Alright. Let me just set the scene here.
2 weekends ago at a friend's birthday party in Tietgen, this intense party dorm where everything insane seems to always be happening (Brazilian men sunbaking in the nude - Gross!). Lots of people here celebrating and also just doing normal weekend drinking, not really sure if it was all for the birthday or not or just a pre-party for the dorm party downstairs.
Anyways, people will sadly have to remain nameless. :( Only I will know their true identities...
So, noticed one person at the party smelling especially rank, just, hadn't showered for awhile it seems, I mean ok, we're all busy alright I can get over it. Just when the arms would be raised around me I would think, you know, for being a girl, it's amazing to smell this body odor wafting towards me...not SO bad though that it's like walking past the boys locker room in high school - Puha! (Danish, and funny)
Party progresses. Cake is given. etc.
French man comes over, compliments said rank girl ON HER PERFUME! I am standing in this talking threesome, thinking, WHAT! This still blow my mind. The girl insists there is no perfume, it's body wash, she doesn't even have perfume here. He insists is perfume, smells her closer, agrees with himself, she is giggling and laughing, 'No really, it's just body wash!' And then after further arguing, he taps his nose and says 'I have a French nose, I know a good perfume when I smell one,' and that is the end.
Meanwhile I am standing there just dying to know if this is a joke or not, or can he not smell? or....are all of our stereotypes about the French actually true haha - that they don't bathe and therefore smell bad? Oh if I could've just entered this man's brain...I still want to know so bad if he didn't like her smell or not, or if he's just insane...ahh!
End result - I suppose the French do not bathe after all... Kidding, but stereotypes can be fun :)
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Happy Birthday Queen!!! (a day late now)
As I have epically been failing and updating my blog regularly, I have decided to make most of today a slew of various blog posts, still probably leaving out Paris, Senegal, and The Gambian adventures, as those will be easier to remember later, and some verrry interesting things have been happening in my everyday life.
And then somehow I managed to not finish writing or posting this allllll yesterday, though what did I do yesterday? I cooked amazing food...and went bartending! That's right, turning a new page in my book. It's not paid but it's really nice, I'll be doing it next Friday as well. Another bonus of volunteer bartending at Studenthuset (student house, but everyone goes there), anyways, you don't get to keep your tips, (well you're not supposed to), and you just put them up in this tip umbrella. So! this being said - when middle-aged guys sit next to the bar apparently to chat you up when you are making people drinks etc, I don't feel it necessary to stay there and chat longer or stay over there for any extra moment at all, because I don't even want a tip, it's not for me, hehehheehe...And also, it's just strange...but the two olderish men seemed happy enough sitting there. People are just weird. But interesting...
Other than that, I enjoy having a pretend job. I don't think I speak enough Danish to get a real job yet, (however my Danish is improving SO MUCH, I spoke so much last night I am just falling in LOVE with it), anyways, working here is just so good! You meet so many people, you get free drinks the whole time, have an after party with tons of free food, and get free drinks when you're not even working (I have 9 left yay!), so yeah, sort of like money...in alcohol? But hey I'm a student, that's good enough! (sort of)
Interesting events from last night -
So apparently people here don't take home food a lot for leftovers. Frugal me decided, hey, I'll take this giant half burger home, lunch for tomorrow, and meat! (meat is expensive so meat is AWESOME WHEN I GET TO HAVE IT, saying this I do try to have meat everyday still and probably mostly do...not today yet) But then, I am RIDICULED! By this Dane named Davey sitting next to me, 'oh you put your burger in your BAG, you take your BAG home, why do you do that!' Ahh I can mock Danish accents now by the way, it's so much fun :) So after saying 1. I am poor 2. I want to eat this later 3. It is delicious and look at that meat! I go about my business, chatting with other people, and then suddenly he's nudging me going 'I'm eating your BURGer, I took the BAG from the ground and now I am just EATing it, just wanted you to KNOw" and while I am sad, because there goes my food, there is not much I can do, and it's pretty messy therefore amusing to watch. After somewhat lamenting and pitying myself and my lost burger - oh by the way, the random capital letters are to try to put the strange Danish accent in there, but I'll probably just have to tell you in real life sometime - anyyywayys, then Davy cant FINISH the burger. Ohhhh, and DID I just learn how to insult people in Danish? And by learn I don't mean in class, I mean self taught/making Danish friends telling me if I'm doing it right...hehehe
So the things I end up saying are something like this ' Du er en mand, ikke?' "Er du en mand!" Er du en KVINDE?" Spiser det nå! and then in succession of pointing to the burger, his mouth, and his stomach "Mad. Spiser. Maven"
All of this translates roughly into, 'you are a man are you not? are you a man? are you a woman!? eat that now! ' food. eat. stomach." I can really do a lot of harm with my limited vocabulary and I loooove it. As he ended up getting drunkenly offended/sad at my ridiculing, he had to give up and say 'Ja, ja jeg er en kvinde' (I believe I then asked if he was a little girl, en lille piga, and he just looked down sadly, but then I saved it all by saying I was sorry for everything 'Undskyld for alt", and now we are friends :)
Basically, I LOVE DANISH. I just adore learning languages...I like to tell people they are human beings - Du er et menneske!" It's just amusing...there are so many things I like to say. When we were learning how to say 'do you have a __ I can borrow for a moment/ til the morning" and "do you have ___ I can have", everytime there was an option of saying borrow or have, I'd just ask to have it in the set up dialogs we use in class. 'Har du et Dankort jeg må få?' and then the person would have to say something like 'of course' or 'yes, here you go', when I just asked for a credit card of theirs to have...hehehe...the simple pleasures...
Unfortunately (desvarre is unfortunately I think), this is exactly how I learned Spanish, poor Sra Madden having to put up with me all the time! It's just...easier to learn when you make it funny. Though a lot of Danes will go 'what ... what did you say it like that for, no one says it like that Laura... such as when I say 'det var så latterligt lidt' for 'it was so ridiculously little' when someone says thanks to me - I like to say ridiculously, because people will say tak for something like, sheesh, you just say tak for everything, and I like to mix things up. Anyyyywayyyys...
Well not I don't really know what else happened at the bar. It was just awesome and nice. Met a girl from Georgia the state, Columbians, cool Dutch people, just so much friendliness! :) And in other news before I post this - I also desperately want to buy a bike! Everyone here just bikes so I'm going to go to an auction and try to get a crappy one for just a few hundred Kroner...It will just help me really get to know the city and ahh I like biking! Everyone here bikes!
Oh yeah, and it was the Queens birthday yesterday so that was on all the channels, she is older, pretty, and waves a lot. And then Danish people sing songs in Danish and it sounds weird. hehe :)
And then somehow I managed to not finish writing or posting this allllll yesterday, though what did I do yesterday? I cooked amazing food...and went bartending! That's right, turning a new page in my book. It's not paid but it's really nice, I'll be doing it next Friday as well. Another bonus of volunteer bartending at Studenthuset (student house, but everyone goes there), anyways, you don't get to keep your tips, (well you're not supposed to), and you just put them up in this tip umbrella. So! this being said - when middle-aged guys sit next to the bar apparently to chat you up when you are making people drinks etc, I don't feel it necessary to stay there and chat longer or stay over there for any extra moment at all, because I don't even want a tip, it's not for me, hehehheehe...And also, it's just strange...but the two olderish men seemed happy enough sitting there. People are just weird. But interesting...
