Last Cambridge Days

Sorry--a little out of order, but I realized I forgot to include these days!

August 19th
Thursday morning, Meg and I took our final for The British and Their Sports. We had to write two essays, and then we were free. All in all, it was somewhat of an easy class, (I hardly had to do any work for it), but that is almost precisely what I wanted/needed for the last four weeks of travel. Once we finished, we went back to the room to relax and start thinking about packing.

Later in the day, we met up with one of Meg’s friends from school and checked off one of our Must Do’s: scones at Auntie’s Tea. The scones are so good with jam, and I felt so English eating one. We hung out in Parker’s Piece, (one of my favorite places) and then suddenly it was time to get ready for the last formal hall!

To celebrate Ken’s birthday, Meg and I hosted a little get together with birthday brownies and caramel squares, and Aditya provided a birthday cake. The crew hung out for about 45 minutes before heading over to King’s College. Because of the rain, we were deprived of our final opportunity to walk across the grass, (bummer), and drinks were served in the art gallery instead, in which Meg and I both had our art pieces displayed. It was a great chance to socialize before dinner and see everyone dressed up and with their masquerade masks.

The dining hall was marvelously set once more, and the food was delicious. I was at a table with Bill, Duc, Lange, Meg, Ken, Aditya and David. We had a great time, eating food that while I’m not entirely sure I knew what it was, was very good. Things got a little crazy during dinner, (perhaps too much celebrating for Ken's birthday?), but it was all good fun. After the dinner, there was a “disco” and King’s Bar was opened up with a dance floor and DJ. We stayed there for quite a while and I thought it was a great send off or way to end the program. It was a really fun night!

August 20

Friday morning, I slept in and woke up for lunch—my last Panini and smoothie!!! Meg and I said our goodbyes to the workers at the café, they knew us by then, and we walked around Cambridge, soaking in some of our last views. Around 3:00, we joined a group of girls on the program heading to Granchester for scones and tea. It was about a 45 minute walk through beautiful green meadows. The funniest part was trying to cross the path but cows were in the way! Finally we arrived at Granchester , and we all got scones. The scones were great, and we weren’t the only ones to think that. We naively sat by a bee trap and spent the whole hour protecting our scones from the vicious bees and trying to avoid being stung. It was still a fun trip, but that was a major downer for a pleasant afternoon.

We walked back and had a final dinner with our Cambridge “family.” The boys met Meg and me at Pembroke to help us spend the rest of our meal plan money, and we later met up to buy our last legal drinks before heading back to the States.

The "family" at the Masquerade Ball

A very relaxing last day in Cambridge, and it seemed perfectly fitting to eat scones and drink tea on my last day in England. It was a wonderful trip, and I went to sleep feeling what can be used to describe the entire summer: content, satisfied and happy.

Top Tens (or more!)

This may be my last post. I have been working on my summary of the summer. It will definitely require some more thought and some editing as I remember more of the things I did, but here is a start. I'm hoping to have it finished in the next week or so! I'll also be trying to make a recap video/recap slide show or some other visual recap. Thanks for following the blog! This summer was an absolute blast.

Top Sites (in no specific order)

• Paris Eiffel Tower for the first time
• Fountains Abbey
• King’s Chapel Roof
• Louvre
• St. Patrick’s Cathedral
• King’s College for the first time in its golden halo of light
• Seeing the Royal Pavilion in Brighton
• Hiking in the Trossachs
• Monet’s water lily paintings in the Orangerie Museum
• Cathedral in Berlin

Top Memories

• Scottish dancing/3rd of July Party/Going out into Edinburgh after
• Top of the Guinness factory, looking out over Dublin
• Hot chocolate in Berlin with Meg
• First formal hall dinner playing games at dinner with Ken, Duc, Ben, Caitlin, and Meg
• Evensong
• Winning croquet and beating the kid from Penn who beat us at trivia the night before
• Getting hot chocolate in Paris with Meg’s family at Angelina’s
• Puddle jumping
• Hearing the Irish live music near Temple Bar, befriending one of the members of the band on the pub crawl and meeting other students from Michigan State
• People watching on Brighton beach with awesome Malteser milk shakes
• Pub crawl in Berlin-most epic night, so much fun with fun cast of characters
• Climbing the Eiffel Tower, hiking up all 686 steps to the second level
• Seeing the Anne Boleyn play in the Old Globe Theater and walking along the Thames River after the play
  

Things I Never Got Used to

• Seeing babies in the drivers’ seat, and then realizing they weren’t actually driving
• Seeing all the stag and hen parties
• Realizing that I was actually in Europe
• All the incredible, old, historical buildings and museums in Europe—the Europeans must be so spoiled to have this all in their backyards
• Calling soccer “football” and football “American football”

