klinsenbardt's Xanga

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Sun, 07 May 2006 06:55:02 GMT

Farewell

For a year before coming here I wondered about what it would be like to study in London for a whole semester. Now I'm wondering just as much what it will be like to finally go home. I miss my friends, I miss my family, I miss having a normal routine, and a comfortable bed. I'm just exhausted, mentally, physically, and emotionally and I'm very ready to finally come home and get a big hug from everyone. But there is a part of me that wishes I could stay here....or at least that I could somehow uproot the state of Missouri and make it a suburb of London. I was hoping that I would change as a person, and I feel like I have. I feel like I've grown up a lot and learned SO MUCH about myself. I have also fully realized the existance of a BIG, REAL, EXCITING world out there that can actually be experienced and touched. And I have experienced a good part of it.... and my feet have landed in 6 different countries, and I've run my hand over some of the most important pieces of world history. I've done, seen, and learned so much about the world and myself but apart from that I think the most significant part of my experience over here is that I feel like I have truly LIVED over the past 4 months. I've had so much fun, gone outside my comfort zone, made friends with people I never would have considered before, released my inhabitions and thrown everything to the wind. Every morning I have woken up EXCITED for what was to come my way that day, week, or month, and every day I did the best I could to do and see and experience everything that was in my power. Never before have I been able to say that and who knows if I'll ever be able to say that again. I have loved every minute I have been here and will cherish the hilarious memories, THOUSANDS of pictures (honestly....thousands), and friendships for the rest of my life. London, I will miss you and I will miss the person I have been here...but hopefully I will be able to take a piece of her with me back to Missouri.

My suitcases are all packed. My room is clean (relatively...). My taxi is coming in an hour. We'll go to Paddington Station and then take the Heathrow express into the airport. Everything is taken care of. Now all I have to do is say goodbye......

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Sat, 06 May 2006 12:57:00 GMT

*Tears*Tears*Tears*

Carly left today at 12:15. We all got up and went to breakfast together. Carly and I shared our last cups of Earl Grey. About an hour before her taxi everyone started converging on our room to goof around a little and finally say goodbye. I had to walk out of the room at one point because I burst out crying. Weird. I never cry. Then we carried her stuff through the turn-stiles for her and sent her on her way. We could all tell that as soon as she sat in the taxi she was starting to lose it. We ran around the circle and met the taxi on the other side just to wave one more time. It's was so hard saying goodbye when I have no idea when I will see her again. That has been the theme of the week for me....

I've spent the afternoon by myself packing, walking around the park, and last minute souvenir shopping on Baker Street. It's starting to rain. How fitting. Four gorgeous days of warmth and sunshine and now, in my last few hours of being here it's raining. Everything is pretty much packed up. I have no idea how it all fit, but my suitcases are SO heavy! Full of new clothes, dirty clothes, souvenirs, and memories.

Friday, May 05, 2006

Fri, 05 May 2006 16:40:19 GMT

Only a few more days left for sightseeing and saying goodbye! (Primrose Hill, St. Paul's, the Tate Modern and a dorm crawl)

We are so fortunate that the weather in London has been insanely gorgeous for the past 3 days! As soon as finals were over (and thank goodness they are finally over!) the clouds disappeared and the sun shone bright...VERY RARE!! We spent yesterday sleeping in and recouperating from a fun night out Thursday night. Practically EVERYONE from Reid Hall hung out at Tuke Bar and then headed to O'neill's in Piccadilly Circus where the live band kept taking our requests and dedicating songs to the crazy kids from Regent's College! So fun! So we slept in on Thursday and then Carly, Jackie, Nikki and I walked through the park to Primrose Hill. We had been told by people that we should check Primrose out, so we went not really knowing what to expect. But it is indeed a hill. There were people laying in the grass everywhere and there was a great view of the city at the top. Laying in the grass with my girls overlooking the city we are going to miss SO MUCH on a BEAUTIFUL spring day is EXACTLY the kind of stuff I want to be doing during my last few days here. Thursday night pretty much everyone who is still here took part in a huge "dorm crawl." Our room was one of the rooms on the list so we had to do a little cleaning and decorating. 30 people ended up "crawling" from room to room and I have NO clue how we fit that many people in our tiny little 315! It was a fun, crazy night though. A good way to say goodbye to the people who were leaving early this morning.

Trey left last week. Tanor left at 3am last night. Nilda left at 8. Chris left this morning at noon. *sniffle* It was weird saying goodbye because it almost doesn't feel real. I still feel like I'm going to walk upstairs and they're going still to be goofing around in the hallway or something. I'm sad to think of what it will be like tomorrow when I have to say goodbye to Carly. I know she's going to cry...she's just like that...but I have no idea how I'm going to be. But I'll definitely see her again, no question. She's promised to come to Drury to visit..hopefully for Bid Day in the fall. But I guess we'll see.....

It was still one of my goals to see St. Paul's and the Tate Modern, so Brittany offered that I could come with her and her family who is here visiting for a week. This worked out great because everyone I know but me has already been there and didn't want to pay to see it again. So we left around 10 and picked her family up from their hotel on Edgeware and made our way to the cathedral. It is HUGE and has the 3rd largest dome in the world. It's funny because it looks a lot like what our capital buildings in the states look like..hardly at all like a cathedral. We walked around inside for a while and then climbed the 530ish stairs to the top of the dome. SO exhausting, but really really worth it. Allison was right when she told me the view is better than from the London Eye. You could see EVERYTHING! and it was such a perfect day too! Then we went underneath the cathedral to the crypts. The Duke of Wellington, Florence Nightengale, Van Dyck, and Lord Nelson (AND his horse....weird) are all buried here. Very cool. After seeing everything in the cathedral we walked across the millenium bridge to check out the Tate Modern. Honestly I wasn't impressed at all. The building itself was really ugly, I thought, and the interior is going through some major construction, so only 2 out of the 5 floors were actually open. Disappointing! But I did get to see a bunch of really cool Jackson Polluck paintings along with a few Picassos. Then we headed back across the river and ate a really good lunch at Strada, an Italian restaurant. YUM! Britt's family was a lot of fun and they insisted on paying for everything. SO nice!

After my adventures with the Hopp family I headed back to school while they headed off to see Covent Garden. It's my friend Andy's 21st birthday today (YAY!) and all the guys were planning on sitting out in the park with a trashcan full of ice and beer, playing frisbee. So I went out and showed them my skills (hehe!). We're going out later to celebrate more, but for now everyone is spending their time packing. Speaking of....I should probably do that. I haven't even started and I have NO CLUE how I'm gonna fit everything back into my suitcases. Oh well!!

I'll see everyone in a few days!!!!!

