London

So on our flight out of Montpellier, Jess and I get up to the Ryan Air Desk, where the nice lady tells us that she is sorry, but the desk is now closed because check in ends 40 minutes before the flight.

I tried to look as desperate, pathetic, and frazzled as I could in order to get some sympathy and I asked if there was anything she could do seeing as 1) no one had informed us of this policy and 2) according to the clock behind her we were exactly 3 minutes late. So she radioed in, said something in rapid fire French, and then told us to hurry up and give her the bags.

Had it not been for the rush, she probably would have charged my bag for being 3 Kilos over the weight limit. Now mind you, each kilo you go over is 5 euros. I wasn’t trying to pay that, but like the kid who asks the teacher ‘What’s our homework?’ when she forgets to assign it, I knew it was better to keep my mouth shut so my wallet would stay fatter.

Being Ryan Air, the flight was pretty budget. I don’t think I had ever seen more people packed into one airplane. And when I say packed, I mean packed to the point where it was questionable if we were going to be too heavy to get off the ground. It was only an hour flight and for around 50 dollars, I could live with flying like I was on the Tokyo subway. Again for what was not the first time on this trip, I am reminded that more often than not, you do indeed get what you pay for.

We landed at London’s Stanstead station, about an hour out of the city and took a bus. The bus dumped us off at a station that apparently is one of the main hubs in the city. A nice little bus station, train station, and metro station mix. Finding out where the train station stopped and the metro station started, was a large enough task in itself. Working the little machine that charged me 4 pounds, or 8 US dollars for those of you not familiar with the exchange rate, was a bit confusing. However, when we finally made our way into the Metro Station, I was greeted with the most zig-zig and indecipherable subway maps I have ever seen. In DC, the metro has 5 lines, all of them made up with primary colors. In London there are so many lines, that they have not only primary colors, but also shades.

“OK, so were gonna take the lime green one?”
“I dunno, I think I would call that more of an off-grass color, wouldn’t you?”
Luckily, there were not only colors, but also letter and numbers to go along with said lines.

It was at this point, where it dawned on me that we were actually in an English speaking country, and unlike where I had spent the last month, I could turn to the person next to me and actually speak in a sentence which would not cause that person to develop a nervous tic from trying to understand what the hell I was saying.

“How do you get to Russel Square”
“Take the ------ line, its right over there”

Its nice to be able to communicate with the natives.

So we get on our subway, heading in the correct direction just chatting away and the sound signaling that the doors are about to close goes off. This causes a bustle of activity and I wasn’t really quite sure why. Take a chill pill London.

Then the reason for the hubbub reveals itself. The subway doors here SLAM shut. If they don’t chop your limb off when they close, which given their speed is totally possible, there is no way your getting back whatever you got stuck in that door. God help you if its your arm or leg that got caught in the door because your not gonna see that puppy again. You very well could be dragged along side the train to your death.

This is not the metro at home, where the nice robot lady tells you ‘doors closing’ and then the doors calmly close and will open again about 5 times before they even start to get irritated and buzz if the door detects something in their path. No. These doors are closing so you better make up your mind and either get on or get off, because being indecisive will only get you a trip to the hospital.

When we arrived at Russle Square, all fingers, toes, limbs, etc. present and accounted for, I realized that somewhere along the way, I had dropped the directions telling me how to get from the station to our final destination. Even though I had learned my lesson about how fun it is to have no idea how to get from the subway station to your final destination when I was in Barcelona, the gods still wanted to toy with me despite my planning. Oh and Tim’s phone number was on that paper so I could not call him and get directions. Great.

So I called Lauren, and her and Tim came down to rescue us and showed us the way to our home for the next five days. On our walk, Lauren told us about how around the second week into their trip, some chick had a mental break down (more on the benefits of that later) and had to go home. So the sleeping options were both of us could have our own beds in the girl’s flat since they had started out with an extra bed pre-break down. Or I could share a bed with Tim in the guy’s apartment. It wasn’t a tough choice since I made sure to get inoculated against cooties before going abroad.

