This Story Breaks Free Here

All right. Well, my bags are packed. My desk cleaned (except for the computer), my bed unmade (unsurprisingly), and my iPod charged. I leave for the train station in about 45 min--and from there onto Heathrow, Chicago, and finally Detroit at 7:15PM Eastern Standard Time this evening.

I do not believe it.

I shall try to sum up my last week. If you have been following along closely (and if you have, through all of my long-winded quasi-philosophical, overly sentimental, and often overbearingly academic rants here, then bravo! you deserve a gold star) you will recall that I did not find myself in bed in London after Italy until around 2:30AM Monday morning. At 6:30AM Monday I woke up to get ready for work. It was an uneventful day, as I recall--the first day back from Easter vacation, and all of PBSP's Yr 11 students were mysteriously absent. I had my exit interview with Sherife, and it went pretty well. She gave me excellent feedback, for the most part, and some well-deserved constructive criticism.

But after work was very exciting. I sprinted my way out the door at 3:10 and hurried as fast as I could to Earl's Court Rd Tube. Why? Because I was set to meet up with Kara Cohen at 4:00PM! Kara, for those of you who don't know, is one of my closest friends from Pitt--she also shared a room with me when we were sophomores. She is spending this semester studying in Italy. Originally, there had been vague plans for me to try to see her in Italy at some point this semester, but our itineraries did not really match up at all. As a result, she ended up in London the weekend I was in Italy--but since she was staying in London until Wednesday morning, I got to see her! That evening she was going to a concert and I had class, but we had agreed to meet for an early dinner.

Seeing Kara was fantastic. I had really missed her. It was so refreshing to see one of my good friends, someone who had lived with me and knew me really well and cared a lot about me. Also, I had been a bit worried about her in Italy; I knew she was at least as lonely on study abroad as I was. She's lucky I didn't accidentally strangle her when I hugged her :) Our hour-long dinner flew by and I was pleased that we had plans to meet again on Tuesday.

Monday night was my final PELA class; my portfolio was handed in, and it was over. Tuesday I had a final gallery visit for 20th century art; it was of contemporary British artwork, which I did not really care about. I breezed through it and then hurried to CAPA to do a bit of studying for my imminent Shakespeare final, which went just fine. Then it was off to Camden Town to meet Kara! I led her through the Camden Markets, which I had known she would love (and she did!). Kara was easy because she already knows London fairly well, so I didn't feel obligated to take her round all the cliche sights. We spent quite a while talking on Primrose Hill, then wandered through Regent's Park (I got us a bit lost, I must confess) before meeting up with AlanandRachel (whom Kara also knows from Pitt) for dinner. We found a pub near Great Portland St Tube, where Kara and I both got bangers and mash. I made her drink a bottle of Bulmer's, which she said she liked, and also made her try Guinness, which she decidedly did not like (her face was priceless!). The time passed too quickly, but eventually I had to call it a night because I had my last day of work on Wednesday.

Work on Wednesday was quite easy. I only do half-days on Wednesdays anyway, and there wasn't much for me to do. [Note: At this point I saved and departed for the train station; continued from home in Michigan.] I went through all of the group sessions with Sherife and Davinia and we revised them. Then Sherife, Davinia, and Marsha took Kashif and me out to lunch and gave us lovely departing gifts. I got a nice silver necklace with a dragonfly charm (they thought it was "science-y") and Kashif got a classy silver bracelet. It was so thoughtful and kind of them. Saying good-bye was difficult; I really miss Hornsey.

I had my last class of the semester Wednesday afternoon. Apart from using my house key as a bottle opener in Hyde Park with Stacy after class, Wednesday was uneventful. I went home and worked on my gov't paper. Thursday I got up and finished the paper, then left for a day of sight-seeing and souvenir shopping (I still had quite a list of gifts to gather). I tried to catch the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham, but it was an off day. I made my over to Covent Garden, then wandered back through Piccadilly trying to find acceptable gifts for people. It was difficult because I was being very particular. Stacy called me in the afternoon and we met up and went to the British Museum. It was such a beautiful day out, though, that it was hard to stay in. We only spent an hour there. She went off to Regent's Park, and I went off to CAPA to print and hand in my gov't paper.

Afterwards I went home and began packing. I got all of my non-clothes items packed away before calling it a night and going to bed. Friday I woke up early because I had to go out to Tower Hill to pick up a particular souvenir for someone and it was quite a Tube ride. I found what I was looking for and headed back to Buckingham Palace to meet up with AlanandRachel for the Changing of the Guard. I couldn't actually find them during most of the ceremony. Honestly, I wasn't terribly impressed by the Changing of the Guard. I had gotten there early to get a good spot--10:45--and then it went on until about 12:20, at which point AlanandRachel and I decided just to leave because we were bored. It was quite crowded and while the bagpipes were cool, the ceremony itself was a bit lame. We parted ways, making plans to meet up at CAPA later in the day as we all still had to print out our flight itineraries. I met Stacy at Westminster Abbey, and I finally got to go in and see Poet's Corner! It was spectacular. I actually cried a bit--T.S. Eliot, John Keats, Percy Shelley, the Brontes, Jane Austen, Geoffrey Chaucer, Robert Graves, Robert Burns, Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, William Wordsworth, William Blake, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Lord Byron...the list just went on...all these beautiful writers in one small area. Truly overwhelming. I also paid my respects to Charles Darwin, who was buried across the Abbey from Poet's Corner.

After Westminster, we went to CAPA for the last time to get our flight info sorted out. Stacy and I said good-bye there; AlanandRachel and I walked together to Gloucester Rd tube and said good-bye there--although for them it isn't that dramatic because I'll see them around Pitt. I went home and packed a bit before leaving for Romeo and Juliet. I was more than a little melancholy as I walked to the Globe from the St. Paul's tube station; it's lovely walk past the Cathedral and over the Millennium Bridge to the theatre. I was never as in love with London as I was that night.

Romeo and Juliet was everything I could have hope for. I actually leaned on the stage for most of the show! The acting was truly remarkable and the show's energy was through the roof. Quite an experience. Standing inside the Globe, seeing Romeo and Juliet, hours after standing in Poet's Corner, was just perfect. The best way to say good-bye to London. After the play I took the tube to Westminster and made the walk down Whitehall--from Westminster to Trafalgar Sq--one last time. It was beautiful.

Then I went home and stayed up until 2:30 packing. I woke up earlier than necessary, at 7:30, unable to sleep. I showered and then finished packing up all my bits and pieces. Mr. Martin drove me to the train station at around 10:00. My flight was scheduled to leave Heathrow at 12:50PM. While I waited for the train, I shed a few tears over London. I'm convinced I'll make it back, but I don't know that I'll ever have a life there again like I did for these few months.

My journey home got off to a decent start. I made it to the airport with enough time to comfortably get through security and find my gate, but late enough so that I didn't have to wait around for a long time before boarding. We took off at around 1:00PM, I think. Our scheduled arrival time in Chicago was 3:25PM Central time, which I thought was odd because I didn't think it took 8.5 hours to get to Chicago. My flight to London had only taken 6.5 or 7. But we did not reach the Chicago area until around 3:45PM Central time. This made me a bit nervous, because I had a 4:55PM connection to Detroit and was worried about making it through immigration/customs/security in time to catch my next flight. I became thoroughly restless when, at 3:55PM, the pilot announced we had entered a holding pattern and might be circling the airport for 45 min. At 4:15PM, it was announced that we had been diverted to Minneapolis. There were severe thunderstorms in the area, apparently, causing no end of difficulties and congestion.

I pretty much lost it at that point. I was so anxious to get off the plane and get home; I was done travelling, done with planes and airports. I didn't even want to think about re-booking a flight to Detroit. Almost instantly I became ridiculously panicked. It was the least calm I've been in years, I think. When we landed in Minneapolis, the pilot told us it could be anywhere from 30 min to 3 hours before we could leave for Chicago. In the meantime, we could not de-plane because we were an internat'l flight. Frustrated, I called my dad. Several times. He did not answer. I got no answer from Sue as well, which was unusual. I left them each a very upset message saying that I was in Minneapolis and would not be arriving in Detroit at 7:15PM as originally planned. I then tried calling my mom, because I desperately needed to talk to someone. I got no answer there as well, which was probably a good thing because she would have just worried. Finally I got my friend Joshua from Pitt on the phone and I felt awful because almost as soon as he said "Hi" I started crying into the phone and could barely explain to him what was happening. He did manage to calm me down though, and even made me laugh, and by the time we hung up I had regained a bit of control--even though I was still on the runway in Minneapolis. I finally got Dad on the phone, and told him as much as I knew, which wasn't really anything.

