I am truly awful at lying but I still manage to do it convincingly to you, blog. Maybe it’s because you don’t have a face, or maybe it’s because I just feel so far removed from my (three? four?) readers. But for some reason it’s possible for me to lie to you blatantly. Well, I do it with good intentions. I had so much time on my hands – of course I was going to update about Italy! I should have done it the following day.
Anyway, I’ve been feeling really kind of anxious these past few days. My time here is running out, I’m in the middle of exams, I’m making last minute travel plans, and my bank account is shriveling up faster than the Wicked Witch of the West in a water park. (Sorry if that was cheesy.) I feel like I’m losing control. Things are slipping out of my hands as I’m trying to hold on to them – minutes, memories, essays, and pound notes alike. It’s as though I’m trying to slow down, but everything is speeding up and surging ahead around me, and I’m just caught up in the stampede. We’re stampeding toward the end of this semester and being abroad, yes, towards the summer and home and family and sun and warmth and making money instead of spending it. I’m stampeding toward my 21st birthday. My sister is graduating high school and going to college. I’m going to be a senior. I’m going to be a SENIOR. I was just a senior in high school. They warned me it would fly, whoever they is, and I heeded their warnings. I savoured everything, I captured memories, I didn’t take experiences for granted. But I don’t want it to end. I’m ultimately stampeding towards the unknown. There’s a cliff up ahead that I’ll be parachuting off. It’s like a video game. I’ll have to parachute off and try to land on the ledges below that are marked “Employment” or “Grad School.” I’m on my first and last life though. And I don’t even know what to do with it.
I’m probably being overdramatic but that’s the way I’ve been feeling lately. Ever since that guy who started talking to me in the bar laughed and told me that being an English professor wasn’t a real job. Not that the opinion of a stranger should really matter to me – especially a Portuguese man who insults my life’s plan as his pick up line – but still. It makes me remember the hairdresser who, after engaging in the obligatory small talk with me, said “a professor? Why the heck would you wanna do that?” And I had no answer. Just because there’s nothing else. What else is there to do? What else could I be? What do I want? Where do I want to end up? What am I doing with my life?
Well this is overall a really emo and self-pity infested post but maybe I should just post it before I forget and/or get sidetracked. I will update about Italy, hopefully soon, maybe tomorrow, or maybe after my last two tests are done next week. And I will tell you about my goings on since Italy. But I will warn you in an attempt to be completely honest. The next 45 days are going to fly. And in my attempt to keep up with them, I may leave you behind.
Realistically/Idealistically conflictedly yours,
Amanda
Wednesday, 29 April 2009
Thursday, 9 April 2009
Day 90 – The Sparknotes version of my March 2009
Wow. I cannot believe it has been over a month since I updated. Fourty days and fourty nights – maybe I can excuse my lack of posts by saying that I gave up blogging for Lent?? Time is flying by – I can’t believe I am a week into April already! And I am very sorry that I havent been keeping up with my blogging. Between traveling, fleeting romances, and coursework, March flew by and every time I started to update, something else would capture my attention before I could devote enough time for an entry. “Update Blog” has been on my dry-erase to-do list for a month now and far too much has happened for me to put it off any longer. Even if I am sitting here until 6am, I will update you on my life. Perhaps it won’t be as detailed as previous entries have been (I’m sure you are thankful for that) but I will do my best to summarize the goings-on that have taken me away from blogging.
Let’s see... where to begin... The first week of March I was concerned about preparing for my Paris trip March 6-8 and thus had to find a camera since mine had broken at Fabric the week before. I ended up settling on going to Paris without a working flash and my parents bought one in the States and sent it to me after the trip, since it wasn’t worth it to buy a new one for the prices they were being sold here in the UK. I also went to see Hairspray with the Social Programme, which was really good and really funny! Although I think I like the movie better. I also met up with a guy and went out for some drinks. We really hit it off and ended up wandering the streets of London for a while, and I had a lot of fun.
On Friday March 6, Joy, Hayley and I ventured to Paris! Joy and I were rooming together, and we ended up hanging out with Hayley’s roommate the whole trip too, who was ironically enough also named Hayley, an Australian studying abroad. We took the Eurostar into Garre de Nord and then got on a coach for a sightseeing tour with out Paris tour guide Laurent, or “Larry from Pari” haha. He was an excellent tour guide, and in our first hours in Paris we got to see Place de la Concord,
Les Invalides (where Napolean is buried),
the Louvre,
Let’s see... where to begin... The first week of March I was concerned about preparing for my Paris trip March 6-8 and thus had to find a camera since mine had broken at Fabric the week before. I ended up settling on going to Paris without a working flash and my parents bought one in the States and sent it to me after the trip, since it wasn’t worth it to buy a new one for the prices they were being sold here in the UK. I also went to see Hairspray with the Social Programme, which was really good and really funny! Although I think I like the movie better. I also met up with a guy and went out for some drinks. We really hit it off and ended up wandering the streets of London for a while, and I had a lot of fun.
On Friday March 6, Joy, Hayley and I ventured to Paris! Joy and I were rooming together, and we ended up hanging out with Hayley’s roommate the whole trip too, who was ironically enough also named Hayley, an Australian studying abroad. We took the Eurostar into Garre de Nord and then got on a coach for a sightseeing tour with out Paris tour guide Laurent, or “Larry from Pari” haha. He was an excellent tour guide, and in our first hours in Paris we got to see Place de la Concord,
Les Invalides (where Napolean is buried),
the Louvre,
and the Bastille (which our hotel was near).
After settling into our rooms, the four of us went exploring, armed with maps and snippets of half-remembered high school French. We headed to the Louvre, which turned out to be a very long walk, and I got a toasted brioche and nutella sandwich on the way – I ate more nutella that weekend than I have in my whole life I think, but it is so delicious! It’s like a food group there! Laurent had told us that the Louvre was free on Friday nights after 6pm for under 26 year olds, so we were able to go in and follow the mass exodus of people to the Mona Lisa and then to the Venus de Milo. Photography was surprisingly allowed, and we saw a lot of other art in between, including Winged Victory, but we were tired from our long day and all of it started to blur together. The Mona Lisa was such a small little frame on a huge wall, and the room it was in was full of other artwork that was somehow deemed less worthy of viewing. Everyone was clamoring into the roped queue to snap a picture of her, to prove that they had seen her. But everyone’s seen the Mona Lisa a million times – she’s everywhere! – and she doesn’t look any different in person. It was the same with the Rosetta Stone – no one was really taking the time to appreciate the piece, they were just pointing and snapping to prove they were there. I know I am guilty of it too, but it just seemed so...superficial.
This is a picture of the crowd of people taking pictures of the Mona Lisa, reminiscent of that scene in The Sixth Sense when all of the parents in the audience of the school play put up their video cameras to film it. For the record, she is smiling. We went to the Latin Quarter for dinner and then headed back to the hotel to collapse into our pillows. (The beds were exceptionally comfortable and I slept like a rock.)
Saturday we woke up and went to breakfast, which was included in the hotel stay. They had a plethora of croissants, fruits, breads and of course, nutella, so we stocked up and wrapped food in napkins to bring with us for lunch. We began our walking tour of Marais, and we got to see a lot of very old buildings in the neighborhood our hotel was a part of.
The tour ended at Notre Dame, and we were able to go in for free.
This is a picture of the crowd of people taking pictures of the Mona Lisa, reminiscent of that scene in The Sixth Sense when all of the parents in the audience of the school play put up their video cameras to film it. For the record, she is smiling. We went to the Latin Quarter for dinner and then headed back to the hotel to collapse into our pillows. (The beds were exceptionally comfortable and I slept like a rock.)
Saturday we woke up and went to breakfast, which was included in the hotel stay. They had a plethora of croissants, fruits, breads and of course, nutella, so we stocked up and wrapped food in napkins to bring with us for lunch. We began our walking tour of Marais, and we got to see a lot of very old buildings in the neighborhood our hotel was a part of.
The tour ended at Notre Dame, and we were able to go in for free.
For the most part the atmosphere inside was reverent, but there was a service going on despite the tourists walking around the perimeter of the church, and the sanctity was somewhat compromised by souvenir stands and Press-A-Penny machines in the church. It was still amazing to be inside the cathedral, and I was in awe of the rose windows.
They are made of the original stained glass, which was carefully numbered and taken down during World War II so that it wouldn’t get damaged. We did some souvenir shopping on the street next to Notre Dame and ate lunch in the gardens behind it, near the flying buttresses.
They are made of the original stained glass, which was carefully numbered and taken down during World War II so that it wouldn’t get damaged. We did some souvenir shopping on the street next to Notre Dame and ate lunch in the gardens behind it, near the flying buttresses.
I really think “The Flying Buttresses” would be a great name for a band. Then we took the Metro to the Eiffel Tower, and went up to “Le deuxieme etage” or the second level.
We could have gone up to the third level, at the very tippy-top of the tower, but the view from where we were was absolutely incredible and I was not very anxious to add more height.
All of Paris was before us and its white buildings stretched as far as the eye could see. It will be even prettier when I go in May because the trees were not in bloom yet, and all of the park spaces were that dull brown-gray that large groups of bare trees always are. It was beautiful, though, and no pictures can really capture the view (although I tried valiantly to do so). Reluctantly, we came down from the Eiffel Tower and started walking towards the Arc de Triomphe (another very long walk) and when we got there we sat for a while watching the free-for-all traffic in the Place de l’Etoile surrounding the Arc, and then we walked down Les Champs-Elysees!
I was humming the song the entire trip. It was actually kind of disappointing – there wasn’t that much good shopping down the street – lots of big names like Louis Vuitton (we went into the 5-story store that was there) but nothing I could really afford, and nothing that was really specifically French.
After that our shopping craving hadn’t really been fulfilled so we took the Metro to Les Galeries Lafayette – the biggest department store I have ever been in. It spanned both sides of the street – one building was the main building, and the other one was Les Galeries Lafayette Homme (men). It was the size of a mall and it was only one store! This is the ceiling.
It was all “tres cher” stuff there but I managed to find the cheap jewelry section and bought myself a chunky ring for 7 or 8 Euro. We were all pretty worn out and cranky after our long day, but we quickly felt rejuvenated after we ate at an Italian place – French Italian, perhaps Fritalian? (Starbucks commercial, anyone?) When we got back to the hotel after that we had every intention of going out, but we realized we were too tired to fathom getting dressed up and instead went on a hunt for cheap French wine (which tasted as expensive as it was) and talked before bed.
Sunday morning it was raining, but we still managed to check out the fresh market that was right outside our hotel, and we got fresh crepes and nutella – yummO!
We got all of our luggage packed up and ready to take on the Eurostar back to London later that day, and then we took the tube to Montmarte and saw Moulin Rouge, which means red windmill, and explored the area.
Which was full of sex shops.
Then Laurent showed up and gave us a tour of the hill of Montmarte, which is a cute artistic area full of little cafes and aspiring artists. He took us winding our way up the hill, and on the way I saw where Van Gogh and Picasso lived, and we had a beautiful view overlooking Paris when we got to the top.
The Sacre-Coeur was magnificent and the whole area was lovely.
We headed back to the hotel, and I got my last pain au chocolat before we headed back to London. It was so nice to be back, even though it had only been 3 days, and I really felt that I could call London home. Getting back to Baker St. felt like coming back home. It’s a nice feeling.
After the Paris trip, my thoughts were preoccupied with the aforementioned budding romance, but after the magic of a second date, a first kiss, and a night out together faded, it became clear that the fairytale was nothing more than a fling. It was fun for a while, but quickly became forced and wasn’t enjoyable for either of us. I don’t regret it at all, because it was a good learning experience, but it is kind of sad that something that seemed to have so much potential has amounted to little more than a wince and small smile at a memory for me. But life goes on, and the whole experience really made me think about my relationships, and to appreciate what I have with Richard. I had been ignoring how much I missed him, a self-protection method surely, but I realized how much he meant to me and how it wasn’t worth losing him because of the distance. I really can’t wait to see him again and I am looking forward to next year at Marist. Speaking of next year at Marist, I chose the classes for my second-to-last semester of undergrad! Since NOT getting into these classes is not an option if I want to graduate on time, I’m just going to assume that I have them all: Honors Edith Wharton, Honors Ethics, English Capping, Abstract Algebra, and Probability/Statistics. Blagh. Another rough fall semester, coming right up! But it will be good because if all goes according to plan (::crosses fingers::) we will be living in Lower Fulton with Jess Link and Lauren, and Valerie is also staying an extra semester as well! So it will be 518 + Jess and Lauren, which will be super fun and I am so excited for it!