So we got to their flat. I know, flat, how British. The Colgate apartments in London are pretty upscale. Good location, bed rooms off of a big common, area, totally modern bathrooms, and all new kitchens. This sharply contrasts to lonely concrete room I have in Geneva, with communal bathrooms, and a kitchen where I have to go to the kitchen on another floor and steal a grate for the toaster oven whenever I want pizza.

So what was the first thing I did when I got to London you ask? Rush over to Big Ben? Tea with her majesty? Hell no. I took a 4 hour nap. I still wasn’t recovered from Barcelona and that coupled with of my last week in Montpellier had made me quite snoozy.

The next morning, sitting on the couch and trying to decide what to do for that day, I did something I have never ever done before in my life. I actually tore a coupon out a newspaper. I had a ‘god damn it am becoming my father’ moment, but the coupons gave me two big macs and a big mac with medium fries both for two pounds.

Also, the Bristish, unlike the French or the Swiss, understand McDonalds. In France and Switzerland a burger is more expensive than actual food and there is nothing fast about getting your meal. When I say more expensive, take for instance, a big mac meal in Geneva is 11 Francs, about 10 bucks US. Depending on where you go, you can get a good sandwich, soda, and pastry for about the same price. There is no point in going to McDonalds if its more expensive than real food and takes just as long to be served. But thankfully, England’s McDonalds function like ours.

China town, on our way to Buckingham Palace (I think). Nothing notable happened but this looked cool.













Our first stop- Buckingham Palace. This was a lot like the white house with a fancier gate around it. You can’t really get that close to the actual building, there are lots of tourists taking pictures in front of it, and once your there you kind of expect something exciting to happen but its doesn’t. You just kinda stand there and you think ‘oh the queen of England lives there. Uh so now what?

Then we walked up to West Minister Abby. But because it was Sunday, it was closed to the public unless you were going to pray or attend services. Ha ha yea right.




Then we went to Big Ben which was really close. It was cool, but I don’t really have anything interesting or witty to say here. It was big, and looks exactly like it does in just about every picture/tv show/movie that references London.









So then we met up with Timmy underneath the London Eye. He was sick of sitting in archives doing research all day. I am thankful I am not on the London program. Lauren described it as every day they just go to archives, where your afraid to blink too loudly for fear of getting sushed, and it’s full of little old men in glasses sitting around writing the text book that you will be studying next year. And apparently it is also very easy to tear the 300-year-old original documents since they are so old and fragile so you need to be extra careful. No fun.

Anyways, we did not ride on the London Eye because it takes about half an hour and despite being the biggest of its kind in its world, its still a ferris wheel. I prefer bumper cars anyways.

From there, we walked down to St. Paul’s Cathedral, home of just about every important British Wedding and Funeral ever. It was really impressive, but I could not take pictures of the inside, and again, since it was Sunday, tours were not being offered but services were.

That night was the Super Bowl. I was still tuckered out so I was in bed around 9:30, half an hour before kick off. The first super bowl I haven’t watched in my entire life, and it turns out to be one of the best in a long long time. Solid. However, I did get 13 hours of sleep.
The next day, Jess and I hopped on the Tube, which was much less confusing this time around, and went down to the Tower of London.

Fun Fact: In most cities, pedestrians have the right of way. In London, this is not the case. If you dare to cross the street when the little man on the signal is red, you had better book it. Like the doors on the subway, the cars do not slow down and would have no problem laying your ass out.

The Tower of London houses such wonders as the crown jewels and really old jails and torture chambers. I think. I wouldn’t know though because to go inside was 16 Pounds or 32 dollars. I kinda regret not doing it, but 32 bones is a lot for an entry fee. Pictures were free though.








So then we crossed the Tower Bridge, which I assumed was London Bridge cause its way cooler than the London Bridge. London Bridge is just a straight up plain bridge. If it has a whole song devoted to it, I think there should be a little bit more to it. Who cares if some boring bridge is falling down? Not me.