Things to remember about Cambridge

• “Do you want to go punting?”- Constantly avoiding being asked about this
• Trailer of Life-late night snacks
• Sainsbury’s grocery store self checkout
• Running through Parker’’s Piece
• Fudge Kitchen and Fudge Fridays
• Living next to Darwin’s old flat
• King’s Bar and 2.05 ciders
• Unpredictable weather
• Pembroke Café: paninis, smoothies and hot chocolate with marshmallows
• King’s Chapel and the buildings around it
• The daily market
• Walking by the bakery “Fitzbillies” everyday and seeing the sweet treats
• Ice cream stands everywhere
• Always tripping because of the uneven cobblestone
• Going to “The Works”—best store EVER!

Favorite European things:

• Maltesers
• Cider
• Pimms and lemonade
• Music: Euro-influenced American music
• JLS-“One Shot” –best boy band song EVER!
• Fudge Friday
• English teas
• European fashion
  

Done-zo!

I just got out of my last final and turned in my paper, so I am done with summer school!

There is so much to squeeze in in the last few days before I leave for the States. I'm wondering what I was doing with my time during the last 7 weeks instead of seeing all of Cambridge!!!

Laundry time and then exploration time!

A Chance to Dance...

...in the rain! We finally got what we expected in England: a good rain storm. What did Meg and I do? Puddle jump, of course.

Energy Level: Last Day of Tourism

Sunday was the last real day of our trip since we were leaving early on Monday morning to go back to Cambridge. I decided for this day to follow my energy level, indirectly related to my excitement and happiness levels. I’ll take you through the highs and the lows of the day, (although in this case, the lows just refer to my tiredness). Lucky for us, the weather forecast was not very accurate about Sunday, and most of the day was rain-free, with the sun peeking through every once in a while. Looks like our Cambridge weather luck followed us into Germany.

Breakfast (around 9:45) perked me up after a restless night of sleep. I really liked the hostel we chose, but it is difficult to get good sleep in a room that sleeps 8 people when they come into the room at all different hours of the night and aren’t exactly quiet when they return. Again, I took advantage of the nutella and also had a big glass of milk, something that I miss having access to back in Cambridge.

Meg and I took the train to Alexanderplatz, the location of the Berlin equivalent of the Seattle Space needle. There was a really cool market being set up, but it wasn’t really happening yet because it was kind of early. We walked over to the Museum Island, stopped for a break to appreciate the beauty of the Berliner Dom, (a cathedral pictured below), and then hit up a few of the museums.

The museums were definitely interesting to see, (5 in total), but Meg and my energy levels were quickly deteriorating. We zombie-walked through three of the museums, trying to take in as much as possible, but recognizing that we are kind of museum-ed out from our last 4 trips. I think it's safe to just say that I saw a lot of cool old stuff. While the museums were really interesting, (my favorite things: paintings by Renoir and Monet and the bust of Nefertiti!!!), this correlates with my lowest energy level on the graph.

My energy level spiked up after we walked from the museum back to the Alexanderplatz market around 1 and got a crepe again for lunch. Crepes seem to be the perfect option for operating on a college budget: cheap and delicious. We were also saving room for one of the things we were most looking forward to: hot chocolate at the store that used to make chocolate for the royal families. We passed by the store with giant chocolate replicas of major Berlin sites and decided we had to come back on Sunday. We walked about twenty minutes to the store and indulged in the Rausch-Plantagen-Schokolade hot chocolate from Fassbender & Rausch Chocolatiers. It was amazingly rich and delicious (although it still didn't compare to Angelina's) but it was just a perfect moment to be enjoying the hot chocolate in the company of Meg, overlooking a beautiful square in Berlin. This corresponds to the highest level of energy I had during the day because I was just so happy.

After being rejuvenated by the hot chocolate, we walked to our final destination of the day: the Reichstag building. It is the government building in Berlin and runs free tours to the top of the building for a good view of Berlin. We had to wait in line for about 45 minutes, and during that time, the umbrellas that we had been carrying around all day pointlessly came in handy when we got a 10 minute shower storm. At least it cooled down though. Once we got to the top of the building, we got to walk in the coolest egg shaped building with a mirrored center, (you have to see the picture to get what I'm saying). The view of Berlin was very good from the top and it was nice to walk around and see from a bird's eye view everywhere that we had walked during the weekend.

We got dinner afterward at Kamps and then headed back to the hostel. We decided to take it easy and just sat in the lower lounge area watching Sherlock Holmes. We met a very outgoing Canadian teen who introduced us to some fun German kids and we just hung out with them for a while before calling it a night. It was a fun hostel experience as I realized that people are just so friendly and outgoing. It was cool to hear about everyone's travel experiences and it makes me realize how many teenagers are just traveling for fun and seeing the world. I definitely have to get back to Europe next summer! Great trip to Berlin--definitely a pleasantly surprising city!

