IC London...I See France

26 April 2007

Where Did the Time Go?

Shockingly enough, I will be home in two weeks, hopefully pleasantly stuffed with all of the food I've been missing these past nearly-four months. It doesn't quite seem like that much time has gone by, but it must be true. My newly-filled passport pages can prove it. And how else could I have become so accustomed to the tube that I was able to fall asleep on it last night and, without PA announcements, wake up just in time for my stop? (Some might argue luck, though I quite disagree.)

But, anyways, time has flown by and I barely have enough time to do everything in London that should be done before I go (let's not even talk about the money, Mr. $2 Pound). Jessie, Meg and I have created a quite packed schedule for the next week, and even with finals and Malta, somehow I'll manage to cram in as much of London as possible.

23 April 2007

Bikes Bikes Everywhere and Not a One to Ride

Clearly someone was being too optimistic about the weather in Copenhagen because it was not the spring-like warmth we were expecting. Still, we were only freezing some of the time, so I guess that's not so bad.

We flew into Malmo, Sweden, around 9:30 Friday morning and made it into Copenhagen, Denmark, surprisingly easily. We poked around the tourism/information building for a bit before trying to tackle the public transportation system. With some difficulty, we managed to find an appropriate bus and check in to our hostel, Sleep in Heaven. Oddly enough, the entirety of the hostel had a great atmosphere and was well-decorated, lit, supplied, etc, but the bedrooms left a lot to be desired with their questionable mattresses and 3-high bunkbeds (I got the top because I call things sight-unseen). Go figure.

We walked to the Amalienborg Plads, the four buildings of the Danish palace, which had some snazzy guards that yelled at tourists a lot but didn't actually do much. Though most of Copenhagen has free things-to-do, the palace cost money so we paid up and went inside to learn all about the royal family (related to our very own Queen!). Afterward we went to the Frederik's Church, known as the Marble Church (Marmorkirken), across the street from the palace because Jessie's guidebook said it had the largest dome in Scandanavia. It had all 12 disciples, one each on a section, around the dome. Still without bikes because, according to everyone we asked "they were really obvious" and "not like other bikes" so we would "know immediately" when we were seeing the free tourist bikes as opposed to the owned-by-someone-else bikes, and we had yet to see such obviously commercial bikes, the four of us walked to Christiana. Christiana is an Ithaca-like section of Copenhagen that was organized by hippies around the Seventies. We took a moment to play in the children's park and just wandered around the area for a while. Also, Meg bought some gloves. Not having eaten since McDonalds at lunchtime ($8 for 2 cheeseburgers, fries, and a small drink - whoa!), we stumbled into an Irish pub numbed from the cold and desperately needing nourishment. We ate some more expensive food, mostly on the "cheap" side of the menu aka appetizers, and had some hot drinks. Back at the hostel that evening, we played a game of Euchre and called it a night.

Saturday morning, Jessie, Erin and I woke up bright and early determined to find these free bikes and take a bike tour around Copenhagen before meeting up with Meg at 1. Explaining to our hostel-guy that we had yet to find the bikes and perhaps were not grasping the concept quite so well, he urged us to go ask at the train station as they're usually around there and someone there would be bound to know. We walked to the train station, asked two people who were no help at all, and followed a mysterious sign toward a "Cykelcenter." You could rent bikes there! We didn't want to rent bikes at all, but we were going in the right direction. We wandered towards the rental desk and explained everything to the man who politely told us that those bikes don't appear in the city until sometime in May (everything we read everywhere lied about that) and, even if we wanted to rent bikes from him for $13, he closed in 2 hours at 1. We had wandered so long for nothing. Bike-less and disappointed, we refueled with slurpees from one of the ubiquitous 7-Elevens near the back of the train station. Seriously, 7-Elevens on every single corner.

