I don't know if I've ever mentioned it, but my dorm building is in the same square as the Indian YMCA. This is worth noting because there is a huge band room on the bottom floor of the YMCA and frequent practices take place..... not the best wake-up call on a hungover morning.
However, for the past hour that I've been sitting in my room waiting to go out they have been playing Christmas music! It's a full band/orchestra...they sound great and it's putting me in such good spirits for the holidays, especially in the absence of a Thanksgiving homecoming. OMG! Yes, they just started playing Disney music - Aladdin, to be exact. I feel like I'm at a musical - and I love it.
Returned from Paris yesterday, I'm in love, but I'll write about it later. Peace. Love the Indian YMCA right now.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
"There was nowhere to go but everywhere."
I haven't yet had the time to write about my 10-day trip across Europe....
On Friday, the 6th of Nov., I woke up early after being awake for over 24 hours the previous day (5am to 5am) because I'm a horrible procrastinator - but my grades don't count, so why would I start fixing my bad habits now? I had to wake up early so that I could meet up with my friend Paul, from Villanova. Paul was making the move from the states to Hong Kong for a super sweet job he landed right after graduation this past May so he got the chance to stop in London for the weekend and we were able to meet up before my flight later that day. The afternoon was so much fun: we went from pub to pub, he recalled his London memories, gave me advice on travelling to Paris, and we both spoke lovingly about Villanova and everything we miss about it to someone who actually understands ... it was great.
However, by the time I left him, I only had about an hour to buy a new camera, pack for a 10day trip, and make it to the tube station.... and I was certainly not sober after so many pubs. Luckily, I accomplished everything - I picked out a camera with the help of the man at PC World - I made him convince me 20 times it was the best one, and I packed and made it to the station on time ..though I only packed three pair of socks for the whole week (gross) and forgot any type of pajama pants and some of my eye makeup... other than that, I was pretty proud of my effort and it was worth it to hang out with Paul.
I flew out of Heathrow with two of my friends from UCL to start what they call "reading week" and what I call "fall break" in Athens. On the plane, my friend Sarah and I got lucky enough to sit in the same row as a Greek psychiatrist who we spoke to throughout the entire three hour flight... despite the fact that I was slightly hungover from the afternoon and exhausted from the day before. He gave us great advice about where to go in Athens... and where not to go - he was very concerned for our safety.... which was comforting? We also talked to him about the world - we asked him about the EU and what he thinks of it... he wanted to know if we like Obama - he's a Bush man himself... which is the only foreigner I've ever met who had that opinion, I'm pretty sure.
He had some interesting insight to share on the US and its perception internationally: he finished talking about how he was skeptical of Greece and the rest of Europe becoming engulfed in th EU because it's strongly run by Germany & France (his words) and it wasn't too long ago that Germany was ravaging the entire continent and trying to take on the world and went on to say something that made me truly proud to be an American. He said something to the sense of - ya know, people see America and sometimes they think they're big & bad but they forget that it was young Americans who have fought numerous battles on European and Asian soil without even being able to pronounce the names of the people who lived there... they left their families and young lives at home and fought for the good of those people, who they had no ties to. Now, regardless of whether we (as a state) were supposed to be fighting those wars... this moment still brought me tremendous pride in the midst of gaining yet another new perspective (one of my favorite things about being abroad).
Greece is gorgeous... absolutely stunning. The city of Athens itself isn't the most magnificent city in the world - it's not extremely clean and its buildings are close together and the architecture is nothing particularly special. However, there's something to be said about a city where you can be walking down a random alley and see the Parthenon at the Acropolis: you're instantly reminded you're not just in a city - you're in the midst of what was that great ancient Greece. The Acropolis is in the center of the city and the view from the top is absolutely unforgettable. From the top, you can see the Temple of Zeus and other ruins in the middle of city blocks and neighborhoods that seem they would go on forever if not stopped by the water on one side and mountains on others. The weather was perfect - a nice break from the chill inevitable in London.
We went to the Acropolis Museum, which was honestly kind of boring - it was just statues and urns and I probably should have been more interested... but I wasn't. One thing that did strike me, though, was an ancient stone that had Greek writing inscribed on it. I couldn't read what it said because I don't speak Greek but there is an entire country, a whole population of people who can read and understand what the people who wrote on that stone milleniums ago had to say. That's rare, considering Latin is no longer a viable, spoken language (though I did take a year of it in high school: Cornelia sedet sub arbore... Cornelia sits under the tree.. that's all I got).. so it was cool to be confronted with something like that.
Later that night, we ate dinner and had wine in the middle of this quaint square in an authentic part of Athens - Psiri, as recommended by our Greek airplane friend. The service is slow so we just kept getting more and more wine and maybe it was the atmosphere of being in the land where philosophy arguably started.. but for some reason, many conversations my friends & I had were quite philosophical... not about Plato or anything, just about life. It came up a few times so I'm going to post it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McvCJley78A. It's a video called "The Good Life" and it gives a new perspective on the business world and chasing a dollar.. definitely worth watching, it's about 3 minutes long & it solidified what I've already come to decide about what life I want to live. Anyway, back to Greece.. after a lot of wine we headed down the street and no joke - it was lined with hookah bars. We picked the busiest one and got a table in the corner... no one there spoke English. It was legit.. the servers had to find someone at a random table to come speak English to us, which those people loved but it was kind of embarassing. We had more wine and smoked a lot of hookah and after being harassed by the table next to us for some wine, we somehow didn't end up getting back to our hotel until 5:30am. When we came out of the hookah place.. the Acropolis was lit at the end of the street ... a beautiful reminder that I was in Greece instead of NYC stumbling out of Sahara East on the lower east side.
The next day we took a trip to Sounio, the tip of Greece, where the Temple of Poseidon stands on a cliff overlooking the Meditteranean. We took an hour and a half bus ride along the coast to get there and every moment was completely breathtaking... the sun started to set during the ride making the horizon colorful and the views even more fantastic. It was pefect... until, we got to the Temple of Poseidon and the woman at the gate decided to close it - so we weren't able to go up to the temple but we did get to see it at every stage of the sunset from a little further away. It was so peaceful there... you could see so many angles of the ocean, the temple, the villages surrounding. We ate grape leaves, tzatziki, and greek salads at the restaurant next to the temple before heading back to Athens for the night.
On our last full day in Greece we took a speedboat ferry to Aegina, an island off the coast of Athens. It took us forty minutes to arrive in the cutest, quaintest Greek island you could imagine. Accompanied by the grace of more good weather, we strolled around the pier, sat on the beach, wandered in and out of churches and shops, and ended up spending a lot of time enjoying tzatziki and wine in a restaurant overlooking the pier. We spent so much time there that we almost missed our ferry back... so we sprinted to the pier in the dark to catch the last ferry back to Athens only to find that indeed our ferry had been cancelled. So we ran to the ticketbooth to collect tickets on another ferry - the non-speedy one - and ended up walking on to the car plank to the ferry literally in a scene from Titanic with angry little old ladies screaming in foreign languages presumably about having the wrong tickets due to the last minute cancellation of the speed ferry (due to "weather conditions"...was it too nice out?).. but we ended up back in Athens where we discovered - not even to our surprise at this point - that we had been ripped off by an earlier taxi. Taxis in Athens just decide their own prices - the meter says one thing, they say another and ask if you want a receipt. But honestly, would it be a good trip without being ripped off by a cab driver? It's pretty expected by now... I think it's happened in every city I've travelled to.