August 15

Learning about Berlin

The day started with the standard hostel breakfast: rolls with butter and jam. This hostel gained points by having nutella as an option, and that was definitely an option I took advantage of. As we left the hostel, the weather was exactly what we expected from the forecast--it was raining pretty hard, but luckily we had umbrellas and we decided not to let the rain stop us.

Brandenburg gate in Pariser Platz

Having stumbled across Sandeman’s New Europe tours in Dublin, Meg and I continued our New Europe free walking tour streak and went on the tour through the Berlin city center. Some of the sights we covered included the Brandenburg gate, (one of the most iconic gates of Berlin), the Reichstag building, (a government building), Hitler’s old bunker, a Holocaust Memorial for all the murdered Jews of Europe, the Book Burning Memorial outside of Humboldt University, Checkpoint Charlie, the SS Headquarters, the Berlin Wall, and finally the Museum Island. It was almost unreal walking on the tour because the history is so recent and powerful. I guess I just hadn’t realized that the Berlin Wall only came down about twenty years ago, about a month after I was born. This was definitely the most intellectual and historical tour that I had been on and was very sobering. After the tour, Meg and I continued in our Paris mindset and got crepes—best crepes ever!

Checkpoint Charlie

After the crepes, I went to the Topography of Terrors, a museum about the history of Hitler, the Holocaust and the Berlin wall. Walking alongside the wall was very thought provoking, and while it wasn’t the happiest or most joyful thing to see, I am very glad I got to experience it. The museum was teeming with information and pictures and it was overwhelming to try to take it all in. We spent quite a bit of time in the museum and ended up sitting for a little while to rest our very tired feet.

A remaining portion of the Berlin wall

We walked back along the walking tour route and stopped for an early dinner near the Holocaust Memorial. The day had tired me out more so than past travelling days, and I decided it had to be because it was the last travelling weekend and my body was just tired. We headed back to the hostel around 6:30 to get ready for our pub crawl later that night.

Holocaust Memorial-different height blocks on uneven ground

The pub crawl made for one of the best nights out in Europe. We left the hostel around 8:15 and the first place we went had an outdoor backyard which was super crowded with other “crawlers.” The entertainment provided at the pub was a really outgoing pyro-man, juggling fire and playing with a blow torch. We met quite a cast of characters throughout the night including a stag party (think bachelor party) with the groom dressed as Elvis, a trio of “Teach for England” teachers, two awesome girls from Ireland, a pair of au pairs from Munich, 2 engineering students from Cincinnati, and some German natives. Everyone was extremely friendly and it was just a solid fun night.

Meg and I with the groom to be (Elvis), the best man and another friend. They were a riot!

August 14

Stress Level

A pictorial representation of my stress level (above) and the corresponding thoughts running through my head (below).

• 4:30 pm I’m going to head to the bus so that I’m early and I’ll make sure I don’t miss the bus 4:45 Okay, I’m at the stop, it should be here any time.
• 5:00 Where is the bus? It was supposed to leave now! Why isn’t there anyone around here for me to ask about this? Why won’t the bus drivers talk to me? The rain is probably slowing everything down. I’ll be totally fine on time as long as I leave by 5:15. Meg’s 4 pm bus was supposed to be 20 minutes late so it’s probably normal for buses to be late.
• 5:15 Where is a number for me to call? This is making me nervous. The bus totally should be here by now! I have a flight to catch. I wonder if that guy over there is waiting for the same bus as me….”Sir! What bus are you waiting for? …oh, not the same one, okay nevermind.” Worth a shot, okay here’s a number to call. I hope this won’t drain my minutes on my phone.
• 5:30 THE BUS IS BROKEN DOWN! What do you mean the bus is broken down?!?! (Talking to bus company representative: “What am I supposed to do now? I have a flight to catch!!!!...okay, yes you can call me back after you talk to your manager.” I can’t miss my weekend trip to Berlin! Okay, so if I do miss the flight, there must be another flight later that night. Meg can get on our original one and I’ll meet her there. Why, why, why!?! Maybe a taxi would work?
• 5:45 Talking to representative again, “I don’t think the bus that gets me there at 6:50 for a 7:45 flight is going to work!...Okay, so I can take a taxi and be fully reimbursed? Guaranteed? Just keep the receipt? Okay, thanks so much!” Okay, got to flag down a cab! There is one! This better work. “How fast to Stansted Airport? Do you take credit card? Do you give receipts? Okay, let’s go!
• 6:00 Come on, let’s get a move on! Why is traffic stopped? We’ve hardly moved at all. Text to Meg: “He estimates around 6:30. AHHH!!! I’m nervous!” I have to stop at a cash machine…this better be fast.
• 6:15 Okay, we’re finally cruising, should be there soon. I better get reimbursed for this!
  