Monday, May 01, 2006

Mon, 01 May 2006 18:02:42 GMT

Westminster Abbey (a whole lotta cool dead people!)

Today was the May Day bank holiday which means an extra day off of classes and a WONDERFUL (and very helpful) 4 day weekend for us students to finish our mountains of papers and study for our mountains of finals in the coming week. So we took this opportunity to not only spend hours in the computer lab and library, but to spend more time seeing and doing what we still have left to see and do in London. Thursday night Nikki and I went out to a club called O'Neill's in Piccadilly Circus and had the funnest night with 7 Spanish rugby players that we met there. SO FUNNY! Then I spent all of Saturday working on research and writing papers. Blah! (and it was SUCH a beautiful day too!!) Sunday was spent sleeping in and then walking through the park on what will probably be our last trip to Camden Market. I found a bunch of gifts there for people I was still shopping for and found a really cute skirt on top of that! Definitely a successful shopping trip! After that we spent a fun night hanging out with everyone in the dorms playing games and watching movies. Then today Cyndi and I decided to go see Westminster Abbey. I still have several things left on my list to do this week and seeing Westminster is now one I can cross off my list....FINALLY!

Because it was a holiday the line to get in was SOOO long, but it moved pretty fast and we got in within about a half an hour. Not too bad. Compared to the other hundreds of churches, basilicas, and cathedrals I've seen in my travels, Westminster Abbey architecturally isn't that impressive. It's historical significance and the hundreds of important people who are buried within its walls which make it SO interesting. I saw the tombs to pretty much every monarch that has sat on the throne of England, most importantly Elizabeth I, Edward I, Henry VII, Mary Queen of Scots, Richard I, and Oliver Cromwell. I also saw the coronation chair where every monarch has been crowned since 1301. Although it was pretty cool, the chair was made out of plain wood and looked like it was about to fall apart! After that we saw poets corner, where about 120 writers and artists are buried. Being able to stand at the burial site of SO MANY important writers has been one of the coolest experiences I've had here in London. I stood on Alfred Lord Tennyson's grave marker (yes, Donny, you're uncle!), as well as Charles Dickens, D.H. Lawrence, Lord Byron, and Rudyard Kipling. I also saw Jane Austen's grave marker (she's my FAVORITE!!) as well as Charlotte and Emily Bronte's and even Handel. The walls of the Abbey were also COVERED in monuments and memorials to certain families and famous people in English history, including Franklin Roosevelt, Shakespeare, Sir Isaac Newton, and Winston Churchill. There was also a Grave of the Unknown Warrior (which I thought was a kind of funny comparison to the wording of our Tomb of the Unknown Soldier) that was pretty cool. Walking through Westminster was kind of like wandering through a really huge time capsule.....but a time capsule made of dead people...if that makes any sense. It was SO cool and packed to the brim with British history. I'm really glad I finally made it there!

Left on my list of things to do in my last week in London:

St. Paul's Cathedral Abbey Road the Tate Modern picnic in the Park

the Peter Pan statue/Hyde Park souvenir shopping cleaning

getting everything into my suitcases saying goodbye crying

figuring out how to get to Heathrow Airport with all my stuff

.......We'll see how much of this actually gets accomplished..........

Saturday, April 29, 2006

Sat, 29 Apr 2006 10:21:01 GMT

A Beautiful day in Kew Gardens (and a little venting....)

Here at Regent's we don't have classes on Fridays, which is really nice because it gives extra time for travelling and homework, which is especially nice the week before finals and the week before we all go home. HOWEVER, this week was different. My wonderful English Palaces professor, Brady, decided at the last minute that it would be a good idea to schedule a Friday fieldtrip for our class to Kew Gardens. BOOO! I was hoping to use this entire weekend for doing and seeing things in the city that I hadn't gotten to yet, and this fieldtrip really ruined my plans..... In actuality it turned out to be a really really fun day! Only about 9 people out of our class actually showed up at Kew yesterday morning. The smaller group meant that, for once, Brady walked a little slower and talked a little louder and gave us more freedom to suggest where to go and what to see next. I had been to Kew Gardens earlier in the semester with my drawing class, but since it was still cold then, there was hardly ANYTHING blooming. Yesterday was completely different. There were tulips EVERYWHERE and every other tree was covered in white, pink or red blossoms. GORGEOUS!

Apparently Brady used to give tours here when he was a student, so he knows quite a bit about the Gardens. The gardens, in some form, have been here for hundreds of years as a sort of royal plant collection of all the plant life that has been taken from every part of the earth the British Empire ever touched. This is what makes Kew the only garden of its kind with the most variety of plant life in the world! In fact, in the middle of our tour we were walking in a field and noticed a little tree that looked like it was in a cage. Brady joked about it a little bit, wondering if the cage was to protect the tree or to protect the people. We found out that it is the oldest species of pine tree dating back to prehistoric times. It was re-discovered, still alive, in a ravine somewhere (they aren't disclosing the exact location until the species is off the endangered list) in 1994 and there are only a few hundred trees of its kind. There were actually pictures shown on the plaque of a living sample of a branch next to the oldest known fossil of its type and it was exactly the same! Really cool! and the weird thing is that the tree really does still look prehistoric. The bark is almost scaly looking and the needles are flat. Unlike any tree I've ever seen before, that's for sure.

Throughout its history Kew has also been a residential site for rich merchants and the royal family. We were lucky enough to be able to view the newly renovated Kew Palace, which hasn't even officially opened to the public yet and where Queen Elizabeth dined for her 80th birthday only a week ago. Our class can now say that we are some of the first people to walk about the rooms of the Kew Palace in almost 200 years! The story behind the house is really neat, and the way it has been renovated is also really cool. The rooms of the bottom floor have been recreated to the style when King George (the second, I think) and his family lived there. Then the upper floors have been left the way they have been for the past 200 years, with projections telling the story of the King's illnesses and his family's tragedy playing on many of the ruined walls. It was really cool!

After seeing Kew Palace we walked to the part of the garden that is called "The Wilderness." We studied this area in class as it is actually a manufactured "wilderness" area with roman looking ruins that are actually called "follies." We learned in class that during the 1600s many gardens were manufactured to look as if they weren't manufactured....with fake bridges and roman ruins added in for interest. It's funny, but some rich people actually had hermitages built on their grounds where they paid a man to live there and be a hermit. Apparently it was seen as "good luck" or as a sign of prosperity or something. I dunno....kinda crazy. Anyway, this area of Kew was really neat and was covered with Blue bells, which are a famous native English flower and which are in season right now. Beautiful!

After this, Brady let us go and Jackie, Nikki and I continued to walk around the park. It had turned out to be a BEAUTIFUL day and everything was so pretty that we couldn't leave! We walked around taking pictures, smelling the flowers, trying to find the famous Kew Garden badgers (yes, badgers run around the whole park!), and rolling down hills. It was SO FUN and we were SO EXHAUSTED when we got back to school that we ate dinner and then went to bed!