Other than that, I enjoy having a pretend job. I don't think I speak enough Danish to get a real job yet, (however my Danish is improving SO MUCH, I spoke so much last night I am just falling in LOVE with it), anyways, working here is just so good! You meet so many people, you get free drinks the whole time, have an after party with tons of free food, and get free drinks when you're not even working (I have 9 left yay!), so yeah, sort of like money...in alcohol? But hey I'm a student, that's good enough! (sort of)
Interesting events from last night -
So apparently people here don't take home food a lot for leftovers. Frugal me decided, hey, I'll take this giant half burger home, lunch for tomorrow, and meat! (meat is expensive so meat is AWESOME WHEN I GET TO HAVE IT, saying this I do try to have meat everyday still and probably mostly do...not today yet) But then, I am RIDICULED! By this Dane named Davey sitting next to me, 'oh you put your burger in your BAG, you take your BAG home, why do you do that!' Ahh I can mock Danish accents now by the way, it's so much fun :) So after saying 1. I am poor 2. I want to eat this later 3. It is delicious and look at that meat! I go about my business, chatting with other people, and then suddenly he's nudging me going 'I'm eating your BURGer, I took the BAG from the ground and now I am just EATing it, just wanted you to KNOw" and while I am sad, because there goes my food, there is not much I can do, and it's pretty messy therefore amusing to watch. After somewhat lamenting and pitying myself and my lost burger - oh by the way, the random capital letters are to try to put the strange Danish accent in there, but I'll probably just have to tell you in real life sometime - anyyywayys, then Davy cant FINISH the burger. Ohhhh, and DID I just learn how to insult people in Danish? And by learn I don't mean in class, I mean self taught/making Danish friends telling me if I'm doing it right...hehehe
So the things I end up saying are something like this ' Du er en mand, ikke?' "Er du en mand!" Er du en KVINDE?" Spiser det nå! and then in succession of pointing to the burger, his mouth, and his stomach "Mad. Spiser. Maven"
All of this translates roughly into, 'you are a man are you not? are you a man? are you a woman!? eat that now! ' food. eat. stomach." I can really do a lot of harm with my limited vocabulary and I loooove it. As he ended up getting drunkenly offended/sad at my ridiculing, he had to give up and say 'Ja, ja jeg er en kvinde' (I believe I then asked if he was a little girl, en lille piga, and he just looked down sadly, but then I saved it all by saying I was sorry for everything 'Undskyld for alt", and now we are friends :)
Basically, I LOVE DANISH. I just adore learning languages...I like to tell people they are human beings - Du er et menneske!" It's just amusing...there are so many things I like to say. When we were learning how to say 'do you have a __ I can borrow for a moment/ til the morning" and "do you have ___ I can have", everytime there was an option of saying borrow or have, I'd just ask to have it in the set up dialogs we use in class. 'Har du et Dankort jeg må få?' and then the person would have to say something like 'of course' or 'yes, here you go', when I just asked for a credit card of theirs to have...hehehe...the simple pleasures...
Unfortunately (desvarre is unfortunately I think), this is exactly how I learned Spanish, poor Sra Madden having to put up with me all the time! It's just...easier to learn when you make it funny. Though a lot of Danes will go 'what ... what did you say it like that for, no one says it like that Laura... such as when I say 'det var så latterligt lidt' for 'it was so ridiculously little' when someone says thanks to me - I like to say ridiculously, because people will say tak for something like, sheesh, you just say tak for everything, and I like to mix things up. Anyyyywayyyys...
Well not I don't really know what else happened at the bar. It was just awesome and nice. Met a girl from Georgia the state, Columbians, cool Dutch people, just so much friendliness! :) And in other news before I post this - I also desperately want to buy a bike! Everyone here just bikes so I'm going to go to an auction and try to get a crappy one for just a few hundred Kroner...It will just help me really get to know the city and ahh I like biking! Everyone here bikes!
Oh yeah, and it was the Queens birthday yesterday so that was on all the channels, she is older, pretty, and waves a lot. And then Danish people sing songs in Danish and it sounds weird. hehe :)
Sunday, March 28, 2010
A lost camera found by all of The Gambia
This will be a little post about a trip we made to Banjul to see the markets in the capital :)
The green taxis are 'tourist taxis', which insure the tourist and not just the locals like the yellow taxis. I sort of thought it was a bit of a rip-off since they generally made you pay a bit more (so maybe 4 dollars instead of 2), but then they actually do have a point - after the first day I left my camera in a green taxi apparently, and didn't realize until the next morning. When we left that morning to go see if we could shake hands with some crocodiles I told the taxi people, and they called the taxi I had been in (I had Abdoulie's business card along with SO MANY OTHER PEOPLE'S business cards, everyone wants you to call them and they will help you later, more money for them! sometimes the business cards were other people's cards, but with numbers and names crossed out and written in pen elsewhere)....
Lost train of thought there. So I had left my camera and reported it right? After I told taxi people, they called and Abdoulie came back later and checked his car and well, basically the next day the taxi controller who stood outside our resort came up to me, said 'hey, when you lose things, you come to me' then pulled my lovely camera out of his pocket, and I became the happiest person in the world :) :) :) BUT super weirdly for the rest of the trip random taxi drivers and tour guides would come up to me and tell me how they helped me find my camera, how nice of them, and so I thanked I feel AT LEAST 20 people for their very important help, and didn't give anyone money for helping me. I also am still under the impression that the only people who were really involved was the driver, who I also say later and heartily thanked, the main taxi guy, and maybe the guy who called in the first place for me. Very strange very strange...
Correction. This is no longer a post about the markets in Banjul. Instead that will be tomorrow - apparently the time is changing tonight so I lose an hour and I have a biiig week ahead of me. So posts of The Gambia and Senegal events will be more sporadic and spread out, which will be a nice break from horridly long posts like the London one.
Bonne nuit! :)
The green taxis are 'tourist taxis', which insure the tourist and not just the locals like the yellow taxis. I sort of thought it was a bit of a rip-off since they generally made you pay a bit more (so maybe 4 dollars instead of 2), but then they actually do have a point - after the first day I left my camera in a green taxi apparently, and didn't realize until the next morning. When we left that morning to go see if we could shake hands with some crocodiles I told the taxi people, and they called the taxi I had been in (I had Abdoulie's business card along with SO MANY OTHER PEOPLE'S business cards, everyone wants you to call them and they will help you later, more money for them! sometimes the business cards were other people's cards, but with numbers and names crossed out and written in pen elsewhere)....
Lost train of thought there. So I had left my camera and reported it right? After I told taxi people, they called and Abdoulie came back later and checked his car and well, basically the next day the taxi controller who stood outside our resort came up to me, said 'hey, when you lose things, you come to me' then pulled my lovely camera out of his pocket, and I became the happiest person in the world :) :) :) BUT super weirdly for the rest of the trip random taxi drivers and tour guides would come up to me and tell me how they helped me find my camera, how nice of them, and so I thanked I feel AT LEAST 20 people for their very important help, and didn't give anyone money for helping me. I also am still under the impression that the only people who were really involved was the driver, who I also say later and heartily thanked, the main taxi guy, and maybe the guy who called in the first place for me. Very strange very strange...