• 6:30 I’m here! Where is Meg? I just have to get through the lines and then it’s smooth sailing.
• 6:45 Oh darn, I got in the wrong line to get my passport stamped. The right line just got so much longer. Ask at the front of the line? Wow, they were so nice to let me go to the front…I mean, it did only take 5 seconds to get my passport stamped. Still, very nice people. Now to security! Thanks Meg for getting me dinner while I was panicking!
• 7:00 At the gate, finally able to eat, my heart rate can finally resume normal human beating patterns. Slow down. Eat food. I made it.
• 7:15 Board the plane, I can’t believe this worked.
• 7:30 Relax
• 7:45 Relax more, heart is still beating kind of fast
• 8:00 Time to sleep
• 10:30 I made it, almost no stress now. It totally worked out and I’m in Germany! This is so strange. That lady was nice to help us get our bus tickets.
• 11:00 Why is there construction on the bus line we need to get to our hostel? I don’t read German and this is super confusing. Why is everything going wrong travelling on this trip?
  
• 11:30 I really hope this bus is taking us to the right place.
• 12:00 Meg and I are travelling pros. It may have taken us a little longer, but we totally have this down. Nice try Berlin, but we figured it out. Now time for bed. We made it.

August 13, (Friday the 13th!!!)

Forecast

Looks like I'll be bringing my umbrella.

Final trip

Meg and I will embark on our final trip tomorrow to Berlin. We made the realization tonight that we have become accustomed to traveling every weekend. In any other situation, I would be over the moon about traveling to Germany for several weeks leading up to my departure, but in this current setting, I'm only beginning to get excited about 18 hours beforehand. Traveling to other countries on the weekends has become almost routine, and we are treating it as if it were a school field trip. I've hardly given it any thought and am planning on packing tomorrow along with planning the trip over lunch with Meg before heading to the airport. Europe has spoiled me, and I realize that only in retrospect will I actually realize how cool this summer really is. Goodbye England, hello Germany! I'll fill you in when I get back on Monday!

2 down, 1 to go

2 classes down, 1 left! Today was my last art class, leaving me with the realization that I will be headed back to the States very soon. I have the chance now to reflect on my experience in my art studio course.

I have definitely had my ups and downs in the class, leaving some days feeling completely frustrated and other days feeling great about the work I’d produced. In looking back at the class however, I think more important than any of the paintings and sketches I’ve produced is the way that I have learned to think about my art. I have learned to experiment with color and trust my eyes and to paint what I see, not what I think I should see or the “right” colors. Painting is more about finding the relationship between things and letting the background add beauty to the foreground rather than painting simply the subject. A complete painting should include the entire surroundings in a cohesive and unified way. For my last painting, I painted the same project that I started with in the first class: a colored square exercise. The premise is to mix several colors and paint a square on the paper. You then use that color to mix a new one and place it beside the first one, and continue on in that fashion. The purpose is to let the colors work together and complement one another. I learned that oftentimes, the paint palette can look more beautiful than the painting because in trying to force the colors to be what you think they should be, you lose sight of the beauty of the materials and the way they work together effortlessly. A big part of painting for me is letting go and really letting the colors work in comparison to one another. Using complementary colors is also a lot more fun and relaxing.

I really enjoyed the art class. While some of the hour discussions were sometimes slightly painful and abstract, it really got me thinking about the different elements of art. I’m really happy I had the chance to take an art class over the summer since I probably won’t be able to fit it into my schedule at school. It certainly wasn’t what I expected, but I am very satisfied with the class and know that I have learned to think in a new more colorful way.

August 11

Impressions of Paris

Sunday was an action packed day—our last day in Paris and our last chances to see everything we wanted to see. Meg and I started the day early by going to the Orangerie Museum. This museum was perhaps my favorite museum because it had Monet’s water lily paintings. The 8 paintings took up entire walls. The museum was also home to work by Renoir, (my new fave!), Degas, Cezanne, Picasso, Gauguin, and many others. Meg definitely instilled a love of impressionist paintings in me because they were just so beautiful.

After the Orangerie, we ventured over the Musee d’Orsay-a museum in an updated train station. This again housed many impressionist paintings, many of the same ones from the Orangerie, along with van Gogh’s self portrait. This museum was a little more overwhelming than the previous one because of its size, but the paintings were beautiful and there was a very relaxed atmosphere. Meg and I were able to put the things we have been learning about in our art class into use as we commented on the paintings and I felt that I had a better appreciation of the work.