Then we went over to the globe theater where Billy Shakespeare, used to enjoy putting on plays. We thought about getting tickets to a play, but shows were not going to be put on until the next month.

A tour of the globe would have run about 12 pounds. I coulda gotten 6 big macs for that price so we declined. However, Jess and I were sooo close to slipping inside though when the tour guides were changing, but we were too slow to realize that the door had been left unmanned and when we started making moves, they were back. That’s really living on the edge though right? Almost breaking into the globe theater? Its level of rebelliousness is right up there with not recycling.







After our almost break in at the globe theater, we went to the Tate Modern. We walked in to what seemed like a warehouse and there was a giant crack in the ground. Both of us stared at it for about five minutes, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Then we found an explanation about how it was supposed to represent underlying racism in our society. If you say so….

Upstairs though there the exhibits were was cool. Being a modern art museum there were something that were, at the risk of sounding uncultured, totally wack. I did realize though that I prefer art that has some sort of message over art that tries to evoke a ‘mood’. After about an hour and a half of looking at priceless works of art, your brain can start to feel mushy, your feet start to hurt, and everything kinda starts to run together.

Then, yea you better believe we did all of that in one day, we took the tube over to Harrods. This is the mecca of overpriced goods. Take the Wal-Mart idea of everything under one roof and the set up of a department store. Now make everything in there a designer good with the prices to match and you get the idea behind Harrods. Im surprised they can stay open, it’s the size of a city block, 5 (?) levels, and I didn’t see anyone actually making purchases except for in the food department.

Jess and I spent the majority of our time in the toy wing and said food department. I had heard that there is a killer gelato stand, but it was nowhere to be found. However there was a fudge counter. I wanted some, but wasn’t trying to make purchases. The answer?

Samples.

Jess taught me the right way to take a sample. When you eat it, make a face like you don’t like it and give a reason as to why your not a fan, “its too sweet, I don’t like strawberry, its not soft enough etc. This lets you 1) not feel obliged to buy and thing and 2) leaves the door open to try another one that you ‘would enjoy more.’ Clever girl. The fudge really was not that good anyways. The stuff from the beach is way better.





Fun Fact: The guy who owns Harrods is the father of Doti Al-Fayed, the dude who was in the car with Princess Diana when her car played Pong with tunnel walls. He is convinced that there was a conspiracy to kill Diana and has pissed off the royals enough that they refuse to grant him British citizenship.









Doti's Monument to himself inside the main stairway of Harrod's.

On Tuesday, we went to the Portrait Museum and the British Museum. They not kidding about it being a portrait museum. There were more portraits and busts than you can shake a stick at. They ranged from tons of long since dead kings and queens, to Warhols, to a 3-D one of JK Rowling that I can only describe as similar to a diorama. Towards the end though, it was a lot like the Tate, my mind was mushy and all I wanted to do was sit down. If we had been there a week later, we could have caught the 100 years of Vanity Fair exhibit, which would have been nice cause I could look at people I actually recognized as opposed to royals from the 18th century who all have the same look of “I have a stick up my ass” on their faces.

Then we went to the British Museum which touted itself as the home to “Ancient Treasures of the empire.” We saw the Rosetta stone, lots of Ancient Egyptian Artifacts and tons of statues taken off of the Partenon way back when.

The next day, our last in London town, we took a leisurely stroll through Hyde Park and saw Kensington Palace because we had seen everything we wanted to. It was a lot like Central Park.

That night, I got to see a play with their group for free because the girl who had a mental breakdown had paid for everything and Colgate had bought all of the tickets and such before she flipped out, so they always have an extra ticket for everything they go to. The play was called The History Boys. They had all read, or at least in Tim’s case were supposed to have read, the play before going, but I had no idea what it was about. Basically, it the story of British School boys in an all boys private school preparing for getting into Universities. Sounds kinda lame, but it was quite good and I guess the powers that be agree because it won six Tony’s in 2006. Which was either the most ever or a tie for the most ever. Can't remember.

London was awesome. It didn't feel that much like a foreign country, sorta like Manhattan meets Georgetown with accents.