Oh! The food in Greece was incredible.. I've already mentioned it a few times BUT it made me think of NY diners .. the Nautilus in particular. You know how diners are great because you can get absolutely anything - Greek food, fries, pizza, pasta, meat, dessert, drinks??? Well after visiting Greece it's not surprising that diners are typically owned and operated by Greek people because that is exactly how most Greek restaurants are - they offer everything.. no matter how nice the restaurant.. it's just their style... it was so cool to make this realization! Brought me back to days, nights, and mornings at the Nautilus in Massapequa. Also, I made an even better correlation.... you know the bread sticks they have there - the crunchy ones covered in sesame seeds that you know you love to dip in butter?! Well, those are Greek too! Just how NY has a million hot dog stands on the streets, Athens has these circular bread things covered with sesame seeds - we decided to try them our first day there -and they taste EXACTLY like those Nautilus/diner breadsticks only less crunchy... had them every day after that - it was so great! I miss the Nautilus <3
On our last day in Athens, we strolled around the streets and back-alleys of Athens to find the perfect souvenirs before heading to the bus to the airport. I can't wait to get back to Greece, it was definitely a vision of the good life.
Next stop on our trip was Budapest... but because of the airlines Hungary was not our first stop - we had a layover in Geneva, Switzerland, which ended up being perfectly okay. Swiss Air was the cheapest and provided us with plenty of wine and chocolate and funny videos thorughout our two flights between Greece and Hungary. Though I didn't get to spend much time in Geneva .. and my bank account doesn't afford me to go skydiving on this trip :( ... the flight over the Swiss Alps was enough to satisfy my fill of Switzerland for at least a little while. I literally felt like I was in heaven. Between the enormity of the snow-capped mountains surpassing the clouds that were glowing with the light of the sun, I snapped a million pictures to make sure I wasn't dreaming about the afterlife. The aerial view was nothing short of spectacular. Once we passed the Alps, a pristinely white sheet of clouds was the only thing beneath us and as we started to descend into the Geneva airport, I actually felt as though we were making the transititon between heaven and earth. Once beneath the sheet of clouds, Geneva was gorgeous - so green and clean it seemed, even from the sky.
We had one full day in Budapest so we took a sightseeing bus to ensure we didn't miss a thing. Budapest is a pretty luxurious city ... it seemed really clean, very organized, and Eastern European (rightfully so). On the tour we stopped at these baths that were so pretty... it was raining, windy, and cold the whole time we were in Hungary.. yet people were still swimming and relaxing enjoying these baths... the steam that came off of them was enough to fog up the city.. it was so cool. We went to Sleeping Beauty's castle (or what it's supposedly based off of) and saw a great view of the city from a high mountain. They had an Elizabeth bridge there! ... wasn't really that cool. I don't know what else to say about Budapest as a city.. I had a really good time and I'm glad I went.. it was different in good ways.
We got what we thought would be lunch at a traditional little Hungarian restaurant... lunch turned into dinner & dessert & drinks over the span of five hours, however. We spent all night at this Hungarian restaurant doing I don't even know what but we got there before the dinner rush and left after it... I'm sure the people trying to eat just loved us. It was my three friends & I and we quickly made friends with our waiter who kept suggesting the 50% off cocktails - though we insisted on ordering more and more bottles of wine. After four bottles of wine and our lunch, we decided to take him up on the half price cocktails and ordered a pitcher of some type of rum and coke thing... maybe it was tequila... not sure. Expecting a little pitcher, he shows up with this monstrosity with probably ten three-foot neon straws coming out of it... which is legit when we turned our table into spring break, sucking everything out of it. One of my friends even fell off her chair trying to give my other friend a kiss on the cheek... it was absolutely hilarious & completely not the right place for us, but the perfect place all at the same time.. it was so much fun. After our lunch, we ended up ordering dessert, and then pizza... and then some Hungarian shots at the suggestion of our waiter friend.... I think the Hungarian shots were tequila, but at this point - who knows. When we finally left the restaurant/our home in Budapest we decided to get more dessert at a coffee place and stayed there until closing. So Budapest treated us well... great times.
The next day we strolled around Budapest for a little while before hopping on the slow train to Prague. It was difficult to buy tickets because hardly anyone spoke English in Budapest... but we found them and settled into a little cabin thing readying ourselves for the seven hour trip through eastern Europe. It was dreary and bare and covered with graffiti and looked sad.. exactly my perception of what Eastern Europe would be... it was actually kinda scary - I couldn't read any of the writing and they're not the friendliest people. We passed through more of Hungary, the country of Slovakia - including the city of Bratislava, and some of the Czech Republic before I got to meet up with Molly & Colleen in Praha!!!
The weekend of craziness started that night almost immediately after I arrived... which was fine with me after a seven hour train ride. Coco, Viv, and Lulu (our alter-egos) were reunited and made their best displays at a Czech bar. The next day we had a classically long breakfast/lunch - reminiscent of time spent at the Pit after a long night (awww, can't wait for January!) - before hitting the streets of Prague. We ran into my friends from UCL on the Charles Bridge and all went to the Lennon Wall together, which was soo hippy-cool... it was started after the fall of Communism... the Czech people loved the ideas of peace Lennon sung about... the whole wall is covered with references to "Imagine."
Colleen is studying in Prague for the semester so it was so nice to know where to go right away and not to have to look at a map once the whole weekend. The streets of Prague are so Eastern European - it reminded me of being at Busch Gardens or on a movie set with the old color buildings that are meat to represent eastern european cities... except it was like that throughout the entire city. Prague was one of the only European cities not to be bombed during WWII so all of their buildings date back to the 1600s and the gold that decorates a lot of the buildings is real since they were built so long ago.
It's a gorgeous city. So gorgeous that everyone needs to take pictures - and in taking pictures of these sights, we noticed - and Colleen pointed out - that the Eastern Europeans and techno Italians take pictures very differently than American tourists. Instead of smiling and capturing the great time they're having, these people make their best efforts at sexy poses in front of statues of old kings, or they're just completely stone-cold serious and point to the landmark they're getting in the picture with. It's absolutely enthralling to watch. Even more fun than watching, though, is trying to imitate this genre of posing.... which is what we did the entire weekend. It was so much fun - especially since we had to get people to take these pictures of us... it was great seeing their reactions to us being super serious in pictures and then dying of laughter after. The Euro-posing just did not stop... did it during the day, at night, with people I know, with people I definitely don't know. Actually, I almost got killed because of the euro-pose frenzy. Coming home on the tram on our last night in Prague at 3am (had to leave for the airport at 6:30, good) there was a sleeping man - who I swear looked pretty homeless & dead asleep - so naturally, I wanted to pose with him. Well, I guess I came too close to him or something because the guy - who was much scarier looking awake than sleeping - sprang up as I curled into a little ball in my seat trying to act innocent. He was not happy. I saw my life flash before me. I almost died. Over-dramatic much?