We left Minneapolis at around 7:30PM Central time, arriving in Chicago at 8:30PM central time. It was after 9:00PM by the time I got through customs and immigration, and then I was directed into the hellish re-booking queue to try to work out a flight home. While in line I read the departure boards and pretended I hadn't because they did not look promising. But when I got to the desk they confirmed what I had read: there were no more flights out to either Detroit or Flint that night; there was nothing until Sunday morning.

When I realized that I was spending the night in O'Hare I broke again. I barely managed to make it through the conversation with the woman behind the desk, who gave me an itinerary for Flint at 9:20AM Sunday. I had all of my baggage with me (you have to claim it before you go through customs) and I dragged everything through the very crowded area to the arrivals terminal, where I had a cell phone signal and could call Dad. I was almost completely incoherent on the phone, which I think really alarmed Dad because that's fairly out of character for me. But I had been awake and travelling for nearly 24 hours, I was jet lagged, I was hungry, I was anxious, I was already beginning to feel reverse culture shock, and if I couldn't be in London then I wanted to be home, not trapped 300 miles away from home. Dad actually offered to come pick me up from Chicago, which was sweet but I was still rational enough to know that wasn't worth it. After I got off the phone with him I made my way to a chair, took several deep breaths, and called Elizabeth in Pittsburgh. I knew she would calm me down, and I thought she would appreciate knowing where I was. She was as brilliant on the phone as Joshua had been, reassuring me and distracting me. By the time I hung up with her I was almost cheerful, and felt strong enough to face a night in O'Hare alone.

I went to my terminal and found a seating area where a security guy took pity on me and made another guy move his stuff so I could have a spot to sit with all of my luggage near me. He then brought me an airline blanket. A Dutch couple who were sitting near me recognized me from my flight from Heathrow (probably as that "crazy crying girl") and asked me how I was doing. We made small talk for a bit before I tried to sleep. I did manage to doze for a while--not proper sleep, but rest. I stayed there until 4AM, when I could go and check-in and get through security. Once through security I got some food and then went to my gate, where I dozed a bit more. Four gate changes later, my flight finally boarded at 9:30AM. We sat on the runway for an hour, where I began to panic again. If that flight had been cancelled I probably would have started walking home. But we did take off, and I landed safely in Flint at noon after 30+ hellish hours in transit.

And now I am home. I don't know what to say about it, really. Driving feels a bit odd still. American money feels strange in my hand. I miss hearing British accents, and I had forgotten how inconvenient it is to live a 20-min drive from anything useful. Michigan feels remarkably spacious after the UK. Proper peanut butter on my toast is amazing, and coffee in the morning is a nice change from tea (even if I did forget how to operate the coffee pot here on my first try Monday morning). Seeing my family and friends has been spectacular so far, and I am anxiously awaiting this Saturday, when I will be back with my Pitt family. By next week I am sure the novelty of my being home will have worn off, and my life will resume as if these last four months didn't happen. It's a bit jarring still, to reach into my wallet and find a bus ticket from Ireland, a 2 pence piece, my ticket for the Venetian waterbuses, old Paris metro tickets. To clear out all of the pamphlets and ticket stubs from my backpack. Sort through all of my pictures and remind myself that yes, I was actually there, not long ago. It all really happened.

During my last weeks in London I began considering my future travels. I've begun to consider spending some time teaching abroad. I want to travel central Europe next: Berlin, Prague, Krakow, Vienna, Budapest. I want more time in London, I want to make it up to Scotland, out to Spain, more time in Italy. I want to make it to Greece and Turkey. Although I have been fortunate to have travelled a lot in my life even prior to this semester, I never really thought of myself as a traveller until now. But I have no doubt now that it will always be a priority of mine and with careful planning and patience I know I can pull anything off.

Thanks for reading. I hope it wasn't too dull, and that you perhaps learned something along the way. I certainly did.

"The Road goes ever on and on,
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can."--J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Italia

My voyage to Italy began last Wednesday, the 15th. The night class I normally have on Mondays had been moved to Wednesday because of Easter. After class, I went to Stacy's flat. We left from there to catch a 10:30OM shuttle to London Stansted airport. Our flight wasn't until 6:10AM, but it is not possible to get to the airport at 4:00AM. Instead, you have to go the night before and wait it out.

The night in the airport was not the best night's sleep I've ever had, to put it mildly. It was perhaps worse than that night I slept in my car in Nevada--at least Nevada had stars and lacked obnoxious European teenagers. We got there at around 11:45PM, and of course we could not go to the gate. There were no free chairs anywhere (all were covered in sleeping people), so we grabbed a patch of floor that was semi-protected by the overhang of the departure board sign. Using my jacket as a pillow, I looped one arm through my backpack strap and curled up beneath the overhang, determined to sleep. I'd only just managed to doze a bit when a large group of roughly 17 yr old Europeans of some kind (occasionally I thought I picked out French words, but sometimes they sounded almost Italian...I was tired and couldn't place their language) decided that it would be great fun to start racing each other within feet of where Stacy and I were sleeping. They proceeded to loudly horse around for about an hour. I should point out that Stacy and I were not the only ones sleeping in the airport; Stansted was littered with sleeping travellers. I was sorely tempted to trip the kids as they loudly scurried about in front of us. One good thing about this, however--it was the most judicious use of the insult "asshats" that I have yet encountered.

By the time they left, sleep had mostly escaped me. I was freezing, for one thing, and I eventually gave in and used my towel as a blanket. That helped a lot and I got an hour or so of vague rest. We checked in as soon as we could. Once at the gate (around 4:30AM) there were endless rows of cushioned chairs! We each grabbed a row and decided that these ugly airport bench-chairs were the most comfortable pieces of furniture in existence, and we slept soundly until boarding the plane. The flight was uneventful. I probably could have slept more on the plane except it was a bloody Ryanair flight so they screamed advertisements at you the whole time. I hate Ryanair.

And then we were in Rome! There was a shuttle right to central Rome, and after getting some gelato we hopped on the metro to our hostel. When I booked this hostel, my confirmation e-mail contained what seemed like very descriptive, easy-to-follow walking directions to the hostel from the metro stop. But when we got off the train, we couldn't work out what the directions were referencing. After wandering down a dodgy industrial alley, we realized we were lost and trekked back to the station, hoping for a map. Once back at the station, I figured out the problem. The exit we were supposed to take was closed for engineering works. After that breakthrough we found the hostel rather easily. It was definitely sketch, though--it was a doorway off of an alleyway that was accessed via a graffiti-encrusted, littered pedestrian tunnel. It was certainly not a paragon of cleanliness, either, but the owner was so earnestly friendly and helpful that I forgave the shabbiness. He gave us excellent suggestions for itineraries during our two days in Rome.

First we went to St. Paul's Outside-the-Walls, which was in walking distance of the hostel. It was literally jaw-dropping. The outside of it, while pretty, was nothing tremendous compared with some basilicas I've visited. But the interior...I wandered in and then just stopped for several minutes, mesmerized and not a little overwhelmed by the majesty of the basilica. According to Catholic tradition, St. Paul is buried there, and one could view the burial site in front of the altar. The gardens of the basilica were also gorgeous. Furthermore, Rome was sunny and warm. Stacy and I ditched our jackets for the first time all semester. My bare arms saw sunlight for the first time since October. Absolutely beautiful.

Next we went to the Colosseum and the Roman forum. Like so many other celebrated sights, the Colosseum just suddenly appears in front of you. It is directly in front of the metro stop exit, just hanging out there. The Colosseum! Its surroundings were spectacular as well--I felt like I was in a Renaissance painting with the gentle green hills and distinctive trees dotting the ruins. As Stacy and I hesitantly queued up (there were a few different queues, and we were trying simultaneously to decipher which queue to go to and what kind of ticket we were buying), a guy approached us and offered us a tour for 10 euro of both the Colosseum and the Forum. I'd been warned about these people, and if I had been alone I definitely would have refused. But Stacy seemed really set on a Colosseum tour, and 10 euro was fairly cheap, so we did it. I suppose we lucked out, because our guide was quite good--we managed to find one of the few quality, legit tour companies. Still, I didn't get much out of the Colosseum tour but that was just because I was a Roman history nut (or used to be, at any rate) and not because the information we were given wasn't good. It was more than enough for me to be standing inside of the Colosseum, taking pictures and letting my imagination run wild across the ruins.