Now I'm spending my beautiful Saturday in the computer lab working on the MOUNTAINS of papers I have to write for finals week next week. Last week was our last week of real classes and it was really sad saying goodbye to our teachers and talking about when we are all flying back to the States. I feel kind of stuck right now between wanting to have the BEST last week ever, spending all my time having fun with my friends and having to spend HOURS working on papers, projects, and studying for finals. UGH! I just have no motivation to do anything school related right now....but that really isn't any different from how I would feel if I were at home at Drury right now. It's just an end of the semester thing and I just need to push on and get everything done. It's just sad to think that I'm going to be SO busy and that my last week is just going to fly by at light speed.

I really am ready to go home though. Really ready. I love everyone here, but I think everyone is getting a little tired of each other. This too makes it hard to have a memorable last week together. I'm just hoping that the friendships I've made here will continue once we all get home and back into the insane highschool-ness that is Drury University. I guess i'll just have to try my hardest to keep up with people over the summer and then we'll see how things end up when school starts again. It's going to be so weird going back.... almost like I've had a completely different life for 4 months that will just seem like a dream once I get back home and realize that nothing there has changed.

I'm being too pensive right now...I think I need to start working on my papers. I hope everyone is doing well and I can't wait to see you in less than 10 DAYS!!!! YAY! :P

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 09:31:04 GMT

Pony Trekking in Wales

It's been two days since I was last on a horse and my butt still hurts! But Pony Trekking was SO much fun and it was such a great trip to end my travels here!

Pony Trekking is a trip that is planned entirely by Regent's, and it's one of the most popular student trips they offer. The first trip was planned for the beginning of February, but since we already had a trip planned at that time we thought we'd wait and see if they planned another one for later in the semester. Indeed they did! So about 20 Regent's students (including me, Jackie, Carly, Cyndi, Brittany, and Nikki) loaded into a small coach around noon on Friday for the 5 hour drive to the coast of Wales. The trip would have been uneventful had the climate control in the bus not been broken. It was unbearably hot the entire time we were on it and we were all seriously beginning to melt! But we survived, and arrived at our lodge in Gower, Wales, just in time for dinner. The place at which we stayed was an old hunting lodge once occupied by a Duke of Wales. The lodge and riding facilities are now owned and operated by a few families who do all the instructing, guiding, maintenance, cleaning, AND the best one, cooking! The food was one of the best parts of the trip, hands down. We sat down to dinner at 6 and were first served a slice of some sort of melon as an appetizer. THEN we had the best chicken I think I've ever had in my life! It was SO tender it literally fell right off the bone! and vegetables and a baked potato. Then for desert the cute old lady made us ice cream sundaes any way we liked them. She was so cute! After dinner they told us that we could either walk about a mile into town to a pub or take a walk through the fields to find the beach. We opted for the beach and took off walking through the horse poop covered pastures. Along the way we stopped to say hi to the ponies, who were grazing there in a really muddy field. A few came over to us, thinking we had food, so we said hi and petted them for a while and then kept walking. It took us about 20 minutes to finally get to the beach. We walked up this really high ridge and got a gorgeous view of the surrounding area to one side, and the beach to the other. The beach area we were at was called "Three Cliffs" because there are three pointy rocks jutting out from the sand right where the water comes in. It was perfect timing because our feet hit the sand right as the sun was starting to go down over the hills. We took our shoes off and walked around for a while. The water was SO cold but, once again, you can't go to a beach and not get your feet wet! We played around for about an half hour then started trying to find our way back to the lodge in the dark.

Day 2: (Time to ride the ponies!!) We got up early, had a traditional English breakfast and then headed out to the tack room around 10 where we would receive our first instructions on how to deal with the horses. I was really surprised at how much we got to handle them! I've ridden only once before and at that place I was helped onto the horse and then they all just followed in a line no matter what the riders did. This was definitely different! We started out by being assigned a horse according to our weight, then we were handed a bridle and told to go into the corral with the horses and wait for our horse's name to be called. My pretty pony was Rascal and he was SUCH a good boy! Jackie got the tallest, skinniest horse in the world, Pauly. Cyndi was on Baby, the tiniest horse ever. Britt was on Hector (Hecta!), and Carly was on the EVILEST horse known to man, Cheeko, who gave EVERYONE a horrible time and kicked her. Nikki was sick this day and didn't come along. Really disappointing! After coming forward one of the guides put the bridle on our horses and then we were told to lead them down and form a line along the fence. Then we had to brush them and, being kept in a horribly muddy pasture, they were COVERED in mud. It took forever to get the mud from Rascal's coat, but apparently pony skin is 7 times thicker than human skin, so we were able to brush as hard as we wanted. After this we were given riding instructions by the same cute old lady who works the kitchen. We were taught how to hold the reins, mount, sit in the saddle, ride at a walk, and ride at a trot. Then the guides fitted our horses with their saddles and we mounted up! This first day of riding was much easier than the second. We took flat, even trails through the forest and through some camp grounds just so we could learn how to handle the ponies. Three girls actually ended up falling off, which I thought was insane. Well, actually only one FELL off, the other two (carly included) lost their balance and slid to the ground on their feet. Rascal and I were doing great in the back and one of the guides on foot showed me how to do a "rising trot" which is a way of riding that is MUCH easier on the butt. It took a while to get used to it, but by the end of the ride that day the guides were all complimenting me! YAY! We stopped for lunch at a heritage center in town and ate some scrumptious toasted sandwiches while we gave our horses a rest. After food I was told that, because the girl who had fallen didn't want to ride back, that they were going to swap me from Rascal and put me on her horse. Great. But his name was Lane and although he wasn't Rascal, he was still an ok horse. We rode back along the same trails and then trotted back into the corral. Dinner was grapefruit, meat lasagna and peas, and then apple crumble with ice cream for desert. YUM! After that a coach came and bussed the 8 of us who wanted to go, into Mumbles, a nearby coastal town which they told us had a lively night life. Yeah, right, lively. We all walked along the beach front for a while looking at all the sail boats and trying to figure out what we were going to do for three hours. Some of us finally got tired of walking and found a pub where we drank Welsh beer until the bus came and picked us up.