I was pretty museum-ed out after those two, so we headed over to the Notre Dame to meet up with Ken. It is very impressive simply in its sheer size, and it was very neat to go into the cathedral. When we got in, mass was just finishing so we got to see the procession. I noticed that the organ music was very gothic and eerie with loud minor chords, almost mirroring the Gothic and imposing architecture. Dainty and whimsical are definitely not the words I’d use to describe my experience there. I was hoping to run into Quasimoto there, but no such luck…

For lunch, Meg, Ken and I met up with Meg’s mom and sister to go to Angelina’s. Meg’s parents went to Paris for their honeymoon and had had hot chocolate at Angelina’s and had been building it up for Meg her whole life, so it was cool to be able to go taste this magical hot chocolate. Lunch was very tasty, but we all knew we were looking forward to dessert. The hot chocolate was easily the best hot chocolate I’ve ever tasted by miles. (Sorry Dad—it makes Chevron hot chocolate taste like Swiss Miss!) It was a hybrid of regular hot chocolate and chocolate pudding. It was so thick and I guess they melt down hot chocolate bars to make it. We received instructions to taste it on its own first before then adding the whipped cream. To go with the hot chocolate, the table split the specialty dessert-a meringue coated with whipped cream with chestnut paste on top. I was almost painfully full at the end of the lunch, but the hot chocolate was too good to pass up. Thanks Mrs. Zolner!!! I’m hooked on Angelina’s for life now.

After lunch, Meg and I headed to Monmarte, the artist district. The main attraction there is the Sacre Coeur, a beautiful white church. On our way up to the church, we were accosted by the bracelet selling street vendors who try to put the bracelet on you and then charge you. Luckily we were warned about this so keeping our hands in pockets seemed pretty effective. Sacre Coeur was so beautiful to see. We walked around after that to the artist square to watch the myriad of artists all painting the same subjects (the Parisian monuments) but in so many different styles. My favorite was a woman who painted the sites with beautifully colored water colors. There were lots of tourist shops in the area, but it still maintained a cool artsy vibe.

As our last touristy activity, we took the metro to the Pompidou Centre, a modern arts museum. It is a really neat building that looks almost inside out. Pictures are the best way to visualize the building. This area had such a different vibe and just seemed way more hipster and trendy. There were quite a few teenagers hanging out skating. There was a cool modern art fountain which really seemed to complement the area.

To end the day, we picked up our stuff from the hostel and headed to the train station. I felt completely satisfied with the weekend, having seen the museums I wanted to see, climbing the Eiffel Tower, seeing the Notre Dame and Arc du Triomphe, and exploring the culture by seeing the Champs Elysees, the artist district and the trendy hip scene. As my ears popped going under the Chunnel, I couldn’t help but just feel happy and so lucky to have had such a great weekend.

August 8

Paris Expectations v. Reality

I really like this theme, but I realize that it is difficult to discuss expectations in retrospect, but I’ll do my best to be unbiased.

Expectation: The bread in Paris would be incredible.
Reality: The bread at the hostel that they served for breakfast tasted normal.

Expectation: Versailles would be a beautiful house, very elaborate with gorgeous architecture.
Reality: Versailles was an INCREDIBLY beautiful chateau with simple and sophisticated, intricate architecture. Meg, Ken and I decided to explore the gardens instead of the actual chateau, and that took us half the day! Luckily we were there early enough to see the fountains actually running with water, and there was music playing in the background. I think I took around 150 pictures just at Versailles because it was picture perfect. The gardens were so well tended to, and there were about 16 different sections of the garden with different patterns or set ups. Each set up was beautiful in different ways, and it was fun to kind of explore in the maze created by the gardens. I couldn’t imagine having those gardens as my backyard and just finding a shady corner to read. It would definitely be conducive for the biggest game of hide and go seek…ever. Versailles was definitely the most beautiful house and garden I’ve ever seen.

Expectation: Crepes EVERYWHERE!
Reality: There are only crepe stands in certain parts of the city, and unfortunately after our trip to Versailles, we did not go to one of those parts of Paris. It was late afternoon when we got back and we were starved and desperate for food in the Carousel de Louvre. It seemed our options were either pay around 15 euro for a sandwich or 4 euro for a Happy Meal. 3 college students…I’ll let you figure that one out. I did get my crepe that I was anticipating later that night for dinner-sugar, lemon and butter—delicious!