The Forum tour, though, was definitely worth it. I didn't really know anything about the Forum beforehand. The Roman Forum is the area of ruins where sort of "downtown" ancient Rome was. It's this gorgeous jumble of ruined buildings and ancient temples that's now covered in spectacular flowering shrubs and trees--in fact, part of the Forum is now a botanical garden. You stroll along the Via Sacra and the air is saturated with the scent of flowers, you're surrounded by fragments of ancient Rome, and life is amazing. I adored the Forum, and we spent a good amount of time there, but I could have gone there with a book and sat for days on end and been enormously content. But it was getting near 6:30PM at this point; we hadn't slept or eaten in longer than I cared to think about. So we went over to the Spanish steps, climbed them and took some pictures, then headed back towards our hostel, thinking food there would be cheaper than in central Rome. This was probably a sound idea, but there actually wasn't a whole lot right around our hostel and we walked for a while before finding a restaurant, where the menu was entirely in Italian. I truthfully thought I'd recognize more on the menu than I did, which was probably a really arrogant assumption. Luckily for us we had a very kind waiter (who turned out to be Greek) who spoke English and helped us order. He also brought us free drinks at the end of our (very tasty) meal. By the time we were done eating we were completely exhausted--keep in mind this was Thursday night, and we had not really slept since Tuesday night, and we'd been sight-seeing/travelling all day. Sleep was called for, and I slept like a rock.

Friday morning dawned sunny and warm. We partook of the included breakfast--decent tea and toast with the most amazing strawberry jam. And we set out for Vatican City. It was important to Stacy, as she's Catholic, and important to me since the Vatican has played such a central role in Western civilization. Also, I was looking forward to all of the pretty.

We decided to do the Vatican museums first and then go to St. Peter's. The queue for the museums was ridiculously long but somehow only took about 25 min. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about our three hours in the Vatican museums. We saw some spectacular things, certainly, but it's such an overwhelming experience. It is at least on par with the Louvre in size and scope and is probably bigger (I don't know off hand). It was sensory overload and not a little exhausting. The highlight of the galleries for me was certainly seeing Raphael's fresco "The School of Athens"; I keep a copy of that painting over my desk at school and it has long been one of my favourites. The other galleries were gorgeous as well but there was just so much to take in; it was definitely over saturation.

However, at the end of the galleries we were rewarded with the Sistine Chapel. It was a bit smaller than I expected, but astounding. I do think I would have appreciated it more if I had not just come from three hours of wandering crowded galleries; also, the chapel itself was absolutely packed with people. What I found most spectacular about the Sistine Chapel was not necessarily the artwork itself but rather how the artwork had been crafted to completely fill the space. Considering how the work was actually done is mind-blowing. Of course, the frescoes themselves were fantastic, but again you must bear in mind that I'd just spent several hours appreciating Renaissance painting. I never thought I'd say that there's a quota for that sort of stuff, but by the time we walked out of the Sistine Chapel I reached it.

Blinking in the bright Italian sunlight, we made our way to St. Peter's Sq, stopping for gelato on the way. When we got to the square we immediately joined the queue for the basilica, as it was intimidatingly large. St. Peter's Sq is I think the most spectacular public square I have ever been in. It is surrounded by two semi-circular columnades , and there are two lovely fountains. The basilica sits at the back of the square, solemn and beautiful. I was blissfully content while eating my tiramasu gelato in the warm sunlight in St. Peter's Sq. Luckily this queue also moved quickly, and before I knew it I was standing inside of St. Peter's Basilica.

I cannot describe it. I don't know that it is even worth trying. You should probably just google pictures. I know that is a ridiculous cop-out, but the inside of St. Peter's completely robbed me of speech. It is so spectacular that Michaelangelo's brilliant sculpture, La Pieta, can be fairly placed in an alcove off to one side. The work is beautiful enough to adorn the basilica, but cannot draw attention away from the basilica's own magnificence. We spent quite a while, probably a full hour, inside. Remarkable. We then made the 500+ step ascent to the cupola of the basilica. My fear of heights kicked in a bit when we got to the top, I must admit. The views were spectacular but I had a difficult time getting near the railing; I had thought I was more or less over the heights thing. Apparently not.

We rested from our climb in the sunlight in St. Peter's Sq. I actually dozed for a bit. We then had great fun wandering through the touristy markets and shops that surround the Vatican (I think the basket of baby Jesuses I found was the highlight, personally). After leaving the Vatican we went to the Trevi fountain, which was beautiful and packed with people. We got dinner around there (with a slightly less friendly waiter than we'd had the night before, but a menu partly in English). Night had fallen by the time we finished dinner and we weren't tired, so we walked around the Pantheon and through some pretty happening (and gorgeous!) piazzas. Gelato was had again. Life was beautiful, and I was content and sleepy when we finally went back to our hostel.

Except once in bed I discovered that our hostel shared a wall with a nightclub. It actually sounded like the nightclub was in our room. I did not sleep at all because all I could hear was pounding music and loud conversations all night. Funnily enough, the next morning Stacy said she had not heard anything. I always knew I was a light sleeper, but I can't believe she did not hear that nonsense. Considering we had to get up at 5:30AM to get to the train station to leave for Venice, I was essentially a zombie.

We made it to the station in time to figure out how to buy tickets and to locate the platform (and we even remembered to validate our tickets) so I was quite proud as we boarded the train. The train was the best one I've ever been on, way more comfortable and nicer than the Eurostar between London and Paris. Good thing, too, because we were on it for five hours. Stacy slept most of the way, but I could only doze a bit in the beginning and then I was mostly awake, watching the Italian countryside roll by and updating my journal. When we reached Venice I was very excited because the directions to our hostel included taking the waterbus--in Venice, the public transportation system is made up of boats! My enthusiasm was dampened a bit by how expensive they were (and unfortunately our hostel was on a different island than the main one so we had to spend the extra money on a pass). It was still novel and fun, though.

Venice was gorgeous and I immediately fell in love with it. It is so unique among cities. We actually didn't do a whole lot while we were there--we toured the Doge's Palace, went to mass at St. Mark's, and wandered the Rialto market but other than that we just explored and sat in sunny piazzas and enjoyed the absence of traffic. It was so beautiful. I think by the time we left late Sunday afternoon Stacy was ready to go; I don't think there had been enough action for her there. But I had supremely enjoyed our peaceful time in Venice. I found it to be a really calming city. There were a lot of tourists, and it is probably unbearable in the summer because of the crowds, but while we were there it was lovely. I could have spent days on end meandering its adorable alleys and crisscrossing the tranquil canals, eating pizza and gelato and resting in beautiful piazzas surrounded by awesome architecture. I completely adored Venice and would love to go back.

We made it back to London with no difficulty, except that by the time we got back into central London it was 2:00AM and the Tube had stopped running so we ended up having to walk for a half hour to get to Stacy's flat, where we promptly crashed since we both had work quite early that morning.

And now it is Thursday the 23rd. My brother turns 23 today (old man!) and I have just two days left in London. More on my last week here later.

The closer it gets, the harder it is to think about leaving.

"But at my Back I ever Hear/Time's Winged Shadow Hurrying Near"

Happy Easter, all! I have had this past week off from work because of Eater (although I still had classes with CAPA) and I have next week off as well. I've taken advantage of it to see more of London and England...and this evening marks the end of my final weekend in London.

Last Monday I went to work even though there were no students, as I had to finish up data analysis following the group workshop sessions I co-led. It involved graphing the girls' various attendance, academic, and behavioural records. Although there's no way, with this kind of work, to provide any completely objective and thorough analysis (especially in such a short time span), we saw some promising trends. Nearly everyone's attendance had improved, and all of our participants had fewer behavioural sanctions while they were on our program than before they started. It surprised me, to be honest--while the group work was going, I never felt like we were getting anything through to them. But while I was doing my one-on-one meetings with the kids I noticed small signs of improvement as well, so I suppose something came out of it. While I was there Sherife showed me the reference letter she's working on for me. Considering I had not yet requested one, this made me very happy. I feel like I've lived up to Sherife's demanding work standards during my internship, and that makes me quite proud. I will be sorry to say good-bye to Hornsey, but I am definitely looking forward to working with the Gene Team kids this summer. It will be nice to have students who are motivated, enthusiastic, respectful, etc. Not that I haven't become attached to the buggers at Hornsey.

Classes at CAPA are wrapping up, too--all I have left are two final projects and in-class essay final. If I put some effort into them, I may be able to pull off a 4.0 for this semester. That would be icing on the cake for this semester, and would finally staunch the wounds organic chem ripped open in my GPA sophomore year.

This past Wednesday I went to Greenwich with AlanandRachel (referring to them as one word seems appropriate, and I trust they will find it entertaining and not offensive). Greenwich was a (free!) 8 minute train ride from central London, but it didn't feel like London at all. You could see Canary Wharf and the skyline from Greenwich, but Greenwich itself felt like a quaint, little, green town with an expansive park, small streets, and stately museums. It was a sunny, warm day and everything there was free, so it was really a win. We went to the Royal Observatory, where we stood on the Prime Meridian and learned all about the relationship between astronomy and time-keeping. Lovely and educational morning.