This incident happened after a night spent at the five-story club on the river, which attracted crowds of every age & background - super cool to see old people at this neon-lit floor... it was great haha. Another night we went to Lucerna, where they play 80s and 90s music in this big room - there was this sweaty drunk/high/intoxicated/drugged guy on center stage among much younger people dancing, playing the air guitar and pretending to be the star of his very own concert at the Garden... it was soo entertaining to watch & he looked like he was having so much fun, I wanted to be him for a little bit.. would have been fun.
Even though you can smell the hops from the breweries in Prague, the theme of my trip was definitely Boskov vodka ... Czech? I don't know.. but it made for plenty of good times. Oh and as a result of my trip to Prague, I'm now pregnant..... with a food baby. I think I gained a million pounds (no over-estimation here).. we had delicious Mexican food, bagels, pizza, chips, McDonalds & Burger King (very cultural & healthy).. and that was all before we went to the markets at Old Town Square. We had these ginormous hot dog/sausage things that were delicious & then went on to have fried dough covered in nutella... picture 20 freshly fried zeppolies connected with hazlenut chocolate... heart attack or love of my life? Both. After my trip around Europe and trying all its food, I came back to London, bought a family sized bag of vegetables and a big pack of clementines and tried to restore some type of nutrients to my body. Whatever, food is a part of the experience - my body can recover later... I hope. Oh! But the Athens Classic Marathon was taking place while we were there and we ended up getting free posters and blow up bananas and real bananas and it was soo cool to see the excitement of the runners the day before the marathon that I decided I really want to run a half marathon sometime in the coming six months... so maybe that will help the cause to abort the food baby. This is gross, I can't believe I just said that... too lazy to backspace.
So there's probably more to say about all of these trips that I'm missing but I think I've rambled on for long enough and that I'll be able to remember other things if I look back at this. Overall, successful Eurotrip for sure. It was great to see Colleen in her current city. I'm leaving for King's Cross station in just a little bit to take the chunnel to Paris for the weekend, where I'm meeting Eileen, my friend from high school :) We're so excited - I picked up Tesco's (cheap convenience store) finest champagne for our arrival. This is my last trip of the semester so it must be good... and beyond that, I'm excited to spend the rest of my time here truly in London, though I'm sad that it's come to this point so soon. My whole family is coming on Wednesday for Thanksgiving break & I am beyondddd looking forward to seeing them and showing them around this city I love. Oh went to the Burberry outlet yesterday, if you see this and you need anything from there - let me know, they have AMAZING deals. Random. I'll miss being in NY for Thanksgiving and seeing my friends at home.. but I'll see them pretty soon over Christmas break anyway :)
Oh and the title of this post is in reference to a quote from Kerouac's On the Road, which I appropriately started reading during this trip... makes me want to go cross country... maybe this summer before I head back to Villanova at the beginning of July... any interest???
loveeeeee<3
On Friday, the 6th of Nov., I woke up early after being awake for over 24 hours the previous day (5am to 5am) because I'm a horrible procrastinator - but my grades don't count, so why would I start fixing my bad habits now? I had to wake up early so that I could meet up with my friend Paul, from Villanova. Paul was making the move from the states to Hong Kong for a super sweet job he landed right after graduation this past May so he got the chance to stop in London for the weekend and we were able to meet up before my flight later that day. The afternoon was so much fun: we went from pub to pub, he recalled his London memories, gave me advice on travelling to Paris, and we both spoke lovingly about Villanova and everything we miss about it to someone who actually understands ... it was great.
However, by the time I left him, I only had about an hour to buy a new camera, pack for a 10day trip, and make it to the tube station.... and I was certainly not sober after so many pubs. Luckily, I accomplished everything - I picked out a camera with the help of the man at PC World - I made him convince me 20 times it was the best one, and I packed and made it to the station on time ..though I only packed three pair of socks for the whole week (gross) and forgot any type of pajama pants and some of my eye makeup... other than that, I was pretty proud of my effort and it was worth it to hang out with Paul.
I flew out of Heathrow with two of my friends from UCL to start what they call "reading week" and what I call "fall break" in Athens. On the plane, my friend Sarah and I got lucky enough to sit in the same row as a Greek psychiatrist who we spoke to throughout the entire three hour flight... despite the fact that I was slightly hungover from the afternoon and exhausted from the day before. He gave us great advice about where to go in Athens... and where not to go - he was very concerned for our safety.... which was comforting? We also talked to him about the world - we asked him about the EU and what he thinks of it... he wanted to know if we like Obama - he's a Bush man himself... which is the only foreigner I've ever met who had that opinion, I'm pretty sure.
He had some interesting insight to share on the US and its perception internationally: he finished talking about how he was skeptical of Greece and the rest of Europe becoming engulfed in th EU because it's strongly run by Germany & France (his words) and it wasn't too long ago that Germany was ravaging the entire continent and trying to take on the world and went on to say something that made me truly proud to be an American. He said something to the sense of - ya know, people see America and sometimes they think they're big & bad but they forget that it was young Americans who have fought numerous battles on European and Asian soil without even being able to pronounce the names of the people who lived there... they left their families and young lives at home and fought for the good of those people, who they had no ties to. Now, regardless of whether we (as a state) were supposed to be fighting those wars... this moment still brought me tremendous pride in the midst of gaining yet another new perspective (one of my favorite things about being abroad).
Greece is gorgeous... absolutely stunning. The city of Athens itself isn't the most magnificent city in the world - it's not extremely clean and its buildings are close together and the architecture is nothing particularly special. However, there's something to be said about a city where you can be walking down a random alley and see the Parthenon at the Acropolis: you're instantly reminded you're not just in a city - you're in the midst of what was that great ancient Greece. The Acropolis is in the center of the city and the view from the top is absolutely unforgettable. From the top, you can see the Temple of Zeus and other ruins in the middle of city blocks and neighborhoods that seem they would go on forever if not stopped by the water on one side and mountains on others. The weather was perfect - a nice break from the chill inevitable in London.
We went to the Acropolis Museum, which was honestly kind of boring - it was just statues and urns and I probably should have been more interested... but I wasn't. One thing that did strike me, though, was an ancient stone that had Greek writing inscribed on it. I couldn't read what it said because I don't speak Greek but there is an entire country, a whole population of people who can read and understand what the people who wrote on that stone milleniums ago had to say. That's rare, considering Latin is no longer a viable, spoken language (though I did take a year of it in high school: Cornelia sedet sub arbore... Cornelia sits under the tree.. that's all I got).. so it was cool to be confronted with something like that.