Correction. This is no longer a post about the markets in Banjul. Instead that will be tomorrow - apparently the time is changing tonight so I lose an hour and I have a biiig week ahead of me. So posts of The Gambia and Senegal events will be more sporadic and spread out, which will be a nice break from horridly long posts like the London one.
Bonne nuit! :)
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Boss Lady goes to The Gambia!
I am completely in love with Africa/The Motherland, and was in love with it before I even went (the music, insane cultures, languages, animals, enticing danger...). After finally seeing the 'real Africa' (have been to Morocco before but as everyone says, it's not 'Africa'), my love for the Motherland has been confirmed. Here is why.
First let me tell you a little background knowledge on Africa, which I have read in a book that I have called 'Africa' (how many times can I say Africa I wonder...especially before it loses meaning as a word...).
So! The continent of Africa itself is the oldest, and the deepest...remember when you see those little videos of how all the earth plates moved and were all together at the beginning, well, the piece that was Africa never ever moved. Africa also has very few mountains, because unlike the other plates, it's not colliding with itself and wedging one plate over or under another - in fact Africa is EXPANDING, how weird is that! You can see the continent 'stretch marks' somewhere in Ethiopia I think...besides that and random information about giraffes I think I should probably go one with my Gambian tales, oh wait - another interesting point maybe to remember is that, yes we all know Africa in general is underdeveloped, often disease ridden, and just way behind the times, BUT we often fail to realize that for A REALLY LONG TIME people (yes like us dear Americans) went there to take the biggest and strongest MALES (leaders) and make them do menial tasks. So yeah, didn't really help. :)
Anyways after getting a visa and random injections and flying for about 8 hours with a stop in the Grand Canaries (which I had no idea was a part of SPAIN), we arrived in the warmth and haziness that is The Gambia on the west coast of Africa! It was cheaper for us to arrive and not know where we'd say till we got there, and found out we were staying at Kombo Beach, this fancy resort which IRONICALLY I pretended was my address when I was filling out my visa, how coincidental is that!!
First thing besides the body odor we noticed was that EVERYONE wants to help you, everyone wants your money. You know how the 'I'm thinking Arbys' commercials have that hat above their head? It's like we had dollar signs above our heads. And everyone saw that...constantly. What else I have learned is that it would be really good to have planned to have lots of American one dollar bills with me...people definitely like those :) It's in the movies too, and looks so different from ALL the foreign currency I have dealt with so far. Am I becoming slightly sentimental about the American dollars? Yes.
Our resort was sweet with a free huge breakfast and nice pool, right on the beach too. It was interesting how hazy everything was, it wasn't cloudy ever, it's just that the sky was never...clear or blue. Just this amazing African haze that to me was very fitting. Don't know if it's different during the rainy season though. A British guy I talked to told me that in The Gambia they play a game called 'spot the cloud.'
Anyways the first day we really just walked around, got hassled by tons of people to take their tours and rent their bikes etc, also I was called 'Boss Lady' a lot, which will forever remain my favorite nickname I think...the ocean was lovely, the people are deeefinitely friendly, and we ended up meeting the coolest Gambian (part of the Jola tribe when we ate at his restaurant. His name was Bobuka or something like that, we called him Bob, and he was the youngest in his family, which he then told us that everyone with his name is the youngest in their family :) Very interesting, all the eldest children often have the same names too!
I think I will just have to write more later after I study some Danish, there is so much to tell....maybe another one tonight :)
First let me tell you a little background knowledge on Africa, which I have read in a book that I have called 'Africa' (how many times can I say Africa I wonder...especially before it loses meaning as a word...).
So! The continent of Africa itself is the oldest, and the deepest...remember when you see those little videos of how all the earth plates moved and were all together at the beginning, well, the piece that was Africa never ever moved. Africa also has very few mountains, because unlike the other plates, it's not colliding with itself and wedging one plate over or under another - in fact Africa is EXPANDING, how weird is that! You can see the continent 'stretch marks' somewhere in Ethiopia I think...besides that and random information about giraffes I think I should probably go one with my Gambian tales, oh wait - another interesting point maybe to remember is that, yes we all know Africa in general is underdeveloped, often disease ridden, and just way behind the times, BUT we often fail to realize that for A REALLY LONG TIME people (yes like us dear Americans) went there to take the biggest and strongest MALES (leaders) and make them do menial tasks. So yeah, didn't really help. :)
Anyways after getting a visa and random injections and flying for about 8 hours with a stop in the Grand Canaries (which I had no idea was a part of SPAIN), we arrived in the warmth and haziness that is The Gambia on the west coast of Africa! It was cheaper for us to arrive and not know where we'd say till we got there, and found out we were staying at Kombo Beach, this fancy resort which IRONICALLY I pretended was my address when I was filling out my visa, how coincidental is that!!
First thing besides the body odor we noticed was that EVERYONE wants to help you, everyone wants your money. You know how the 'I'm thinking Arbys' commercials have that hat above their head? It's like we had dollar signs above our heads. And everyone saw that...constantly. What else I have learned is that it would be really good to have planned to have lots of American one dollar bills with me...people definitely like those :) It's in the movies too, and looks so different from ALL the foreign currency I have dealt with so far. Am I becoming slightly sentimental about the American dollars? Yes.
Our resort was sweet with a free huge breakfast and nice pool, right on the beach too. It was interesting how hazy everything was, it wasn't cloudy ever, it's just that the sky was never...clear or blue. Just this amazing African haze that to me was very fitting. Don't know if it's different during the rainy season though. A British guy I talked to told me that in The Gambia they play a game called 'spot the cloud.'
Anyways the first day we really just walked around, got hassled by tons of people to take their tours and rent their bikes etc, also I was called 'Boss Lady' a lot, which will forever remain my favorite nickname I think...the ocean was lovely, the people are deeefinitely friendly, and we ended up meeting the coolest Gambian (part of the Jola tribe when we ate at his restaurant. His name was Bobuka or something like that, we called him Bob, and he was the youngest in his family, which he then told us that everyone with his name is the youngest in their family :) Very interesting, all the eldest children often have the same names too!
I think I will just have to write more later after I study some Danish, there is so much to tell....maybe another one tonight :)
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Corrections #1 (Just in case there will be more in the future)
So apparently London Bridge is in Arizona and Tower Bridge is the tacky one! Haha, makes more sense since it looks like towers, and hey I wasn't too off in the way I used to picture London Bridge after all! Pa enlightened me on this subject tonight, at first I thought it couldn't be true because I definitely remember a map saying 'London Bridge' but, I suppose the Tower Bridge is now the main bridge in London...anyways, sorry about that :)
Anyways, I am armed with a visa, yellow fever antibodies, and hepatitis A antibodies for tomorrow when I enter The Gambia :) And I just heard strange screaming outside....But as I will be getting up in about 3 hours (why am I constantly traveling like this...maybe it's like big kid Christmas and I just get far far far too excited...), and catching the airport-headed train at 5 40ish AM so I'd better get some sleep. :) Hopefully I'll be able to write a little bit while I'm there, I'm assuming there will be computers along with the monkeys and hippos? Ooh well when I think about it like that I am no longer so sure...