Day 3: Got up early, once again, had breakfast and then went through the same preparation with the horses we had done the day before. Jackie was switched to a new, more normally proportioned horse, and Carly demanded that they put her on a horse that all the other horses didn't hate. So she got Blondie while one of the guides rode Cheeko. We put their bridles on, brushed them, and mounted up. We had been told that the day before we did about an 18 mile trek, but today we were up for a 25 mile trek along the hills. My butt hadn't hurt that much until I got back in the saddle, then I knew I was in for a LONG trek that day. We trekked up the side of the same ridge we had walked to the night we went to the beach. The view was gorgeous and we could see about 3 neighboring towns. We also walked along a few narrow cliffs, and right in the middle of one, Cheeko, being ridden by a guide, was trotting behind Rascal and I,. He nipped at Rascal and they both started freaking out. NOT GOOD to do on a CLIFF! But I got him under control and then steered clear of stupid Cheeko the rest of the time. Poor Rascal! We stopped for lunch at a little neighboring town where we ate at a little tavern. I had the roast chicken and peas and then had some AMAZING apple crumble and custard for desert. It was a HUGE portion and I was so worried that Rascal wouldn't be able to carry me once I got back on him! But we saddled up and trekked back down the ridge and back to the corral. Carly and I and one of the guys on the trip, Bob, sang the song they sang at the end of City Slickers when they were bringing in the heard. It was perfect and hilarious!! Rascal nuzzled me as I took his saddle and bridle off and then we said goodbye. *tear* He was a good horse.

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 22:50:12 GMT

Germany (Lots of great wine and CRAZY Aussies!)

It's already been a week since we arrived home from Germany (I apologize for the delay in postings, btw), and we are all STILL talking and laughing about it. The weekend consisted of little more than sitting on a bus, drinking lots of wine, and randomly wandering through little German towns, but it was SUCH a relaxing vacation (for once) and probably one of the most FUN trips I've been on!

The fact that most of my best friends here at Regent's went along to Germany probably accounts for why it was so much fun. Cyndi, Brittany, Nikki, Jackie, Carly and I all woke up early to cart our stuff down to Baker Street where the Anderson Tour bus would then pick us up. Two of the guys from our floor, Tanor and Dustin, also randomly decided to sign up for the trip as well, and they certainly added an interesting dynamic to the group of girls! The guys finally stumbled up to the bus a little while later and we all loaded up and promptly fell asleep again. We were told that we would take the ferry across the channel, and as we reached Dover, I got my first glimpse of the famous White Cliffs! They really are WHITE!! and very sheer! We loaded onto this HUGE ferry (it had shops and bars and restaurants and EVERYTHING you could think of on it!) and took the 1.3 hour journey across the channel to Calais, where we got back on the bus and drove for what seemed like FOREVER until we finally reached our cute little hotel which was situated RIGHT next to the Rhine river. The hotel served us dinner a little while later and we experienced our first night of the OPEN BAR that was included in our tour. All we could drink beer and wine. It was GREAT! We then played games, met some of the other people on our tour, all took a moonlit walk along the river, and then turned in early.

DAY 2: The first stop today was in a little town called Boppard, where we would take our river cruise of the Rhine. There were two kind of disappointing aspects of the weekend, the cloudy/rainy/cold weather was one, and the fact that hardly anything was open because of Easter was the other. So we walked around trying to find souvenir shops that were open, then loaded the boat for a chilly ride down the river. Papa had asked me in an email what the landscape was like there and whether it reminded me at all of the Lohman area (where my family is from in MO) and it was really kind of funny, because IT DID seem very familiar! The area a long the river, especially, when we were taking the cruise reminded me a lot of the Jefferson City area just along the Missouri River. There were lots of fields, but also lots of hills and bluffs. The only thing that was VERY different from MO was the fact that about every 5 minutes (it was an hour and a half tour..) we would pass a huge castle nestled into the cliffs along the river. So cool! We also saw the famous Lorelei Rock, which actually isn't a rock anymore (I guess someone stole it!) just a statue of a woman on an island jutting out from the shore of the river. The legend behind the rock says that this princess was heart broken when her river-boat lover left her and from then on she sought her revenge on the boats she would lure and then wreck on the jagged rocks. Kinda cool. After the cruise we got back on the bus and travelled to the little town of Rudesheim, for our WINE TASTING!!! Rudesheim is another cute little German town situated between the river and vineyard covered bluffs. The place where we wine tasted was an old press warehouse that had been in this man's family for a hundred years. The room was covered in old barrels and HUGE old grape presses. We sat at picnic tables covered with candles and listened to the man tell us the entire history about the wine making in the area as well as his family's particular story. We then tasted 3 types of Riessling wine (the most common wine of the area). The driest came first (so the sweetness wouldn't interfere with further tasting of later wines), then followed by a large dry pretzel (to clear your mouth of any taste from the first wine), then the second, sweeter wine, followed by pretzel again, then the last, sweetest wine. They were ALL good!!!! And I was really surprised that I liked the driest wine the best! We ended up getting to keep the little glass we tasted out of AND I bought two bottles of wine to take home with me (we'll see if they actually make it in one piece!). After that we girls....and two guys....wandered around the city buying souvenirs. We stopped at a little cafe so Britt and I could try some GENUINE apfelstruedel. SO GOOD! I'd had it all the time when Grandma makes it, but this was the REAL THING! The desert AND the fact that I found RICE in the salt shaker on the table, made me think of Grandma and how I miss home! *sigh* Then we still had time to kill before the bus was supposed to pick us up so we rode the chair lift over the MILES of vineyard covered hills, to the top of the ridge overlooking the city. Here there is a monument erected in memory of German war casualties and a GORGEOUS view of the town and surrounding countryside. Needless to say, this was the longest day of the trip, but we still had the energy to go back to the hotel and enjoy our second night of free bar!

DAY 3: I'm disappointed to say that this day was pretty miserable. We got on the bus early, all feeling a little hung-over from the red wine from dinner the night before, and drove to (I can't remember the name, but I'll insert it later!!! promise!) which was yet another cute little town full of shops and resteraunts. The bus left us for 3 hours and it was raining the ENTIRE TIME! Had the weather not been so horrible, this 3 hours may not have been so bad, but they really weren't fun. We ended up finding a few random little shops to kill some time in, and then found a cheap restaurant to get some lunch. Then we got back on the bus (wet and tired) and were bussed to Koblenz, Germany. This is the site where the Rhine River and the Moselle River intersect, and you can actually see the two different colors of the water collide! We rode around on a little tour train for a little while, played on some playground equipment, then Tanor, Cyndi and I went to a modern art museum, while everyone else found the nearest pub. Then we were OVERJOYED to finally get back on the bus and go back to the hotel for dinner and our last night together. We had been told that there would be a "disco" held in the hotel that night and we were fascinated to see what exactly that meant. A DJ came in and set up in the dining room and played the CHEEZIEST music ever! Most everyone danced to the macarena, "I will Survive," and some line dancing song, and had a GREAT time! All except the 10 Austrailian people on the tour....apparently Aussies don't dance....but they can certainly drink! (which we well learned the next day!) The evening would have been a complete BLAST had Nikki not realized half way through dinner that she didn't have her purse! She, Carly and Jackie all had to take a cab BACK into Koblenz to try to find it at the pub they had been in earlier in the day. We were all freaking out because her passport was in it and we weren't sure how she'd get back into the UK!! But they ended up finding it and got back to the hotel in time to rejoin the party. *whew!*