Later that night, we ate dinner and had wine in the middle of this quaint square in an authentic part of Athens - Psiri, as recommended by our Greek airplane friend. The service is slow so we just kept getting more and more wine and maybe it was the atmosphere of being in the land where philosophy arguably started.. but for some reason, many conversations my friends & I had were quite philosophical... not about Plato or anything, just about life. It came up a few times so I'm going to post it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McvCJley78A. It's a video called "The Good Life" and it gives a new perspective on the business world and chasing a dollar.. definitely worth watching, it's about 3 minutes long & it solidified what I've already come to decide about what life I want to live. Anyway, back to Greece.. after a lot of wine we headed down the street and no joke - it was lined with hookah bars. We picked the busiest one and got a table in the corner... no one there spoke English. It was legit.. the servers had to find someone at a random table to come speak English to us, which those people loved but it was kind of embarassing. We had more wine and smoked a lot of hookah and after being harassed by the table next to us for some wine, we somehow didn't end up getting back to our hotel until 5:30am. When we came out of the hookah place.. the Acropolis was lit at the end of the street ... a beautiful reminder that I was in Greece instead of NYC stumbling out of Sahara East on the lower east side.
The next day we took a trip to Sounio, the tip of Greece, where the Temple of Poseidon stands on a cliff overlooking the Meditteranean. We took an hour and a half bus ride along the coast to get there and every moment was completely breathtaking... the sun started to set during the ride making the horizon colorful and the views even more fantastic. It was pefect... until, we got to the Temple of Poseidon and the woman at the gate decided to close it - so we weren't able to go up to the temple but we did get to see it at every stage of the sunset from a little further away. It was so peaceful there... you could see so many angles of the ocean, the temple, the villages surrounding. We ate grape leaves, tzatziki, and greek salads at the restaurant next to the temple before heading back to Athens for the night.
On our last full day in Greece we took a speedboat ferry to Aegina, an island off the coast of Athens. It took us forty minutes to arrive in the cutest, quaintest Greek island you could imagine. Accompanied by the grace of more good weather, we strolled around the pier, sat on the beach, wandered in and out of churches and shops, and ended up spending a lot of time enjoying tzatziki and wine in a restaurant overlooking the pier. We spent so much time there that we almost missed our ferry back... so we sprinted to the pier in the dark to catch the last ferry back to Athens only to find that indeed our ferry had been cancelled. So we ran to the ticketbooth to collect tickets on another ferry - the non-speedy one - and ended up walking on to the car plank to the ferry literally in a scene from Titanic with angry little old ladies screaming in foreign languages presumably about having the wrong tickets due to the last minute cancellation of the speed ferry (due to "weather conditions"...was it too nice out?).. but we ended up back in Athens where we discovered - not even to our surprise at this point - that we had been ripped off by an earlier taxi. Taxis in Athens just decide their own prices - the meter says one thing, they say another and ask if you want a receipt. But honestly, would it be a good trip without being ripped off by a cab driver? It's pretty expected by now... I think it's happened in every city I've travelled to.
Oh! The food in Greece was incredible.. I've already mentioned it a few times BUT it made me think of NY diners .. the Nautilus in particular. You know how diners are great because you can get absolutely anything - Greek food, fries, pizza, pasta, meat, dessert, drinks??? Well after visiting Greece it's not surprising that diners are typically owned and operated by Greek people because that is exactly how most Greek restaurants are - they offer everything.. no matter how nice the restaurant.. it's just their style... it was so cool to make this realization! Brought me back to days, nights, and mornings at the Nautilus in Massapequa. Also, I made an even better correlation.... you know the bread sticks they have there - the crunchy ones covered in sesame seeds that you know you love to dip in butter?! Well, those are Greek too! Just how NY has a million hot dog stands on the streets, Athens has these circular bread things covered with sesame seeds - we decided to try them our first day there -and they taste EXACTLY like those Nautilus/diner breadsticks only less crunchy... had them every day after that - it was so great! I miss the Nautilus <3
On our last day in Athens, we strolled around the streets and back-alleys of Athens to find the perfect souvenirs before heading to the bus to the airport. I can't wait to get back to Greece, it was definitely a vision of the good life.
Next stop on our trip was Budapest... but because of the airlines Hungary was not our first stop - we had a layover in Geneva, Switzerland, which ended up being perfectly okay. Swiss Air was the cheapest and provided us with plenty of wine and chocolate and funny videos thorughout our two flights between Greece and Hungary. Though I didn't get to spend much time in Geneva .. and my bank account doesn't afford me to go skydiving on this trip :( ... the flight over the Swiss Alps was enough to satisfy my fill of Switzerland for at least a little while. I literally felt like I was in heaven. Between the enormity of the snow-capped mountains surpassing the clouds that were glowing with the light of the sun, I snapped a million pictures to make sure I wasn't dreaming about the afterlife. The aerial view was nothing short of spectacular. Once we passed the Alps, a pristinely white sheet of clouds was the only thing beneath us and as we started to descend into the Geneva airport, I actually felt as though we were making the transititon between heaven and earth. Once beneath the sheet of clouds, Geneva was gorgeous - so green and clean it seemed, even from the sky.
We had one full day in Budapest so we took a sightseeing bus to ensure we didn't miss a thing. Budapest is a pretty luxurious city ... it seemed really clean, very organized, and Eastern European (rightfully so). On the tour we stopped at these baths that were so pretty... it was raining, windy, and cold the whole time we were in Hungary.. yet people were still swimming and relaxing enjoying these baths... the steam that came off of them was enough to fog up the city.. it was so cool. We went to Sleeping Beauty's castle (or what it's supposedly based off of) and saw a great view of the city from a high mountain. They had an Elizabeth bridge there! ... wasn't really that cool. I don't know what else to say about Budapest as a city.. I had a really good time and I'm glad I went.. it was different in good ways.
We got what we thought would be lunch at a traditional little Hungarian restaurant... lunch turned into dinner & dessert & drinks over the span of five hours, however. We spent all night at this Hungarian restaurant doing I don't even know what but we got there before the dinner rush and left after it... I'm sure the people trying to eat just loved us. It was my three friends & I and we quickly made friends with our waiter who kept suggesting the 50% off cocktails - though we insisted on ordering more and more bottles of wine. After four bottles of wine and our lunch, we decided to take him up on the half price cocktails and ordered a pitcher of some type of rum and coke thing... maybe it was tequila... not sure. Expecting a little pitcher, he shows up with this monstrosity with probably ten three-foot neon straws coming out of it... which is legit when we turned our table into spring break, sucking everything out of it. One of my friends even fell off her chair trying to give my other friend a kiss on the cheek... it was absolutely hilarious & completely not the right place for us, but the perfect place all at the same time.. it was so much fun. After our lunch, we ended up ordering dessert, and then pizza... and then some Hungarian shots at the suggestion of our waiter friend.... I think the Hungarian shots were tequila, but at this point - who knows. When we finally left the restaurant/our home in Budapest we decided to get more dessert at a coffee place and stayed there until closing. So Budapest treated us well... great times.