Anyway, what else happened in March?? It was my sister Christina’s 15th birthday (ahh I feel so old!) and I sent her a purse I had gotten her in Paris. I wanted to be there but she and Jessica were busy because it was the week of the high school’s musical (sans Zac Efron). I really miss my family (and my cats!!).
We took our final Social Programme trip to York and the North of England, and I was away from the city for the first time since January! It was lovely to explore York (which included climbing a 275-step spiral staircase to the top of York Minster Cathedral) and to be in the countryside. This is York Minster.
Fountains Abbey was gorgeous and we had beautiful weather – we could even walk around without our jackets!
We finished the trip in Haworth, where the Bronte sisters lived, and Joy and I had delicious cream tea before the long coach ride back to London.
St. Patrick’s Day was fun! I proudly put on my bright green shirt and green converse and refrained from painting shamrocks on my cheeks before I went to class, and it’s a good thing because NO ONE else was wearing green!! The only other people I saw wearing green were other Americans in my classes. I guess it’s not that big of a deal here. Thankfully when Hayley, Joy, Verity, and I went out to O’Neill’s that night, everyone was wearing green. We waited a long time in line but we met two Irish guys while we were waiting. They were from Belfast and I could have listened to them talk forever. We ended up seeing them again when we were inside and I danced the night away with them. They were playing an odd mix of hip hop, techno, and fiddle, and every so often a traditional Irish song would come on and everyone would stop grinding and jig. It was pretty amazing and I had so much fun. The highlight of my night was probably when a creepy guy came over and put his hand on the back of my neck and said “You’re from New Jersey, right?” (he must have overheard me in line since he was behind the Irish guys) and I mouthed the word “H-E-L-P” to my friends and Verity said “Excuse me, that’s my girlfriend.” He looked mortified and apologized and left. Whew. Crisis averted.
Valerie came to visit London as well! She stayed with the other Marist kids at their flat and we all met up to go out for some drinks Friday night. Turns out they decided to go to the Hilton at Hyde Park, to the Penthouse Restaurant. We all were mortified at how fancy it was, and we ate lightly, buying the cheapest bottles of wine and having only one course of food each. We exceeded our expectations and disappointed the staff’s with our bill of £308. I had bread, water, one glass of white wine and half of a dessert featuring real edible gold and dark chocolate, and I managed to come in at only £15. I also opted not to spend £12.75 on a cocktail at the Penthouse Bar. It may have been expensive, but it was still fun. Then I hung out with Valerie and Mike on Sunday, and we went to high tea at Harrods, which was also expensive but fun and definitely worth it. They offered free refills of the finger sandwiches, scones, and pastries that came with our tea but we were so stuffed that we didn’t even need any. I discovered that I really like Jasmine Tea! I have never liked tea before in my life, but who knows?! Maybe breathing in the London air has done more than pollute my lungs – maybe the tea-loving atmosphere has finally gotten to me! In any case, the tea was definitely worth the £21, and we walked through Kensington Gardens and hung out at the FIE flat for a while before we headed to Brick Lane to get Indian for dinner. It was great to see Valerie and to hang out with the Marist kids (they leave so soon!!) but I had coursework on the brain since the following week was Week 10. I had two essays due, and despite struggling with the word limit (2300 words for a 1500 max paper) and the printers I managed to turn everything in on time. Hayley, Joy and I celebrated the end of classes with some Pizza Hut, but it was quite sad because Hayley is staying at home now, except for finals and of course visiting us. Hopefully we can go visit her too – an actual British house! And she has a million and a half pets, including a tortoise named Gerty! How cute! Rachel, Beth, Joy and I went out to eat at The Shakespeare pub near Victoria and it was really nice, but it was also kind of sad, since we were all going our separate directions. Rachel’s mom was coming to visit, Beth was going on a 3 week tour of Europe, Joy was going to Germany, and I was going to Italy. It was weird to say goodbye, but at least we still have two months (is that all?? ack!) before we have to say goodbye for real.
Other March happenings? Joy and I booked our Ireland trip – June 4-7, right before we come back to the States! I am super excited though because there is a 3 day tour of the Southern countryside and County Kerry (my homeland!) that we will probably be able to squeeze in. Our flights only cost £5 each way (so naturally the total Ryanair bill came to £59) and we still need to book the buses to and from Stansted and our hostel there. Other than Paris May 16-19, (and Stonehenge/Bath at some point) that will be the only trip I have left to take.
My sister got into UPenn! We were waiting forever for all 10 colleges she applied to to make up their minds, but after being rejected and waitlisted and discouraged, she got in to her dream school! She is still deciding between that and BU but I am so proud of her and happy for her and I’m going to brag about her a lot. =)
All right I think I have pretty much caught you up on March. I will post about my trip to Italy separately, but let’s just say that I had 697 pictures from the trip, so you can guarantee it will be a lengthy post.
Well it only took me until 4am, or maybe 4:30 once I get the pictures in there. I guess now it is technically Day 91, but oh well. My time here is coming to a close, and I am digging my heels in as time drags me toward June 13. It’s not that I don’t want to go back, because I do and I miss everyone from home. But I just can’t imagine NOT being here. I’ve grown very attached to this city, and I do feel like it is my home now.
Until soon,
Buena notte,
Amanda
We could have gone up to the third level, at the very tippy-top of the tower, but the view from where we were was absolutely incredible and I was not very anxious to add more height.
All of Paris was before us and its white buildings stretched as far as the eye could see. It will be even prettier when I go in May because the trees were not in bloom yet, and all of the park spaces were that dull brown-gray that large groups of bare trees always are. It was beautiful, though, and no pictures can really capture the view (although I tried valiantly to do so). Reluctantly, we came down from the Eiffel Tower and started walking towards the Arc de Triomphe (another very long walk) and when we got there we sat for a while watching the free-for-all traffic in the Place de l’Etoile surrounding the Arc, and then we walked down Les Champs-Elysees!
I was humming the song the entire trip. It was actually kind of disappointing – there wasn’t that much good shopping down the street – lots of big names like Louis Vuitton (we went into the 5-story store that was there) but nothing I could really afford, and nothing that was really specifically French.
After that our shopping craving hadn’t really been fulfilled so we took the Metro to Les Galeries Lafayette – the biggest department store I have ever been in. It spanned both sides of the street – one building was the main building, and the other one was Les Galeries Lafayette Homme (men). It was the size of a mall and it was only one store! This is the ceiling.
It was all “tres cher” stuff there but I managed to find the cheap jewelry section and bought myself a chunky ring for 7 or 8 Euro. We were all pretty worn out and cranky after our long day, but we quickly felt rejuvenated after we ate at an Italian place – French Italian, perhaps Fritalian? (Starbucks commercial, anyone?) When we got back to the hotel after that we had every intention of going out, but we realized we were too tired to fathom getting dressed up and instead went on a hunt for cheap French wine (which tasted as expensive as it was) and talked before bed.
Sunday morning it was raining, but we still managed to check out the fresh market that was right outside our hotel, and we got fresh crepes and nutella – yummO!
We got all of our luggage packed up and ready to take on the Eurostar back to London later that day, and then we took the tube to Montmarte and saw Moulin Rouge, which means red windmill, and explored the area.
Which was full of sex shops.
Then Laurent showed up and gave us a tour of the hill of Montmarte, which is a cute artistic area full of little cafes and aspiring artists. He took us winding our way up the hill, and on the way I saw where Van Gogh and Picasso lived, and we had a beautiful view overlooking Paris when we got to the top.
The Sacre-Coeur was magnificent and the whole area was lovely.
We headed back to the hotel, and I got my last pain au chocolat before we headed back to London. It was so nice to be back, even though it had only been 3 days, and I really felt that I could call London home. Getting back to Baker St. felt like coming back home. It’s a nice feeling.
After the Paris trip, my thoughts were preoccupied with the aforementioned budding romance, but after the magic of a second date, a first kiss, and a night out together faded, it became clear that the fairytale was nothing more than a fling. It was fun for a while, but quickly became forced and wasn’t enjoyable for either of us. I don’t regret it at all, because it was a good learning experience, but it is kind of sad that something that seemed to have so much potential has amounted to little more than a wince and small smile at a memory for me. But life goes on, and the whole experience really made me think about my relationships, and to appreciate what I have with Richard. I had been ignoring how much I missed him, a self-protection method surely, but I realized how much he meant to me and how it wasn’t worth losing him because of the distance. I really can’t wait to see him again and I am looking forward to next year at Marist. Speaking of next year at Marist, I chose the classes for my second-to-last semester of undergrad! Since NOT getting into these classes is not an option if I want to graduate on time, I’m just going to assume that I have them all: Honors Edith Wharton, Honors Ethics, English Capping, Abstract Algebra, and Probability/Statistics. Blagh. Another rough fall semester, coming right up! But it will be good because if all goes according to plan (::crosses fingers::) we will be living in Lower Fulton with Jess Link and Lauren, and Valerie is also staying an extra semester as well! So it will be 518 + Jess and Lauren, which will be super fun and I am so excited for it!
Anyway, what else happened in March?? It was my sister Christina’s 15th birthday (ahh I feel so old!) and I sent her a purse I had gotten her in Paris. I wanted to be there but she and Jessica were busy because it was the week of the high school’s musical (sans Zac Efron). I really miss my family (and my cats!!).
We took our final Social Programme trip to York and the North of England, and I was away from the city for the first time since January! It was lovely to explore York (which included climbing a 275-step spiral staircase to the top of York Minster Cathedral) and to be in the countryside. This is York Minster.
Fountains Abbey was gorgeous and we had beautiful weather – we could even walk around without our jackets!
We finished the trip in Haworth, where the Bronte sisters lived, and Joy and I had delicious cream tea before the long coach ride back to London.
St. Patrick’s Day was fun! I proudly put on my bright green shirt and green converse and refrained from painting shamrocks on my cheeks before I went to class, and it’s a good thing because NO ONE else was wearing green!! The only other people I saw wearing green were other Americans in my classes. I guess it’s not that big of a deal here. Thankfully when Hayley, Joy, Verity, and I went out to O’Neill’s that night, everyone was wearing green. We waited a long time in line but we met two Irish guys while we were waiting. They were from Belfast and I could have listened to them talk forever. We ended up seeing them again when we were inside and I danced the night away with them. They were playing an odd mix of hip hop, techno, and fiddle, and every so often a traditional Irish song would come on and everyone would stop grinding and jig. It was pretty amazing and I had so much fun. The highlight of my night was probably when a creepy guy came over and put his hand on the back of my neck and said “You’re from New Jersey, right?” (he must have overheard me in line since he was behind the Irish guys) and I mouthed the word “H-E-L-P” to my friends and Verity said “Excuse me, that’s my girlfriend.” He looked mortified and apologized and left. Whew. Crisis averted.