Hello WARMTH!!!
Anyways, I am armed with a visa, yellow fever antibodies, and hepatitis A antibodies for tomorrow when I enter The Gambia :) And I just heard strange screaming outside....But as I will be getting up in about 3 hours (why am I constantly traveling like this...maybe it's like big kid Christmas and I just get far far far too excited...), and catching the airport-headed train at 5 40ish AM so I'd better get some sleep. :) Hopefully I'll be able to write a little bit while I'm there, I'm assuming there will be computers along with the monkeys and hippos? Ooh well when I think about it like that I am no longer so sure...
Hello WARMTH!!!
London, the Land of Sun :)
Well! I've been back for about a week ... more than a week! How very sad :( Luckily I still have all my memory cells in place so can finally divulge the tales of my travels here, so let us begin... (just realized this truly is easier when you just get back, I'll remember that next time haha)
SO! First of all maybe you want a little idea of what happened the night before we left? It's pretty amusing really; Marcella and I went to some party quite far away in the city really, with the end result of a missed train, a cab, being vomited on in the Metro (the Metro people were just getting on too to the disgusting area we were still in as we were getting off and I was so worried March would get a ticket), walking home in the freezing cold in a dress and thankfully my kind neighbors coat and carrying my putrid smelling coat in a ball in front of me, convincing March she should shower, and then staying up forever doing my nasty washing :):) Haha, always an adventure though :)
Somehow we managed to wake up again for our early EasyJet flight, once again amazing flight, especially when we got the emergency exit row seats (is that what you call it? why do I feel like there is another term for those seats)...I will say this, EasyJet would not be good super-long distance because it's pretty cramped, my knees touch the normal-place seats so it was good to have a little more room this time. And what does one think when surrounded by people with British accents asking you if you want a drink or a pen for random papers we had to fill out? One thinks of Harry Potter I reckon...I thought about Harry Potter WAY TOO MUCH, especially when someone tells me what platform I need to take to get a train to London from Gatwick (we flew to Gatwick, cheaper that way)...
Sorry to get on a tangent here but this just stuck me as an important/sad memory - Recently (maybe this summer) on a flight in the US there was an elderly lady with white hair sitting in the emergency exit row and the flight attend lady was sooo rude to her, trying to convince her she couldn't lift open the door and she should move the the lady wanted to stay there and said she could do it, and the whole plane was really quiet and awkward feeling as this woman was being hassled, and eventually they made her move even and she was really sad about it. Granted she was super frail and timid looking, so just a very awkward situation really, because maybe the flight attendant had to do that but it just seemed...ahh, it seems like a memory better repressed. Yet now I have to share the awkwardness...
On another note I have a hole in the top of my sock and I feel poor :(
SO BACK TO LONDON. Well, the getting there part, the quick Gatwick express which took us promptly to London within 30 minutes...good train that one, and got to see London and the outskirts waking up, such pretty quaint houses in Europe, I really love imaging living in almost every building I pass in general so it's ultimate fun overseas...Not as many colored doors that Ireland boasted however.
OH - We also purchased and Oyster card on the plane, and I think it was a bit over 20 pounds, we had to pay a bit for the card itself (which is rechargeable and never expires), and 20 pounds of transit money on it (which is given at a discounted rate when you use a card and not buy individual tickets) SO, I recommend that to everyone. I think I still have maybe two rides left too next time I'm caught up in the bustle of London.
Anyways, get to Victoria station and walk out to try to figure out where we're at and it was just very pretty, just exactly what I would think London should look like except it was cleaner, you know how you compare (well I do) everything to how it looks in the movies? And London is always cramped and slightly dusty (ok...OLD London movies by I have a really bad concept of time), anyways, I was amazed with out clean everything was and just...nice! So we went straight to the closest British pub with our bags to get some chips (french fries) and I tried this strange British thing called...Ploughman's something, it was good, just cheese and pickle-relish and some other veggies. Interesting though. Then we went back to the station to try out the Underground system and GOODNESS what STEEP escalators they have there! I swear if you fell...everyone would die! And you would die the most! Very freaky but really awesome, often when leaving the CPH undergound metro you take two escalators to get to the top, I wis
h they'd just get one huge steep one so I can add a little more fright to my life everyday haha...The underground here went really fast, UNUSUALLY fast I think, and was really timely and it's also really hot down there. ALSO I forgot the next Olympics will be in London in 2012 (I guess they are not planning on the world ending in 2012), but basically this means that lots of lines were sometimes down for repairs since London's doing a lot of sprucing up apparently for the world to see later :) fair enough, I liked taking the red double-decker buses anyways and ALWAYS sitting on top.
When we got to wherever we were going we were RIGHT OUTSIDE THE LONDON TOWER! Which I thought was going to be just a tower, but no, its this almost 1000 year old castle type thing I think with all sorts of towers in it, but normal castle towers and not like...THE WILLIS TOWER. Heh heh, what a great name for a tower, I'm STILL celebrating that in my mind. So we looked at that and then went off to walk to our hostel...in doing this we WALKED ACROSS THE LONDON BRIDGE!! Oh and from the London Tower viewing platform we could see London's 'Gherkin' building looming beautiful in the distance. Really lovely how everything is just so close though I think :)
Let me say a little something about the London Bridge...we all sing about it falling over as kids and I don't really know why, and generally when I think about a bridge I picture the Golden Gate Bridge (regardless of the fact that I have never even seen that other than from an airplane), and so I pictured red metal. However, the London Bridge is more like some tacky castle...the concrete etc. of the bridge is beautiful yes, and appropriate for London's monarchical history I think, but the metal girders or whatever one would call them were the tackiest things we'd really ever seen....Painted bright blue and white and the metal railings also all blue and white...with such an ancient pretty stone background....I don't know. Maybe if I had seen pictures before of it I would've just accepted it but Marcella and I both had never really thought about what it would look like before and were equally shocked. Was more interesting this way of course! And we had a beautiful walk across it in the SUNSHINE, because it never rained or was even OVERCAST on us while we were in London (Yeah yeah we are just lucky, or maybe everyone's just too much of a downer about London's amazing weather, that'd be a much more interesting truth). I'd like to say that the London Bridge grew on me as well but in fact it didn't, though I like it for its strangeness. :)
Our hostel was alright once we found it, and definitely every in London seems super friendly as we had to ask a bunch of locals and even a bartender how to find it exactly, since when I was printed off our booking confirmation which I saw from the email had the address on it, my printer managed to ONLY leave off the address part which had been right in the middle of all the information too....Anyways we got a bus and the nice people (EAVESDROPPERS! Totally fine though I'm one too by accident), anyways the nice ladies on the bus told us when to get off because they heard us say where we were going when we were at the front of the bus! So we checked in through the overly complicated gate system, got our room which was very hard to open (sometimes we had to go get a different key, I still don't understand what was up with that door), and then got on our merry little way around London :)
I feel like I wrote so much about Berlin that I should break this trip up differently...and just put the things I saw more and not the nonsense ramblings that come so naturally about food and conversations and people...so let's see if I can manage that. But first a word for the wise - (is that a phrase? do you need to tell the wise more words?) - anyways the YHA Youth Hostel is alright but it is no St. Christopher's (which didn't have room for us). Lots of kids stay at a YHA and they charge you an extra 10 pound fee just to join their society for you to even stay there, which is sort of a rip. However the breakfast is AMAZING. Hot and English and just GOOD. Which maybe explains why we saw more large people in London than well, in CPH for example haha..