We three decided to try a museum until meeting Meg, but it was only free on Sundays. Instead, we headed into Tivoli early. Tivoli = an amusement park in the middle of Copenhagen = amazing. We bought admission and the unlimited ride bracelet for 275 kroner, quite the deal. We did every single ride except for the kiddie rides, and we even did a few of those. We rode their best rollercoaster, The Demon, about 5 times (3 in quick succession because there were no lines when it first opened). We rode on Himmelskibet, which was the carnival swing ride plus a few hundred feet, and we could see all of Copenhagen; so we did it during both the day and night. They had a whole China section of the park that was decorated with paper lanterns and the pointed roofs and dragons as well as a Middle Eastern one that looked very much like Aladdin. On a themed ride (for children), we sat in a "flying trunk" that took us through every one of Hans Christian Andersen's stories. They also feature fireworks right before closing every night, Comedia dell Arte shows on their peacock stage, and a water/light show in the evening called Illuminations. For dinner we ate Danish food at a restaurant called The Scarlet Pimpernel (in Danish, obviously), but the restaurant part was full so we had to sit for the buffet. The whole time this wonderful old man sat on a stage and played the keyboard, sometimes the recorder, and sang along. It was great. We didn't waste a moment in Tivoli, lasting from noon to midnight, taking everything in, and enjoying every minute of it.

We slept in a little bit on Sunday before taking advantage of the free museums. We visited the Glyptotek, an art museum featuring Impressionist art, as well as the National Museum, which showed us the history of Denmark (but we mostly stuck to 2 exhibits: toys and "stories of Denmark"). We also toured the Botanic Gardens, a huge park for studying plants in the middle of the city. It had a huge 5-room palm house that was hot and humid and a wonderful refuge from the cold. We walked through the cactus house and sat in the rock garden to eat our lunch. Finally, the thing I most wanted to see - The Little Mermaid statue. The trek was pretty far out of the center of Copenhagen, but luckily, the day had warmed up a bit compared to the two previous. We took plenty of pictures of her, getting our walk's worth. Both Jessie and I hopped out on the rocks to pose with The Little Mermaid, though I was pretty scared (completely unfounded, really) and took quite some time to get out there. For dinner we ate a relatively cheap meal of 7-Eleven hotdogs stuffed in baguettes with much too much ketchup and mustard that could clear your sinuses. The way that the Danes eat hotdogs is quite something. We rested up in the evening with some hostel-provided games, card games, packing, and lots of sleep.

Copenhagen was successful, bikes or not. (Pictures without bikes)

19 April 2007

Only 3 Weeks Left...

Bad news: The dollar has taken a nose-dive in relation to the pound. I was always counting on $2 just to be on the safe side, but I never thought it would actually happen. Yuck. On a related note, having not seen a dollar for, oh, 3 months or so, I was completely surprised when our recent visitors took it out of their wallets. Surely, this isn't money? It's all the same size and color. And where is the Queen? The period of re-adjustment will certainly be fun.

Good news: Our heat got turned down! I don't know how or why (though I complained to the porter and he said he was on it), but I am loving it. I get to sleep with actual blankets again!

Other news: Copenhagen tomorrow morning, 3am sharp. It's gonna be cold there and I've already been complaining a bit. Read: cold = 50s. Don't be mad at me, I don't control the weather.

16 April 2007

Paris Holds the Key to Your Heart (Part Duex)

Saturday morning, exhausted from travelling and walking miles and miles, we all slept in before leisurely making our way over to see the Hunchback at Notre Dame. The thing with Notre Dame is that, like the Eiffel Tower, it's pretty popular, but unlike Feffy, they only let 15 people in once every 15 minutes. At our best spot in line, Meg and I were numbers 98 and 99 (I counted) after already waiting for a half an hour. You do the math - that's not a fun wait. We got bored and rescheduled Quasimodo in for Sunday morning promptly at opening time. We took some pictures of the inside of the cathedral, free and with a much shorter line, and headed over to the Bastille, home of some good old-fashioned revolution.

I, personally, was pretty disappointed to see that the high point of the Bastille was nothing more than a really big column. The little disturbance to which police were called to seemed pretty intriguing, though we left before we could figure out what came of it. Also, everyone was speaking French which isn't too helpful for eavesdropping. Where are you, Berlitz, when I need you? We took the Metro - I rank it second in all of the European tubes I've so far experienced, after the Tube, though it gets much higher points for punctuality - back towards homebase. From there, we found a cafe-thing (brasserie, I think it's called) where everyone had lunch and I had dessert. Yes, amongst all the sandwiches and lunch-y things on our table, sat my wonderfully delicious crepe with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce and whipped cream. When I ordered it, the waiter corrected me and politely said, "But, that's dessert." What a silly man; I knew what I was doing. Mmm.