Valerie came to visit London as well! She stayed with the other Marist kids at their flat and we all met up to go out for some drinks Friday night. Turns out they decided to go to the Hilton at Hyde Park, to the Penthouse Restaurant. We all were mortified at how fancy it was, and we ate lightly, buying the cheapest bottles of wine and having only one course of food each. We exceeded our expectations and disappointed the staff’s with our bill of £308. I had bread, water, one glass of white wine and half of a dessert featuring real edible gold and dark chocolate, and I managed to come in at only £15. I also opted not to spend £12.75 on a cocktail at the Penthouse Bar. It may have been expensive, but it was still fun. Then I hung out with Valerie and Mike on Sunday, and we went to high tea at Harrods, which was also expensive but fun and definitely worth it. They offered free refills of the finger sandwiches, scones, and pastries that came with our tea but we were so stuffed that we didn’t even need any. I discovered that I really like Jasmine Tea! I have never liked tea before in my life, but who knows?! Maybe breathing in the London air has done more than pollute my lungs – maybe the tea-loving atmosphere has finally gotten to me! In any case, the tea was definitely worth the £21, and we walked through Kensington Gardens and hung out at the FIE flat for a while before we headed to Brick Lane to get Indian for dinner. It was great to see Valerie and to hang out with the Marist kids (they leave so soon!!) but I had coursework on the brain since the following week was Week 10. I had two essays due, and despite struggling with the word limit (2300 words for a 1500 max paper) and the printers I managed to turn everything in on time. Hayley, Joy and I celebrated the end of classes with some Pizza Hut, but it was quite sad because Hayley is staying at home now, except for finals and of course visiting us. Hopefully we can go visit her too – an actual British house! And she has a million and a half pets, including a tortoise named Gerty! How cute! Rachel, Beth, Joy and I went out to eat at The Shakespeare pub near Victoria and it was really nice, but it was also kind of sad, since we were all going our separate directions. Rachel’s mom was coming to visit, Beth was going on a 3 week tour of Europe, Joy was going to Germany, and I was going to Italy. It was weird to say goodbye, but at least we still have two months (is that all?? ack!) before we have to say goodbye for real.
Other March happenings? Joy and I booked our Ireland trip – June 4-7, right before we come back to the States! I am super excited though because there is a 3 day tour of the Southern countryside and County Kerry (my homeland!) that we will probably be able to squeeze in. Our flights only cost £5 each way (so naturally the total Ryanair bill came to £59) and we still need to book the buses to and from Stansted and our hostel there. Other than Paris May 16-19, (and Stonehenge/Bath at some point) that will be the only trip I have left to take.
My sister got into UPenn! We were waiting forever for all 10 colleges she applied to to make up their minds, but after being rejected and waitlisted and discouraged, she got in to her dream school! She is still deciding between that and BU but I am so proud of her and happy for her and I’m going to brag about her a lot. =)
All right I think I have pretty much caught you up on March. I will post about my trip to Italy separately, but let’s just say that I had 697 pictures from the trip, so you can guarantee it will be a lengthy post.
Well it only took me until 4am, or maybe 4:30 once I get the pictures in there. I guess now it is technically Day 91, but oh well. My time here is coming to a close, and I am digging my heels in as time drags me toward June 13. It’s not that I don’t want to go back, because I do and I miss everyone from home. But I just can’t imagine NOT being here. I’ve grown very attached to this city, and I do feel like it is my home now.
Until soon,
Buena notte,
Amanda
Saturday, 28 February 2009
Day 49 - Roller Discos, Animal Raves, and U2. You know, the usual.
So much has happened and I am getting so caught up in life here that I have not been very disciplined in doing this, and it’s a vicious cycle. I am busy, so I don’t update, and then when I have a chance to update I am overwhelmed at the amount I have to write, so I put it off. And when I put it off for a few days, I just add more things to my growing list of things I have to write about. And I want to write even less. But alas, here I am. It is a light homework weekend since I only have reading to do – the next written coursework is due the final week of March, which is also the final week of classes. I feel like I have so much left to see and do before June so I am attempting to pack my schedule pretty full and not waste a day, but at the same time my schedule-packing is making time go by faster and I am trying to savour it. Yes British spelling. I’m embracing everything Britishly linguistic after getting told off by my cute-but-probably-gay PhD student lecturer in Word/Sentence Structure for sounding “very American” and speaking in “the American dialect.” Don’t worry, I gave him a hard time about it (he was trying to tell me that “They really tried hard” and “They tried really hard” were semantically the same) but I realize that fully experiencing England includes the language and I pick up little nuances every day and of course can’t remember enough of them to record in here.
Anyway let’s go through the highlights of the past 12 days. I’ll try to keep it limited to the highlights or I will have a novel. I left off two Mondays ago when I was about to go make ziti for Joy and Hayley and they liked it so much that we decided to make dinner together every Monday night, and we would each pick a different dish to make. Joy made breaded chicken this past Monday (and btw breadcrumbs are different here! They’re literally crumbs of bread, not evenly crushed and with no spices on them at all. They are crunchy and chunky so we ended up adding our own spices and trying to crush them further but they still didn’t work as well. We’ll have to crush them up thoroughly before using them in any other recipes.) But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Tuesday my Third World Studies professor decided that the projects would be individual and not group-based in the least, after all that stressing. Thanks. And I wanted to get it over with so I volunteered to go the following week. I don’t think anything else eventful happened that day.
Wednesday (Feb 18th so you can get your bearings) we had the Shakespeare walking tour at 6pm so I missed my night class (yay!) and we met at Blackfriar’s Tube Station (which as of this coming Monday will be closed for 2 years for construction work!) and as Joy and I were walking to meet our tour group, we saw none other than Jess Durante and Mike Takach, who were with their Shakespeare class going on a tour by their Shakespeare professor! I hadn’t seen them since the first day I was here so it was weird but at the same time completely familiar to see them, and it was so funny that we were both doing Shakespeare tours the same night! I told them I’d see them at the Globe with a laugh and left to find our tour guide. The first thing he said to us was “I hope none of you are too disappointed, but we won’t be seeing the Globe tonight. I’ve learned not to include it on my tours because everyone usually goes to see it on their own anyway.” Well let me tell you, buddy, I was disappointed! And so was my aunt who had wanted souvenirs and pictures to show her high school literature class! Ugh. Yet another thing to put on my to-do-before-I-leave list. The tour was decent but nothing very exciting; he did bring us to parts of London that we probably wouldn’t have found on our own, but he mostly pointed to buildings and said “this major Shakespearean landmark used to be here” and then speed-walked to the next site, snapping at us when we were too snap-happy with our cameras. But oh well. I did walk down the road that Shakespeare lived on...
...and I got to see the birthplace of Milton...
...as well as the fragments of the wall that was originally built around London when the Romans ruled in the early ADs (If I remember History of the English Language correctly, sometime before about 700 AD, but I could be wrong).
(statue of Shakespeare above the graves of Heminge and Condell who published/performed most of his works)
We got off the tube (yes, we attracted plenty of stares) at Vauxhall where the Roller Disco was nearby, but to our dismay, no one in sight was sharing our enthusiasm for retro fashion faux-pas. A guy came up to us on the escalator and asked us if we were going to the roller disco, and after jokingly replying, as if offended, “What makes you think that?!” we learned that he was going there as well, albeit not in 80s gear, for his friends 21st birthday, but that he didn’t have directions from the tube station to the actual address. He accompanied us as we got lost despite having written the route down, and we eventually found the place, which we’ve since seen in the daylight, and it is a dump wedged underneath a railroad bridge. At night, though, it is transformed into a roller rink time machine. Joy and Hayley insisted that they were awful skaters but let me tell you, they had NOTHING on me. I took about 20 laps with the instructor next to me, who came to my aid the second I stepped (rolled uncontrollably?) onto the rink, and he taught me to bend my knees, point my feet outwards at angles, and to step gently left right left right left right. Doesn’t sound too hard but I guess I am very lacking in the coordination department because I really couldn’t get it. I kept at it though because I didn’t want to give up and could actually get around without holding on or losing my balance by the end. There were people there for whom skates seemed equivalent to sneakers though, because they were out there doing tricks and busting moves to the music like it was nobody’s business. After I semi-got the hang of it, I had a lot of fun, and if I kept practicing I would get better. I did fall once, and even today I can feel my bruised tailbone. A guy offered his hand to help me up and proceeded to have a conversation with me despite my awkward physical position and obvious painful tailbone shock which ended in him asking for my number. I’m not sure what my facial expression was (confused? annoyed? incredulous?) but I replied no thanks. Who knew that 80s Roller Discos were places to pick girls up (literally!)?
(me and an instructor)
Friday I didn’t do much. I lazed around, did some homework and some research for my swiftly approaching presentation for which my topic was now Neoliberalism’s Effects on Latin American Education Systems and Literacy Rates. I applied (of course on the last possible day) for the NCHC Conference, my final one, which will be in D.C. this year! I submitted my thesis from research methods on Lolita, and hopefully Nabokov’s fancy prose style will seem interesting enough to the Student Interdisciplinary Research Panel judges, but just in case I submitted for poetry as well. As far as I know, Amy, Flor, and I are the only ones who submitted. I hate that our honors program is dying. But nevertheless it should be a fun trip – I can even see Joy while I’m there! We attempted to go see a movie on Friday, but it ended up being almost sold out and not discounted for students, so we decided just to grab a bite to eat and head back home instead, because we had an early call in the morning. I was grateful to save the money, and we ended up getting 99p McFlurries at McDonalds even though we didn’t know what the candies were. Smarties = M&Ms. Ironically enough.
Saturday morning we checked out Portobello market in Notting Hill – and it was HUGE. Started out with antique stores and gradually moved into jewellery and accessories, which somehow transitioned into a full fledged farmer’s market. I got some produce – 14 plums for £1! It was definitely worth it to keep pushing through to the back of the market, because the prices got lower the farther you went. Still not entirely as cheap as I would like it, but pretty good. I would like to get another ring I think – something slightly chunky but that I can still wear everyday for a little extra pop. I’d definitely like to go back there in the future. We were worn out after it though – a long day, a long walk, and an INSANE amount of people really tired us out.
(necklaces that were so bright in the sun that a bee actually came over and repeatedly landed on them trying to pollenate - kind of sad!)
(shot of the market with all of the multicolored shops along Portobello Rd)
Sunday I went with Joy to see the Wallace Collection right off of Marylebone High St. She had to go for her Art & Society class project and I would never miss an opportunity to go to a free museum. We explored the Marylebone farmer’s market on the way there – small compared to Portobello, but much closer and more convenient, and I am a sucker for fresh bread and produce! It is only open on Sundays and closes at 2pm, but it is not half bad for a little local market. We saw the art museum, which was very nice, and I enjoyed the Rococo paintings that Joy’s project is on a lot. On the way back we stopped for some quick grocery shopping at Waitrose, where my £20-a-week grocery budget was wholly and completely destroyed. £32 and 2 grocery bags later, I left horrified at what I had just spent on the necessities and wanted to cry for the rest of the day. I hate spending money when I have no income. I was depressed about it for a good amount of this past week, but I just have to remember that I will earn the little I have back eventually and that it is okay to spend it because this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I don’t want to have regrets. ::sigh:: It still sucks though.
Monday I worked on my presentation most of the day and managed to finish it up a little after midnight – pretty good for me – and we had a lovely dinner of breaded chicken cutlets and rice. And seeing as the smoke didn’t take too long to clear out of the kitchen, the fire alarm never went off, so I consider us lucky. Freaking “breadcrumbs.”
Tuesday was Mardi Gras, which, I was stunned to learn, they don’t know about here, as well as National Pancake Day, which Hayley was stunned to learn I had never heard of. I was subsequently stunned to learn that it was apparently National Pancake Day in the U.S. as well, and IHOP was giving away free short stacks, because it was news to me. Maybe they just made it up this year. Regardless, I had pancakes to look forward to when I went to Third World Studies to give my presentation, which I thought went very well. Try to fit a presentation on a huge topic into 8 minutes and 5 slides – especially when I am such a big fan of talking. He approved my topic (and my topic was much less broad than that of the other three students who went) and was exasperatingly vague in his explanation of what we had to do – we had to demonstrate a theory’s pros and cons in a real life application – and yet when we had all gone, he criticized us for being too broad, not focusing our topic enough, and for taking too long in presenting. He actually interrupted my presentation when I was mid-second-to-last-sentence to tell me to watch my time – how rude! If I go over in my time, then deduct from my grade accordingly, but don’t interrupt me to tell me to hurry it up! I asked my classmate and he said mine didn’t seem longer than anyone else’s – I figure I might have done a 10-12 minute presentation tops, and 8 minutes is a ridiculous amount of time for an oral presentation anyway. It took me a minute just to say the title! Still waiting for the grade on that, which is 15% of my final grade. I have a report to do on the same subject that’s only 1500 words, and I already have about 750 from notes, which is due week 10, and other than that and the final I am done with that class. Yay!