DAY 4: This is the day that will forever make me chuckle whenever I think about Australians. ALL WEEKEND, this group of guys had gotten a beer wherever and whenever we stopped, so we knew they were big drinkers. But today it seemed as if they had already started drinking when we got on the bus at 8am! We stopped in the little town of Ghent, on our way through Belgium, back to France for the ferry crossing. I wish so much that we would have had more than an hour here for lunch, because the city was SO beautiful and seemed like it was packed with stuff to see. There were several cathedrals and markets and tons of pubs, bakeries, and souvenir shops. We grabbed some lunch at a pub and sampled some Belgian beer, then searched for some genuine waffles, while the Aussies were apparently guzzling down everything alcoholic they could find. When we finally got back to the bus they were already loud. Then after a few hours of driving we stopped at a Belgian chocolate factory where we saw how they made the chocolate and got to sample and buy every type imaginable!! SO GOOD! I was in heaven! Too bad they also sold alcohol here, where the Aussies kept on a'drinkin.... This huge (but REALLY nice!) Australian named Dave brought a bottle of Brandy onto the bus and walked down the isle offering it to everyone, taking a drink after everyone who accepted. By the time he made it back to the back of the bus (the seat directly behind me!) he was pretty much GONE. Falling all over the place, sitting on people's laps, spilling beer everywhere, and trying to climb OVER me and Brittany's seat in order to get to his friends, we thought we were going to be SMASHED!!! At one point Britt and I were in fetal position almost on the floor in front of our seat just trying to get away from him! AAAAAA! It was REALLY REALLY funny, but it also got kind of annoying. We were worried that he wouldn't make it through passport control in Calais, but somehow he managed to stand up straight. Then he got lost on the ferry and his friends had to send three little boys to go and try to find him. He was passed out....in a stairwell....still holding a pint. Ridiculous. Needless to say the bus trip was LONG and I smelled like beer when we finally got back to Baker street.

Aside from horrible drunk Austrailians the Germany trip was really really fun! I guess I could have gotten a German experience by going to Munich or Berlin, but I think it was really cool to see the areas that not everyone gets to see and do things (like wine tasting!) that people don't usually get to do when they travel to Germany. It was a cool trip and I can't wait to share my wine (and chocolate, of course) with everyone at home!!!

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Wed, 12 Apr 2006 18:47:46 GMT

GRANADA!! (“The best city in the world”…hehe)

Since I’ve been abroad there have been several cities I’ve visited or places I’ve seen that I have loved and have taken my breathe away. I bet I couldn’t count, even if I wanted to, the number of times I’ve used the words “incredible,” “gorgeous,” or “amazing” within all of these postings so far. And believe me, I haven’t used these words to over exaggerate in any way. Everywhere I have been so far has truly been “incredible” and “amazing” in their own ways….. But now is when I must add that few of these places compare, and none of these words do justice, to the fair city of Granada, Spain. Of the 4 days I spent there, there wasn’t a day that went by without me struggling to find a way to bottle up everything I saw and experienced and try to carry it with me forever. I saw and experienced SO MUCH and had SO MUCH FUN with the friends who live there, new and old. It was an INSANELY SPECTACULAR adventure and, of all the places I’ve traveled so far, it has never been so hard to force myself to leave!

My freshman year at Drury I met a really great guy who was an international student from Spain. Fernando and I became friends and I spent a lot of time that year hanging out with him and another student from Spain, Antonio. I wasn’t sure if I would see them again once the year was over and they had to go home. At that point I never even imagined I would ever study abroad, but here I am in London, where travel around Europe is cheap, so why not go to SPAIN?? My friend Brittany has a friend from high school who is also studying in Granada, so we bought our plane tickets together and embarked on Wednesday evening for GRANADA!!

I thought it might be weird seeing Fernando again, since it has been almost 3 years since I last saw him, but I was wrong. He hadn’t changed a bit, and apparently he claimed that neither had I. Britt and I got off the plane and he met us at tiny Granada airport where we kissed on both cheeks (that’s the way most European countries greet people…a little hard to get used to at first, but kinda cool!) and hopped in his car to drive into the city. We met Antonio, the other guy who studied at Drury, and went to a tapas bar near the bullfighting stadium. “Tapas” are essentially snacks that you can get at restaurants and bars, but in Granada they are usually FREE when you buy a drink! It makes eating out very cheap! So we sat drinking beer and tinto verano (?), which is a drink kind of like wine, and ate tapas until we needed to go meet up with Brittany’s friend Coree with whom we would be staying with that night. We were pretty tired so we crashed soon after on Coree’s pullout couch.

Day 1: We met Fernando at the “statua de Isabel Catolica” which is pretty equidistant to both Coree and Fer’s places, around 11 Thursday morning and headed to the Cathedral and Royal Chapel not too far away. It was here where we bought our “Bono Turistico” cards which were SO VALUABLE on this trip. They were 25 Euro and got us entrance into ALL the historic sights, several museums, a tourist bus ride, and 10 local bus rides (a 50 Euro value had we not bought the card!). We then walked around the Royal Chapel, which houses the crypts of Ferdinand and Isabella, along with their children. Then we headed into the Cathedral which had a gorgeous simple white interior with beautiful gold detailing around the alters and domes. It also houses “rooms with old things” as Fer put it (haha…he’s probably going to read this…) with paintings, treasures, and some bishops robes and such. We then went for a walk toward an area of the city called the Albaicin, which is an older area made up of white stucco houses with red clay roofs situated on the hill opposite the Alhambra, which is the fortress that is the main tourist attraction to Granada. It took us a while to locate the main sightseeing area through all the narrow, windy roads, but we finally got there and got a beautiful view of the Alhambra and the city. We then headed back down and went to another tapas bar for lunch. We ended up having 3 beers before we were full. Then Fer passed us back off, a little tipsy, to Coree, who showed us around some of the Arab markets and took us to Café de Futbol for our first taste of churros con chocolate. These are essentially long fried donut type things that you can dip in chocolate. SO GOOD!! Coree then had to go to class so Britt and I walked around by ourselves for the first time. Eek. That evening Britt went to hang out with Coree and her friends while I went to a bar with Fer to meet his girlfriend, Isabel, his friend Victor, and Antonio. We sat and ate so many rounds of tapas I can’t even remember (I ended up eating this stuff made of boiled blood and rice….blah!) and drank even more rounds of beer (it was Alhambra beer...Fer’s favorite…yum!). You would think that it would be weird for me being the ONLY person there that night who didn’t speak Spanish (at least not that well…), but it was kinda fun trying to keep up with what they were all saying to eachother! Actually, they were all trying their best to use English. Fernando is very fluent and his friend Victor as well, even though he had a THICK English accent when he spoke. Antonio’s English was never that good anyway, and it’s gotten even worse! Ha ha! And Isabel is learning and did very well trying to communicate and even corrected Fernando at one point (1 point for Isabel!!) Eventually Isa left and I was stuck listening to 3 guys talk about girls in Spanish and giving Victor girl advice. Fer knew the waitress, so we ended up getting 2 drinks for free and closing down the place around 1:30. We then called Coree and met up with them at a bar/club called Tantra, where we had another drink and danced for a while before getting lost trying to find Coree’s apartment. Whoops, I think we woke a couple people up!!