We visited the Musee d'Orsay and both the Grand and Petit palaces after our afternoon meal. The Grand Palace, which we were lured to by its very fancy glass roof, is now nothing more than a place for exhibitions and our ticket only bought us a walk-through Gupta statue after Gupta statue without any sign of the glass roof. Needless to say, we were pretty disappointed, so we took the Metro back to the hotel for a nap. I napped a little, wrote some postcards, read, and mostly tried to kill 2 hours without eating too many tortilla chips. We met with Meg's parents just before dinner and wandered the Paris streets looking for souvenirs. Then dinner - this time we opted for Italian because it's familiar with little need for translation. It was Italian-y and delicious, but honestly, not as fun as the confusing French meal the night before. Meg and I got McDonalds milkshakes (keeping up my McDonalds in every country goal) and turned in for the evening to play some cards and watch French people dance, sing, and generally be ridiculous on public television. Oh, it's the same in every country.

We greeted Notre Dame exactly 20 minutes before opening time Sunday morning and were exactly 15th and 16th in line. We climbed and climbed and climbed the 422 stairs to the tip-top of the building to see what the gargoyles see. We missed the Great Bell because the sign didn't tell us we could only do the Bell before the top, and after the top we couldn't go back to it. Boo Notre Dame. I bet that's where Quasi was because we never saw the guy. I did see my first French man in a beret though and tactfully took a picture of him. We climbed and climbed and climbed back down the 422 stairs to a dead-end with two doors and a cabinet, none of which opened. Just Meg and I stuck at the bottom of a tower in Notre Dame. Fun. We were joined by two French people and we all kept being exasperated in our own languages and not understanding each other but were clearly not having fun being stuck. The Frenchman finally pushed a button (that Meg pointed out because it looked like an emergency button) and voila! We were free!

To cap off our weekend in Paris, we took a river tour on the Seine. Our attractive guide told us all about everything we'd seen and I got another bajillion shots of everything, especially the Eiffel Tower. I couldn't think of a better way to say goodbye to such a beautiful city. We had lunch in another brasserie near our hotel and headed to the train station around 4. We had a slight kink on the way there because, for some reason or another, there was a parade of every motorcyclist in all of Paris and beyond driving on the road past Nord. I much preferred the runners (the Paris Marathon was also on Sunday - they ran all along the Seine for the majority of the morning) to the loud and in-our-way motorcyclists. Still, we got there and the Eurostar brought us back to London where we were greeted with the news that the predicted Tube strike did not happen. Phew!

[Bonus points for you if you get the title's reference.]

...And pictures of all of Paris, even if you don't get it.

From Nord to Feffy (Paris, Part One)

This weekend was the school-organized trip to Dublin, and though I very much wanted to go to Ireland, I opted out in favor of Paris with Meg and her parents. I was beside myself with the gorgeous weather (70s and 80s, plentiful sunshine), the chunnel (so much easier than travelling RyanAir at the crack of dawn), real food and an actual hotel (see that - without the "s"!).

Meg and I attempted to cram as much French into our vocabulary as possible on the Eurostar over, but didn't get much further than "Bonjour," "Merci (beaucoup)," or my favorite meaning "It's raining, right?" (which I can't spell and since it didn't rain, proved useless). The ride was enjoyable, mostly because it wasn't too long and wasn't a budget airline, though the chunnel was actually only 20 minutes of the trip. We arrived in Gare de Nord at almost 2 Paris-time, waited in an extremely long line for taxis, and went to our hotel. My favorite part of our hotel, to be honest, was the concierge. His name was Edmond and, not only was he a wealth of information, but he was funny and tried to teach us French.

We were about a 5 minute walk from the Louvre, which we made our first stop. The courtyard was beautiful, full of pyramids and fountains (with ducks!). Inside the Louvre, we saw the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and Nike of Samothrace as well as tons of other important pieces of art. From there we walked through the Jardin des Tuileries, which was in full bloom and had a distant view of the Eiffel Tower - amazing. We saw the courtyard where the guillotine was set up during the revolution and both Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI were beheaded (which I found out later on a river tour) and where there were some more highly-decorated fountains and an obelisk. Seeing the Arc de Triomphe in the distance, we figured walking couldn't be that hard, but after about a half an hour it was still looming in the distance, and what seemed like 3 or 4 miles later (and probably was, looking at the map) we arrived! Too tired to climb up to the top, we made due with admiring it from the ground and took a taxi back to the hotel for a nap before dinner.