For dinner that night we had pancakes. And the word pancakes should really be in quotation marks because they are not American pancakes. They are basically crepes. Very thin, watery batter that you put in the bottom of the pan and roll around until it coats the bottom. We made 3 each with the guidance of Hayley, and no, we did not coat them in butter and maple syrup – we topped them with a large scoop of Bailey’s Irish Cream Ice Cream and Dulce de Leche Chocolate Toffee flavoured syrup.
In the words of Rachel Ray, Yum-O! Hayley told me that I had made my pancakes much thicker than she usually makes them. They were about 3 mm thick. Joy and I told her that we have to do les pancakes americains at some point. But it was fun to see this version of them!
Wednesday I had class and then met Hayley and Joy at Oxford Circus because that night we were going to Fabric for an “Animal Rave!” Yeah I didn’t know what it was either. The flyer online said something about free face masks, face paint, a giant bouncy castle, chocolate covered bananas, glow sticks, snakes and ladders, all drinks for £2.40 with a student wristband, and a VIP room where you could get your picture taken with live boa constrictors wrapped around your body – but we were sold at the bouncy castle. We needed some alcohol so we went to the giant Sainsbury’s we had seen across from the 80s Roller Disco in Vauxhall. You’d be surprised what a difference a decent grocery store makes in your level of happiness. Tesco Express was disappointing, Sainsbury’s Local was manageable, Sainsbury’s Central was satisfactory, Waitrose was uplifting, and this gigantic Sainsbury’s was blissful. They had clothing as well, but it was mostly grocery store, and when I walked in I thought “Now THAT’S what I’m talkin bout!” and repeated that thought when we got to the alcohol section. The other grocery stores have a large wine selection but the hard liquor is usually limited to the basics and located behind the counter. We opted for Peach Schnapps for £5.65 and Lemonade (aka Sprite sans lime) for £1 and with that, we redefined the term “cheap drunk.” They also had a deli counter! Hallelujah! And I got some “thin sliced” roast beef that was sliced twice as thick as my pancakes had been. Oh New York. When we came back I had PB&J and a yogurt, and then read for the rest of the afternoon until it was time to go to my night class. I had a grilled cheese before class, at around 5:30pm, and then waited patiently through my aforementioned insulting linguistics class which was actually chock full of notes rather than awkward silences for once. I half-walked, half-skipped back to Marylebone after my class to get ready. Jess Durante was coming too, but Rachel and her friend weren’t able to make it, so it left our crowd to be me, Jess, Joy, Hayley, and Verity. The peach schnapps/lemonade combo was gorgeous and I couldn’t even taste the alcohol, which led to me drinking a good amount without even blinking, and unfortunately without recalling that I had only had a small amount to eat that day, which led to me becoming very very drunk happy. [I love you Mom! I’m sorry! Maybe you should just skip to Thursday afternoon right now!] After haphazardly grabbing everything I needed (oyster card, student ID card, drivers license, room key, money, phone, camera) and stuffing it in a wristlet we left, taking the tube to Farringdon. Thank god I wore flats.
When we got there (around 11:30), we couldn’t find a lot of the advertised stuff, but we, or at least I, was too drunk to care and we proceeded to get our dance on. We did see the giant bouncy castle, which we waited in the queue for, but while we were waiting they deflated it – apparently it was only open until 1:30. That didn’t phase us though, and I danced the night away, taking (mostly unflattering) pictures every 5 seconds. No guys danced with us, but we were having too much fun to think anything of it, and looking back at the pictures my facial expressions/dance moves might have been the reason behind that, but we had a great time dancing and it was a lot of fun! When we were leaving my heel got caught on the edge of the stair and I fell a little, landing hard on one knee, which also didn’t phase me. I sat there, shocked for a second, and Joy repeatedly asked me if I was okay. Sprawled on the staircase, I told her “Let’s not make a scene” and carried on my merry way. (Hence the title of the facebook album.) When I got back to my room I had some drunken aim conversations and caught up with some people I hadn’t spoken to in a while, and then went to bed around 4:30, setting my alarm for 8:30 since I had Modernism at 10.
When I woke up Thursday morning, I quickly realized that I was in no shape to attend my class. Not only was I chronically nauseous (in vain, I’m afraid), but I hadn’t eaten in 15 hours and had consumed alcohol instead, so I was weak, dizzy, and my limbs were shaking. I drank lots of water, managed to swallow some crackers, and decided to sleep until I wasn’t nauseous anymore. Not fun. And I really like Modernism. Next time we go out I will make sure I eat plenty beforehand, or we will just have to avoid Wednesday nights. I didn’t do much of anything on Thursday, except attempting to feel better and getting some reading done.
Friday I brought my camera (which had suffered almost as many injuries at Fabric as I had) to get repaired by a little shop near the British Museum, and then I walked around a lot for the rest of the afternoon. I walked around the Museum, up and down Tottenham Court Rd and Charing Cross Rd, went into some book shops, invested in a £2 copy of Moby Dick as well as a pocket-guidebook/mini-map of Paris, and headed up Regent St towards our campus. There was a rumour floating around that U2 was going to be showing up there between 6- 6:15, and when I got there a little after 5 there was already a crowd forming. Joy met me there and I had picked out a good spot on the steps of the church on Langham Place – U2 would be performing a surprise concert from the roof of the BBC building across the street! It got very crowded, and eventually they closed down Oxford Circus tube station as well as Regent St, letting the crowds fill the entire road. Finally by about 6:50 they decided to start playing, and it was unreal! There was the legendary Bono, complete with sunglasses, leaning over the railing of the BBC building roof and crooning undecipherable words to us as a helicopter swooped around overhead. And it was completely normal. This is London.
They played 4 songs – 2 that they had never played live before, from their newest album, as well as Vertigo and Beautiful Day, which we (kind of) knew the words to. I was freezing by the end because, after all, I had been outside nonstop since 3pm, and though it was a relatively warm day, my fleece was not appropriate for the after-sundown weather. Joy and I made a quick Tesco run before heading back, and I got some frozen fish and chips to make since it was the first Friday of lent. I gave up cookies btw! I had a lovely evening until there was a knock on my door. It was the girl who lives at the end of the hall, next to Hayley. I would have no problem with her except for the fact that she leaves the kitchen a wreck every time she uses it, doesn’t wash her dishes but just piles them up on the counter, complete with leftover bits of food in them, for 2 weeks at a time, leaves the oven/hob on, treats the kitchen garbage pail and its vicinity as her own personal dumpster, uses other people’s dishes if they are left out, and blasts her music (which I can hear loud and clear in my room, 4 rooms away) every morning at 8:30-9am. If you’d like the sparknotes version, she is rude. And she knocked on my door (with her boyfriend standing aggressively in the background) and asked me if I had used her pot.
Apparently on Wednesday night when I had retreated into typo-ridden AIM conversations, the other girls had returned to the kitchen, found our alcohol had been drunk while we were out, and decided (drunkenly) to make a point. This rude girl’s dirty pot had been sitting on the counter for a few days, and to get their vodka-vengeance, someone put other random bits of food in the pot – cookies, paprika, etc. It sat there all day Thursday and most of the day Friday, but apparently the girl had finally cared enough about her dirty dishes to take a closer look. Since the other girls in our hall were gone for the weekend, and she was convinced that it had happened that day around lunch time (because she is so conscientious about her kitchen utensils), that left either me or Joy as the suspects in the paprika-pot predicament. She was very accusatory, though it took me a while to realize that she was there to insinuate blame on me – my attitude had to change very quickly from removed yet sympathetic to defensive. I told her that I had no idea what had happened but I had not touched her pot, nor did I need to (nor would I want to – how long was it sitting on the counter dirty?!) because I had pots of my own and I am not one to touch anything that isn’t mine. She said “Oh, well then it must have been the other American girl,” and I tried very hard not to laugh aloud because the idea of Joy being malicious is just… well… unfathomable! I told her I was sure it wasn’t Joy and she said all right then, who did it? Someone from a different floor came to our floor and used my pot to make lunch? and I was at a loss for words. I hate confrontation and I am a bad liar and she was making me feel guilty simply because I knew who had done it, and that I was connected to them. I insisted that I didn’t know what to say, but that I didn’t touch her pot, and she gave up eventually, threatening that she wouldn’t hold a grudge but she would just like it cleaned, because she likes to cook too. Next time she leaves a mess in the kitchen (as of when I had dinner, there was a dirty roast pan left in the oven as well as an already-boiled potato floating in water in a cold pot on the stove, in addition to the signature smattering of dried pasta on the floor) I’ll say no hard feelings, I would just like this cleaned up because I would like to cook too. In any case, I quickly informed my friends about it and the responsible parties took care of it, and I actually got a reluctant, warped, self-righteous, tight-lipped apology from the rude girl today, but nevertheless there was an apology in there somewhere. Ah maturity.
Today I actually got out of bed without hesitation, opened the windows, did ab-jam, and was dressed and ready to go when I knocked on Joy’s door at 11:45. We were supposed to be meeting Rachel and Beth and seeking out Platform 9 ¾ at noon, but when Joy answered the door she had clearly just rolled out of bed. We made it to King’s Cross by 12:45, only to find that the actual Platforms 9 and 10 were under construction, and so the honorary Platform 9 ¾ had been relegated to a brick wall opposite some dumpsters off of Platform 8. Yes. Very disappointing. But I got my pictures (on someone else’s camera since mine is being operated on at the moment) and hopefully it might be back to its original spot before June 13. We wandered around the area a little and found the British Library, and the sight of all the books made me want to cry with happiness. The King George Library is four complete stories of bookshelves behind climate-controlled glass that only staff members have access to, but all of the leather-bound books resting there on the endless shelves looked so satisfied. They had a good home. And I loved them. I was content with just ogling them through the glass since I was clearly not worthy enough to hold them, open them, or read them. Maybe when I’m doing PhD work at Oxford hah! Definitely have to go there with Flor when she comes to visit.
As far as vocabulary lessons go, this word is a good one to know, and it comes up a lot. This is too long of an entry already to think of more, and I have laundry to do, so here you go.
rubbish – 1. n. garbage “I can’t believe you’re making me help you carry a week’s worth of rubbish to the bin.” 2. adj. without quality, crappy, substandard “Compared to the Evening Standard, the London Lite is a rubbish paper.”
And now, 7 single-spaced pages later, you are finally caught up dear reader. I apologize for the length but hopefully you enjoyed hearing about my occasionally embarrassing, occasionally humorous, occasionally poignant adventures. We go to see Hairspray with the Social Programme Tuesday night, and then Hayley, Joy, and I are off to Paris at the end of this week!
And I’ll leave you with a poem that I wrote. Finally. One. Hopefully there is more where that came from.
Looking outward from my seventh-storey Baker St. perch, I turn the handle, pull
Open the window, with effort, and welcome in the morning air, which seems as though its
Never been polluted – a lie, but a convincing one. Glaring young sunshine
Deceives me, has me thinking everything can be reborn. But all around me, tragically, dwell
Old buildings crumbling, scarred with time or scaffolding that hides architectural cosmetic surgery,
Not noticing the new eyes, mine and Helios’s, that gaze rapturously upon them.
Love,
Amanda
Anyway let’s go through the highlights of the past 12 days. I’ll try to keep it limited to the highlights or I will have a novel. I left off two Mondays ago when I was about to go make ziti for Joy and Hayley and they liked it so much that we decided to make dinner together every Monday night, and we would each pick a different dish to make. Joy made breaded chicken this past Monday (and btw breadcrumbs are different here! They’re literally crumbs of bread, not evenly crushed and with no spices on them at all. They are crunchy and chunky so we ended up adding our own spices and trying to crush them further but they still didn’t work as well. We’ll have to crush them up thoroughly before using them in any other recipes.) But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Tuesday my Third World Studies professor decided that the projects would be individual and not group-based in the least, after all that stressing. Thanks. And I wanted to get it over with so I volunteered to go the following week. I don’t think anything else eventful happened that day.