The next day we strolled around Budapest for a little while before hopping on the slow train to Prague. It was difficult to buy tickets because hardly anyone spoke English in Budapest... but we found them and settled into a little cabin thing readying ourselves for the seven hour trip through eastern Europe. It was dreary and bare and covered with graffiti and looked sad.. exactly my perception of what Eastern Europe would be... it was actually kinda scary - I couldn't read any of the writing and they're not the friendliest people. We passed through more of Hungary, the country of Slovakia - including the city of Bratislava, and some of the Czech Republic before I got to meet up with Molly & Colleen in Praha!!!
The weekend of craziness started that night almost immediately after I arrived... which was fine with me after a seven hour train ride. Coco, Viv, and Lulu (our alter-egos) were reunited and made their best displays at a Czech bar. The next day we had a classically long breakfast/lunch - reminiscent of time spent at the Pit after a long night (awww, can't wait for January!) - before hitting the streets of Prague. We ran into my friends from UCL on the Charles Bridge and all went to the Lennon Wall together, which was soo hippy-cool... it was started after the fall of Communism... the Czech people loved the ideas of peace Lennon sung about... the whole wall is covered with references to "Imagine."
Colleen is studying in Prague for the semester so it was so nice to know where to go right away and not to have to look at a map once the whole weekend. The streets of Prague are so Eastern European - it reminded me of being at Busch Gardens or on a movie set with the old color buildings that are meat to represent eastern european cities... except it was like that throughout the entire city. Prague was one of the only European cities not to be bombed during WWII so all of their buildings date back to the 1600s and the gold that decorates a lot of the buildings is real since they were built so long ago.
It's a gorgeous city. So gorgeous that everyone needs to take pictures - and in taking pictures of these sights, we noticed - and Colleen pointed out - that the Eastern Europeans and techno Italians take pictures very differently than American tourists. Instead of smiling and capturing the great time they're having, these people make their best efforts at sexy poses in front of statues of old kings, or they're just completely stone-cold serious and point to the landmark they're getting in the picture with. It's absolutely enthralling to watch. Even more fun than watching, though, is trying to imitate this genre of posing.... which is what we did the entire weekend. It was so much fun - especially since we had to get people to take these pictures of us... it was great seeing their reactions to us being super serious in pictures and then dying of laughter after. The Euro-posing just did not stop... did it during the day, at night, with people I know, with people I definitely don't know. Actually, I almost got killed because of the euro-pose frenzy. Coming home on the tram on our last night in Prague at 3am (had to leave for the airport at 6:30, good) there was a sleeping man - who I swear looked pretty homeless & dead asleep - so naturally, I wanted to pose with him. Well, I guess I came too close to him or something because the guy - who was much scarier looking awake than sleeping - sprang up as I curled into a little ball in my seat trying to act innocent. He was not happy. I saw my life flash before me. I almost died. Over-dramatic much?
This incident happened after a night spent at the five-story club on the river, which attracted crowds of every age & background - super cool to see old people at this neon-lit floor... it was great haha. Another night we went to Lucerna, where they play 80s and 90s music in this big room - there was this sweaty drunk/high/intoxicated/drugged guy on center stage among much younger people dancing, playing the air guitar and pretending to be the star of his very own concert at the Garden... it was soo entertaining to watch & he looked like he was having so much fun, I wanted to be him for a little bit.. would have been fun.
Even though you can smell the hops from the breweries in Prague, the theme of my trip was definitely Boskov vodka ... Czech? I don't know.. but it made for plenty of good times. Oh and as a result of my trip to Prague, I'm now pregnant..... with a food baby. I think I gained a million pounds (no over-estimation here).. we had delicious Mexican food, bagels, pizza, chips, McDonalds & Burger King (very cultural & healthy).. and that was all before we went to the markets at Old Town Square. We had these ginormous hot dog/sausage things that were delicious & then went on to have fried dough covered in nutella... picture 20 freshly fried zeppolies connected with hazlenut chocolate... heart attack or love of my life? Both. After my trip around Europe and trying all its food, I came back to London, bought a family sized bag of vegetables and a big pack of clementines and tried to restore some type of nutrients to my body. Whatever, food is a part of the experience - my body can recover later... I hope. Oh! But the Athens Classic Marathon was taking place while we were there and we ended up getting free posters and blow up bananas and real bananas and it was soo cool to see the excitement of the runners the day before the marathon that I decided I really want to run a half marathon sometime in the coming six months... so maybe that will help the cause to abort the food baby. This is gross, I can't believe I just said that... too lazy to backspace.
So there's probably more to say about all of these trips that I'm missing but I think I've rambled on for long enough and that I'll be able to remember other things if I look back at this. Overall, successful Eurotrip for sure. It was great to see Colleen in her current city. I'm leaving for King's Cross station in just a little bit to take the chunnel to Paris for the weekend, where I'm meeting Eileen, my friend from high school :) We're so excited - I picked up Tesco's (cheap convenience store) finest champagne for our arrival. This is my last trip of the semester so it must be good... and beyond that, I'm excited to spend the rest of my time here truly in London, though I'm sad that it's come to this point so soon. My whole family is coming on Wednesday for Thanksgiving break & I am beyondddd looking forward to seeing them and showing them around this city I love. Oh went to the Burberry outlet yesterday, if you see this and you need anything from there - let me know, they have AMAZING deals. Random. I'll miss being in NY for Thanksgiving and seeing my friends at home.. but I'll see them pretty soon over Christmas break anyway :)
Oh and the title of this post is in reference to a quote from Kerouac's On the Road, which I appropriately started reading during this trip... makes me want to go cross country... maybe this summer before I head back to Villanova at the beginning of July... any interest???
loveeeeee<3
Monday, November 02, 2009
r.i.p.
My friends and I researched which European city would be the best one to celebrate Halloween in. We found out that Halloween, and trick-or-treating in particular, supposedly started in Ireland so we booked a flight to Dublin and got our costumes ready. If you ever have the chance to visit Dublin for Halloween, you definitely should!
I just got back from one of the best weekends ever and I'm currently trying to figure out when I'll be in Ireland next. Before leaving for Dublin, my perception of the city was that it was going to be rolling hills of green with a random strip of pubs in the middle of all of it - maybe some sheep, maybe a dock behind the main strip of pubs. Once I got to the city, I realized that maybe I had watched P.S. I Love You one too many times... but I'm sure that picture must be accurate for some part of Ireland, and eventually, I will find that spot (and then wander by myself through the countryside until a handsome Irish man finds me, gives me his leather jacket & sings Galway Girl to me later that night at the pub... except I don't have hair of black or eyes of blue =/).