Dinner turned out to be a French restaurant recommended to (and reserved for) us by Edmond, Le Petit Machon. He scolded us for being American and eating dinner much too early, but sent us on our way at 7:30. For the first part of the meal, we had a waiter named Christopher who scolded Meg and I for drinking Coke (later, on his urging, we split a half bottle of rose wine) and watched us toil over a French-English dictionary for nearly 15 minutes before explaining the meals to us. It seems like I'm complaining, but honestly, it was one of the most fun meals I've had in a while; the language barrier definitely helped this. Meg and her mom settled on a meal of scallops and her father and I both ordered Monkfish. They came out in small, dressed-up servings and were absolutely delicious. Somehow, we also got plates of scalloped potatoes, which were again delicious and a pleasant little surprise. A new waiter arrived to clear our plates and offer us dessert because Christopher abandoned us. We stared at the menus, deciding to guess at the food rather than translating as it proved nearly useless. We were sort of on the right track, but luckily, the new waiter came and explained it all to us in a language we understand (including a little charades when he couldn't remember the word for "pear" - I won that one!). We all got something different and French, but I took the biggest leap and tried a goat cheese and cherry dessert. It ended up tasting a lot like yogurt and wasn't half bad (considering I don't like yogurt), but I felt very French and was proud of myself for trying something new.

After dinner, Christopher (he returned!) called us a taxi to take us to the Eiffel Tower and advised Meg and I to "Stop Coca-Cola." Funny guy, that one. We pulled up right in front of the brightly-lit Eiffel Tower, and I immediately began snapping pictures, perhaps a few too many. But I couldn't help myself because she's gorgeous, especially at night. We stood in line for tickets to the top and, to cure my boredom, I began calling her Feffy because clearly we're close friends now and Eiffel Tower is just a bit too formal. She started sparkling (leading to more pictures) and I decided that she was getting pretty for someone special. Then her searchlight went on and I decided she was getting pretty to find a man, which naturally led me to...Big Ben! Oh, Feffy and Ben. They're gonna be perfect for each other. Anyways, soon my boredom was cured because we got tickets and, many long lines and elevator rides later, we were at the top! Paris is really beautiful at night, but unfortunately none of my pictures captured that - just a bunch of blurry, far away lights. It's all about the experience. We left the sparkling Tower behind at midnight, exhausted and more than ready for bed because, as with all other memorable jam-packed weekends, we had two very busy days ahead of us.

10 April 2007

Easter in Essex + Football

Still aching from Friday's cricket match, I sacrificed sleeping in on Saturday to take the train over to Essex, where I spent the weekend with Penny. The weekend was really laid back and not in my flat and I loved every minute of it. It was as close to being home as I can get here.

We didn't do much, which I loved for all the relaxing I got to do. We did, however, watch THE Boat Race (Cambridge vs. Oxford) on television with tea and biscuits, something Penny and her family used to do when she was younger. At first, I'll admit, not too enthused for a rowing match. With all the build-up, though, I ended up rooting for Cambridge and getting quite into the race. By the end of it, I was ecstatic that Cambridge won and watched as they soaked the team in champagne and the president finally got the trophy (after 3 years of losing, this being his last chance) and the cox got thrown into the Thames. It was great.

We also went to Lakeside, this absolutely humungous mall that, were it in America and the prices in dollars, I would have loved and been bankrupt. But, it was in Essex and everything cost pounds, so I held back and bought nothing. Later that evening, we met her sister Chris, brother-in-law Michael, nephew Doug, and his girlfriend for Indian at a buffet, so the inexperienced me could sample everything without real consequence. I tried almost everything, except for what was labeled "hot" and thoroughly enjoyed it all. (I guess four plates and dessert later proves that.) Penny's family was lovely and funny; I really liked them.

On Easter Sunday, we went to Southend (a fun boardwalk area) to spend the day because it was a typical Essex thing to do. I think almost all of Essex had the same idea because it was packed full. We took the train out to the end of the pier, gambled on the slots (I won a pound and then lost two trying to get it back - oops), had fish and chips for lunch, ate Rossi ice cream, wandered up and down the beach, and had the famous hot doughnuts (yummy). The crowds got to be a little much at the end, but I enjoyed it. I would love to see it at night with all the lights, but that's another time.

Other than those small ventures, the weekend was full of low-key, relaxing at Penny's flat. On Monday morning I had to leave Penny because of football with Jessie, so I took the train back from Essex and got stuck at Edgware Road tube stop for an abnormally long time because the tube hates me. Welcome back to London.