Anyways, a list of things we saw and did, sort of in order :)
~Ate at amazing Asian restaurant in Camden (though we didn't realize we were there until a day later haha, it was an accidental wandering when we had meant to go there before we began our journey anyways)
~I managed to lose my Oyster card within about 4 hours of first using it, then after digging through my pockets again and again and looking around, I backtracked and there it was! No one had even picked it up! And it looked so fresh and new and full of pounds...lucky me!
~Get directions from the nicest man working at the hostel who outlined good stops to get off at and how to get to a bus stop we were looking for (And extra point here - black people having British accents are somehow my favorite. I suddenly also feel like watching a Guy Ritchie film...he likes British accents too..)
~Have a nice walk along Canada Water and picture myself living in London because all the houses are just so quaint! Marcella also pointed out that if she was a bird, she would be the retarded bird we watched for a bit struggle to get into the water and walk and just do anything. She says some very amusing things my crazy flatmate...
~Walk and shop down Oxford Street. Sometimes it is just nice to indulge in the girl's fascination with shopping and clothes and new things and deals...very refreshing and affordable too, yay TopShop!
~Make our way to the Maple Arch (to be honest I have no idea why this arch was there so we, being tourists, got a photo with it haha) where we entered Hyde Park where there is 'Speakers Corner' and we wanted to see the people giving free speeches there on Sunday mornings, and SADLY it was a stupid angry black American standing on an American flag and just ... full of crap, calling the Europeans second class Americans and then saying how he studied law in all these fancy places and worked with London Parliament, and here is is drinking at 10 am and being a general ass (pardon my profanity but sometimes you just have to use the correct word you know? hehe)
~Went to the CAMDEN MARKETS, maybe one of my favorite parts of the trips, where we saw sooooooo many awesome things and shops and had so many food samples, finally settling on some type of French food that was very different and well, French I guess, who knows really I haven't ever tried their cuisine other than the occasional crepe...I could spend sooooo much time at the Camden Markets and I recommend going to anyone who goes to London, just a lovely time and so many crazy and interesting people! They also sell a TON of the most intensely gothic clothes yet I didn't see people dressed like that often, maybe I smartly and accidentally avoided all the right areas! :)
~Realized that London is really into Lions and statues of them, they sort of have them everywhere, and then later realizing that a Lion is one of the animals on the crest. And by the way does anyone else have trouble with always thinking of the cowardly lion when they see statues of lions? I don't think this happens to me when I see a real lion, because when I see one of those I am always in a zoo (so far), and I always am just wanting it to move or walk towards me or roar, however statues make me think of wizard of oz...oh what has the media done to me!
~Did ultimate bargain shopping in a 99 pence shop :) Also realized that I don't think the UK uses shillings anymore...just pence. I always quite liked the idea of a shilling, so maybe I'm just wrong and I didn't understand the pence thing :)
~Walk to Buckingham Palace...SOOO amazingly huge. Those poor guards out front too, walking all funky whenever they even get the chance to move around. This Palace was actually really beautiful and so was the gate and fountain and park around it...very fancy for the Queen! Haha I still find it sort of amusing that...monarchies in these ultimately civilized countries still exist...it just seems so...I don't know...unnecessary? I can understand it's tradition and maybe they need someone's face for their currency...haha...Just amuses me to imagine the US with a king because I CAN'T! Guess you just have to grow up with it to even ... imagine it's normal. It just seems so fairytale-esque to me. ALSO, I am very confused as to why everywhere surrounding the large area leading right up to the palace and around the big fountain was surrounded with flags alternating between South Africa and the UK. Is it really just for the World Cup as my friend Mahmoud suggested? I cannot think of a reason...
~All the London taxis are really sweet looking and everyone should know this. Also there are far too many red phone booths with no one using them and they are all so close together. Very weird London, very weird. I do enjoy different thing though :)
~Walked to the Big Ben WHICH IS SO MUCH MORE BEAUTIFUL AND IMPRESSIVE THAN I HAD THOUGHT IT WOULD BE, and then also my friend Ben let me know that Big Ben is the name of the bell inside and not the tower surrounding it, but oh well, I'm calling it that just so people know I'm not talking about a bell I can't see :) Big Ben seemed very connected to the Houses of Parliament, and this is by far one of my favorite buildings in the WORLD. On a sunny day it is just...just breathtaking. The type of building you can just stare at, and would love walking past everyday.
~Found a random stern faced guard to stand creepishly close to in order to get a creepish photo, I definitely wish I could just break all rules all the time and tickle the guards. But then they might...shoot me :(
~Walked to Westminster Abbey which was not just one giant building like I thought but quiet a few. However I could not break through the giant doors apparently and enter, and no one else seemed to know how, I think they lock them on Sundays, and as it was cold we moved on across the Thames...
~To the London Eye! What a giant ferris wheel thing! We didn't go up in it, though they don't seem to rock like normal ferris wheels and ohhhh I just remember going up in them with Kirk and Kyle who'd just rock and rock and I wanted to cry ahhh so frightening, haha I was SUCH a little wimp :) But this thing looks just crazy, and apparently Brisbane in OZ has a Brisbane Eye too :) Haha, I love when cities blatantly copy each other :)
~Tried to see Alice in Wonderland at the Imax there since we knew it was very close to the London Eye and well I am a huge fan of Alice in Wonderland and not only has Marcelle never seen it, she's never seen a 3-D movie, so while trying to figure out how to enter this mysterious building by walking along it around this tiny unfriendly-for-humans sidewalk, we realized the entrance must be from underground...only to get there and find out it was sold out for the next two weeks haha...
~Ran into the London film festival then as we were looking for a place to eat so went there and saw a Georgia film, which was, hands down, the WEIRDEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN. I have now managed to see the weird side of the film festival deal, I think I had slight nightmares about it (and day-mares about it). It was crazy because everyone else was like 'wow WHAT IN THE WORLD', and no one even clapped when it was over, we just felt relieved, it was just...it was called 'The Color of Pomegranates' in case anyone is interested in googling one of the scariest things in the world.