Expectation: The Louvre would have lots of paintings, lots of corridors and the Mona Lisa would be huge and prominently displayed in a bulletproof case.
Reality: The Louvre was huge! We got in for free because we are students of the EU for the summer, and we spent about an hour and a half in the museum. I got to see the Renaissance paintings, Italian and French works of art, famous statues like the Venus de Milo, and some of Napoleon’s old furniture. Most of the museum was pretty empty, except for the Mona Lisa room. It was a pretty small painting, and again, it was unreal to see the painting because it is arguably the most famous painting in the world. I won’t say that I had any real artistic inspiration by looking at it, but it was pretty cool.

Expectation: Paris would have lots of trendy shopping, be super expensive, and everyone would be really well dressed.
Reality: Maybe those things are true, but just not in the super touristy areas that I was exploring. Meg and I did some souvenir shopping and our greatest find was twelve postcards for 2 euro. I found something for my sister, (I know she doesn’t read this so I’m not worried about her knowing), and just had fun seeing all the super tacky Paris souvenirs.

Expectation: I’ve already talked a little about the Eiffel Tower, but I definitely had high expectations for it before I went to Paris. I’ve seen so many pictures of it, seen it in so many movies and it is just such an icon of Paris.
Reality: The Eiffel Tower exceeded my expectations by a mile. Not only did its sheer size blow me away, but the majestic and impressive presence was just so powerful. For something built out of criss-cross metal, it is so graceful and beautiful. Meg and I opted to walk up the stairs to the second level of the tower instead of waiting in the mile long line for the elevator, saving money and getting a work out in at the same time. We counted the steps and recorded our hike on the way up and came to about 686 steps. The view from the second level was absolutely incredible and we could see all of Paris. I couldn’t help but think about all the pictures that were being taken of me while I was up there…haha.

Expectation: I thought the river boat cruise would be beautiful as we cruised along the Seine seeing all the monuments. Meg had talked it up a lot so I was looking forward to it.
Reality: We chose the only time in Paris that it rained to go on the cruise. (Meg-if you are reading this—totally not your fault, it was still awesome!). Luckily the boat was covered, and it may have actually been the best thing to do in the rain since we were still seeing the sites but weren’t getting soaked. It cleared up at the end and we were able to go outside to see the Eiffel Tower and watch it light up. Gorgeous. A perfect end to the night.


August 7

Seeing for the first time

I’ve been going to the beach since before I could walk and talk, leaving me unable to remember my first trip there and my first view of the ocean. My parents, (having both grown up in Iowa), had very different experiences than me, and so while I was growing up they would tell the story of driving over La Jolla Boulevard and seeing the breathtaking view of the San Diego ocean for the first time. This trip to Europe has given me so many of those first incredible views of the various sites I’ve gotten to visit, and I just know that those feelings will stand out vividly in my memory for many years to come. This weekend in Paris provided me with quite a few of those moments, especially when combined with high anticipation and excitement. In this journal, I’ll go through my first impressions of the city and the sites and attempt to describe the beauty of Paris.

After pulling into the train station around noon on Friday, Meg, Ken and I emerged ready to explore the city and experience the culture. Like my first few days in England, everything just felt different and I was giddy with excitement. I had even had trouble sleeping the night before, trying to plan out the trip and make sure I didn’t miss a thing, (along with last minute packing!). The signs were in French, the announcements were in French, the people even looked French! Not only was it a European country, but English was not the first language, adding a new level of exotic-ness. I will admit that I half expected to walk off the train and have my three years of French from high school come rushing back to me so I would be fluent and able to converse with the Parisians, but unfortunately I wasn’t so lucky. We wandered along the main road of the train station before stopping for lunch at a café. We all had omelets and had our first French dining experience. The waiter was almost exactly what I expected—a little snooty, placing us at the back of the restaurant and pretty much ignoring us. Oh well…

We took the metro to our hostel (we quickly learned our way on the public transit system—very well organized with colors, numbers, arrows and names) and checked in. From there, we instantly left to go on a walking tour around the city. We got off the metro at St. Michel and saw a beautiful fountain. From there, we walked across the Seine, seeing Notre Dame, (it was HUGE!), the bridge Pont Neuf, (constructed with faces to represent Henry IV’s dinner guests when they were drunk, haha), le Musee d’Orsay, the Louvre, the Tuileries Garden, l’Orangerie, and the Eiffel Tower and Arc du Triomphe in the distance. We learned lots of fun facts from our outrageous tour guide, and I absolutely fell in love with the city. "Paris-je t’aime." Every building was beautiful and the whole city just seemed to harmonize with everything else. The gardens were well tended to, the monuments were impressive yet sophisticated, and the atmosphere was incredible. The picture above is on a bridge over the Seine. Couples go to the bridge, make a promise of love, put a lock on the bridge and then throw the key into the Seine--cute!