The game was Fulham, featuring Sting as goalie, vs. Mancester City, featuring a very girlie set of light blue uniforms. And the highlight was the free banger sticks we got under our chairs. Now, Sting wasn't really the goalie, but he had the same hair and he was too far away to read the name on the back of his jersey, so he's Sting. And the girlie-ness of the uniforms didn't seem to inhibit their game since they eventually won 2-1. I'm really not being fair to my first football match, but it could have been better. I was cold, the hotdogs ran out and then when we found them they weren't as good as I'd imagined in the long line previous, and also I just wasn't invested. And when I'm not invested, I want the team I pick to win. That's where Fulham dropped the ball. Oh, if only it was cricket.

06 April 2007

Not Quite the Cricket World Cup...But Close

What better way to celebrate the beginning of baseball season (Go Tigers!) than by a nice game of cricket in Hyde Park? That's what I thought. So, when Bill proposed a Friday morning cricket game to the London Center in general, I wasted no time signing up. After all, if I can do baseball, I should be able to do cricket.

Except that in cricket, nothing is like baseball. Why not hit the ball anywhere you want to? Behind you, sure. There's no such thing as a foul. Poor luck for the fielders, really. A "four" is the equivalent of a home run in baseball except that it counts for four runs (hence the name, and really would be more like a grand slam, I guess) and you don't need to bother running around to earn it. Just stay put. There are two batters, no bases, some new equipment like stumps and wickets and whole different kind of bat, and pitching is called bowling. Oh, and the fielders don't wear gloves (something I find pretty terrifying as the ball comes wielding towards me) just the batters and the wicket keepers. Wicket keeper = catcher. Bail = a tiny little thingamabob that balances on the stumps (sort of like home plate, but only if you stretch the imagination) and if they fall off, you're automatically out and the bowler gets a wicket. Wickets are a very big deal. If you knock them off yourself because you're too close to the stumps as you bat - something a good amount of us did at least once - it's called a "suicide." Because you only get one out. And two times at bat. And then you're done. And while it's a team sport, it's also got a bit of every man for himself mentality, so that makes it interesting. Cricket's not for sissies.

Now for pictures with a little bit of narration:

Paddy and I are the two batters. I can't remember who, but one of us hit the ball, and we're looking to see if we should run for the points.





We decide it's probably for the best and book it. To earn a run, the batter has to make it to the other batter's stump (the 3 wooden poles). You can run back again to earn more runs.






Alyssa's batting, Jennie's bowling, I'm fixing fallen bails. (They like to spontaneously jump off of the stumps.)





I just swung, full-force, and missed. And now I'm in hysterics. This is during the second half of the game when I lost my focus.






I may not have been fabulous, but of the 7 of us who showed up to play, I came in second place with 15 runs. Not bad, I think. Oh, and I almost forgot - tourists took pictures of us! And, look, there we are. The cricket players, from left to right: Bill, me, Alyssa, Paddy, Jennie, Amy, and Tim. (Megan B. not pictured.) Ta-da!

01 April 2007

I Got Some Culture

Friday night I went to my first ever opera, which was followed on Saturday night by my first ever ballet.

The opera, La Boheme, was performed by the English National Opera at the Coliseum. Jessie and I dressed up extremely fancy for the night and were pretty disappointed to find that the majority of the theatre-goers were simply wearing jeans to the opera. As we were leaving, we did, however, see one lady that was dressed up even more than the two of us in a gown and furs. We were pleased. Though originally in French, the opera was performed in English as all operas by this company are. Thinking I would understand it better, because I knew nothing about opera, I was originally excited by this aspect. I soon learned that opera's always hard to understand, except for when they're saying the most mundane things at which point you wish it was in another language so it didn't ruin the beauty of it all. Furthermore, the performance was subtitled so you were sure to catch everything that was being sung. While I loved the whole of it and am trying to find some more inexpensive opera to go to before leaving London, I think I would much prefer another language.

Jessie and I saw our ballet, Onegin, at the Royal Opera House, this time a little less fancy and accompanied by some of the girls from downstairs, Brittany, Megan, and Amy. Our seats were just a few rows from the very back of the building, in what they referred to as the ampitheatre, but we could still see everything really well. The ballet was absolutely beautiful as was the set. The dancers were obviously amazing and all of us were very much in awe of their ability. Megan and I might try to see a different ballet next month called Mayerling if we can find an available evening.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I loved both performances, not really expecting to love the opera or ballet, and I can't wait to find more to see before May arrives. I better hurry!