Day 2: Today was the day we decided to spend seeing the Alhambra because the weather was supposed to be warm and very nice. We met Fernando and hopped on a bus that took us up the steep hill to the fortress. Granada was the last Islamic kingdom to be retaken by the catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella during the time of the reconquista in Spain. This fact accounts for the huge arab influence seen within the culture and especially the art and architecture of the city. The Alhambra is the huge fortress and castle of the Islamic royalty and it is covered with gorgeous, ornate, Islamic décor and calligraphy. We spent time climbing several of the towers in order to get a good view of the Albaicin on the opposite hillside. We then saw the palace of Charles V, which is beautiful from the outside so that the common people from the town below could see how rich he was, however it is very plain and unfinished in the inside. We walked inside and saw the huge inner courtyard which is where many concerts are apparently held due to the fact that it has really good acoustics. We then walked around the main rooms of the Islamic palace seeing all the gorgeous rooms, courtyards and gardens, including the Patio de los Leones, one of the most famous courtyards which has statues of lions in the center. Then we headed to the Jardines del Generalife, the gardens and “vacation house” of the royalty which was constructed further up on the hill from the fortress. This was the most GORGEOUS garden I’ve ever seen. It was perfectly manicured and had flowers, bushes, fountains, streams, and courtyards everywhere!! You couldn’t escape the smell of lilac or the sound of trickling water anywhere within this garden. The day was gorgeous and warm and we had to have spent about 2 hours just walking around the gardens. After seeing everything there was to see in the Alhambra we went to the best Chinese food place ever! We had 3 courses, a drink, a bowl of ice cream and a shot of some weird wine like stuff, ALL for 5 Euro!! And it was SO good! Then it was back to Fernando’s place for a siesta (a nap), before heading out again to go to the Science museum and park. Here we goofed around playing with little science exhibits and playing a huge game of chess before we decided to hop on the tourist bus for a bus tour of the city. It was horrible! The electronic voice that was piped through the headphones didn’t know half the stuff that Fernando did, and we kept getting stuck in traffic, so we just got off and walked back to Fer’s place for a home cooked dinner. He made tortillas (essentially an omlette with potatoes and onions), and ham, and we had some of his granny’s soup. YUM! After watching a movie we went to bed early so Britt and I could wake up early and hop on the bus to the beach!!!!

Day 3: Thank goodness Fernando seemed to know everyone in the city of Granada, otherwise we wouldn’t have made our 10am bus to the beach!! Some of his relatives live in Malaga, a coastal city only an hour and a half from Granada, so he called and got very specific directions for us from the bus station to the beach. We arrived at the station in Granada WAY late and would have had to wait in the really long ticket line, missing our bus, had it not been for the fact that he happened to know one of the girls at the front of the line! *whew* So Fer put us on the bus to Malaga at 10 and Britt and I arrived at 11:30 just in time to get lost trying to find the local bus stop that would take us to the beach. We finally figured it out and followed a couple local girls wearing swimsuits to the BEACH!!!!! YAY! It was unlike any other beach I’d been on…which isn’t saying a lot since I’ve been on about 4 beaches in my life. The sand was dark and coarse and the water was FREEZING! There was also a huge drop off so the water got deep really quick. And peculiarly enough, there wasn’t a salty smell in the air. The water seemed almost salt-free (not that I tasted it…). We laid on the beach for a few hours (COVERED in spf 30!) when the weirdest thing happened. We opened our eyes and we were in the middle of a thick fog! We were only about 6 feet from the water and we couldn’t even see it!! So we went about a block into town to get lunch where it was completely clear!!! …very weird…. We then strolled around the town a bit, seeing the fortress and gardens there along with the bull ring, and bought some souvenirs before heading back to the beach. The fog eventually cleared up and we got a few hours of sun before we had to get BACK on the bus to Granada.

After taking showers we sat at Fernando’s eating pizza and drinking beer with Antonio, Isabel, and Fer’s cousin, Monolo (sp??). Antonio thought it would be a good experience for us to go to a botellon, which is essentially a gathering of people drinking and hanging out in the streets. Apparently Granada is famous for holding HUGE botellons of up to thousands of people at one time. We ended up going to a smaller one in a back alley square only a few minutes away from the club we were going to later. Antonio was right, it certainly was a unique experience. There were about 50 people there all drinking, playing music, singing, and chatting with everyone! So fun! By the time we got there it was about 1:30 am. People live by a completely different schedule in Spain. They wake up a bit later, eat lunch around 3 in the afternoon with a siesta right after, dinner at 9, go out to bars or botellons around midnight and then to the clubs at 3. and this is exactly what we did. We arrived at a club called “Diez,” ten in Spanish, around 4 and paid 8 euro to get in (which included a really really STRONG mixed drink). Everyone was very surprised, but Brittany and I danced for four hours straight and could have kept going had the club stayed open later than 7! HA! And dancing was so much fun because Spanish guys actually have some sort of skill! They were twirling us around and leading and everything! …I’m not really used to that…. But we ended our time at the club all doing the can-can to Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.” Ha ha. Afterwards we went to the Café de Futbol again for chocolate churros and coffee. YUM! We sat here, ate our churros, and watched the sun come up. We finally went to bed at 8:30 in the morning…exhausted, happy, and still a little tipsy. Tee hee….