After leaving Greenwich I made my way to the Apollo Victoria theatre, where I was meeting Stacy to buy tickets for that night's Wicked performance. I'd seen Wicked before, but Stacy had not and it's one of my favourite shows so we decided to go. We got seats that were normally £60 for only 25 quid, and went off to class to kill time before the show. After Gov't and Politics (during which I got really annoyed by this girl who argued that the American government should not offer financial aid--but only after admitting that her parents were able to pay for her university education without incurring any debt, so what right had she to comment on how other people should handle funding their educations? She won't be graduating with $30,000 in debt to pursue a career where she'll make at best, maybe $40,000/yr. Anyway.) we splurged on some greasy American food--we gave in to the ubiquity of American culture and got Pizza Hut. And let me tell you, Pizza Hut never tasted so good. (Later in the week Rachel commented that one of the disappointing things about going home will be that American things will not be nearly as exciting to us as they are here, and I have to agree.)

Wicked was a great time. It's such a fun musical. I was not overly impressed with the girl playing Glinda, but Elphaba and Fearow were fantastic, so it wasn't that big of a deal. Our seats were quite good and I loved the show.

Thursday I made an excursion to Canterbury and Dover. Canterbury was a gorgeous little medieval town, highly reminiscent of Bayeux, France, and Kilkenny, Ireland. I visited the Canterbury Cathedral, seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Church of England. And while I was there the Archbishop was leading a service, so I actually got to see and hear him, which was quite exciting. The Cathedral itself was enormous and stunning, although I was disappointed that I did not get to see the shrine of St. Thomas Beckett, since it was in an area of the church occupied by the service. While wandering the crypts of the Cathedral, I wondered vaguely whether my semester here hasn't been sort of too much at once--that is, would I have appreciated Canterbury Cathedral more if I hadn't visited Notre-Dame de Paris and Sainte-Chappelle five days previous? I mean, I was awestruck by the awesome cathedral, but it still had me wondering.

I had my first encounter with clotted cream in Canterbury as well, as I treated myself to tea and scones at a little cafe in the town center. I've had my share of tea and scones here, but I am pretty sure this was the first time I got clotted cream with them (as opposed to other varieties of cream or just butter). It was tasty, I suppose, nothing too exciting, though the scones themselves were brilliant. I will miss decent scones when I get back to the US.

There was also a lovely remnant of a Norman castle in Canterbury, and a gorgeous park surrounded by the remnants of the city walls. If I had stayed in Canterbury all day, I would have been content. But I made the ill-fated decision to venture out to Dover, which was a bit of a fiasco.

I already had a return train ticket from London to Canterbury (at £26); a return ticket from Canterbury to Dover cost £6.50. On my way to the train station, I passed the bus station and figured a bus would be cheaper, so I got a bus to Dover instead. It wasn't cheaper, though--it was £4 one way. But it didn't take much longer than a train would have, and it wasn't a bad bus ride. I got off right at the famous white cliffs...which were a bit of a letdown, to put it mildly.

I blame Matthew Arnold entirely for my disappointment (see the poem "Dover Beach"). I'd always imagined these towering, austere, chalk-white cliffs rising dramatically from a deserted beach, etc. Maybe a cute little seaside village or something. But Dover the town is hideously ugly; it is an industrialized port city. I mean, I saw semi-trucks, which one never sees anywhere in Britain. The docks themselves are all modern--wide tracts of asphalt stretching into the sea, container ships belching black smoke, commercial ferries to France, the whole nine yards. And these docks go right up to the foot of the cliffs themselves. It's like, busy docks, buzzing motorway...then white cliffs.

You could walk up onto the cliffs and walk along a cliff-top path, which I did. The cliffs were pretty, I guess, they just weren't that great and their surroundings were ugly. Perhaps I was just spoiled by the Norman and Irish coasts. I then proceeded to get lost along the cliff-top path (a superb achievement, considering that I had been following a unidirectional path...) and in order to make up the lost time had to really power walk back down the cliffs and into the town centre (about a mile and a half, I'd guess) to the train station to catch a train to London (it was now past 5:00PM, and I was going to be late for dinner). I discovered upon arrival that a single to Canterbury cost the same as a return (£6.50). So, Dover in a nutshell: I wasted 4 quid, it was ugly, I got lost, and I was vaguely sore and exhausted by the time I got to my train home.

This weekend has actually been spectacularly boring; as it is a holiday weekend, everything interesting in London is shut down and the city is flooded with tourists who block up the Tube platforms. It's also been raining, so just going outside hasn't really been an option. I've stayed in and done homework, mostly. Last night I went out to see my host brother Adam's band (This Sweet Resonance, in case they ever make it big) play a pub in Ealing. I coaxed AlanandRachel out as well. Adam's band was decent; I couldn't understand a damn thing they said and they screamed a bit too much for my tastes, but they sounded pretty good. Adam was slightly drunk on stage, which struck me as a bit hilarious because I am used to seeing him get fawned over by his mother at home. His older brother Dan was there as well, who is always really friendly and talkative. AlanandRachel and I really only watched Adam's band; we then retreated to the more conversation-friendly garden, where there were speakers so you could hear the other bands playing inside. It was good to be out for a night.

This morning I was a good Unitarian Universalist and went to a Unitarian Easter service. The service was nice but I really miss First Unitarian in Pittsburgh; I can't wait to go back. I haven't been able to find a UU church in London, although there are a few Unitarian congregations, which has led me to believe that UUs are an American creation (I'll have to ask my minister at home about this when I get back). There's not much of a difference in mindset, except that the two Unitarian churches I have visited here both seemed to identify as Liberal Christian and to equate Unitarianism with Liberal Christianity. My UU church at home, on the other hand, is to the left (so to speak) of Liberal Christianity (although I'm sure there are plenty of liberal Christians in our fellowship). The upshot of all this is that while the Unitarian churches here are officially "non-creedal" and use the chalice, stress inclusiveness, humanism, and critical thought/debate, they are a bit more dogmatic than First Unitarian, taking for granted a theistic perspective and actively encouraging a Christian-centered spirituality. The sermon I heard today urged the congregation to accept the immortality of the soul--much more prescriptive language than would ever be used in a service at home. Anyway, I actually did really enjoy the service and it was nice to be among some Unitarians for a bit.

To end this on a lighter, less philosophical note...here's my list of top things I miss about my life in the US:
People (obviously I can't emphasize this enough; I miss everyone terribly)
All of the space in the US; I miss all the woods and farmland in Michigan, and even Pittsburgh feels more "open" than London
Peanut butter
Chipotle
Moose Tracks Ice Cream
Driving (although Mom thinks I'm going to crash as soon as I get behind the wheel at home)
Having my own kitchen space, grocery shopping, cooking, etc
Lying in the grass in Schenley Park with my friends at Pitt
Having all of my stuff (well, as much as it as I ever have)
First Unitarian and the campus ministry group
Science
the Cathedral of Learning

Mostly though, I just want to be back somewhere where I am not a stranger; back among people who know me well and love me.

Italy next weekend! I'm excited.

Paris cont

I left Notre-Dame and went to Sainte-Chappelle. I remembered being completely in love with Sainte-Chappelle on my first trip to Paris, and I also remembered it being quiet. But the long queue at the ticket window did not bode well, and sure enough the small chapel was completely packed with very loud tourists. Indeed, every few minutes one of the staff members would make an announcement about the need for silence in the chapel. It felt like I was dealing with an unruly class of primary school kids. In spite of the crowd, the chapel was as stunningly gorgeous as I remembered, which made me happy.

Then I went back to my hostel, where I signed up for the 6 euro dinner. After a brief rest in my room, I left with my copy of Les Mis for les Tuileries. I got some espresso and an eclair and read in the garden until sunset. Just lovely. Dinner at the hostel was OK; the food was good but the people at my table weren't sociable, which was irritating. But later while I was filling out postcards and having some wine in the bar I met a backpacker from Australia, and we had a really fun conversation that lasted for over an hour. I love those conversations in hostels; that's something I'll really miss when I get back to the States.

Sunday morning I woke up and checked out of the hostel, leaving my backpack in the luggage room as I did so. My train back to London wasn't until 5:45PM. I went to hear mass at Sacre-Coeur, and that was gorgeous. It was sunny and really warm outside; I laid on the grass in front of Sacre-Coeur for a bit before continuing on my way.