We got into the city just before midnight on Friday and after getting these amazing kebab things, we just wandered through the streets. Dublin is a pretty small city - at least that's the impression I got from my trip. It's split up by the River Liffey, which is bigger than the canals in Amsterdam but smaller than England's Thames. We had about a 15 minute walk from our hotel to the city centre, across the river, which was actually really enjoyable (except in the rain). So after we ate we heard some guitar/singing playing and so we stopped into this random corner bar.
This bar was the epitome of how I can spend every night for the rest of my life without getting tired of it. The bar wasn't overly crowded, in fact, it was filled with the perfect amount of people to enjoy the music, dance with strangers in the most non-creepy way, and generally, just have a good time. The guy on the guitar was sooo good... I always love when musicians aren't taking it too seriously but are just having a good time - and that's exactly what this slightly more than slightly intoxicated Irish guy was doing with his time in the limelight. He wove Irish themes through popular and mostly American songs and strung them altogether with "bottleee of vodkaaaa" badabadadahh. It was just so much fun, everyone was dancing and singing along and I could have stayed forever. One of my friends who I was traveling with is a singer/songwriter - whose music I'm obsessed with and frequently gets stuck in my head, gladly. Her name is Amy - www.myspace.com/amyvachalmusic - and she's sooo good and so much fun :) So after this guy allowed one of his friends to come up and sing with him, my friends and I immediately started shouting that he should let our friend have a chance at the mic too - we knew he wouldn't regret it. I need to post the video but it was absolutely the best duet of "Stand by Me" in Irish bar history.. they harmonized, she beatboxed, and you could tell the guy was so surprised and impressed by how good she was - the whole bar loved it...
The next morning we headed back to the city centre and went on a Viking Splash Tour, which was a combination of a duck tour and the game "Hey Cutie." We all wore Viking Hats on this big yellow monstrosity of a truck/boat and the driver instructed us that we would have to yell ARRRGHHHH to unsuspecting people who we passed on my truck.... sounds awfully similar to Hey Cutie, and the British version, Hey Fittie... so naturally, I loved every second of this. We went around the city.. saw Temple Bar area, Trinity College, statues of Molly Malone, Dublin Castle, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Christ Church Cathedral, and ended up passing U2's recording studio once the truck transformed into a boat (at which time we added hideous orange lifevests to the viking costume) and did a pathetic little circle around a small part of the river. At this point, the weather was absolutely gorgeous... it was the ideal fall day that my mind always falls upon when I think of Halloween.
After the tour, we did some Irish shopping... my friends and I all visited this little Celtic jewelry store and bought really pretty claddagh rings - the Irish wedding band that symbolizes love, friendship, and loyalty. I looked it up and sayings associated with it are "With my two hands, I give you my heart and crown it with my love" and "Let love and friendship reign forever." If you're taken, you wear the ring with the heart facing your heart so that the two hearts are tied and if you're single, you wear the ring with the heart facing the world so that it can be taken.
Once we joined the Irish culture with our rings, we set out to explore the city en route to the Guiness Brewery. While we walked, the day quickly turned from ideal fall day to torrential downnpour, which I was not prepared for. The beautiful day I woke up to persuaded me to leave my umbrella at the hotel and bring my sunglasses with me instead.... not the smartest decision. So we trudged through the rain snapping pictures of the sights and trying to avoid the larger puddles and find shelter under random old bridges. If anyone's ever travelled with me, you know that I love to take pictures - my method is to snap a million pictures of absolutely everything, no matter how insignificant with the thought that I don't know when I'll be here next and I want to have pictures to remember it by - even if there are more pictures than I'll ever look at again. So through the rain, despite being warned, my camera was around my wrist and taking pictures the whole time because I figured that it's lasted me four years.. it has chunks taken out of it... the silver coating is chipping off.. and it hasn't failed me yet.
After walking for a while, the rain finally stopped for a few minutes and the sun even came out. We ended up down by the river just in time to see a FULL rainbow spanning across the sky... we were soooooo happy to see a huge rainbow while we were in Ireland.. we snapped a million pictures, sung songs in happiness, and sprinted to the end of the rainbow to find a pot of gold... just kidding (only about the gold).
We finally got to the Guinness Brewery after taking a few wrong turns through an industrial part of the city while it started to rain again so we arrived soaking wet from head to toe, which made it so nice to be inside. The tour of the brewery was reallyy cool and included two free pints of Guinness. Before this trip, I had tried Guinness once - it was warm because I had stolen it from my dad when I was running out sometime last year and had no alcohol and no time/way to get it.. so of course, I thought it was gross. I definitely cannot go out to a bar and continually order Guinness in hopes of getting drunk, but I actually really like Guinness.. it wasn't bad at all, though it made me reallyy full. The tour ends up on the top floor of the brewery in a bar that has almost a 360 degree view of the city of Dublin. We were there when it was late out so we could only really see the outline of the city but in honor of Halloween, there were fireworks that made the view incredible. While we were drinking our free pint at this bar, we decided we had to take these pint glasses home with us as a free souvenir. So after sketchily hiding in corners of the circular room (which, luckily, was crowded) and stuffing these glasses into our already full bags, we headed out after stopping at the gift shop. Should I be writing about theivery on the internet? Probably not... but we justified it because we figured everyone did it.... not much of a justification, whatever - I have a free Guinness pint glass and I'm happy.
We went to some random Czech restuarant that we thought was an Irish pub and ended up eating potato pancakes for dinner. My roommate and some of my friends are in Prague for the semester so it gave me insight into what they've been eating the past few months. Wasn't bad, just very filling.
There were nine of us from UCL who went on this trip together - 5 girls, 4 boys - so we needed a group costume we could all wear. We decided to dress up in random flags and peace signs and hippy things and collectively be "World Peace." We told some overly-friendly Irish guy we met along the way that we were going to be world peace and I died laughing when he commented, "sooo.. you're going to dress as Obama's children?!" Obama's a celebrity around Europe, it's craazy - anyway, I thought it was so funny. The people in Dublin - the ones who actually lived in the city or in other parts of Ireland - were soooo friendly, which made the trip soo much more enjoyable and even made me legitimately want to live in some part of Ireland for at least a short time in my life... I think it would be so much fun - even if it doesn't end up characterized by the Pogue's Love You Til The End (more P.S. I Love You, sorry).
Anyway, I somehow ended up being the German flag... I asked for Italy, then found out I was instead going to be Great Britain, and then once in Dublin I was handed a German flag... so though I have only little German blood in me (which I just found out about), I was happy because who doesn't like gold, red, and black? Dublin on Halloween night was crazy. We went to Temple Bar, which is both a bar and a region of the city. The streets were packed with every costume imaginable - it was soooo much fun. My friends and I paraded through the streets singing songs like kumbaya, all you need is love, why can't we be friends, and occasionally the Bottle of Vodkaaa compilation from the night before, all mixed in with chants of USA USA and our own drunken rendition of the national anthem. We took lots of pictures with random people and so many people on the streets all joined in with our songs... we made lots of friends.