Wednesday (Feb 18th so you can get your bearings) we had the Shakespeare walking tour at 6pm so I missed my night class (yay!) and we met at Blackfriar’s Tube Station (which as of this coming Monday will be closed for 2 years for construction work!) and as Joy and I were walking to meet our tour group, we saw none other than Jess Durante and Mike Takach, who were with their Shakespeare class going on a tour by their Shakespeare professor! I hadn’t seen them since the first day I was here so it was weird but at the same time completely familiar to see them, and it was so funny that we were both doing Shakespeare tours the same night! I told them I’d see them at the Globe with a laugh and left to find our tour guide. The first thing he said to us was “I hope none of you are too disappointed, but we won’t be seeing the Globe tonight. I’ve learned not to include it on my tours because everyone usually goes to see it on their own anyway.” Well let me tell you, buddy, I was disappointed! And so was my aunt who had wanted souvenirs and pictures to show her high school literature class! Ugh. Yet another thing to put on my to-do-before-I-leave list. The tour was decent but nothing very exciting; he did bring us to parts of London that we probably wouldn’t have found on our own, but he mostly pointed to buildings and said “this major Shakespearean landmark used to be here” and then speed-walked to the next site, snapping at us when we were too snap-happy with our cameras. But oh well. I did walk down the road that Shakespeare lived on...
...and I got to see the birthplace of Milton...
...as well as the fragments of the wall that was originally built around London when the Romans ruled in the early ADs (If I remember History of the English Language correctly, sometime before about 700 AD, but I could be wrong).
(statue of Shakespeare above the graves of Heminge and Condell who published/performed most of his works)
(totem pole of heads inspired by Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage..." speech)
Thursday I went to my class, stopped at Mortimer’s on the way back with Christy and Megan and got a delicious pain au chocolat – chocolate croissants are sooo delicious and I could probably eat them any time of the day. Then Joy, Hayley and I did a Primark run since later that night, we would be going to an 80s Roller Disco. Yes. As in an 80s theme club with alcoholic beverages, disco music, and roller skating. In case you don’t know, the last time I went roller skating was when I was 10 years old. In Fredericksburg, Virginia, for my 5th grade skating social. With the help of some friends – Paul Loehr I distinctly remember – I had strapped my roller blades on and had gotten out on the rink after practicing (and falling, and crawling) on the carpet. I had successfully made it to the far side of the rink, football-field-sized in my memory, inching my way along the handrail, when they called for everyone to clear the rink for the hokey-pokey or some equally-dangerous game. I panicked but managed to inch my way all the way around to the exit without getting in trouble. That is an infamously negative day in my head for various reasons – it’s the day we found out we were moving to New Jersey, and it’s the day my mom’s arthritis took a turn for the worse – so I don’t associate skating with anything remotely fun. But Hayley and Joy were excited about it so I decided to step outside my comfort zone and embrace something that I blatantly wasn’t good at. Dressing in 80s gear is always fun though, and we went all out, complete with matching pink legwarmers from Primark and coloured tights. I also sported some killer purple glitter eye liner. We were a sight to be seen.
Thursday I went to my class, stopped at Mortimer’s on the way back with Christy and Megan and got a delicious pain au chocolat – chocolate croissants are sooo delicious and I could probably eat them any time of the day. Then Joy, Hayley and I did a Primark run since later that night, we would be going to an 80s Roller Disco. Yes. As in an 80s theme club with alcoholic beverages, disco music, and roller skating. In case you don’t know, the last time I went roller skating was when I was 10 years old. In Fredericksburg, Virginia, for my 5th grade skating social. With the help of some friends – Paul Loehr I distinctly remember – I had strapped my roller blades on and had gotten out on the rink after practicing (and falling, and crawling) on the carpet. I had successfully made it to the far side of the rink, football-field-sized in my memory, inching my way along the handrail, when they called for everyone to clear the rink for the hokey-pokey or some equally-dangerous game. I panicked but managed to inch my way all the way around to the exit without getting in trouble. That is an infamously negative day in my head for various reasons – it’s the day we found out we were moving to New Jersey, and it’s the day my mom’s arthritis took a turn for the worse – so I don’t associate skating with anything remotely fun. But Hayley and Joy were excited about it so I decided to step outside my comfort zone and embrace something that I blatantly wasn’t good at. Dressing in 80s gear is always fun though, and we went all out, complete with matching pink legwarmers from Primark and coloured tights. I also sported some killer purple glitter eye liner. We were a sight to be seen.
We got off the tube (yes, we attracted plenty of stares) at Vauxhall where the Roller Disco was nearby, but to our dismay, no one in sight was sharing our enthusiasm for retro fashion faux-pas. A guy came up to us on the escalator and asked us if we were going to the roller disco, and after jokingly replying, as if offended, “What makes you think that?!” we learned that he was going there as well, albeit not in 80s gear, for his friends 21st birthday, but that he didn’t have directions from the tube station to the actual address. He accompanied us as we got lost despite having written the route down, and we eventually found the place, which we’ve since seen in the daylight, and it is a dump wedged underneath a railroad bridge. At night, though, it is transformed into a roller rink time machine. Joy and Hayley insisted that they were awful skaters but let me tell you, they had NOTHING on me. I took about 20 laps with the instructor next to me, who came to my aid the second I stepped (rolled uncontrollably?) onto the rink, and he taught me to bend my knees, point my feet outwards at angles, and to step gently left right left right left right. Doesn’t sound too hard but I guess I am very lacking in the coordination department because I really couldn’t get it. I kept at it though because I didn’t want to give up and could actually get around without holding on or losing my balance by the end. There were people there for whom skates seemed equivalent to sneakers though, because they were out there doing tricks and busting moves to the music like it was nobody’s business. After I semi-got the hang of it, I had a lot of fun, and if I kept practicing I would get better. I did fall once, and even today I can feel my bruised tailbone. A guy offered his hand to help me up and proceeded to have a conversation with me despite my awkward physical position and obvious painful tailbone shock which ended in him asking for my number. I’m not sure what my facial expression was (confused? annoyed? incredulous?) but I replied no thanks. Who knew that 80s Roller Discos were places to pick girls up (literally!)?
(me and an instructor)Friday I didn’t do much. I lazed around, did some homework and some research for my swiftly approaching presentation for which my topic was now Neoliberalism’s Effects on Latin American Education Systems and Literacy Rates. I applied (of course on the last possible day) for the NCHC Conference, my final one, which will be in D.C. this year! I submitted my thesis from research methods on Lolita, and hopefully Nabokov’s fancy prose style will seem interesting enough to the Student Interdisciplinary Research Panel judges, but just in case I submitted for poetry as well. As far as I know, Amy, Flor, and I are the only ones who submitted. I hate that our honors program is dying. But nevertheless it should be a fun trip – I can even see Joy while I’m there! We attempted to go see a movie on Friday, but it ended up being almost sold out and not discounted for students, so we decided just to grab a bite to eat and head back home instead, because we had an early call in the morning. I was grateful to save the money, and we ended up getting 99p McFlurries at McDonalds even though we didn’t know what the candies were. Smarties = M&Ms. Ironically enough.
Saturday morning we checked out Portobello market in Notting Hill – and it was HUGE. Started out with antique stores and gradually moved into jewellery and accessories, which somehow transitioned into a full fledged farmer’s market. I got some produce – 14 plums for £1! It was definitely worth it to keep pushing through to the back of the market, because the prices got lower the farther you went. Still not entirely as cheap as I would like it, but pretty good. I would like to get another ring I think – something slightly chunky but that I can still wear everyday for a little extra pop. I’d definitely like to go back there in the future. We were worn out after it though – a long day, a long walk, and an INSANE amount of people really tired us out.
(necklaces that were so bright in the sun that a bee actually came over and repeatedly landed on them trying to pollenate - kind of sad!)
(shot of the market with all of the multicolored shops along Portobello Rd)Sunday I went with Joy to see the Wallace Collection right off of Marylebone High St. She had to go for her Art & Society class project and I would never miss an opportunity to go to a free museum. We explored the Marylebone farmer’s market on the way there – small compared to Portobello, but much closer and more convenient, and I am a sucker for fresh bread and produce! It is only open on Sundays and closes at 2pm, but it is not half bad for a little local market. We saw the art museum, which was very nice, and I enjoyed the Rococo paintings that Joy’s project is on a lot. On the way back we stopped for some quick grocery shopping at Waitrose, where my £20-a-week grocery budget was wholly and completely destroyed. £32 and 2 grocery bags later, I left horrified at what I had just spent on the necessities and wanted to cry for the rest of the day. I hate spending money when I have no income. I was depressed about it for a good amount of this past week, but I just have to remember that I will earn the little I have back eventually and that it is okay to spend it because this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I don’t want to have regrets. ::sigh:: It still sucks though.
Monday I worked on my presentation most of the day and managed to finish it up a little after midnight – pretty good for me – and we had a lovely dinner of breaded chicken cutlets and rice. And seeing as the smoke didn’t take too long to clear out of the kitchen, the fire alarm never went off, so I consider us lucky. Freaking “breadcrumbs.”
Tuesday was Mardi Gras, which, I was stunned to learn, they don’t know about here, as well as National Pancake Day, which Hayley was stunned to learn I had never heard of. I was subsequently stunned to learn that it was apparently National Pancake Day in the U.S. as well, and IHOP was giving away free short stacks, because it was news to me. Maybe they just made it up this year. Regardless, I had pancakes to look forward to when I went to Third World Studies to give my presentation, which I thought went very well. Try to fit a presentation on a huge topic into 8 minutes and 5 slides – especially when I am such a big fan of talking. He approved my topic (and my topic was much less broad than that of the other three students who went) and was exasperatingly vague in his explanation of what we had to do – we had to demonstrate a theory’s pros and cons in a real life application – and yet when we had all gone, he criticized us for being too broad, not focusing our topic enough, and for taking too long in presenting. He actually interrupted my presentation when I was mid-second-to-last-sentence to tell me to watch my time – how rude! If I go over in my time, then deduct from my grade accordingly, but don’t interrupt me to tell me to hurry it up! I asked my classmate and he said mine didn’t seem longer than anyone else’s – I figure I might have done a 10-12 minute presentation tops, and 8 minutes is a ridiculous amount of time for an oral presentation anyway. It took me a minute just to say the title! Still waiting for the grade on that, which is 15% of my final grade. I have a report to do on the same subject that’s only 1500 words, and I already have about 750 from notes, which is due week 10, and other than that and the final I am done with that class. Yay!
For dinner that night we had pancakes. And the word pancakes should really be in quotation marks because they are not American pancakes. They are basically crepes. Very thin, watery batter that you put in the bottom of the pan and roll around until it coats the bottom. We made 3 each with the guidance of Hayley, and no, we did not coat them in butter and maple syrup – we topped them with a large scoop of Bailey’s Irish Cream Ice Cream and Dulce de Leche Chocolate Toffee flavoured syrup.
In the words of Rachel Ray, Yum-O! Hayley told me that I had made my pancakes much thicker than she usually makes them. They were about 3 mm thick. Joy and I told her that we have to do les pancakes americains at some point. But it was fun to see this version of them!