Then I went to les Champs-Elysees. On my first trip to Paris, the very first Metro exit Q led us out of was the one on les Champs-Elysees that brings you right up to l'Arc de Triomphe. It was this exit I took now. So beautiful, l'Arc. I spent the afternoon walking down les Champs-Elysees towards le Pont d'Alexandre III. Along the way I passed some beautiful gardens in the Place de Franklin Roosevelt, and I stopped there and read for a bit in the sunshine, enjoying seeing the little French children playing. I made my way to the famous bridge from there, passing le Grand and le Petit Palais on the way. It was a beautiful walk and I was quite content. After taking some pictures on le Pont d'Alexandre III, I strolled along the Seine all the way to Trocadero (which turned out to be quite a hike). At Trocadero I got a crepe and pondered the Eiffel Tower for the last time (on this trip, anyway). Then I went to le Champ de Mars and walked through the park, past the peace memorial, and through the surrounding streets. It was time for me to find a Metro station and return to the hostel to get my backpack.

The return journey was uneventful and more comfortable than the trip there had been. I felt at home when I got to Kings Cross. I can navigate that station in my sleep. I know the Tube so well I hardly ever need to look at a map now. The British accents were comforting and familiar after a weekend of French.

I now have only two weeks left abroad, and I'm frankly startled at how acclimated I am to life in London. It's truly in the little things that I catch myself doing, thinking, or saying--the irritation at people who clearly don't know how to use the Tube, saying "packet of crisps" instead of "bag of chips", no longer needing to examine the coins in my pocket to know what they are, and thinking that tea without milk is odd. Whenever I notice these types of things I experience two emotions--excitement that I've picked up so much of the culture and lifestyle...and homesickness.

In any event, the countdown is really on now. Six days until Italy, fifteen until Michigan, and twenty-two until Pittsburgh.

Paris au Printemps

Before I begin getting into the detail of this trip, I am going to subject you to a flashback. Sorry, but it is actually vitally important that I impart some understanding of my first trip to Paris in order for you to get a feel not only for my second visit there, but for my development as a traveler.

Four years ago, I went to Paris for a week with my high school French class. I was sixteen, a high school junior, and a third-year student not only of French but also more generally of Mrs. Quinlan (whom I still know as Q), who in addition to being an excellent French teacher was a close mentor of mine all throughout high school--I was in her classroom literally every single day of my high school career. Those eight days in Paris were life-changing for me.

Dad paid for the trip and I supplied my spending money. There were around 25 of us on the trip altogether. Q had naturally been to Paris several times, both with and without students, and her personality was singularly suited to taking students on trips. She was hilarious and always completely relaxed; meticulously organized with remarkable flexibility. Q is a person you want with you when you're having a great time and when there's a crisis.

Paris was the first significant city I traveled to (well, I'd been to LA, which I don't count, and I had vague memories of DC), and the first time I traveled without my parents. Q treated us like fledglings learning to fly; the first day we did everything in a giant pack, but as the days wore on we were set loose more and more frequently for larger intervals of time. Finally, at the end of the week, we had an entire day to explore Paris on our own (provided we were in groups of four and told Q where we planned to go). Q led by example, striking the difficult balance between ridiculous tourist (encouraging us to buy Eiffel Tower keychains and insisting on taking pictures of us all jumping on the Point Zero plaque in front of Notre Dame) and seasoned traveler (teaching us how to avoid the gypsies at Sacre-Coeur and recommending less-frequented museums and churches). Without that trip, I would have been a much less confident and less ambitious traveler later in life. Finding out that at 16 I was perfectly capable of safely navigating Paris for a day on my own was a remarkable revelation, and I wonder if I would have ever considered last summer's road trip without that week in Paris.

In addition, Paris for a long time was the only European city I had seen. Combined with the fact that it was my first big travel destination, my memories of it were all superlative. The Paris of my memory was beautiful, inviolable, perfect. I remembered the metro being astoundingly useful, the city streets being lovely, the crowds of people exciting, the museums enchanting. When I returned to America at the end of that week I had not a single complaint about Paris; it was the most amazing city on earth, as far as I was concerned, and no one could say anything against its marvels.

These impressions of Paris stayed with me even after I arrived in London; within the first few weeks here I had booked my tickets for Paris. My classmates here, returning from their own Paris excursions, all had various issues with the city--Parisians were rude, the city smelled, the metro was dirty. But these complaints did not come near my deeply held convictions of Paris' majesty.

But this excursion was a strange one for me. To begin with, as the day of departure approached, I found I did not have much emotion about going. Perhaps traveling has truly become habitual for me; I could not even really rouse significant excitement until I'd been on the Eurostar train for more than an hour. The Eurostar train ride was itself a huge letdown, by the way. I had wanted to travel on it for years. It turned out to be the most convenient--and, since I booked early, cheapest--way to go, but it was really not at all interesting. In fact the train I was on smelled really awful, a sort of rotten sour smell, so I spent the whole ride vaguely nauseous and unable to read anything as a result.

I found myself at the Gare du Nord quite suddenly. Automatically I went to the ticket window and got tickets; instinctively I paused in front of the metro map and worked out how to get to my hostel; and then I was on the metro. While on the metro I was mentally yelling at myself: "You're in Paris! You're back in Paris!" But my only response at that point was that the metro was filthy compared to the London tube, and surely they could modernise the trains a bit. At the hostel I encountered my first ever stereotypically rude Parisian, which especially irritated me considering all the energy I have spent defending the French. The man behind reception clearly spoke English, but spoke to me only in French. That by itself was OK; I was in his country, after all, and should not expect anyone to deal in English. What made me angry was that he then proceeded to openly mock my broken French to his coworkers. Annoyed, I made my way to my room, which was sketchy at best. To get to it you had to go out on a terrace, and there was only one key, which was to be left with reception whenever you left the room. I really didn't feel safe there and considering my fairly low standards for security, that is saying something.

I dropped off my backpack and headed for the Eiffel Tower; it was about 10 PM (Thursday) at this point. It meant getting back on the metro, and I noticed as I walked to the station and to the platform that the place did in fact smell pretty terrible. Was Paris this dirty four years ago? Did I really not notice it then, or had I just written it out of my memory? It's hard to say. First I actually went to the Eiffel Tower, forgetting that the best place to see it is actually Trocadero, a park/square across the Seine from the Tower. While wandering around the base of the Tower, I was so successfully in not appearing touristy that even the souvenir salesmen left me alone. Unsurprisingly, the place was crowded with people. I took a couple pictures, then decided to walk over to Trocadero to get a proper view of the whole Tower. It was only a ten minute walk, and then I had a proper sight of the Eiffel Tower, lit up against the night.

Except I didn't really feel much, as I gazed at it. It was pretty. There were a lot of tourists; even from here I could make out the camera flashes of people on the Tower. Normally when I'm looking at really famous things I get this exciting rush of disbelief and admiration; it did not come, that night at Trocadero. I hung around the square for a bit, taking a few pictures and watching it twinkle. Then, still nonplussed, I figured it was time to call it a night (I'd worked all day before catching the Eurostar). I went back to my room in the hostel in Montmartre, to find that two other people had arrived and were already asleep--the door onto the terrace (the only door) had been left open out of necessity. The only key was inside the room, so unless the two people inside had wanted to get up and let every other person in, they had to leave the door unlocked. It made good sense, except that when the door was unlocked it didn't actually shut. So I stuffed my really valuable things--bank card and passport--into my pillowcase and fell into an uneasy and chilly sleep. Contributing to my troubled sleep was the fact that I still wasn't really excited about being in Paris.

I had breakfast in the hostel (it was included, which was nice) and then checked out and left. I'd waited until the last minute to book my hostel for Paris, and had been unable to find anything for all three nights. As a result I had to spend the last two nights in a different place than the first. It had been troublesome at the time, but I was all too happy to leave behind this first hostel. My first stop Friday was Pere Lachaise cemetery. I hadn't been there on my first trip to Paris, and I wanted to visit Oscar Wilde's grave. The cemetery was an odd place. It felt like a small town. It was surrounded by high walls and had its own streets; there was no grass, which seemed odd. And many of the graves seemed to be above ground, in tombs or above-ground crypts. Furthermore it was completely packed with graves and memorials; it did not seem like a peaceful resting place at all. It was also huge. It took me a long time to get to Wilde's grave; he was buried across the cemetery from where I entered. He had a large white marble memorial which was completely covered in lipstick kisses and graffiti. Apparently it's customary to either actually kiss the memorial while wearing a lot of lipstick or to draw on a lipstick kiss; I wished I had brought along some lipstick but I hadn't. It struck me as odd, though, considering that Wilde had been imprisoned for homosexuality. He probably would have approved of it as a great joke.