Day 4: There wasn’t much left of our last day in Granada once we finally woke up and got moving. We left Fer’s place around 3 and toured two monasteries. Both were full of old paintings of monks, pretty gardens, and breathtaking and ornate sanctuaries! Covered in glittering gold and gorgeous decorations! After this we ran into a holy week procession. We realized during the weekend that we were in Granada during a very good time because this was the beginning of holy week, when all of the Catholic churches put on parades where they carry “passion floats,” from their home churches to the city hall and then back. These floats are very heavy and have a statue of either the Virgin Mary, Jesus carrying the cross, or other scenes from the week before Christ’s resurrection, along with flowers and lots of candles. It sometimes takes 50 men to carry these floats all with synchronized small steps and often completely covered by a drapery so they can’t even see where they’re going!! Along with the floats are the members of the church wearing traditional robes and hoods which look kind of like KKK costumes to a Westerner. These processions are very very meaningful to the people there and the only way Fernando could explain it is to say that there is just such a “deep feeling” that is evoked when they see or take part in them. There were people crying everywhere and often touching the floats and then their foreheads as the procession went by. We walked by a hospital where there was a boy in a stretcher that had been wheeled out to the street just so he could see it. We also heard a man sing from a balcony of the hospital over one of the floats. This was the third procession we witnessed that weekend and they never ceased to put me in a state of awe and make me feel as if I was witnessing something that few westerners get to see.

Fernando and Antonio took us back to the airport and it was, once again, so hard to say goodbye to them. I hate the feeling of not knowing whether or not you will ever see a person again, especially when it’s two such amazing guys who gave us the best weekend in Spain anyone could ever hope for. But……they both made me a promise…..so perhaps they will visit me in the US sometime in the near future….and I’ve made it one of my life’s goals to eventually journey back to beautiful Granada.

Next up…..GERMANY over Easter!! Wine tasting and chocolate bunnies along the Rhine River! Woo hoo!! :P I hope all is well with everyone back at home and I am SO sad that I will miss having Easter with my family this year! I miss you so much!! But I will see you ALL in only 3 WEEKS!!! AAA!!

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 15:07:15 GMT

Concert at the Royal Albert Hall

...If you could have been there during this concert you would have seen me sitting at the edge of my seat, straining to hear every note and every chord, with what must have been the stupidest, goofiest smile on my face the entire time. This concert was probably one of the coolest musical moments I've ever experienced in my life....and probably ever will...

My friend Jason told me about this concert the second week we were in London. "It's the London Orchestra or something playing in the Royal Albert Hall," he said. Then he tried humming to me the song that he knew they were playing but he couldn't remember the name of it. "CARMINA BURANA??!!" I screamed at him. "Yeah, that's the one!" he laughed. It turned out to be the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performing Carmina Burana, by Carl Orff, along with another piece....... Stravinsky's The Firebird Suite!!!!!!! I played BOTH of these songs either in Wind Ensemble or Marching Band in High School and LOVED them both so much! We bought the tickets that night (they were only 5 pounds!) and ever since then we've talked about it and looked forward to it nearly every time we've had class together. The date snuck up on us both, but last night at 6 Jason and I and two other girls from our class headed to the Royal Albert Hall. This building is HUGE and completely round and gorgeous! It's a music hall, so there was no stage, only space for an orchestra and risers for choirs, and a HUGE pipe organ. We ended up sitting way off in the far reaches of the top of the cheap seats, which we were expecting considering we only paid 5 pounds. We couldn't see very well and there were acoustic panels hanging from the top of the dome right in front of us, so a lot of the sound was bounced away from us, but the sound was still incredible! The Firebird was first on the program. It starts out very soft and simple, with only a few instruments playing certain sound effects at a time. After the sounds built up a little they stopped entirely, then the whole orchestra flung themselves into the part of the song that is so famous and recognizable, and the part that I remember repeating over and over and over again in marching band. It was SO cool, and brought back a lot of memories. It lasted about 20 minutes, then there was a half hour intermission before the conductor reappeared to begin Carmina Burana. There were two combined choirs and a girls choir offering a total of about 200 voices to the Opera. There were also three soloists, a baritone, tenor, and soprano (who had the most gorgeous red flouncy dress on!) who stood next to the conductor and sang at certain points throughout the piece. You could tell that everyone scooted up in their seats as the conductor raised his arms in the air and the entire hall went completely silent....kinda eerie. Then he gave the biggest preparation stroke I've ever seen before (crazy hair flying and all) and every instrument and voice on the floor sang out in the first fortissi-issi-issimo chord of La Fortuna, the first movement of Carmina Burana. It gave me goosebumps. It did that in high school too, but it's completely different hearing it in a magnificent hall with hundreds of professional musicians performing it. I don't know if I've said this yet, but it was incredible! After the concert we had to walk pretty far to find a bus stop that wasn't completely overridden by people leaving the concert, but we didn't care because we were on the top of the world! ....Incredible....just incredible.... :P

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 11:31:26 GMT

Paris!!! (...my first disappointment....)

Paris is probably one of my favorite places in the world...and that's why this trip was so disappointing. The city was incredible! There were gorgeous buildings, museums, and gardens everywhere we turned, but because of the situation with the tour group we were with and the way the student strikes were affecting the city, we didn't get to see as much as we had hoped. We spent a lot of time just........waiting........

We booked our tour with Anderson Tours two weeks ago when we realized that we HATE taking the bus anywhere and that there were only bus tours running the weekend we had originally planned to go to Paris. With this tour we would be taking the Eurostar, a high speed train that would only take about 4-5 hours to get to Paris. Then we got a phone call from our tourguide, Allie, informing us that due to the riots and strikes going on in Paris right now, Anderson was taking great precautions and we would therefore be taking a bus. She also told us that we would be compensated by receiving a free 3 course meal while we were in the city. Ok, we thought, it won't be that bad. Only a few extra hours on a bus and it's in the middle of the day...it won't be anything like the horrible bus ride to Scotland that we had experienced the weekend before. right.