Barcelona

In order to get to Barcelona, we took a bus ride that was a little over five hours. During this ride I learned that the French overemphasize the rest part of rest stop. Our bus stopped for about an hour at a stop that is kind of hard to describe but essentially is a restaurant set up like a rest stop. Let me explain.

You stand in line and order your food. Normal. However, very little is actually already prepared so when you order your food the cook it right there for you. This makes it impossible to go wham bam thank you mam and get back on the road. When I google maps told me it should take three and a half hours and the REST stop was a major reasons for our trip taking as long as it did. Sometimes the laidback attitude is refreshing, other times you just want them to hurry up. This was the latter.

Once we got there, I realized I only knew what metro stop Robbie lived off of, but hadn’t had the foresight to get directions for the bus stop to the metro as well as how to get to his apartment once I got off. It is moments like these when I realize the benefits of a travel agent and by travel agent, I mean mom or someone who I can convince to play mom. So far the only mother like figure I have is Mark who wakes me up for class by asking if im going to class that day. The answer always being the same groggy, incoherent, yes.

Turns out the bus station was right next to the train station which had a metro stop in it. Having mastering the DC metro and figuring out the NYC subway all on my own that day this summer when I lost my car key in Manhattan stranding myself there for an extra day and a half, which is quite the story by the way, I figured Barcelona wouldn’t be too much of a struggle. I found my way to Robbie’s apartment and was greeted at the door by his landlady who was playing gatekeeper for the evening. Now I took Spanish for 4 years and on a daily basis in French class my teacher tells me that I speak my French with too much Spanish in it however, after French everyday for almost a month now, I found it taking me a while to think of words in Spanish. Basically my brain is divided into two sections, foreign languages and English. My brain can find the words in other languages (sometimes) but it isn’t always sure which words belong with which language. Basically if I’m not paying attention, I end up speaking in word salad.

Keeping that in mind, I was rather proud of myself that I explained that I was a friend of Robbie Green, that he was one of the American students who lived there, and I was staying for the weekend. I guess I made enough sense cause she actually let me inside. After crossing the threshold beaming with pride at how worldly I’m becoming, I realized that I only had Robbie’s address and not his apartment number. The palace guard aka land lady looked at me with a wary eye when I stood there on my phone and called Rob Job. She probably though I was selling drugs or some other sort of illegal activity. Turns out Robbie was about a block away and on his way there so when I walked outside of the building to wait for him, she was giving me the hairy eyeball.

So we hung out in Robbies for an hour or two and had a very Spanish dinner of frozen pizza. Then we went downstairs to some girls twenty first birthday. Im there for about two minutes and one of my friends from school, Teddy, comes strolling inside. I didn’t think anything of this cause Robbie and Teddy had been chatting all day and just assumed he had been invited. However, in reality, Robbie didn’t invite Teddy cause he didn’t know if he could and Teddy hadn’t invited us for the same reasons. Upon this, the melody to ‘It’s a small world afterall’ played in my head for about the 10th time so far this trip.

The twenty first birthday lasted only about twenty one minutes because the land lady, my good friend from earlier that evening, showed up and threatened to call the cops. Apparently this is the third time she has threatened to call the cops on them and they’ve been there for two weeks or so. But no one was looking to call her bluff.

So we then went to a bar which had close to 100 different shooters. These were very interactive. There was the Harry Potter-flaming shot with sparks, Mouthwash- minty which you swish in your mouth for 10 seconds swallow and then breath in, Finding Nemo- shot with whipped cream on top and an m&m (nemo) hidden somewhere inside.

So after there we went to a club. In Barcelona there are these two competing club promoters, both of them with the same name, keiki. Both of them have groups on facebook where every night they send a message out to all the members and hawk free drinks, free entry, etc for wherever they happen to be promoting that evening. These dudes literally make hand over fist and get to party for free just by sending out facebook message? Are they hiring?

So being cheap and not wanting to pay a cover, we went to one of keiki’s clubs of the day. With dropping his name we were able to by pass the line, get in for free, and use the VIP entrance. Not too shabby.