By the time I got to Wilde's grave, my backpack was getting uncomfortably heavy and Pere-Lachaise was beginning to creep me out, so I struck out for my next hostel. It was too early to check in, but I hoped they would be able to store my backpack for the day. The hostel was really nice, leaps and bounds ahead of the first place I had stayed in. They let me leave my backpack in the luggage room until check-in, so I dropped it off and then ventured out into Paris again.

I went to the Musee Rodin. I adore Rodin and my visit to the museum's gardens the first time I went to Paris was one of the most intense art encounters of my life. I was pleased that it hadn't changed, although this time around I was too old to get in for free and had to pay four euro. The sculpture The Gates of Hell, which had so enthralled me on my first visit, was still breathtaking. There, in the gardens of the Rodin museum, I finally felt the excitement I'd been searching for since arriving at Gare du Nord the previous day--I was in Paris and it was beautiful. I spent a long time in the museum, thoroughly exploring both the gardens (where Le Penseur resides, lost in eternal thought) and the museum proper (where one can see Rodin's The Kiss, one of the most romantic pieces of art in existence).

From the museum I ambled blissfully through the city to les Jardins des Tuileries, which I could not recall ever visiting. The sun was dazzling and it was plenty warm enough for me to remove my coat as I walked. When I got to les Tuileries, I was actually disappointed because the park had no grass. It had dirt. I walked through it for a bit, and saw some grass, but it was all meticulously fenced off with signs informing people that the grass was off-limits. I did find a bench beneath some pretty trees within sight of the beautiful Font des Medicis, though, so I suppose I can't complain. My next stop was the Pantheon, which was just on the other side of les Tuileries. It has an interesting history, the Pantheon. It looks every inch a classical Greek temple, but was originally built as a Christian basilica. However, during the Revolution when religion was fiercely censored, it became a sort of secular temple--a place for great, solemn state events. During the reign of Napoleon, it was partially restored to its function as a Christian place of worship, but retained some of its secular significance. During the restoration of the monarchy, it became fully a Christian site again. But later, when the monarchy was removed again, it became a secular site (this transition was clearly marked by the great state funeral of the novelist Victor Hugo) and today it remains a secular temple dedicated to the achievements of mankind. As a Unitarian Universalist, an atheist, a scientist, a bibliophile, an aesthete, and a romantic this whole history pleased me very much. Upon entering the first thing you see is Foucault's Pendulum, the first demonstration of the earth's rotation about its axis. How wonderful, to enter a lavishly and solemnly beautiful temple and see enshrined there humanity, not divinity. There were monuments to the Revolution. In the crypts, I paid my respects to Voltaire, Rousseau, Dumas, Hugo, and the Curies. I spent a long time in the Pantheon.

At that point it was late in the afternoon, and all my walking and marveling had exhausted me. I made my way back to the hostel and checked in properly. The room was awesome. It was a 10-bed room that was actually big enough to be a 10-bed room. Each bed had a curtain around it and its own little reading light and electrical outlets, as well as a designated locker beneath the bed. It was comfortable and secure, and I settled down for a nap without hesitation. I went to Montmartre to procure dinner, which was quite close to my hostel. I found a restaurant with a set menu at 12 euro for three courses, which seemed a steal. And it was. The food was amazing--I had onion soup, beouf bourginon (I know I spelled that wrong), and chocolate mousse. It was my splurge for the weekend, and well worth it. As the sun was setting I climbed up to Sacre-Coeur. Let me tell you this about the bluff of Montmartre: yes, Sacre-Coeur is gorgeous, but to reach it one must endure a hellish number of steps, all of which smell strongly of urine and are full of gypsies accosting you for money. But I made it through and found a pleasant seat on the grass near the stairs, where I settled down to read some more of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables (I always try to find appropriate weekend reading). There was a talented street musician playing in front of the basilica, and I was utterly content with my life for that stretch of time. La vie, c'est vraiment belle.

The next day, Saturday, I woke up and went to the Catacombs. The Catacombs are a vast underground burial ground. Starting in the 18th century, mass graves around Paris were linked to widespread disease. The solution the authorities decided upon was to exhume these graves and remove the bones to the Catacombs, which had already been partially excavated because excellent limestone was quarried there and used for building projects. I was apprehensive about this visit; I'd seen pictures and documentaries and knew that there were lots of human bones. But my curiosity outweighed my fear, and I found myself in a long queue that sunny Saturday morning waiting for my turn to glimpse the great ossuaries.

After a lot of stairs leading underground, there was perhaps a 15 minute walk through mostly empty tunnels whose walls bore informative placards about the creation of the catacombs. I was already creeped out just from in the dimly lit underground alone; I made sure to keep the people just ahead of me always in sight. Then I got to the actual ossuary part...and it was terrifying at first. Although I'd had a vague idea of what to expect, nothing prepares you for seeing that massive volume of human bones. They were piled up at least five feet high (taller than me, in some places) and probably 3-4 ft thick, with skulls grinning all over the place. And it just went on and on, wall of bones after wall of bones, interspersed with quotes about death and mortality. It was perhaps a thirty-minute walk through human bones. Oddly enough, I became accustomed to the macabre setting after a few minutes and became less and less bothered by the bones, and was actually able to pause and read the quotes and ponder the bones. This phase of interest lasted until I got to the drippy bit. Near the end of the Catacombs, the ceiling was dripping slightly. Nothing major, just occasional falling drops of water. But the shock of the water droplets (and the thought that these water drops were quite likely filtered through bones) combined with the piles of bones was just too much for my taxed nervous system, and I hurried through to the end and the stairway that led me back to daylight.

I took a long walk after leaving the Catacombs, from the neighborhood of Montparnasse to the Latin Quarter and l'Ile de Cite. I stopped by the Montparnasse Cemetery on the way to pay my respects to the Existentialist writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. My sunny walk through Paris was magnificent. I stopped and got a baguette with ham and butter on le Boul-Mich and took my sandwich to the banks of the Seine. There, sitting on a stairway in the shadow of Notre-Dame de Paris, I ate lunch and marveled not only at my beautiful surroundings but at how astounding my life was. I never thought I'd be back in Paris. When I was done eating I went over to the cathedral and found the Point Zero plaque in front of it--legend has it that if you jump on the plaque, you will return to Paris. It worked for me before, so I hopped on it again. Then I bought a Nutella crepe from a street vendor, which I devoured in the gardens behind Notre-Dame. While I enjoyed my crepe, the bells of Notre-Dame struck 2:00 and life was utterly perfect. Then I joined the queue to go inside the cathedral. My visit to Notre-Dame was somewhat disappointing because it was so crowded and noisy. I know that being a tourist in a church bothers some people. I don't have any qualms about visiting churches because I know that I am always respectful; I turn off my camera flash, am quiet, don't swear, and usually donate money. The tourists in Notre-Dame that afternoon were astoundingly disrespectful, and it left a bad taste in my mouth. That place is holy; people go there to pray and practice their faith; why can't visitors respect that? Were I Catholic I would have been offended. They should limit the number of people they let in at a time, or something.

This post is already overly long; I'll finish it later.

"There is in London all that Life Can Afford."

It's been a busy several days here in London.

Last Friday I went to watch Les Miserables with my friend Stacy, who interns with me at Hornsey. It was my first time seeing Les Mis, and it was as intense and beautiful as I'd hoped it would be. That show is a three-hour emotional freight train; it is exhausting to watch because it is so passionate. Jean Valjean is one of the greatest characters I have ever encountered. The show also reinforced my previous belief that Victor Hugo is the French Charles Dickens, and the novel is now on my summer reading list (which is already dangerously ambitious as it includes Ulysses). After the show we walked around Trafalgar Sq and Westminster and talked about how wonderful it was to be in London.

Last Saturday Dad and Sue were scheduled to arrive. My original plans were to go to Westminster Abbey and Shakespeare's Globe during the day and meet them for dinner. But when I woke up I had an e-mail from Dad explaining that he had been bumped from his flight because of over-booking; Sue would arrive on schedule. In his e-mail he sounded quite concerned about Sue landing in London alone and asked me to meet her at the airport at noon. Having landed in Heathrow alone myself, I knew it was an unpleasant experience and was more than happy to go out to Heathrow to meet her.

I think I caught her off guard, because of course originally the plan had not been for me to be at the airport. But she was grateful that I was there and I led her to their hotel in Piccadilly. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon, and Piccadilly Circus was jammed with people; it was almost impossible to move along the sidewalk. Even I was a bit overwhelmed (I rarely go to Piccadilly anyway and when I do it's never at peak crowd time), and I it was quite jarring for Sue for her first proper sight of London to be a solid mob of tourists. Nonetheless we made it to the (very nice) hotel just fine, and after checking in we set off for a walk.