Wednesday I had class and then met Hayley and Joy at Oxford Circus because that night we were going to Fabric for an “Animal Rave!” Yeah I didn’t know what it was either. The flyer online said something about free face masks, face paint, a giant bouncy castle, chocolate covered bananas, glow sticks, snakes and ladders, all drinks for £2.40 with a student wristband, and a VIP room where you could get your picture taken with live boa constrictors wrapped around your body – but we were sold at the bouncy castle. We needed some alcohol so we went to the giant Sainsbury’s we had seen across from the 80s Roller Disco in Vauxhall. You’d be surprised what a difference a decent grocery store makes in your level of happiness. Tesco Express was disappointing, Sainsbury’s Local was manageable, Sainsbury’s Central was satisfactory, Waitrose was uplifting, and this gigantic Sainsbury’s was blissful. They had clothing as well, but it was mostly grocery store, and when I walked in I thought “Now THAT’S what I’m talkin bout!” and repeated that thought when we got to the alcohol section. The other grocery stores have a large wine selection but the hard liquor is usually limited to the basics and located behind the counter. We opted for Peach Schnapps for £5.65 and Lemonade (aka Sprite sans lime) for £1 and with that, we redefined the term “cheap drunk.” They also had a deli counter! Hallelujah! And I got some “thin sliced” roast beef that was sliced twice as thick as my pancakes had been. Oh New York. When we came back I had PB&J and a yogurt, and then read for the rest of the afternoon until it was time to go to my night class. I had a grilled cheese before class, at around 5:30pm, and then waited patiently through my aforementioned insulting linguistics class which was actually chock full of notes rather than awkward silences for once. I half-walked, half-skipped back to Marylebone after my class to get ready. Jess Durante was coming too, but Rachel and her friend weren’t able to make it, so it left our crowd to be me, Jess, Joy, Hayley, and Verity. The peach schnapps/lemonade combo was gorgeous and I couldn’t even taste the alcohol, which led to me drinking a good amount without even blinking, and unfortunately without recalling that I had only had a small amount to eat that day, which led to me becoming very very drunk happy. [I love you Mom! I’m sorry! Maybe you should just skip to Thursday afternoon right now!] After haphazardly grabbing everything I needed (oyster card, student ID card, drivers license, room key, money, phone, camera) and stuffing it in a wristlet we left, taking the tube to Farringdon. Thank god I wore flats.
When we got there (around 11:30), we couldn’t find a lot of the advertised stuff, but we, or at least I, was too drunk to care and we proceeded to get our dance on. We did see the giant bouncy castle, which we waited in the queue for, but while we were waiting they deflated it – apparently it was only open until 1:30. That didn’t phase us though, and I danced the night away, taking (mostly unflattering) pictures every 5 seconds. No guys danced with us, but we were having too much fun to think anything of it, and looking back at the pictures my facial expressions/dance moves might have been the reason behind that, but we had a great time dancing and it was a lot of fun! When we were leaving my heel got caught on the edge of the stair and I fell a little, landing hard on one knee, which also didn’t phase me. I sat there, shocked for a second, and Joy repeatedly asked me if I was okay. Sprawled on the staircase, I told her “Let’s not make a scene” and carried on my merry way. (Hence the title of the facebook album.) When I got back to my room I had some drunken aim conversations and caught up with some people I hadn’t spoken to in a while, and then went to bed around 4:30, setting my alarm for 8:30 since I had Modernism at 10.
When I woke up Thursday morning, I quickly realized that I was in no shape to attend my class. Not only was I chronically nauseous (in vain, I’m afraid), but I hadn’t eaten in 15 hours and had consumed alcohol instead, so I was weak, dizzy, and my limbs were shaking. I drank lots of water, managed to swallow some crackers, and decided to sleep until I wasn’t nauseous anymore. Not fun. And I really like Modernism. Next time we go out I will make sure I eat plenty beforehand, or we will just have to avoid Wednesday nights. I didn’t do much of anything on Thursday, except attempting to feel better and getting some reading done.
Friday I brought my camera (which had suffered almost as many injuries at Fabric as I had) to get repaired by a little shop near the British Museum, and then I walked around a lot for the rest of the afternoon. I walked around the Museum, up and down Tottenham Court Rd and Charing Cross Rd, went into some book shops, invested in a £2 copy of Moby Dick as well as a pocket-guidebook/mini-map of Paris, and headed up Regent St towards our campus. There was a rumour floating around that U2 was going to be showing up there between 6- 6:15, and when I got there a little after 5 there was already a crowd forming. Joy met me there and I had picked out a good spot on the steps of the church on Langham Place – U2 would be performing a surprise concert from the roof of the BBC building across the street! It got very crowded, and eventually they closed down Oxford Circus tube station as well as Regent St, letting the crowds fill the entire road. Finally by about 6:50 they decided to start playing, and it was unreal! There was the legendary Bono, complete with sunglasses, leaning over the railing of the BBC building roof and crooning undecipherable words to us as a helicopter swooped around overhead. And it was completely normal. This is London.
They played 4 songs – 2 that they had never played live before, from their newest album, as well as Vertigo and Beautiful Day, which we (kind of) knew the words to. I was freezing by the end because, after all, I had been outside nonstop since 3pm, and though it was a relatively warm day, my fleece was not appropriate for the after-sundown weather. Joy and I made a quick Tesco run before heading back, and I got some frozen fish and chips to make since it was the first Friday of lent. I gave up cookies btw! I had a lovely evening until there was a knock on my door. It was the girl who lives at the end of the hall, next to Hayley. I would have no problem with her except for the fact that she leaves the kitchen a wreck every time she uses it, doesn’t wash her dishes but just piles them up on the counter, complete with leftover bits of food in them, for 2 weeks at a time, leaves the oven/hob on, treats the kitchen garbage pail and its vicinity as her own personal dumpster, uses other people’s dishes if they are left out, and blasts her music (which I can hear loud and clear in my room, 4 rooms away) every morning at 8:30-9am. If you’d like the sparknotes version, she is rude. And she knocked on my door (with her boyfriend standing aggressively in the background) and asked me if I had used her pot.
Apparently on Wednesday night when I had retreated into typo-ridden AIM conversations, the other girls had returned to the kitchen, found our alcohol had been drunk while we were out, and decided (drunkenly) to make a point. This rude girl’s dirty pot had been sitting on the counter for a few days, and to get their vodka-vengeance, someone put other random bits of food in the pot – cookies, paprika, etc. It sat there all day Thursday and most of the day Friday, but apparently the girl had finally cared enough about her dirty dishes to take a closer look. Since the other girls in our hall were gone for the weekend, and she was convinced that it had happened that day around lunch time (because she is so conscientious about her kitchen utensils), that left either me or Joy as the suspects in the paprika-pot predicament. She was very accusatory, though it took me a while to realize that she was there to insinuate blame on me – my attitude had to change very quickly from removed yet sympathetic to defensive. I told her that I had no idea what had happened but I had not touched her pot, nor did I need to (nor would I want to – how long was it sitting on the counter dirty?!) because I had pots of my own and I am not one to touch anything that isn’t mine. She said “Oh, well then it must have been the other American girl,” and I tried very hard not to laugh aloud because the idea of Joy being malicious is just… well… unfathomable! I told her I was sure it wasn’t Joy and she said all right then, who did it? Someone from a different floor came to our floor and used my pot to make lunch? and I was at a loss for words. I hate confrontation and I am a bad liar and she was making me feel guilty simply because I knew who had done it, and that I was connected to them. I insisted that I didn’t know what to say, but that I didn’t touch her pot, and she gave up eventually, threatening that she wouldn’t hold a grudge but she would just like it cleaned, because she likes to cook too. Next time she leaves a mess in the kitchen (as of when I had dinner, there was a dirty roast pan left in the oven as well as an already-boiled potato floating in water in a cold pot on the stove, in addition to the signature smattering of dried pasta on the floor) I’ll say no hard feelings, I would just like this cleaned up because I would like to cook too. In any case, I quickly informed my friends about it and the responsible parties took care of it, and I actually got a reluctant, warped, self-righteous, tight-lipped apology from the rude girl today, but nevertheless there was an apology in there somewhere. Ah maturity.
Today I actually got out of bed without hesitation, opened the windows, did ab-jam, and was dressed and ready to go when I knocked on Joy’s door at 11:45. We were supposed to be meeting Rachel and Beth and seeking out Platform 9 ¾ at noon, but when Joy answered the door she had clearly just rolled out of bed. We made it to King’s Cross by 12:45, only to find that the actual Platforms 9 and 10 were under construction, and so the honorary Platform 9 ¾ had been relegated to a brick wall opposite some dumpsters off of Platform 8. Yes. Very disappointing. But I got my pictures (on someone else’s camera since mine is being operated on at the moment) and hopefully it might be back to its original spot before June 13. We wandered around the area a little and found the British Library, and the sight of all the books made me want to cry with happiness. The King George Library is four complete stories of bookshelves behind climate-controlled glass that only staff members have access to, but all of the leather-bound books resting there on the endless shelves looked so satisfied. They had a good home. And I loved them. I was content with just ogling them through the glass since I was clearly not worthy enough to hold them, open them, or read them. Maybe when I’m doing PhD work at Oxford hah! Definitely have to go there with Flor when she comes to visit.
As far as vocabulary lessons go, this word is a good one to know, and it comes up a lot. This is too long of an entry already to think of more, and I have laundry to do, so here you go.
rubbish – 1. n. garbage “I can’t believe you’re making me help you carry a week’s worth of rubbish to the bin.” 2. adj. without quality, crappy, substandard “Compared to the Evening Standard, the London Lite is a rubbish paper.”
And now, 7 single-spaced pages later, you are finally caught up dear reader. I apologize for the length but hopefully you enjoyed hearing about my occasionally embarrassing, occasionally humorous, occasionally poignant adventures. We go to see Hairspray with the Social Programme Tuesday night, and then Hayley, Joy, and I are off to Paris at the end of this week!
And I’ll leave you with a poem that I wrote. Finally. One. Hopefully there is more where that came from.
Looking outward from my seventh-storey Baker St. perch, I turn the handle, pull
Open the window, with effort, and welcome in the morning air, which seems as though its
Never been polluted – a lie, but a convincing one. Glaring young sunshine
Deceives me, has me thinking everything can be reborn. But all around me, tragically, dwell
Old buildings crumbling, scarred with time or scaffolding that hides architectural cosmetic surgery,
Not noticing the new eyes, mine and Helios’s, that gaze rapturously upon them.
Love,
Amanda
Monday, 16 February 2009
Day Thirty Seven - Warning: Spending £s and dancing could lead to a sense of attachment
Helloooo America!
Well here I am for my belated check-in, despite having convinced myself last week that I was going to update again. I am doing pretty well, and now that my fifth week of class has begun and there are only 5 weeks left, I am beginning to realize exactly how fast this is going. June still seems far off, but February is a cruelly quick month, and it will be March before I know it, and I will be finishing up classes and turning in coursework and making presentations and going to Paris and York and then it will be spring break and I’ll be on my way to Florence and Rome… and then I come back and take finals sometime between April 20 and May 15 and then Johanna and Dana and Flor will meet me in Paris May 16-19 and then Flor will come to London with me until the 24th and Dana and Johanna will join us on the 22nd after spending a few days in Dublin and stay until May 27th and THEN it will almost be June. And I need to fit in a seriously quality Ireland trip at some point. And Bath/Stonehenge. Also maybe Cadbury World, the Cadbury Chocolate factory. Mmm. Who invented money?
Anyway I suppose I should give you the illustrated play by play.
Thursday after I left off we went to the London Eye and then walked along the South Bank. Just as I feel the most scared when I’m waiting in line for a roller coaster, I wasn’t nervous about the height until I was standing directly in front of the Eye.
It was HUGE. But it ended up being completely fine. You couldn’t feel the movement of each “capsule” as it rotated throughout the “flight”. It was hard to take pictures at night, unfortunately, but I managed to get a decent shot of Parliament and Big Ben, directly across the Thames (pronounced “tems”).
We proceeded to walk along the South Bank away from Big Ben, and after a prolonged exposure to the frigid air we finally arrived at the first pub. Here’s a shot of the sign in front of the pub with St. Pauls in the background.
The pub was right on the river and it looked like a nice place for a meal any day. And it was WARM. After about half an hour and a half pint of Strongbow we went back out into the cold, and walked past the Globe Theatre and the Tate Modern and a bunch of other important things that I simply must go see at some point. Here's the Globe, which was hanging out by the river nonchalantly, as though it didn't belong to Shakespeare or anything.