Day 1: We met our tour group at Waterloo at around 7am Friday morning and got on the bus. The ride really wasn't that bad, although we were forced to watch HORRIBLE movies, the whole time. In order to get across the English channel we ended up taking the Eurotunnel, which is a tunnel that runs underneath the water. It was really cool because we stayed ON the bus and we simply drove it onto this huge train thing, turned off the engine, and then couldn't tell when we were moving until the bus started shaking back and forth. It was REALLY weird. The crossing only took about 30 minutes and then we were in France and on our way again to Paris. We finally got there at around 4pm, just in time to check into our hotel (which was really nice, by the way) and head to the Louvre!!! First we had to learn how to navigate the Paris Metro...which was kind of an adventure...but we figured it out. It REALLY made us miss the London Underground system because it was SO confusing and we had to change trains about 3 times in order to get ANYWHERE. Very complicated....and not as clean, definitely. When we made it to the Louvre we walked around taking goofy pictures and marvelling at it's hugeness, then went inside. We had learned that after 6 on Friday evenings people between 18-26 could get in free, and we did! I had heard that it was possible for a person to spend DAYS in the Louvre and still not see everything. Well, we spent about 3 hours....and saw everything we wanted to. We saw the statues of the Winged Victory, the Dying Slave, and the Venus de Milo (very cool!). We also saw paintings by Delacroix, Rembrandt, Raphael, De Vinci, Michaelangelo, etc. etc. etc. And of course the Mona Lisa. Not as impressive as one would think. It was behind a box of glass and had a huge line of people standing in front of it. I thought the coolest thing about the museum was how HUGE some of the paintings were. The construction of the building was also very cool. It was originally a royal palace, but when they decided it was too small (small, what??) they decided to use it to house all of the art and war booty the French had accumulated over the years. They had an extensive collection of Greek and Etruscan art and artifacts to. Most impressive was Hammurabi's Code. VERY COOL that I got to see that! Another cool thing was that as we were wandering around we started hearing music playing. There were ensembles and soloists set up in every gallery playing all types of music! SO neat...but I could tell that Carly wasn't really into it so we didn't stay and listen to any certain one of them. When we made our way out of the Louvre the sun was just setting. GORGEOUS. We then walked along the Siene (the river that runs through the city) toward the Eiffel Tower. This is when we had our first run-in with the Riot Police. We were trying to cross a larger road and all the sudden this insanely long caravan of police motorcycles, vans, and buses full of police officers raced by us, sirens blaring and all. craziness. We spent about an hour walking around the Tower and taking pictures (It sparkles really pretty for the first 10 minutes of every hour. BEAUTIFUL!) then headed back to the hotel to watch some French tv.

Day 2: We got back on the bus around 10 for our "guided tour" of the city, which, in Anderson Tour language meant that our tourguide who really doesn't know anything points out stuff as we drive around aimlessly. She pointed out the Louvre. cool, already saw that, and the Eiffel Tower...yeah, saw that too. Then she took us to a cool spot overlooking the city to take pictures. There was no history of the city, or cool facts to know and tell....just "hey look at that" kinda stuff. Not impressed. We also almost died going around the Arc de Triomphe which is essentially just a huge roundabout where people just drive in in no order whatsoever and drive out whenever they want. It is said that one accident happens there every minute....of course they're probably just little bumps and aren't reported or anything, but still...it was CRAZY! We then drove down Champs Elysee which is the famous shopping street in Paris. The bus dropped us off at the old Paris Opera House, which is the Opera house where the Phantom of the Opera was set and where an actual chandelier did fall and where there really are waterways and stuff underneath the building. creepy, but cool. We then headed to the Monmartre district of the city where there were tons of cool street artists, restaurants, cheap souvenir shops, and the basilica Sacre Coeur. I loved this area! (just as Allison said that I would!!) It is set on a hill overlooking the city, so there were gorgeous views everywhere you turned, plus SO many painters set up on the sidewalks and crepe stands. Sacre Coeur was also gorgeous. This church is made of self cleaning stone, so everytime it rains (which it did several times within the few hours we were there) the dirt and pollution that has built up on the building washes away to a BRILLIANT white. Unfortunately the front doors and columns had been defaced by rioters just that morning and parts of the front were roped off and men were trying to scrub the spray paint off the stone. Very sad. I don't understand how defacing an historical monument will get the point across that you don't want better job security. oh well, maybe I just don't know how to riot.... We then headed back to the hotel in time to rest a little then get back on the bus to go to dinner. We ended up being on the bus for 2 hours because stupid Allie didn't kno how to get to the restaurant. When we finally got there our "3 course dinner" ended up being chicken marsala and french fries........ then we got a piece of chocolate pie for dessert. The whole meal thing as a reimbursement for not taking the Eurostar just ended up being a waste of our time. We lost almost a full day of sightseeing because of the extra hours we spent travelling and going to dinner....disappointing. Because we were late getting to dinner we had to take a later boat cruise on the Siene, therefore Carly and I didn't get to go up in the Eiffel Tower like we had planned. We also picked the wrong side of the boat to sit on because everything there was to see was on the OTHER side of the boat....also disappointing. BUT I had my bottle of Bordeaux with me and Carly had her baguette and cheese, so we had a little wine and cheese party on the boat! hehe!

Day 3: We woke ourselves up REALLY early this morning so we could see everything we still had to see before having to be back on the bus to leave at 3. We started out making our way toward the Notre Dame/Sainte Chappelle area. These are both located on an island in the middle of the Siene which is actually known as the birthplace of the city. That's where the oldest buildings are and where the royal and political buildings were. Sainte Chappelle was incredible!! We had been told that if you go into it on a sunny day that it looked like you were in a giant jewellry box. Well, it was raining, but it was still FANTASTIC! The chapel was very small and located in the middle of the French judiciary buildings. It was originally built by one of the early King Louis to house the relics of the Passion that he had brought back from one of the crusades. It had no walls....only stained glass windows. There were about 12 full windows and each depicted different stories from each book from the Bible. The giant Rose window in the back depicted the last judgement and it was SO GORGEOUS!! After this we walked through the rain toward Notre Dame. Because it was Sunday morning there was a service going on, so we walked in right as a choir was singing. The effect was really cool! We then made our way to the Musee D'Orsay, which we had been told was free on this day. The D'Orsay was originally a train station, but was converted into a museum in order to house the Louvre's extensive collection of modern art. The line was INSANELY long! It took us about an hour just to get through security and get in, and by that point we only had 2 hours left before we had to be back at the hotel! AAA! It was such a shame that we had to rush through the museum, because it was incredible and my favorite BY FAR of any that I have seen. It was still set up like a train station, with really small gallery rooms to the sides of a huge open hanger looking structure. I saw about 100 Monet paintings including many of his waterlillies and his famous bridge painting from his garden. There were also TONS of paintings by Manet, Pissaro, and Renoir, as well as Degas ballerina paintings and pastelles. The most impressive to me though was the Van Gogh room. I wandered into it staring at my map and trying to find another room...when I looked up I was staring right at his most famous self portrait! Whoa! The whole room was full of his paintings and they were SO cool close up. You can see the texture of the clumps of paint and the actual brush strokes! SO cool. After reluctantly leaving the D'Orsay we walked (very briskly) through the Tuilerie Gardens (the park right in front of the Louvre) grabbed a crepe and hopped on the Metro back to the hotel. We ended up being the last on the bus but I still maintain that we weren't late!!

I didn't get to go up in the Eiffel Tower. I didn't get to see the Picasso Museum. I didn't get to walk down the Champs Elysee. I didn't get to see Moulin Rouge. I didn't get to see the gargoyles in Notre Dame. But I DID get to see a lot of other incredible things and I'm SO glad that I went. The circumstances of the trip were a little crappy, but it all turned out ok.

Next up, visiting my friend Fernando in Granada, SPAIN!!!!