where I'm from.
Everyone hates the US because of The World Series. The US is the ONLY COUNTRY that plays baseball, thus the rest of the world has nothing to do with it. So what gives the US the right to call it the world series?
Yeah, that's right. I've cracked it. Get rid of baseball and I won't feel the need to tell people that I'm from Canada when they ask where I'm from.
One of my friends overheard a Swede saying to her friend "I don't eat in the refectory. That's peasant food!" Yup, that's what I eat every day, so thanks EBS snobs. A friend told me last week that I'm jaded, which may be true. But I was also supposed to go out with said friend last night, but he bailed with some crappy, albeit legitimate excuse, so maybe he's the jaded one.
I haven't posted in a while. I haven't felt like it. I've been lazy.
I went to the theatre last week and saw "The Fastest Clock in the Universe". It was so good, but so, so bad. Imagine the screwiest, sickest, most perverted thing you've ever witnessed. Add an obsession with birds, the fear of growing up, animals skinned alive for fur coats, forced miscarriages, and the knowledge that we can all be who we want to be behind our masks, and there you have it: Two hours of my life last Monday night. The only thing I can say is "wow."
The weather here has been great-- we've been lucky. I think it's very odd in London to have a whole month of beautiful, sunny weather, aside from a few select days where it's been a little chilly.
Mmm.... I guess that's all I feel like
I haven't posted in a while. I haven't felt like it. I've been lazy.
I went to the theatre last week and saw "The Fastest Clock in the Universe". It was so good, but so, so bad. Imagine the screwiest, sickest, most perverted thing you've ever witnessed. Add an obsession with birds, the fear of growing up, animals skinned alive for fur coats, forced miscarriages, and the knowledge that we can all be who we want to be behind our masks, and there you have it: Two hours of my life last Monday night. The only thing I can say is "wow."
The weather here has been great-- we've been lucky. I think it's very odd in London to have a whole month of beautiful, sunny weather, aside from a few select days where it's been a little chilly.
Mmm.... I guess that's all I feel like
Friday, September 18, 2009
Cultural Collisions
Good evening, or if you're in the US, good afternoon :-)
London is a super posh city, if I haven't said that before. Last night I was walking with some girls to the tube station and we started talking about the differences between Americans and the British. They actually like, get dressed up to go everywhere. It makes me wonder what they wear when they're hanging around their flats on a rainy Saturday. Anyway, in an effort to fit in and not appear so "American" we've all subconsciously, I think, been trying to dress and act a bit more "British", which is actually beginning to feel a little embarrassing!
One of the girls I was with last night had put on a very classy dress and heels. She looked lovely, but still said she felt like all Brits could just look at her and know right away that she was an American. We physically look the same, so it can't be so obvious, but I have the same feeling every day. Ironically, I feel less obvious when I'm wearing my typical jeans a flip-flops, which is trademark American gear.
Today I was hanging out with a different group of UNH kids and one of the guys was saying that it must be so much easier being an American woman in England than being an American man. British men apparently love us ladies-- someone actually told me that our accent is beautiful. Ugh, I think it's gross, especially if you're from the southern east coast.
Last night a small group of us stopped at McDonalds for some late night munchies on our way home from a pub. A mixed group-- two guys, myself, and another girl. We got our food and sat down. We hadn't been there long when a friendly, chatty young British guy came over to chat with us. We were sitting down, having a good conversation about why were in London and such, and then some other, much older guys came over, who had been with the young guy that had been chatting with us. Somehow something was mentioned about good ol' G.W., the phrase "fucking Americans" was dropped by one of the men. Kelly, who was a little drunk, very happily wanted to know why they were putting "fucking" in front of "Americans"... Next thing I know one of the friends I was with grabs me and tells me to get up and leave with Kelly and wait for them outside. I don't really know what happened, except that they clearly didn't like us.
Thinking about it now, and taking into consideration what was said today about being an American guy in England, I don't think there would have been any sort of problem if it had just been a group of American girls last night. It seems like American men are pretty much a target for someone to pick a fight with, because of course, American women have such beautiful accents...
London is a super posh city, if I haven't said that before. Last night I was walking with some girls to the tube station and we started talking about the differences between Americans and the British. They actually like, get dressed up to go everywhere. It makes me wonder what they wear when they're hanging around their flats on a rainy Saturday. Anyway, in an effort to fit in and not appear so "American" we've all subconsciously, I think, been trying to dress and act a bit more "British", which is actually beginning to feel a little embarrassing!
One of the girls I was with last night had put on a very classy dress and heels. She looked lovely, but still said she felt like all Brits could just look at her and know right away that she was an American. We physically look the same, so it can't be so obvious, but I have the same feeling every day. Ironically, I feel less obvious when I'm wearing my typical jeans a flip-flops, which is trademark American gear.
Today I was hanging out with a different group of UNH kids and one of the guys was saying that it must be so much easier being an American woman in England than being an American man. British men apparently love us ladies-- someone actually told me that our accent is beautiful. Ugh, I think it's gross, especially if you're from the southern east coast.
Last night a small group of us stopped at McDonalds for some late night munchies on our way home from a pub. A mixed group-- two guys, myself, and another girl. We got our food and sat down. We hadn't been there long when a friendly, chatty young British guy came over to chat with us. We were sitting down, having a good conversation about why were in London and such, and then some other, much older guys came over, who had been with the young guy that had been chatting with us. Somehow something was mentioned about good ol' G.W., the phrase "fucking Americans" was dropped by one of the men. Kelly, who was a little drunk, very happily wanted to know why they were putting "fucking" in front of "Americans"... Next thing I know one of the friends I was with grabs me and tells me to get up and leave with Kelly and wait for them outside. I don't really know what happened, except that they clearly didn't like us.
Thinking about it now, and taking into consideration what was said today about being an American guy in England, I don't think there would have been any sort of problem if it had just been a group of American girls last night. It seems like American men are pretty much a target for someone to pick a fight with, because of course, American women have such beautiful accents...
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