My friends and I love to speak in the British accent.. we do it all the time and it's become extremely normal no matter what time of day or what situation we're in. We don't just talk it among ourselves, but also to waitresses, cashiers, people we meet at bars, etc. So many people can attest that my accent before leaving for London was horrible.. some freshman at the union even told me I had the worst accent he's ever heard. Well, I am happy to say that I have mastered the accent. I fooled so many guys at the bar into thinking I was from Britain and when I finally told them I'm actually from New York, they were shocked and complimented me on my accent. Yes, I'm bragging... I'm very proud of my skills hahaaa... Buttttt the Irish guys would not let me continue with my British accent because they love the American/NY accent so much more.
With the exception of running into a few super creepsters who were definitely from out of town, we were having the absolute best time imaginable.... until we decided to go back to the hotel. NO cabs had lights on... we started to walk all over the city looking for a cab for 5 people. It was us and the rest of the city who wanted to go home, though, so it was soooo hard to find one. Oh and at this point it was POURING! I was even less prepared for the rain this time, seeing as I was literally wearing only a German flag. The boys used their flags as capes and since we wore ours as outfits we paraded like Chinese dragons through the street until the boys decided to leave us to walk home. I think we probably ran through the rain for a half hour before I finally remembered to pray to St. Anthony to find us a cab, at which point, less than a minute later, a van cab that could fit five people randomly pulled over to let other passengers out - so we hopped in, drenched and freezing. Love St. Anthony - and the luck of the Irish...even though, we ended up getting slightly ripped off... but that just seems normal for my travel experiences here at this point.
Sunday was more of a relaxing day, we strolled through the city, recapped our night adventures, and went to Carroll's Souvenir Shop. Carroll is my Grandma's name - taken from her mother's maiden name... and it's also my sister's middle name. No one spells it like that - I even got it wrong on a spelling test in 5th grade for spelling it Carroll instead of Carol - so it was sooo exciting to see a store with that name.
Anyway, the title of this post is not in honor of ghosts and such for Halloween, but it's actually to wish my camera goodbye. Later on in the day, after carrying it on my wrist for hours in the Dublin monsoon, I tried to take pictures but when I push the shudder button it just zooms in all the way until it can't anymore, then asks me what language I want the camera to be in, and then skips to the self-timer settings. Lovelyyy... I guess I overestimated its ability to withstand everything I put it through. So as long as I didn't lose my pictures of Portugal and the beginnings of Dublin, I won't be too upset about getting a new camera - I was actually thinking about it recently, but didn't really have a legitimate reason to spend money on one.
So now I'm back in London, writing this post instead of the two papers I have due on Friday and presentation I have to prepare for Thursday.... and in the midst of all this, I'm gonna have to take some time out to buy a new camera. I'm traveling to Greece, Hungary, and the Czech Republic (Athens, Budapest, and Prague) next week during UCL's reading week and I will not do that without a camera.
Dublin was amazing, I definitely want to travel to other parts of Ireland - Villanova has a summer program in Galway.. hmmmm :)
I cannot believe it's November already.
I just got back from one of the best weekends ever and I'm currently trying to figure out when I'll be in Ireland next. Before leaving for Dublin, my perception of the city was that it was going to be rolling hills of green with a random strip of pubs in the middle of all of it - maybe some sheep, maybe a dock behind the main strip of pubs. Once I got to the city, I realized that maybe I had watched P.S. I Love You one too many times... but I'm sure that picture must be accurate for some part of Ireland, and eventually, I will find that spot (and then wander by myself through the countryside until a handsome Irish man finds me, gives me his leather jacket & sings Galway Girl to me later that night at the pub... except I don't have hair of black or eyes of blue =/).
We got into the city just before midnight on Friday and after getting these amazing kebab things, we just wandered through the streets. Dublin is a pretty small city - at least that's the impression I got from my trip. It's split up by the River Liffey, which is bigger than the canals in Amsterdam but smaller than England's Thames. We had about a 15 minute walk from our hotel to the city centre, across the river, which was actually really enjoyable (except in the rain). So after we ate we heard some guitar/singing playing and so we stopped into this random corner bar.
This bar was the epitome of how I can spend every night for the rest of my life without getting tired of it. The bar wasn't overly crowded, in fact, it was filled with the perfect amount of people to enjoy the music, dance with strangers in the most non-creepy way, and generally, just have a good time. The guy on the guitar was sooo good... I always love when musicians aren't taking it too seriously but are just having a good time - and that's exactly what this slightly more than slightly intoxicated Irish guy was doing with his time in the limelight. He wove Irish themes through popular and mostly American songs and strung them altogether with "bottleee of vodkaaaa" badabadadahh. It was just so much fun, everyone was dancing and singing along and I could have stayed forever. One of my friends who I was traveling with is a singer/songwriter - whose music I'm obsessed with and frequently gets stuck in my head, gladly. Her name is Amy - www.myspace.com/amyvachalmusic - and she's sooo good and so much fun :) So after this guy allowed one of his friends to come up and sing with him, my friends and I immediately started shouting that he should let our friend have a chance at the mic too - we knew he wouldn't regret it. I need to post the video but it was absolutely the best duet of "Stand by Me" in Irish bar history.. they harmonized, she beatboxed, and you could tell the guy was so surprised and impressed by how good she was - the whole bar loved it...
The next morning we headed back to the city centre and went on a Viking Splash Tour, which was a combination of a duck tour and the game "Hey Cutie." We all wore Viking Hats on this big yellow monstrosity of a truck/boat and the driver instructed us that we would have to yell ARRRGHHHH to unsuspecting people who we passed on my truck.... sounds awfully similar to Hey Cutie, and the British version, Hey Fittie... so naturally, I loved every second of this. We went around the city.. saw Temple Bar area, Trinity College, statues of Molly Malone, Dublin Castle, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Christ Church Cathedral, and ended up passing U2's recording studio once the truck transformed into a boat (at which time we added hideous orange lifevests to the viking costume) and did a pathetic little circle around a small part of the river. At this point, the weather was absolutely gorgeous... it was the ideal fall day that my mind always falls upon when I think of Halloween.
After the tour, we did some Irish shopping... my friends and I all visited this little Celtic jewelry store and bought really pretty claddagh rings - the Irish wedding band that symbolizes love, friendship, and loyalty. I looked it up and sayings associated with it are "With my two hands, I give you my heart and crown it with my love" and "Let love and friendship reign forever." If you're taken, you wear the ring with the heart facing your heart so that the two hearts are tied and if you're single, you wear the ring with the heart facing the world so that it can be taken.