Well here I am for my belated check-in, despite having convinced myself last week that I was going to update again. I am doing pretty well, and now that my fifth week of class has begun and there are only 5 weeks left, I am beginning to realize exactly how fast this is going. June still seems far off, but February is a cruelly quick month, and it will be March before I know it, and I will be finishing up classes and turning in coursework and making presentations and going to Paris and York and then it will be spring break and I’ll be on my way to Florence and Rome… and then I come back and take finals sometime between April 20 and May 15 and then Johanna and Dana and Flor will meet me in Paris May 16-19 and then Flor will come to London with me until the 24th and Dana and Johanna will join us on the 22nd after spending a few days in Dublin and stay until May 27th and THEN it will almost be June. And I need to fit in a seriously quality Ireland trip at some point. And Bath/Stonehenge. Also maybe Cadbury World, the Cadbury Chocolate factory. Mmm. Who invented money?
Anyway I suppose I should give you the illustrated play by play.
Thursday after I left off we went to the London Eye and then walked along the South Bank. Just as I feel the most scared when I’m waiting in line for a roller coaster, I wasn’t nervous about the height until I was standing directly in front of the Eye.
It was HUGE. But it ended up being completely fine. You couldn’t feel the movement of each “capsule” as it rotated throughout the “flight”. It was hard to take pictures at night, unfortunately, but I managed to get a decent shot of Parliament and Big Ben, directly across the Thames (pronounced “tems”).
We proceeded to walk along the South Bank away from Big Ben, and after a prolonged exposure to the frigid air we finally arrived at the first pub. Here’s a shot of the sign in front of the pub with St. Pauls in the background.
The pub was right on the river and it looked like a nice place for a meal any day. And it was WARM. After about half an hour and a half pint of Strongbow we went back out into the cold, and walked past the Globe Theatre and the Tate Modern and a bunch of other important things that I simply must go see at some point. Here's the Globe, which was hanging out by the river nonchalantly, as though it didn't belong to Shakespeare or anything.
We went to the second pub, which was nearby London Bridge, and just down the bank from the Globe – The Anchor. I’d heard of that pub before, although there are probably about 15 pubs called The Anchor in central London alone. Apparently the first English dictionary was written by someone who frequented it, and Shakespeare’s actors often changed costumes in between acts there as well. We had some complimentary chips and sausage, and the former were significantly more enjoyable. We were pretty worn out and cold by then, so we abstained from the third and final pub. I was on my way to a different pub, O’Neill’s, with a girl I knew from my Modernism class and her friends. I met them at Wigram and after hanging out for a little we took the Tube to Piccadilly and found O’Neill’s, which was across from or in Chinatown. I’m not sure if it had one L or two Ls but we’ll go with two for now. They had been there often enough that the bouncer knew them and let us in without even IDing us. It was free to get in on Thursdays, and we skipped the £2 coat check by piling our coats on a counter in the back corner. The drinks weren’t too expensive, £4 for a Smirnoff Ice and £5 for a double vodka and cranberry, and there was a live cover band playing rock songs from the 80s and 90s – from my childhood! We danced and sang along to Teenage Dirtbag, All the Small Things, Mr. Brightside, and others that I can’t remember. When the band wasn’t playing they played typical club music. It was overall a lot of fun and I had a great night. The flat boots were a good choice, but of course the following night I would wear my heels.
Friday we were celebrating Rachel’s 22nd birthday, which was the upcoming Monday, and after a lazy afternoon sleeping in from my late night at O’Neill’s, I got ready and went with Joy to Wigram for a few drinks before we left for Fabric. Fabric is a nightclub near Farringdon and Holborn and it is pretty famous I think. When we got off the bus we were right in front of St. Bride’s church – the inspiration for the modern-day multi-tiered wedding cake!
Friday we were celebrating Rachel’s 22nd birthday, which was the upcoming Monday, and after a lazy afternoon sleeping in from my late night at O’Neill’s, I got ready and went with Joy to Wigram for a few drinks before we left for Fabric. Fabric is a nightclub near Farringdon and Holborn and it is pretty famous I think. When we got off the bus we were right in front of St. Bride’s church – the inspiration for the modern-day multi-tiered wedding cake!
It is expensive to get in to Fabric – Saturday it’s £16, but on Friday and with the student discount it only cost us £10. It is, unlike Tiger Tiger, a techno club. I was a little apprehensive as to what we would find and what the music would be like, but we had an amazing time. The club was very cool, expansive rooms, halls, and stairs, without too much décor to make it feel busy. The people and the lights did enough of that. We didn’t get drinks except for £4 Smirnoff Ices, and there were plenty of places to sit – including 2 large black leather mattresses across from the black leather couches outside one of the rooms. Convenience is everything I guess. It was an experience. I danced with Liam, a 20-year-old British soldier stationed at Essex at the moment who had recently been in Afghanistan with “my lot,” who told me I was "f*cking gorgeous," who was also father to a baby boy, whom I saw a picture of, although Liam “wasn’t with the boy’s mum anymore”. How reassuring. The dancing styles that we saw there were… different… to say the least. But we got the hang of it pretty soon and we rotated between the three main rooms as they rotated DJs, and we eventually found ourselves in a laser-disco-mosh-pit-techno room. There were enough people packed into the room for it to be considered a mosh pit, there was trance techno music thudding through our bodies, there was a giant disco ball with a diameter approximately the length of me, and there were green lasers shooting out of one side of the ceiling.
It was amazingly trippy. And if I had been on any assortment of drugs like most of the people there, it would have been even more amazingly trippy. It was open until 8am, and we probably could have stayed that long if it weren’t for our feet being pulverized by the constant bouncing up and down in high heels. Next time, we will be in flats, and we’ll stay until the dawn. Coat check had only been a pound, but the line to get them back at 3 was pretty long. While we were waiting, our feet had a chance to get the feeling back into them, and they were not happy. Both Joy and I took our heels off while we waited in line, and my feet were swollen like I couldn’t believe. We managed to limp down the street past tons of minicabs that the abroad office had been successful in steering us away from, and it was with great relief and excitement that we hailed a black cab when we got to the main road. Transportation after midnight really sucks in this city. We would have had to take 3 buses to get back, but we decided to save time by paying for a taxi to Piccadilly, where Rachel and Beth and Joy and I could go our separate ways. Joy and I prepared to wait at bus stop Y, where I had spent a significant amount of time waiting for bus 453 just 24 hours before. For 40 minutes we waited. We saw plenty of bus 94, bus 159, bus 88 at that bus stop, and we even saw the Baker St.-bound bus 18 pass by several times, but it didn’t stop at that bus stop. Finally, in the distance, I could make out the numbers 453 on the front of an approaching bus.
With almost-frozen glee we hailed the bus. It looked like heaven on wheels as it pulled up after that long night, and the second we limped into the elevator back safely at Marylebone, Joy and I pulled off our shoes and let our feet expand to their swollen size.
Saturday I appropriately slept in until 4pm and then got ready to go out to dinner with Rachel and her friend Mayumi, whose grandparents live next to Rachel in New Hampshire but who lives with her Oxford-professor-father in Oxford. We went to Pizza Express, which is quickly growing on me, although its not REALLY pizza. You have to eat it with a knife and fork. But it is delicious. We went back to Wigram after our meal and sang some karaoke as we reminisced through Rachel’s iTunes library, much to her neighbors’ dismay. It was fun, but I was worn after two late nights of dancing, and I was looking forward to talking with my friend from home. I went back to Marylebone around 11 and for not-too-various reasons went to bed around 7am.
Sunday, you guessed it, I slept in. I didn’t do much, but made a brief excursion to Tesco for groceries that I thought would last a while. Joy and I made a nice dinner of spaghetti and meatballs and salad and garlic bread and pudding in anticipation of celebrating Hayley’s return from being snowed-in at home since the blizzard a week before. She didn’t end up coming back until Monday morning, though, so we saved her leftovers and enjoyed the dinner ourselves.
Monday I went to my lecture and didn’t do much for the rest of the day until we met for Rachel’s actual birthday dinner. We got Indian and I wasn’t in love with it. It was pretty expensive if you did it right, which was to order a rice/bread, a curry, a vegetable, and a meat, so I ended up getting Tikki chicken or something like that, which was chicken baked in red spices, and a samosa, which was good.
Tuesday I left early for my Third World Studies class so I could figure out how to print notes and the avant-garde manifestos from the Regent Library, but it wasn’t hard and it is only 5p a page. I got to my 3WS seminar and our tutor started talking about the project and presentation that we have to do, and the subsequent report about it, that makes up our grade in addition to the final. He told us that we are to start our presentations next week, and turned to me and asks what I would like to do mine on. Everyone was stunned – he hadn’t even explained the work involved yet – how could we present next week? It was a very frustrating class made more frustrating by the foreign accent and the vagueness with which he described the project, but we were separated into groups and, from what I could gather, were supposed to work on individual projects within the group, but make sure they all have a common ground on which to debate upon within the group. After keeping us after our lecture he resigned to let us choose a topic for each group and then to email him during the week. Well, I have that seminar tomorrow and we still have not conversed as a group to decide upon a topic. I hate being the overachiever but I like to follow the rules and when he says “email me with your topics” I take it to mean before the next class. I’m the only one who has proposed an idea so far and I have never even studied this area before so it is a pretty bullshit idea. But looks like that’s the one we will be using. And we might have to present in a week! It wouldn’t be such a daunting thought if I had any confidence in the other members of my group, but they haven’t given me reason to have much confidence in them whatsoever. Happily, Tuesday night Joy and I went to go see Avenue Q, which I had seen before in NY, but Joy had never seen a musical before!
Saturday I appropriately slept in until 4pm and then got ready to go out to dinner with Rachel and her friend Mayumi, whose grandparents live next to Rachel in New Hampshire but who lives with her Oxford-professor-father in Oxford. We went to Pizza Express, which is quickly growing on me, although its not REALLY pizza. You have to eat it with a knife and fork. But it is delicious. We went back to Wigram after our meal and sang some karaoke as we reminisced through Rachel’s iTunes library, much to her neighbors’ dismay. It was fun, but I was worn after two late nights of dancing, and I was looking forward to talking with my friend from home. I went back to Marylebone around 11 and for not-too-various reasons went to bed around 7am.
Sunday, you guessed it, I slept in. I didn’t do much, but made a brief excursion to Tesco for groceries that I thought would last a while. Joy and I made a nice dinner of spaghetti and meatballs and salad and garlic bread and pudding in anticipation of celebrating Hayley’s return from being snowed-in at home since the blizzard a week before. She didn’t end up coming back until Monday morning, though, so we saved her leftovers and enjoyed the dinner ourselves.
Monday I went to my lecture and didn’t do much for the rest of the day until we met for Rachel’s actual birthday dinner. We got Indian and I wasn’t in love with it. It was pretty expensive if you did it right, which was to order a rice/bread, a curry, a vegetable, and a meat, so I ended up getting Tikki chicken or something like that, which was chicken baked in red spices, and a samosa, which was good.
Tuesday I left early for my Third World Studies class so I could figure out how to print notes and the avant-garde manifestos from the Regent Library, but it wasn’t hard and it is only 5p a page. I got to my 3WS seminar and our tutor started talking about the project and presentation that we have to do, and the subsequent report about it, that makes up our grade in addition to the final. He told us that we are to start our presentations next week, and turned to me and asks what I would like to do mine on. Everyone was stunned – he hadn’t even explained the work involved yet – how could we present next week? It was a very frustrating class made more frustrating by the foreign accent and the vagueness with which he described the project, but we were separated into groups and, from what I could gather, were supposed to work on individual projects within the group, but make sure they all have a common ground on which to debate upon within the group. After keeping us after our lecture he resigned to let us choose a topic for each group and then to email him during the week. Well, I have that seminar tomorrow and we still have not conversed as a group to decide upon a topic. I hate being the overachiever but I like to follow the rules and when he says “email me with your topics” I take it to mean before the next class. I’m the only one who has proposed an idea so far and I have never even studied this area before so it is a pretty bullshit idea. But looks like that’s the one we will be using. And we might have to present in a week! It wouldn’t be such a daunting thought if I had any confidence in the other members of my group, but they haven’t given me reason to have much confidence in them whatsoever. Happily, Tuesday night Joy and I went to go see Avenue Q, which I had seen before in NY, but Joy had never seen a musical before!