~Had more amazing Thai food at this fancy fancy place with this little boy womanizer waiter who was pretty worthless but the food was so good it did not matter :) Plus we were NOT in Georgia so once again, everything was good :)
~Walked all the way to the Tower of London from our hostel on another nice sunny morning and saw a guy buffering the wooden banister...(is that what you call the thing you put your hand on? I feel like I don't know what a banister is anymore!!! Ahh! Is my brain melting!?) Anyways...he was buffering this wooden..thing you normally put your hands on on the London Bridge. And I wondered, if they keep doing that how long before nothing is left and then they have to get new ...things... and how old is this? From the beginning? So then I touched it just in case they were super old and precious :)
~Took a semi-guided tour of the Tower of London...saw where people had their heads chopped of. It was overpriced but it was educational and very cool to be in it :) Also seeing the crown jewels was RIDICULOUSLY AMAZING. High security too. Seeing torture devices and where the block and ax for the head chopping was not so amazing, more like, my stomach twisted and then I felt guilty for being so intrigued...ALSO, there used to be a moat around this tower of London (naturally), but apparently it ended up being the largest outdoors toilet soooo it is now just grass :)
~Mazed my way through the city trying to find the Gherkin (which I kept calling the Egg because come on, a pickle is all bumpy...why is a pickle all bumpy???), which was more difficult then one would imagine because other buildings block the view, and therefore ended up seeing business London around lunch, which was so brisk, crisp, professional, and they don't wear coats over their suits whats up with that! But when BOOM there it was, and I was a happy person :)
~Pretended I would be grown up and go into a coffee shop while we tried to figure out where the St. Patrick's Cathedral was from where we were at, and ended up with the most amazing hot chocolate and lemon cheesecake...oh wouldn't that be nice right now!
~Saw the beautiful and HUGE St. Patrick's Cathedral, you seriously cannot even fit that thing in a photo...and it had been on fire during the great fire of London too1
~Sort of accidentally wondered into the Museum of London which is still being...done...so wasn't that impressive, especially since what we wanted to see most was about the Black Plague and the great fire and that part was the smallest of all! But still good, thankfully they had recommended donations and so we donated...the smallest coins :) Hey we are poor students!
~Went into the Portrait Gallery of London which is free and AMAZING, and right on Trafalgar Square which is so pretty, you can see Big Ben in the background, and anyways seeing all of these famous portraits is actually...really really awesome. And getting to read more about them too. King Henry VIII was SUCH a player, and ironically in his portraits his crotchal region was always super emphasized...tsk tsk. I also took photos in there and after a LONG TIME was attacked because apparently it wasn't allowed...but I still have them. My life of crime continues!
~Had a great wander around, got an amazing little notebook that I now use to write down my greatest wish or desire every day on one line (as you can tell I RAMBLE too much to make a daily diary type thing feasible, I've tried and fail and one line is I think my only option), and got some fish and chips and...PEAS? whats up with that London...
~Went to see Alice and Wonderland 3D! :):):) It was amaaaazing, Tim Burton is so delightfully weird. And then we went home because we had to leave early the next morning, and so kindly our Hostel gave us breakfast to go on our walk and train ride back home :)
So that is London in a sunny nutshell and now I will upload photos. Sorry it took me so long to update this but I thought maybe I wouldn't ramble so much if I waited a few day, however this does not prove to be the case at all. So now, I give up :) My next trip will be updated much more promptly...
SO! First of all maybe you want a little idea of what happened the night before we left? It's pretty amusing really; Marcella and I went to some party quite far away in the city really, with the end result of a missed train, a cab, being vomited on in the Metro (the Metro people were just getting on too to the disgusting area we were still in as we were getting off and I was so worried March would get a ticket), walking home in the freezing cold in a dress and thankfully my kind neighbors coat and carrying my putrid smelling coat in a ball in front of me, convincing March she should shower, and then staying up forever doing my nasty washing :):) Haha, always an adventure though :)
Somehow we managed to wake up again for our early EasyJet flight, once again amazing flight, especially when we got the emergency exit row seats (is that what you call it? why do I feel like there is another term for those seats)...I will say this, EasyJet would not be good super-long distance because it's pretty cramped, my knees touch the normal-place seats so it was good to have a little more room this time. And what does one think when surrounded by people with British accents asking you if you want a drink or a pen for random papers we had to fill out? One thinks of Harry Potter I reckon...I thought about Harry Potter WAY TOO MUCH, especially when someone tells me what platform I need to take to get a train to London from Gatwick (we flew to Gatwick, cheaper that way)...
Sorry to get on a tangent here but this just stuck me as an important/sad memory - Recently (maybe this summer) on a flight in the US there was an elderly lady with white hair sitting in the emergency exit row and the flight attend lady was sooo rude to her, trying to convince her she couldn't lift open the door and she should move the the lady wanted to stay there and said she could do it, and the whole plane was really quiet and awkward feeling as this woman was being hassled, and eventually they made her move even and she was really sad about it. Granted she was super frail and timid looking, so just a very awkward situation really, because maybe the flight attendant had to do that but it just seemed...ahh, it seems like a memory better repressed. Yet now I have to share the awkwardness...
On another note I have a hole in the top of my sock and I feel poor :(
SO BACK TO LONDON. Well, the getting there part, the quick Gatwick express which took us promptly to London within 30 minutes...good train that one, and got to see London and the outskirts waking up, such pretty quaint houses in Europe, I really love imaging living in almost every building I pass in general so it's ultimate fun overseas...Not as many colored doors that Ireland boasted however.
OH - We also purchased and Oyster card on the plane, and I think it was a bit over 20 pounds, we had to pay a bit for the card itself (which is rechargeable and never expires), and 20 pounds of transit money on it (which is given at a discounted rate when you use a card and not buy individual tickets) SO, I recommend that to everyone. I think I still have maybe two rides left too next time I'm caught up in the bustle of London.
Anyways, get to Victoria station and walk out to try to figure out where we're at and it was just very pretty, just exactly what I would think London should look like except it was cleaner, you know how you compare (well I do) everything to how it looks in the movies? And London is always cramped and slightly dusty (ok...OLD London movies by I have a really bad concept of time), anyways, I was amazed with out clean everything was and just...nice! So we went straight to the closest British pub with our bags to get some chips (french fries) and I tried this strange British thing called...Ploughman's something, it was good, just cheese and pickle-relish and some other veggies. Interesting though. Then we went back to the station to try out the Underground system and GOODNESS what STEEP escalators they have there! I swear if you fell...everyone would die! And you would die the most! Very freaky but really awesome, often when leaving the CPH undergound metro you take two escalators to get to the top, I wis
h they'd just get one huge steep one so I can add a little more fright to my life everyday haha...The underground here went really fast, UNUSUALLY fast I think, and was really timely and it's also really hot down there. ALSO I forgot the next Olympics will be in London in 2012 (I guess they are not planning on the world ending in 2012), but basically this means that lots of lines were sometimes down for repairs since London's doing a lot of sprucing up apparently for the world to see later :) fair enough, I liked taking the red double-decker buses anyways and ALWAYS sitting on top.