Once we joined the Irish culture with our rings, we set out to explore the city en route to the Guiness Brewery. While we walked, the day quickly turned from ideal fall day to torrential downnpour, which I was not prepared for. The beautiful day I woke up to persuaded me to leave my umbrella at the hotel and bring my sunglasses with me instead.... not the smartest decision. So we trudged through the rain snapping pictures of the sights and trying to avoid the larger puddles and find shelter under random old bridges. If anyone's ever travelled with me, you know that I love to take pictures - my method is to snap a million pictures of absolutely everything, no matter how insignificant with the thought that I don't know when I'll be here next and I want to have pictures to remember it by - even if there are more pictures than I'll ever look at again. So through the rain, despite being warned, my camera was around my wrist and taking pictures the whole time because I figured that it's lasted me four years.. it has chunks taken out of it... the silver coating is chipping off.. and it hasn't failed me yet.
After walking for a while, the rain finally stopped for a few minutes and the sun even came out. We ended up down by the river just in time to see a FULL rainbow spanning across the sky... we were soooooo happy to see a huge rainbow while we were in Ireland.. we snapped a million pictures, sung songs in happiness, and sprinted to the end of the rainbow to find a pot of gold... just kidding (only about the gold).
We finally got to the Guinness Brewery after taking a few wrong turns through an industrial part of the city while it started to rain again so we arrived soaking wet from head to toe, which made it so nice to be inside. The tour of the brewery was reallyy cool and included two free pints of Guinness. Before this trip, I had tried Guinness once - it was warm because I had stolen it from my dad when I was running out sometime last year and had no alcohol and no time/way to get it.. so of course, I thought it was gross. I definitely cannot go out to a bar and continually order Guinness in hopes of getting drunk, but I actually really like Guinness.. it wasn't bad at all, though it made me reallyy full. The tour ends up on the top floor of the brewery in a bar that has almost a 360 degree view of the city of Dublin. We were there when it was late out so we could only really see the outline of the city but in honor of Halloween, there were fireworks that made the view incredible. While we were drinking our free pint at this bar, we decided we had to take these pint glasses home with us as a free souvenir. So after sketchily hiding in corners of the circular room (which, luckily, was crowded) and stuffing these glasses into our already full bags, we headed out after stopping at the gift shop. Should I be writing about theivery on the internet? Probably not... but we justified it because we figured everyone did it.... not much of a justification, whatever - I have a free Guinness pint glass and I'm happy.
We went to some random Czech restuarant that we thought was an Irish pub and ended up eating potato pancakes for dinner. My roommate and some of my friends are in Prague for the semester so it gave me insight into what they've been eating the past few months. Wasn't bad, just very filling.
There were nine of us from UCL who went on this trip together - 5 girls, 4 boys - so we needed a group costume we could all wear. We decided to dress up in random flags and peace signs and hippy things and collectively be "World Peace." We told some overly-friendly Irish guy we met along the way that we were going to be world peace and I died laughing when he commented, "sooo.. you're going to dress as Obama's children?!" Obama's a celebrity around Europe, it's craazy - anyway, I thought it was so funny. The people in Dublin - the ones who actually lived in the city or in other parts of Ireland - were soooo friendly, which made the trip soo much more enjoyable and even made me legitimately want to live in some part of Ireland for at least a short time in my life... I think it would be so much fun - even if it doesn't end up characterized by the Pogue's Love You Til The End (more P.S. I Love You, sorry).
Anyway, I somehow ended up being the German flag... I asked for Italy, then found out I was instead going to be Great Britain, and then once in Dublin I was handed a German flag... so though I have only little German blood in me (which I just found out about), I was happy because who doesn't like gold, red, and black? Dublin on Halloween night was crazy. We went to Temple Bar, which is both a bar and a region of the city. The streets were packed with every costume imaginable - it was soooo much fun. My friends and I paraded through the streets singing songs like kumbaya, all you need is love, why can't we be friends, and occasionally the Bottle of Vodkaaa compilation from the night before, all mixed in with chants of USA USA and our own drunken rendition of the national anthem. We took lots of pictures with random people and so many people on the streets all joined in with our songs... we made lots of friends.
My friends and I love to speak in the British accent.. we do it all the time and it's become extremely normal no matter what time of day or what situation we're in. We don't just talk it among ourselves, but also to waitresses, cashiers, people we meet at bars, etc. So many people can attest that my accent before leaving for London was horrible.. some freshman at the union even told me I had the worst accent he's ever heard. Well, I am happy to say that I have mastered the accent. I fooled so many guys at the bar into thinking I was from Britain and when I finally told them I'm actually from New York, they were shocked and complimented me on my accent. Yes, I'm bragging... I'm very proud of my skills hahaaa... Buttttt the Irish guys would not let me continue with my British accent because they love the American/NY accent so much more.
With the exception of running into a few super creepsters who were definitely from out of town, we were having the absolute best time imaginable.... until we decided to go back to the hotel. NO cabs had lights on... we started to walk all over the city looking for a cab for 5 people. It was us and the rest of the city who wanted to go home, though, so it was soooo hard to find one. Oh and at this point it was POURING! I was even less prepared for the rain this time, seeing as I was literally wearing only a German flag. The boys used their flags as capes and since we wore ours as outfits we paraded like Chinese dragons through the street until the boys decided to leave us to walk home. I think we probably ran through the rain for a half hour before I finally remembered to pray to St. Anthony to find us a cab, at which point, less than a minute later, a van cab that could fit five people randomly pulled over to let other passengers out - so we hopped in, drenched and freezing. Love St. Anthony - and the luck of the Irish...even though, we ended up getting slightly ripped off... but that just seems normal for my travel experiences here at this point.
Sunday was more of a relaxing day, we strolled through the city, recapped our night adventures, and went to Carroll's Souvenir Shop. Carroll is my Grandma's name - taken from her mother's maiden name... and it's also my sister's middle name. No one spells it like that - I even got it wrong on a spelling test in 5th grade for spelling it Carroll instead of Carol - so it was sooo exciting to see a store with that name.
Anyway, the title of this post is not in honor of ghosts and such for Halloween, but it's actually to wish my camera goodbye. Later on in the day, after carrying it on my wrist for hours in the Dublin monsoon, I tried to take pictures but when I push the shudder button it just zooms in all the way until it can't anymore, then asks me what language I want the camera to be in, and then skips to the self-timer settings. Lovelyyy... I guess I overestimated its ability to withstand everything I put it through. So as long as I didn't lose my pictures of Portugal and the beginnings of Dublin, I won't be too upset about getting a new camera - I was actually thinking about it recently, but didn't really have a legitimate reason to spend money on one.
So now I'm back in London, writing this post instead of the two papers I have due on Friday and presentation I have to prepare for Thursday.... and in the midst of all this, I'm gonna have to take some time out to buy a new camera. I'm traveling to Greece, Hungary, and the Czech Republic (Athens, Budapest, and Prague) next week during UCL's reading week and I will not do that without a camera.
Dublin was amazing, I definitely want to travel to other parts of Ireland - Villanova has a summer program in Galway.. hmmmm :)
I cannot believe it's November already.
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