We got tickets in the “stalls,” or the orchestra, for £25 each, regularly about £60 each. I overheard a boy in front of us bragging that he had gotten his ticket for £45. I just looked at Joy and we smiled smugly. The theatre, Noel Coward, was very nice, but I was shocked at British theatre customs! First of all, there was no free playbill like on Broadway – you had to pay for it. Second, we sat down and noticed that everyone around us was walking in with beverages. Glasses of wine, soda, and liquor. They were serving them from the bar in the lobby. Then I noticed that everyone also had bags of snacks. The lady behind us pulled out a plastic package of popcorn, other people had chips. Food and drink, not only allowed, but sold and encouraged in the theatre! I was horrified. Then, to my right, I saw a young girl posing in front of the stage curtain, and her father snapping the photo. Aww that’s so nice, I thought, and then it slowly dawned on me. Photography. In. A. Theatre. I am STILL scarred from trying to take a group picture in Spelling Bee, a low budget, non-famous, show – and our picture was facing AWAY from the stage. If we had been in NY at least two ushers would have run and tackled that man before he could have said “Cheese”. But nope, here, wide open photographic opportunities before the curtain went up. Fine, I said, and I snapped a picture.
Ah, New York City. But so conditioned am I that I could only take one and didn’t dare pose with it. We settled into a good show despite the distractions caused by the crinkling of popcorn bags and the scent of brandy and coke wafting over from the person on my right. Oh, and during the “interval” or intermission, they were selling mini Haagen-Dazs ice cream cups. I felt like I was at a baseball game, although they don’t know that game here, as my linguistics teacher admitted. Since we didn’t have enough money to partake in traditional British theatre cuisine, we headed to the McDonalds across the street after the show was over, and sank blissfully into milk shakes and fries from the 99p menu. I realized afterwards that it was Feb 10, and I had officially been there for one month, and had therefore honored my vow to abstain from American fast food chains for a month. Thank god that's over.
Wednesday was a weird day. I had dropped my phone the day before around 3:30pm and had to reset the clock, but had forgotten that it follows military time. So when I set my alarm for 8:30 before I went to sleep, I did not realize that I should have set it for 20:30 if I wanted to wake up in the morning. I woke up around 22:00 and was incredibly confused because I couldn’t believe I had slept the entire day because I hadn’t even gone to bed that late, but then I noticed the sun coming in, and by the time I pieced together what had happened, it wasn’t worth going to my 10am seminar. My mom was having surgery that day though, and I was worried about it and the fact that I was so far away and couldn’t be of any help. So I decided to put my missed class to good use and I looked up Catholic churches in the area. I found St. James which was only a 5 minute walk away, and I went to noon mass. It was gothic style so it was huge with vaulted ceilings and it echoed nicely. There was no music since it was a weekday mass and that threw me off a bit, and there was a communion rail, which I had never experienced before. But I got the hang of it and I lit a candle for mom before I left. It was a feast day of Mary, and there were more people than I expected at the mass. On the way back I explored Marylebone High Street, which is one of my new favorite streets, packed with little shops and a Waitrose – finally a nearby BIG NORMAL grocery store. Hooray! The prices were normal and the selection was 10 times bigger than Tesco or Sainsbury’s, but still no Chex Mix. I had my night class, which was frustrating as usual because of the 5 or 6 people there I am the quickest learner. And I feel bad always answering so I try to do it in moderation but sometimes if I don’t answer we just sit there in silence. It is awkward and it is the longest 3 hours of my week. Mom’s surgery went fine, and I got to talk to her a bit on the phone via skype+cell.
Thursday I had my Modernism class and then it was the weekend again. I stopped into a Ryman’s on the way home and got a dry erase board – finally a to-do list! And it’s a good thing, too, because there is a lot of stuff to remember to do this week. That night Hayley, Joy, Verity, and I went to see Benjamin Button since it had just come out Feb 6 here. I assured them it was a good movie, and it was just as good if not better the second time around. I noticed more details, and I could appreciate more artistic elements of the movie without focusing on the plot. And let’s face it, Brad Pitt is pretty amazing looking. It still threw me off seeing previews for movies, though. There was a preview for Grand Torino or something with Clint Eastwood and I said to Hayley “Oh my housemate Dana saw that, she said it was violent but good” and then the screen said “Coming Soon.” Weird.
Friday I didn’t do much of anything. I guess I read and did homework and went on Facebook.
Saturday I wanted to do something since I had been a lazy bum the day before and most people I knew were either in Amsterdam or Brussels and it was going to be an uneventful Valentine's Day and I began to realize that the time that passes is time that can never be recreated. So Joy and I went to Camden Lock Market. It was like a giant Hot Topic flea market. There was a maze of back-to-back, side-to-side stalls with clothes on racks piled so high you couldn’t see past the one next to you. There were some accessories too, and Joy and I each got a bag. I was looking for a big purse, because I have my Vera Bradley tote and my purple shoulder strap bag, but I needed one that was fashionable AND big AND collapsible enough to be worn out or packed. I found the perfect bag and I am in love with its many pockets and compartments and it will be a great carry-on bag for Italy because I can probably fit a change of clothes and some toiletries in addition to my normal purse stuff. We also went to Argos and I got a much-needed second set of sheets, red. And we went to the Pound Store right down the road, or more accurately, the 99p Store. And I bought some kitchen necessities and some snacks. When I got home I booked my flight back from Rome (which had dropped from 77Euro to 22Euro) and a bus to get back from Stansted in the wee hours of the morning on April 8. It was not a good day for my bank account.
Yesterday I did homework all day and finished the reading for Modernism. I was actually very engaged in reading that novel, Riceyman Steps. Maybe because it takes place in London and they go to Madame Tussauds in it, so it’s tangible in a way.
Today I didn’t have class but I will be missing Word/Sentence Wednesday night because we are doing a Shakespeare walking tour as part of the social programme, so I went to his other class that was today at 10:30. Only to find that this class is actually a week behind and I was settling in to the exact same lecture as last week. Great. But since I was already up I took a different route home, got a little lost, explored, walked down random streets, and got to Marylebone High St where I spent a quality amount of time (and £17) in Waitrose and got a lot of delicious food. Tonight I am planning on making ziti. Which I have to go get started actually.
London Lingo for the week:
Wednesday was a weird day. I had dropped my phone the day before around 3:30pm and had to reset the clock, but had forgotten that it follows military time. So when I set my alarm for 8:30 before I went to sleep, I did not realize that I should have set it for 20:30 if I wanted to wake up in the morning. I woke up around 22:00 and was incredibly confused because I couldn’t believe I had slept the entire day because I hadn’t even gone to bed that late, but then I noticed the sun coming in, and by the time I pieced together what had happened, it wasn’t worth going to my 10am seminar. My mom was having surgery that day though, and I was worried about it and the fact that I was so far away and couldn’t be of any help. So I decided to put my missed class to good use and I looked up Catholic churches in the area. I found St. James which was only a 5 minute walk away, and I went to noon mass. It was gothic style so it was huge with vaulted ceilings and it echoed nicely. There was no music since it was a weekday mass and that threw me off a bit, and there was a communion rail, which I had never experienced before. But I got the hang of it and I lit a candle for mom before I left. It was a feast day of Mary, and there were more people than I expected at the mass. On the way back I explored Marylebone High Street, which is one of my new favorite streets, packed with little shops and a Waitrose – finally a nearby BIG NORMAL grocery store. Hooray! The prices were normal and the selection was 10 times bigger than Tesco or Sainsbury’s, but still no Chex Mix. I had my night class, which was frustrating as usual because of the 5 or 6 people there I am the quickest learner. And I feel bad always answering so I try to do it in moderation but sometimes if I don’t answer we just sit there in silence. It is awkward and it is the longest 3 hours of my week. Mom’s surgery went fine, and I got to talk to her a bit on the phone via skype+cell.
Thursday I had my Modernism class and then it was the weekend again. I stopped into a Ryman’s on the way home and got a dry erase board – finally a to-do list! And it’s a good thing, too, because there is a lot of stuff to remember to do this week. That night Hayley, Joy, Verity, and I went to see Benjamin Button since it had just come out Feb 6 here. I assured them it was a good movie, and it was just as good if not better the second time around. I noticed more details, and I could appreciate more artistic elements of the movie without focusing on the plot. And let’s face it, Brad Pitt is pretty amazing looking. It still threw me off seeing previews for movies, though. There was a preview for Grand Torino or something with Clint Eastwood and I said to Hayley “Oh my housemate Dana saw that, she said it was violent but good” and then the screen said “Coming Soon.” Weird.
Friday I didn’t do much of anything. I guess I read and did homework and went on Facebook.
Saturday I wanted to do something since I had been a lazy bum the day before and most people I knew were either in Amsterdam or Brussels and it was going to be an uneventful Valentine's Day and I began to realize that the time that passes is time that can never be recreated. So Joy and I went to Camden Lock Market. It was like a giant Hot Topic flea market. There was a maze of back-to-back, side-to-side stalls with clothes on racks piled so high you couldn’t see past the one next to you. There were some accessories too, and Joy and I each got a bag. I was looking for a big purse, because I have my Vera Bradley tote and my purple shoulder strap bag, but I needed one that was fashionable AND big AND collapsible enough to be worn out or packed. I found the perfect bag and I am in love with its many pockets and compartments and it will be a great carry-on bag for Italy because I can probably fit a change of clothes and some toiletries in addition to my normal purse stuff. We also went to Argos and I got a much-needed second set of sheets, red. And we went to the Pound Store right down the road, or more accurately, the 99p Store. And I bought some kitchen necessities and some snacks. When I got home I booked my flight back from Rome (which had dropped from 77Euro to 22Euro) and a bus to get back from Stansted in the wee hours of the morning on April 8. It was not a good day for my bank account.
Yesterday I did homework all day and finished the reading for Modernism. I was actually very engaged in reading that novel, Riceyman Steps. Maybe because it takes place in London and they go to Madame Tussauds in it, so it’s tangible in a way.
Today I didn’t have class but I will be missing Word/Sentence Wednesday night because we are doing a Shakespeare walking tour as part of the social programme, so I went to his other class that was today at 10:30. Only to find that this class is actually a week behind and I was settling in to the exact same lecture as last week. Great. But since I was already up I took a different route home, got a little lost, explored, walked down random streets, and got to Marylebone High St where I spent a quality amount of time (and £17) in Waitrose and got a lot of delicious food. Tonight I am planning on making ziti. Which I have to go get started actually.
London Lingo for the week:
"digestives" - cookies. More specifically, graham-cracker-based cookies.
“proper” as in “They were proper drunk.” – I’m having trouble translating it, because its sort of self-explanatory. I guess its something along the lines of “really,” but not really.
anything, everything = “Eh ni thing, Ev ri thing”
urinal = “your eye nal”
I sit at my desk and look out at my view every day, and when I can see through the clouds, the sky is consistently scarred and rescarred with criss-crossing contrails from planes to London City Airport and Heathrow. I can watch the air traffic and can usually count at least 5 planes in the sky at once. And the thought just occurred to me that I will be on one of those planes in a few months. And just as actually coming to London was not fathomable to me a month and a half ago, leaving London is unimaginable at this moment. Who knows if I will ever come back? I’ve grown attached to this city in the relatively short time I’ve been here already, and I can’t imagine giving it up and leaving it behind me with a contrail.
“proper” as in “They were proper drunk.” – I’m having trouble translating it, because its sort of self-explanatory. I guess its something along the lines of “really,” but not really.
anything, everything = “Eh ni thing, Ev ri thing”
urinal = “your eye nal”
I sit at my desk and look out at my view every day, and when I can see through the clouds, the sky is consistently scarred and rescarred with criss-crossing contrails from planes to London City Airport and Heathrow. I can watch the air traffic and can usually count at least 5 planes in the sky at once. And the thought just occurred to me that I will be on one of those planes in a few months. And just as actually coming to London was not fathomable to me a month and a half ago, leaving London is unimaginable at this moment. Who knows if I will ever come back? I’ve grown attached to this city in the relatively short time I’ve been here already, and I can’t imagine giving it up and leaving it behind me with a contrail.
Love, Amanda
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