When we got to wherever we were going we were RIGHT OUTSIDE THE LONDON TOWER! Which I thought was going to be just a tower, but no, its this almost 1000 year old castle type thing I think with all sorts of towers in it, but normal castle towers and not like...THE WILLIS TOWER. Heh heh, what a great name for a tower, I'm STILL celebrating that in my mind. So we looked at that and then went off to walk to our hostel...in doing this we WALKED ACROSS THE LONDON BRIDGE!! Oh and from the London Tower viewing platform we could see London's 'Gherkin' building looming beautiful in the distance. Really lovely how everything is just so close though I think :)
Let me say a little something about the London Bridge...we all sing about it falling over as kids and I don't really know why, and generally when I think about a bridge I picture the Golden Gate Bridge (regardless of the fact that I have never even seen that other than from an airplane), and so I pictured red metal. However, the London Bridge is more like some tacky castle...the concrete etc. of the bridge is beautiful yes, and appropriate for London's monarchical history I think, but the metal girders or whatever one would call them were the tackiest things we'd really ever seen....Painted bright blue and white and the metal railings also all blue and white...with such an ancient pretty stone background....I don't know. Maybe if I had seen pictures before of it I would've just accepted it but Marcella and I both had never really thought about what it would look like before and were equally shocked. Was more interesting this way of course! And we had a beautiful walk across it in the SUNSHINE, because it never rained or was even OVERCAST on us while we were in London (Yeah yeah we are just lucky, or maybe everyone's just too much of a downer about London's amazing weather, that'd be a much more interesting truth). I'd like to say that the London Bridge grew on me as well but in fact it didn't, though I like it for its strangeness. :)
Our hostel was alright once we found it, and definitely every in London seems super friendly as we had to ask a bunch of locals and even a bartender how to find it exactly, since when I was printed off our booking confirmation which I saw from the email had the address on it, my printer managed to ONLY leave off the address part which had been right in the middle of all the information too....Anyways we got a bus and the nice people (EAVESDROPPERS! Totally fine though I'm one too by accident), anyways the nice ladies on the bus told us when to get off because they heard us say where we were going when we were at the front of the bus! So we checked in through the overly complicated gate system, got our room which was very hard to open (sometimes we had to go get a different key, I still don't understand what was up with that door), and then got on our merry little way around London :)
I feel like I wrote so much about Berlin that I should break this trip up differently...and just put the things I saw more and not the nonsense ramblings that come so naturally about food and conversations and people...so let's see if I can manage that. But first a word for the wise - (is that a phrase? do you need to tell the wise more words?) - anyways the YHA Youth Hostel is alright but it is no St. Christopher's (which didn't have room for us). Lots of kids stay at a YHA and they charge you an extra 10 pound fee just to join their society for you to even stay there, which is sort of a rip. However the breakfast is AMAZING. Hot and English and just GOOD. Which maybe explains why we saw more large people in London than well, in CPH for example haha..
Anyways, a list of things we saw and did, sort of in order :)
~Ate at amazing Asian restaurant in Camden (though we didn't realize we were there until a day later haha, it was an accidental wandering when we had meant to go there before we began our journey anyways)
~I managed to lose my Oyster card within about 4 hours of first using it, then after digging through my pockets again and again and looking around, I backtracked and there it was! No one had even picked it up! And it looked so fresh and new and full of pounds...lucky me!
~Get directions from the nicest man working at the hostel who outlined good stops to get off at and how to get to a bus stop we were looking for (And extra point here - black people having British accents are somehow my favorite. I suddenly also feel like watching a Guy Ritchie film...he likes British accents too..)
~Have a nice walk along Canada Water and picture myself living in London because all the houses are just so quaint! Marcella also pointed out that if she was a bird, she would be the retarded bird we watched for a bit struggle to get into the water and walk and just do anything. She says some very amusing things my crazy flatmate...
~Walk and shop down Oxford Street. Sometimes it is just nice to indulge in the girl's fascination with shopping and clothes and new things and deals...very refreshing and affordable too, yay TopShop!
~Make our way to the Maple Arch (to be honest I have no idea why this arch was there so we, being tourists, got a photo with it haha) where we entered Hyde Park where there is 'Speakers Corner' and we wanted to see the people giving free speeches there on Sunday mornings, and SADLY it was a stupid angry black American standing on an American flag and just ... full of crap, calling the Europeans second class Americans and then saying how he studied law in all these fancy places and worked with London Parliament, and here is is drinking at 10 am and being a general ass (pardon my profanity but sometimes you just have to use the correct word you know? hehe)
~Went to the CAMDEN MARKETS, maybe one of my favorite parts of the trips, where we saw sooooooo many awesome things and shops and had so many food samples, finally settling on some type of French food that was very different and well, French I guess, who knows really I haven't ever tried their cuisine other than the occasional crepe...I could spend sooooo much time at the Camden Markets and I recommend going to anyone who goes to London, just a lovely time and so many crazy and interesting people! They also sell a TON of the most intensely gothic clothes yet I didn't see people dressed like that often, maybe I smartly and accidentally avoided all the right areas! :)
~Realized that London is really into Lions and statues of them, they sort of have them everywhere, and then later realizing that a Lion is one of the animals on the crest. And by the way does anyone else have trouble with always thinking of the cowardly lion when they see statues of lions? I don't think this happens to me when I see a real lion, because when I see one of those I am always in a zoo (so far), and I always am just wanting it to move or walk towards me or roar, however statues make me think of wizard of oz...oh what has the media done to me!
~Did ultimate bargain shopping in a 99 pence shop :) Also realized that I don't think the UK uses shillings anymore...just pence. I always quite liked the idea of a shilling, so maybe I'm just wrong and I didn't understand the pence thing :)
~Walk to Buckingham Palace...SOOO amazingly huge. Those poor guards out front too, walking all funky whenever they even get the chance to move around. This Palace was actually really beautiful and so was the gate and fountain and park around it...very fancy for the Queen! Haha I still find it sort of amusing that...monarchies in these ultimately civilized countries still exist...it just seems so...I don't know...unnecessary? I can understand it's tradition and maybe they need someone's face for their currency...haha...Just amuses me to imagine the US with a king because I CAN'T! Guess you just have to grow up with it to even ... imagine it's normal. It just seems so fairytale-esque to me. ALSO, I am very confused as to why everywhere surrounding the large area leading right up to the palace and around the big fountain was surrounded with flags alternating between South Africa and the UK. Is it really just for the World Cup as my friend Mahmoud suggested? I cannot think of a reason...
~All the London taxis are really sweet looking and everyone should know this. Also there are far too many red phone booths with no one using them and they are all so close together. Very weird London, very weird. I do enjoy different thing though :)
~Walked to the Big Ben WHICH IS SO MUCH MORE BEAUTIFUL AND IMPRESSIVE THAN I HAD THOUGHT IT WOULD BE, and then also my friend Ben let me know that Big Ben is the name of the bell inside and not the tower surrounding it, but oh well, I'm calling it that just so people know I'm not talking about a bell I can't see :) Big Ben seemed very connected to the Houses of Parliament, and this is by far one of my favorite buildings in the WORLD. On a sunny day it is just...just breathtaking. The type of building you can just stare at, and would love walking past everyday.
~Found a random stern faced guard to stand creepishly close to in order to get a creepish photo, I definitely wish I could just break all rules all the time and tickle the guards. But then they might...shoot me :(
~Walked to Westminster Abbey which was not just one giant building like I thought but quiet a few. However I could not break through the giant doors apparently and enter, and no one else seemed to know how, I think they lock them on Sundays, and as it was cold we moved on across the Thames...