We headed back to our hostel in the Bastille area and then grabbed dinner. It was at the Falstaff Café, and I had a Croque Monsieur. I distinctly remember learning about that dish in my French class in high school, and so I thought I just HAD to try it. It is an open faced grilled ham and cheese sandwich—very good! Again, things from my French class kept coming back to me as I read the menu and reflected on hearing the stories from Monsieur Svidal about Paris and tried to realize that I was actually in Paris! Unreal.

After dinner, we took the metro back to St. Michel and walked along the same path from our walking tour for the night. Everything was so pretty at night, and I really came to understand the “City of Lights” reference. We headed toward the main street of Champs Elysees with its high end shopping. We finally made it to the Arc du Triomphe, took some night pictures and then took the metro to the Eiffel Tower.

On our way to the Eiffel Tower we got to see it sparkling, (it lights up every hour on the hour during the night for about three minutes), and it was absolutely stunning. Standing in front of the Eiffel Tower just didn’t seem real. I had such high expectations for it, and it most certainly did not fail to live up to those expectations. It is such an iconic monument, and I just don’t have the words to describe the powerful feelings I experienced standing under it. There was a cool atmosphere around the base as people were selling these slingshots that shot neon blue firefly toys.. I decided that seeing the Eiffel Tower for the first time definitely made it into my top 3 moments from the trip. We headed back to the hostel afterward and called it a night.

Paris!

I leave early tomorrow morning for Paris! It just doesn't seem real right now, especially as I sit in the library finishing up a midterm paper. I'm hoping to have it done soon, (this is a study break!) and then I'll pack and try to get a handle on the things that I want to see and do. The backup plan for the group is always just to ask for maps and brochures at the train station--I'm sure there will be plenty of suggestions for things to do. I just can't wait!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsy9k3Z-CiY

This is what I think about as I prepare.

Thoughts of Home

There is a general feeling shared among many of the students on the trip that the days left on the program are dwindling as we are now heading into our sixth week here. Finals are on the horizon along with post-trip plans. I have been browsing the Harvard course catalog, realizing that I will head into my fifth semester in just under a month. After the program ends, I will meet my family in New York City for several days before heading back to campus, making this officially the longest time spent away from home for me, from June 28th to winter break, just under 6 months. That being said, I've been having some thoughts of home...

Things I miss:

Working dryers and a laundry service (thanks Mom!)-I had to spread out all of my clothes across my room to dry them. And trust me, I had to dry A LOT of clothes, so they took up all my walking room and chairs. I ended up having to wear a damp shirt today. It didn’t matter that much though when I walked to class in the rain.

Television-Not only do I not have access to a television, I can’t even watch online shows because most websites don’t broadcast to the UK. I’ll have to catch up once I get back to school. I miss eating popcorn watching American Idol with the fam.

Target and Walmart-I found a substitute here, though. It’s called Primark, but had equivalent costs and reminded me of that classy establishment back home. Most memorable things from the trip: A lady yelling at her crying toddler to “Shut up!” and siblings squabbling and running loops around the store. Oh, how I miss mindless errands back home. It's also very strange to not know the major stores that I like to shop at and having to figure it out by going in and wandering around.

Supercuts- I’ve been dying to get my hair cut but don’t know where to go. Perhaps I should ask a student here for suggestions.

Milk-It just isn’t as commonly found here. The dining hall only has it for breakfast, so I bought some at the supermarket and used it as an excuse to buy cookies. Yum. I miss making brownies and home and eating them fresh out of the oven with a big glass of milk.

These are all minor things, but just things that have come up along the trip. I can't wait to be reunited with my family, my roommates, friends and teammates back at school!

The Center of Paralysis-J Joyce

After another breakfast at the hostel, Meg and I continued on our tourist streak and went to Dublinia-a Viking museum. It was another very well organized museum with lots of cool information and exhibits to explore. I learned that Vikings never wore horned hats, but rather those were part of a ceremonial process from a time before the Vikings. I learned about their trading, plundering, religious views, markets and ways of life and really enjoyed my time in the museum. At the end, I learned about the archaeological process by which people discover information from the past. Well done, Dublinia!

Meg and I got an early lunch after the museum and Café Brick House where we got scrambled eggs and I got Bailey’s cheesecake. I got a strange look when I asked for both, but the cheesecake definitely hit the spot. SO delicious.

We walked back to the Dublin Castle again to get a better look at the gardens around it. The garden is very simple, yet very beautiful. It made for some great photographs and was one of the prettiest scenes in Dublin with the differing architecture behind it and the cool white granite making up the garden structures.