The ensuing walking tour made me quite proud. I had no idea that I knew London as well as I did. From Piccadilly we went through St. James' Park, where we stopped for a bit to enjoy the sunlight before walking to Buckingham Palace. We then set off towards Sloane Sq (to be entirely fair, I did not at first realize we were going towards Sloane Sq as we left the palace, but it only took me two or three blocks to figure it out). At Sloane Sq we caught the Tube for Westminster, where I led Sue out of the Houses of Parliament exit (my favorite Tube station by far, and probably my favorite place in London). Like everywhere else it was just loaded with tourists--I had not seen London this full of tourists yet, but I suppose the weather is warming up and the off season is slowly melting. We walked over Westminster Bridge to take in the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, then doubled back to pass Westminster Abbey. There was a dinner break in a pub near Westminster (quite a nice pub, too), and then we circled back around to walk up Whitehall St to Trafalgar Sq. I led her past the National Gallery into Leicester Sq, where we stopped for ice cream before winding our way back to Piccadilly via Chinatown. We made plans to meet at Heathrow tomorrow to see Dad off the plane.

After I dropped Sue off at her hotel, it was only about 8:00 and I didn't want to just go home (it was a Saturday night, after all). So I called Stacy, who said she was getting ready to go out and that I could come along, if I was interested. I took the Tube out to Kilburn Park, where she lives. I felt a bit out of place because she and her flatmates were all quite dressed up (ie, dresses) whereas I had not gone home to change and was therefore in jeans. But all I wanted was a pint, really, so I didn't care much. When we finally left, Stacy (and indeed most of the group) didn't actually know where we were going, but it turned out the club her flatmates were headed for was in Piccadilly. Now, I haven't been out a whole lot in London, but I do know that the ONLY people in Piccadilly on a Saturday night are tourists. I could not for the life of me figure out why they wanted to go there. Sure enough, the first club we went to (which was also one of a chain of clubs across London, another thing that irritated/amused me) was so full of people they had suspended the typical free cover. So we went into the next club we came across, which was literally so full of people you couldn't even walk to the bar. We left and went back up to Kilburn to go to the local place they always go to, and I couldn't figure out why we hadn't started there. It was close to their flat, busy but not completely packed, not a bloody tourist destination, and had some independent character. Nonetheless I had an entertaining evening; Stacy's flatmates are a good time.

The next day, Sunday, I went back to Heathrow to meet Dad. It was really great to see him; I missed having people around who know me. I gave Dad a much reduced walking tour than I had given Sue, because I figured during the week he and Sue would revisit together many of the landmarks. But I did take him to the Westminster Tube station and up Whitehall St. We then got some lunch stuff at an M&S Simply Food (Dad was inordinately excited about the grocery store) and took the Tube out to Regent's Park to eat our lunch stuffs and enjoy the sunshine. (The weather has been excellent for quite a while here; it's somewhat eerie, truth be told.) I really enjoyed my afternoon/evening with Dad and Sue and at the end of the day we made plans for dinner and the London Eye Wednesday night.

On Wednesday they met me after my class ended at Gloucester Rd, where I showed them the (admittedly unimpressive) CAPA centre. From there we went over to Westminster to ride the Eye. It was dark by the time we were actually on the Eye, and the city was gorgeous. I probably would not have gone on the Eye had Dad not come, but it was quite an amazing view. A bit creepy, though, considering I am vaguely scared of heights. Afterwards we went to Earl's Court Rd for dinner, where we found an excellent Indian restaurant.

Thursday Dad and Sue came out to Ealing. We had dinner at an Italian place on Haven Green near the Tube station, then made the 20 minute walk over to where I live so they could meet my host family. I was really glad they made the trip out to Ealing to see where I live, and I think that meeting the Martins went well. It was less awkward than it might have been, but then Mrs. Martin is such a talker that I don't imagine there's anyone she's awkward around. Dad and Sue approved of my neighborhood (which is a far cry from the crowded, sort of touristy and busy central London they had mostly been seeing) and of my host family. It's probably a good thing that there wasn't really time or the opportunity for them to see where I work, though--I don't imagine it would have been as assuring as Ealing. I bid them goodbye Thursday night, as their flight back to the US was Friday morning. They said they enjoyed their vacation in London, and I hope that they truly did. I really loved seeing them.

Friday night I stayed in and crashed by 10:00; it was my first night in in probably over a month. Saturday morning I went to St. Paul's Cathedral and was unpleasantly surprised by the pricey admission fee (8 and a half pounds with my ISIC card). I think it was definitely worth the eight pounds--it's tough to put a price on that kind of beauty. St. Paul's is one of the largest non-Gothic churches I've been in, so it was quite a different atmosphere than the rambling, ancient Gothic cathedrals I've grown to love. It was built mostly of marble so was full of light, and the ceilings were elaborately painted and lavishly decorated. It was also huge, on par with Sacre Coeur in Paris. Although you'd think that what with charging an average of ten pounds for admission they'd have raised enough money to put in a lift--the stairs up to the galleries were brutal. Well worth the climb, though. William Blake and Sir Phillip Sidney both have memorials in the crypts, and it was exciting for me to see them. Robert Hooke is also there. I was much more excited about those (relatively) small memorials than I was for the elaborate chambers dedicated to Wellington and Nelson, the great British heroes who rest in St. Paul's.

I left St. Paul's and went over to Shakespeare's Globe (which is just across the Millennium Bridge) to buy a ticket for Romeo and Juliet. On April 24th, my last night in London, I will be watching Romeo and Juliet inside Shakespeare's Globe!!! I then went sort of out of my way to Bank station so I had an excuse to take the most useless of the London Underground lines--the Waterloo & City, which only has 2 stops: Bank and Waterloo. At Waterloo I met up with Alan & Rachel, who had to attend a football match in Brentford for class and had gotten a hold of a spare ticket for me. It was a thirty minute train ride to the match. I had a good time; the match ended up being tied at 1-1 and it was fun to watch. Cold, though, and it was off-and-on raining and sleeting. We went over to Rachel's flat after the match and made lots of excellent stromboli for dinner, which we followed with adult ice cream sundaes (ie, ice cream mixed with Bailey's--it's as addictive as crack but much tastier). I had a really great evening eating their food and hanging out with them, but when I got home around midnight I really crashed.

Today the three of us met up to go to Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. It is a uniquely London phenomenon, Speakers' Corner. Basically, the city has given all of its crazy its own designated place and time. On Sunday, in that corner of Hyde Park, anyone can get on a step ladder and talk about whatever they feel like. It is the best free entertainment. Honestly, I expected there to be more people speaking today because of the whole G20 ruckus, but there were only a few crazy guys on step ladders. All of them were some flavor of religious nut, except for one particularly crazy guy who spent a lot of time giving dating advice on how to chat up German women. I couldn't tell from a couple of the religious nuts whether they were Christian or Jewish (probably they were not truly either); there was one guy wearing trousers that said "Jesus is Lord" but he was holding the Israeli flag and wearing a Star of David. There was also a man wearing the Union Jack like a cape and a baseball cap with plastic horns; a squirrel shared his step ladder with him and he seriously informed his audience, "If you see a squirrel here, don't worry. I'm just visiting." Watching the various speakers get heckled by probably equally crazy spectators was more than half the fun. I don't know whether I've ever felt more sane--but then, I was getting a kick out of listening to crazies, so perhaps I don't actually win there.

We had planned on going to the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race on the Thames afterwards, but we got coffee and severely lost track of time. We went to where the race was being held anyway, hoping we might catch some action, but all we saw were large crowds of people in various states of drunkenness along the river. I did get to see a new part of London, though, so it was a productive trip.

And now I am gearing up for another week of work, and looking forward to next weekend, when I will be in Paris.

Cymru

The title of this entry is the Welsh name for Wales, and despite its appearance it is pronounced "cum-ree". That's the Welsh for you, though--I think they designed their language specifically to antagonize English speakers. Can't really blame them, given the whole Edward I business.

Wales and its language are both gorgeous. I really enjoyed my weekend there. We left really early Saturday morning. Well, we were supposed to leave at 7:30AM from Gloucester Rd, which involved me getting up at like 5:30 and sprinting my way to the Tube to get to Gloucester Rd on time. Of course we left a half hour late, meaning I could have ambled peacefully to the Tube, but whatever. Our group consisted of about two and a half dozen CAPA students and then about a dozen students from a different study abroad program. The kids from the other program spent the entire weekend being late to things and generally being pains in the ass for our tour guide and for Anderson, the CAPA staff member who came along.

It was my first (and only) CAPA trip outside of England, and I still can't decide whether choosing to make my visit to Wales with CAPA was a good plan. I must admit I enjoyed not having to plan things, and I am fairly sure I saved money by going with CAPA rather than doing it myself. But at nearly every stop I was frustrated by how very little time we had to actually see things. So it's a toss-up, really.