~To the London Eye! What a giant ferris wheel thing! We didn't go up in it, though they don't seem to rock like normal ferris wheels and ohhhh I just remember going up in them with Kirk and Kyle who'd just rock and rock and I wanted to cry ahhh so frightening, haha I was SUCH a little wimp :) But this thing looks just crazy, and apparently Brisbane in OZ has a Brisbane Eye too :) Haha, I love when cities blatantly copy each other :)
~Tried to see Alice in Wonderland at the Imax there since we knew it was very close to the London Eye and well I am a huge fan of Alice in Wonderland and not only has Marcelle never seen it, she's never seen a 3-D movie, so while trying to figure out how to enter this mysterious building by walking along it around this tiny unfriendly-for-humans sidewalk, we realized the entrance must be from underground...only to get there and find out it was sold out for the next two weeks haha...
~Ran into the London film festival then as we were looking for a place to eat so went there and saw a Georgia film, which was, hands down, the WEIRDEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN. I have now managed to see the weird side of the film festival deal, I think I had slight nightmares about it (and day-mares about it). It was crazy because everyone else was like 'wow WHAT IN THE WORLD', and no one even clapped when it was over, we just felt relieved, it was just...it was called 'The Color of Pomegranates' in case anyone is interested in googling one of the scariest things in the world.
~Had more amazing Thai food at this fancy fancy place with this little boy womanizer waiter who was pretty worthless but the food was so good it did not matter :) Plus we were NOT in Georgia so once again, everything was good :)
~Walked all the way to the Tower of London from our hostel on another nice sunny morning and saw a guy buffering the wooden banister...(is that what you call the thing you put your hand on? I feel like I don't know what a banister is anymore!!! Ahh! Is my brain melting!?) Anyways...he was buffering this wooden..thing you normally put your hands on on the London Bridge. And I wondered, if they keep doing that how long before nothing is left and then they have to get new ...things... and how old is this? From the beginning? So then I touched it just in case they were super old and precious :)
~Took a semi-guided tour of the Tower of London...saw where people had their heads chopped of. It was overpriced but it was educational and very cool to be in it :) Also seeing the crown jewels was RIDICULOUSLY AMAZING. High security too. Seeing torture devices and where the block and ax for the head chopping was not so amazing, more like, my stomach twisted and then I felt guilty for being so intrigued...ALSO, there used to be a moat around this tower of London (naturally), but apparently it ended up being the largest outdoors toilet soooo it is now just grass :)
~Mazed my way through the city trying to find the Gherkin (which I kept calling the Egg because come on, a pickle is all bumpy...why is a pickle all bumpy???), which was more difficult then one would imagine because other buildings block the view, and therefore ended up seeing business London around lunch, which was so brisk, crisp, professional, and they don't wear coats over their suits whats up with that! But when BOOM there it was, and I was a happy person :)
~Pretended I would be grown up and go into a coffee shop while we tried to figure out where the St. Patrick's Cathedral was from where we were at, and ended up with the most amazing hot chocolate and lemon cheesecake...oh wouldn't that be nice right now!
~Saw the beautiful and HUGE St. Patrick's Cathedral, you seriously cannot even fit that thing in a photo...and it had been on fire during the great fire of London too1
~Sort of accidentally wondered into the Museum of London which is still being...done...so wasn't that impressive, especially since what we wanted to see most was about the Black Plague and the great fire and that part was the smallest of all! But still good, thankfully they had recommended donations and so we donated...the smallest coins :) Hey we are poor students!
~Went into the Portrait Gallery of London which is free and AMAZING, and right on Trafalgar Square which is so pretty, you can see Big Ben in the background, and anyways seeing all of these famous portraits is actually...really really awesome. And getting to read more about them too. King Henry VIII was SUCH a player, and ironically in his portraits his crotchal region was always super emphasized...tsk tsk. I also took photos in there and after a LONG TIME was attacked because apparently it wasn't allowed...but I still have them. My life of crime continues!
~Had a great wander around, got an amazing little notebook that I now use to write down my greatest wish or desire every day on one line (as you can tell I RAMBLE too much to make a daily diary type thing feasible, I've tried and fail and one line is I think my only option), and got some fish and chips and...PEAS? whats up with that London...
~Went to see Alice and Wonderland 3D! :):):) It was amaaaazing, Tim Burton is so delightfully weird. And then we went home because we had to leave early the next morning, and so kindly our Hostel gave us breakfast to go on our walk and train ride back home :)
So that is London in a sunny nutshell and now I will upload photos. Sorry it took me so long to update this but I thought maybe I wouldn't ramble so much if I waited a few day, however this does not prove to be the case at all. So now, I give up :) My next trip will be updated much more promptly...
Monday, March 15, 2010
You know how sometimes you end up watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch all night?
....instead of making a London blog post? Yeah...I'm sure you do, therefore you understand why I still haven't made it :) But it is on my list of things to do today - in capital letters even! I just did some massive shopping...way too much shopping I'm slightly ashamed...so much food! At least I ... wait I have on idea where you get shopping carts in Bilka (It's apparently not Bilkas, which I have been/still am calling it...don't know why!) Anyways I can only buy as much as I can carry so I was very happy the rice was unavailable! Too much weight I am a week person!
So while I'm ABOUT to put my food away, thought I would mention a few things to future long term travelers...
BRING PASSPORT PHOTOS WITH YOU.
I happened to have maybe 4 when I got here, or just 3 leftover and thought 'oh I'll take those just in case, no sense in them staying at Purdue.' Well I am already on my last one as of tomorrow - never know when you're going to need a random visa to enter another random country!
There was something else...Hmm...I don't know, but Sabrina the Teenage Witch is an awesome show. Somehow i just ended up thinking about it and then my friend showed me a link for it online and basically...awesome night! I used to be SO into that show, and now I still am but I can't tell how much of it is just sentimental. But now I will go put away groceries!
Did I manage to fool everyone in Bilka and other random shops I visited that I was Danish? Yes. I now even mix up saying 'Tak' with 'Tak for det' (thanks for that), and sometimes I say 'Selv tak' when they say tak first...means 'thanks back'...oh yeah. Definitely turning Danish over here :)
Another point to make - The Danes really like their healthy popcorn, its either basically fat/goodness free or slightly salted. Do I miss 'Extra ultimate movie theatre butter'? Yes. Will I need to start some sort of fitness plan when I return home? Definitely.
:)
So while I'm ABOUT to put my food away, thought I would mention a few things to future long term travelers...
BRING PASSPORT PHOTOS WITH YOU.
I happened to have maybe 4 when I got here, or just 3 leftover and thought 'oh I'll take those just in case, no sense in them staying at Purdue.' Well I am already on my last one as of tomorrow - never know when you're going to need a random visa to enter another random country!
There was something else...Hmm...I don't know, but Sabrina the Teenage Witch is an awesome show. Somehow i just ended up thinking about it and then my friend showed me a link for it online and basically...awesome night! I used to be SO into that show, and now I still am but I can't tell how much of it is just sentimental. But now I will go put away groceries!
Did I manage to fool everyone in Bilka and other random shops I visited that I was Danish? Yes. I now even mix up saying 'Tak' with 'Tak for det' (thanks for that), and sometimes I say 'Selv tak' when they say tak first...means 'thanks back'...oh yeah. Definitely turning Danish over here :)
Another point to make - The Danes really like their healthy popcorn, its either basically fat/goodness free or slightly salted. Do I miss 'Extra ultimate movie theatre butter'? Yes. Will I need to start some sort of fitness plan when I return home? Definitely.
:)
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