After the garden tour, I went to the Chester Beatty Museum. I’m still not entirely sure what the collections consisted of, but I do know that the collections were some of the most intricately painted and designed folios I’ve ever seen. A very nice museum worker told us that the paintings were painted with molten 24 karat gold with a brush that can only be made with the hair from the chin of a Siamese cat. I got to use a magnifying glass to look at the detail, sometimes as small as written Farsi on the gem of a necklace about the size of a pin head. While I still can’t really place the folios in context, they were extremely beautiful and I’m so glad I went to that museum! At the top of the museum, there was a garden and we could get a great view of the garden below!

Meg and I walked from the museum through Grafton Shopping area to St. Stephen’s Green. The Grafton Street consisted of street performers and high end shopping. It was alive with people milling around and was very fun to walk through. There was such a striking contrast between the frenzy of Grafton St. and the serenity of St. Stephen’s Green. We walked under Fusilier’s Arch and immediately everything was quiet and calm. There was a beautiful pond with swans and then beautiful gardens more centrally located. We sat down for a while to just relax and appreciate the calmness amidst our busy weekend.

Next on our tourist checklist, we walked in the rain again, (thanks Dublin!) to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It was slightly out of the way but well worth the walk. It was a gorgeous cathedral and very impressive. We huddled under a tree waiting for the rain to stop, and managed to snap some pictures in front of the cathedral.

We continued walking and went back to Christ Church Cathedral to go inside. The church was so peaceful and I got to go into the crypt beneath. It had been converted into a mini museum and smelled very moldy and old. After wandering around that cathedral, we got an early meal at the Copper Alley Bistro (one of the best meals I’ve had since here: garlic mashed potatoes and chicken!) and then headed back to the airport for our evening flight. The travel back was relatively uneventful and it felt so nice to get into bed after the extremely tiring, but AMAZING, weekend!

Dubliners Day 2

Meg and I started the day early by walking around the city before our walking tour. Before leaving, we ate (free!) breakfast at the hostel and really got a sense of what staying in a hostel is like. It’s definitely different than anything that I’ve experienced before, but it is a really cool communal feeling. Everyone washes his/her own dishes after eating and just coexists in the same common space. I could imagine that it would be a pretty cool way to live for a while and you could meet some interesting people, traveling from hostel to hostel. While walking around the downtown area, I continued to fall in love with Dublin because of all the cool restaurants, shops and buildings.

At 11:00, Meg and I started our 3 hour walking tour. We got to see so many of the Dublin hot spots including the City Hall, the Dublin Castle, Dublin gardens, the birthplace of Jonathan Swift, Temple Bar area (which is NOT named after the bar, but rather the land that was there beforehand), the music wall of fame that pays tribute to the Irish music stars, Trinity College, Dublin Parliament building, and finally Merrion Square (a pretty park). The tour was filled with historical information and was a great way to hear cool stories about the city and see all the major sites. I didn’t know much Irish history beforehand, but now I realize how filled with uprising, rebellion and fighting for freedom it was. We also learned that the colorful doors of Dublin were originally painted for men to be able to identify their own houses when they were drunk and that now, Guinness finances the repainting of the doors every 5 years to perpetuate the association of the Irish and drinking so that the rest of the world will believe that Guinness is good beer.

After the tour, Meg and I did a brief run through of the Dublin National Gallery. It was very similar to the London National Gallery, but it was still cool to see all of the paintings and critique them, putting into use everything I’ve learned from my art class.


In search of food, Meg and I walked down Temple Bar and settled for some gelato. It was so rich and delicious and hit the spot. We then went on our second tour of the day at Trinity College. We learned that one of the provosts said that “Girls will enter this school over my dead body,” after which he soon died, and soon after girls were allowed admittance. We also learned that one of the dormitories only houses students fluent in Irish and who regularly speak the language. At the end of the tour, we got to see the Trinity Library, (where the library scene in Harry Potter was filmed!) and the Book of Kells-the oldest illustrated Bible in existence. The dyes used for the book come from stones in Afghanistan and pregnant beetles in India, among other obscure and exotic elements.

We went back to the hostel after the tour to get ready for the night and then went to Fitsimons Bar for dinner. It was a very nice dinner of soup, salad and soda bread and Ken got a platter of potatoes-a necessity since we were in Ireland.

Dinner took us right up to the starting time of our pub crawl, beginning at the Purty Kitchen. We preceded to go to 4 other pubs before ending up at a night club. The best drink on the crawl was the strawberry beer (you should try making this dad! It was REALLY strawberry flavored), and we also met a group of students from Michigan State studying in Cambridge as well. Each pub definitely had a distinct feel to it, and it was cool to experience all the different ones. The pub crawl was a great way to meet some people and be social. It was definitely one of the most fun things of the trip.