Our first stop was at Caerleon, a town famous for having the best Roman ruins in Britain. The first site we went to was a Roman fort, which consisted mainly of rows of bricks/piles of brick overgrown with grass. It was kind of cool but not overly impressive; mostly I enjoyed the fact that it was right next to a rugby field where small boys were practicing rugby. But the next site was amazing; it was a Roman amphitheater and was remarkably intact. It was a grassy clearing surrounded by the remnants of the stone stands and gates; the shape of the amphitheater was still quite apparent. The weather was beautiful as well, sunny and warm(ish). The ruins were pleasant and impressive; it still felt like an amphitheater. I had a wonderful time. [Interesting tidbit (for me, at any rate): Arthurian legend traditionally places Camelot in Caerleon.]

We piled back on the coach and headed for Caerphilly to see a castle. We were given about an hour for lunch in the town before we were supposed to meet to actually get into the castle (you had to pay to get in, but we were all on a group ticket so we had to go in together). It didn't occur to me at the time (because I had no idea how rushed we were going to be), but I should have just paid the three pounds to go in right away so I could have explored the castle properly. In any event, Alan & Rachel and I had all brought lunches so we found a pile of rocks near the castle's moat and picnicked in the shadow of Caerphilly Castle.

Caerphilly Castle is the best castle I have seen, bar none. Almost every one of its buildings is at least partially intact, and it is huge. Once inside you are free to wander around the ruins at your leisure (unless you are rushed by your tour guide). Again, the remarkably sunny weather made all the difference in the world. It was astoundingly beautiful. Caerphilly has a leaning tower that leans more than the tower in Pisa does. The castle is on a knoll overlooking the quaint town, and is still surrounded by a moat (although I'm sure today's cheerful blue moat is nothing like the filthy muck it was during the castle's heyday). We were able to climb towers and wander ramparts and inspect medieval siege equipment. The castle was fantastic, which was why only having a half-hour to explore freely (after a brief ten-minute overview done by our guide) was so disappointing.

After leaving Caerphilly, we went to the Museum of Welsh Life. Think Greenfield Village in Dearborn, except Welsh. It was a quaint, pretty place, full of sheep, Welsh people, signs only in Welsh, and old Welsh buildings of various ages and types. The land it was on was full of trees--proper woods, which I truly haven't seen since the States. As a result, the Museum of Welsh Life reminded me of home and my lasting impression of it will not be any sort of historical or cultural insight, but rather that it was lovely to be strolling beneath old trees again. I enjoyed the museum, but honestly I'd have preferred to skip it to spend more time in Caerphilly.

It was then off to Cardiff for the night. We got to our hotel around 5:00. Rachel and I were roommates and both enjoyed the novelty of the beds in our room. It was naturally quite a cheap hotel, so it had a bunk bed. But not a normal bunk bed, a Welsh bunk bed (I have no idea whether it was particularly Welsh, but I had never seen anything like it before). The bottom bunk was a typical double bed, and the top bunk was a twin bed. However, the two beds were not parallel, but rather perpendicular--the top bunk was positioned sort of across the bottom bunk. I took the top because I found it so novel. Shortly after check-in, the three of us went in search of dinner. A Six Nations rugby match (Wales-Italy) had just concluded when we got to Cardiff, so the main street of the smallish capital was overflowing with drunken rugby supporters (the Welsh are infamous for their enthusiasm for rugby). But we managed to find a relatively quiet pub near Cardiff Castle. The next rugby match of the evening (I think it was Scotland-Ireland) was on inside, but there were fewer and calmer people there than in all the other restaurants/pubs/bars/clubs on the street. We reveled in Cardiff's cheapness; our meals were probably half as much as comparable food in London would have been. I tried a half-pint of Brains, the local Welsh beer, and really liked it--it's the best beer I've ever had, not sour at all, and I'm disappointed that it doesn't really exist outside of Wales (I've checked). Also, it was two pounds a pint, which is pretty amazing. Combined with the remarkable novelty of the name, Brains is an all-round winner when it comes to British alcohol. We lingered after dinner talking and watching some rugby, then left to make our way back to the hotel. It was around 8:30, I think. Part of me would have liked to stay out and find another pub and experience the nightlife of Cardiff (which was surprisingly hopping), but I had been awake for so long at that point that I knew I was too tired to actually enjoy going out. Alan and Rachel wanted to go in for the night, and I happily agreed to head in. Once we got back I knew it was a good decision because we decided to play rummy and near the end I am pretty sure I was actually dozing in and out of sleep.

The next morning we all tucked in at the hotel's included breakfast. It was quite a good breakfast, for a cheap hotel breakfast--there were two types of cereal, a variety of teas and coffees, juice, toast and even croissants. I loaded up on everything (I'm not ashamed to admit that I had both tea and espresso at the same meal). Our first stop of the day was at the cleverly named Big Pit Coal mine (the Welsh name, Pwll Mawr, is much prettier but unpronounceable). I've been down a mine before, the iron mine in Iron Mountain, but I was quite small at the time and I don't remember much except the cold and damp. The coal mine tour was quite cool. There were actually places in the mine where even I had to sort of double over to get through; I very rarely have to duck so it was quite a novel experience for me. The tour confirmed my previous notion that mining in the late 19th century was one of the world's most miserable existences. The worst story we heard was about the children who worked in the mine. Apparently, when the miners' children were about 6 years old they would be brought down into the mines to work as "trappers"--they were stationed near doors which needed to be opened and closed at strategic times to control airflow and allow the movement of coal and equipment through the mine. At this point in the tour, our guide had us all switch off our headlamps (we had on mining helmets with lamps). As you can imagine, it was total darkness, solid black. Our guide pointed out that for a 6 yr old child, this darkness (the kids weren't given candles) would be more than enough to send you running for the nearest exit. To prevent this, the children were actually tied to the doors they operated. And worked 12 hour shifts. And I'm sure when they grew up they became proper coal miners.

Our next stop was much sunnier--lunch in Monmouth, a town that I knew of because of Geoffrey of Monmouth, the medieval historian who wrote A History of Britain (by medieval, I don't mean he studied the medieval period, but that he lived and worked in the medieval period). Alan & Rachel and I got ourselves a nice carvery lunch at a local pub, and I had my final pint of Brains. And then (after several people were late back to the coach for ridiculous reasons) we were off to our final stop.

I was greatly annoyed with the people who were late at the end of lunch because their lateness literally ate away our time at the next stop--Tintern Abbey. Tintern Abbey was my reason for going to Wales. We didn't have enough time scheduled there to begin with, so when I lost ten minutes of that time to people who hadn't even heard of the Abbey until we got there I was apoplectic (or my version of apoplexy, which is to sort of sit quietly and imagine what it would be like to be a person with a temper--not very intimidating, I'm afraid).

The Abbey surpassed my expectations. After a rather whirlwind overview given by our tour guide, I had only 25 minutes in the ruin. 25 minutes! It wasn't even enough time to properly read the Wordsworth poem I'd taken the trouble to copy and bring along ("Lines Composed above Tintern Abbey"). If I'd planned the trip myself, the Abbey would have gotten at least three hours, probably four--enough to slowly amble over every inch of the place, enough to find a quiet spot in there to sit and leisurely read my Wordsworth, enough to write a bit in my journal, and enough to lie down on the grass inside of the Abbey and enjoy the sunshine. I may have to go back--I'm looking into whether it's a feasible day trip (and whether I have enough money).

In spite of being rushed, it was a most serene and impressive place. There was so much of it still intact; in the area that had been the chapel, it truly felt like you were standing in a great cathedral--a cathedral with lush grass underfoot, a ceiling that opened to the heavens, and the blue sky filling the windows. It was incredibly peaceful. The ruins are next to a lovely river in a pretty valley; there can't be many more picturesque places in the world. Of course the town itself is now quite touristy, but inside the ruins you still feel somewhat isolated and thoroughly serene. Or at least I did. The site certainly lived up to being the purpose of my trip. It is one of the greatest sights I've seen.

I departed the ruins reluctantly. But I wasn't the last one back; other people were late for stupid reasons (not late because they were enthralled by the ruins, but late because they had to buy a mug that said Wales on it). This time I was irritated because if I had known we'd be waiting for people to purchase mugs I could have had five more minutes wandering the Abbey. Anyway. From there we went back to London, arriving at Gloucester Rd around 6:30. A busy but beautiful and enjoyable weekend, all things told.

This weekend I'm actually in London--and so are Dad and Sue. I'm pretty excited to see them both, although I think it will be odd to see them in London; it's that whole intersection of two different environments. If either of you read this before you leave, please do bring me some Reese's cups. It would really make my weekend ;)