If France is the major leagues of pastries, then Barcelona is the majors of partying/going out. Seriously. Their daily schedule includes a nap and dinner starting at like 9:30.

Robbie and I got a late start on my second day in Barcelona- we didn’t leave the house until 2 in the afternoon but it was a rather successful day considering we had about four and a half hours of day light.

Since Robbie lives, there, he had already seen some of the major landmarks things, like La Sagrada Familia as well as the other Gaudi designs. I would have liked to see them, but living outside of DC I have had my fair share of playing tour guide so I had no problem seeing things he had not had a chance to visit yet.

We started by walking down “Las Ramblas” which is the main avenue in Barcelona. Its full of street performers, lots of those idiots who paint themselves like statues, and vendor selling all sorts of pets.

Do you want a chicken? What about a duck? Parrots? Hamsters, snakes, or rabbits, take your pick. Seriously, they had all of those. I would love to see who actually buys a chicken off of the side of the road.

Anyways, next to one of these stands turned pet store, was a guy doing that ‘watch me move the balls in the cup really quick’ game, you know, the one they play on the big screen at Nationals games. I wanted to stop and watch but Robbie practically pushed me to keep walking. He said that at all his orientation things they continuously warned them about pickpockets and said there are ones who are in with the guy playing the ‘ball in the cup’ game, so that while you focus on the cups, a guy will come up and steal your wallet. Its good he warned me because in Barcelona I talked to at least four people who all told me about how they had things taken from them, ranging from cameras, to wallets, to purses literally snatched off of their arms.

After Robbie warned me I thought it would be funny to try and pretend to steal his wallet. So I did. He wasn’t happy about it but I busted up laughing. That kid has got quick reaction time.

Las Ramblas ended at the port and a GIANT monument to Christopher Columbus. Id post pictures, but I left my camera at Robbie’s in my mad rush to leave because I though I had lost my bus ticket, but more on that later. We wandered around the port and stumbled upon a guy playing Beatles songs on the guitar. Since the weather was perfect- about 65 and sunny- and we were in no rush I probably sat there for close to half an hour. He was really really good, but we all got the impression that he didn’t necessarily know what he was singing, even though he knew all of the words. Kinda like a parrot just repeating what it hears.

Eventually we made our way over to the beach, where despite it being the middle of January, people were in bathing suits and tanning. It reminded me so much of Colgate in January that I almost couldn’t handle it. So then we wandered to where the Olympic stadium from the ’92 Olympics. That was impressive, but honestly, I though the coolest part was (and I know im gonna sound like a huge nerd) was Montjuic Tower which was used for the communications during the Olympic games. It looked like something from the Jetsons only less cartoonish. The architecht, who’s name I forget, is really well known for both his modern designs and incorporating an unexpected element into his designs.

Fun Fact: the unexpected element for the TV tower is that it doubles as a giant sundial.

I stole this picture from online cause its too hard to describe it well enough.

After waiting around at this palace, now museum, that was right next door for the water show that never happened because something was busted, we decided to get dinner. I was excited to try tapas, which is essentially a meal of appetizers, which are always my favorite part of the meal anyways cause if you don’t like what your eating its not like your committed to a whole meal. You just suck it up, throw it down the hatch, and move on. But if you do like what your eating, you can feast on them.

Basically I was excited to eat nothing but the Spanish version of spinach and artichoke dip, mini egg rolls, mozzarella sticks, and pigs in a blanket for dinner. And don’t front, you know your favorite part of fancy parties is all the dudes walking around with different appetizers on their trays.

Alas, this being Europe, you never know when stores are just not going to open for the day because they don’t feel like it. And to complicate the issue, this was Barcelona and most places don’t open for dinner until 9:30 at night. It was about 8:45, 9 o’clock and I was fiending for food so lets be real. I wasn’t about to wait half an hour outside of a restaurant that may or may not be opening at all for dinner that evening.

So we found another restaurant that looked how a restaurant would look if the same people who make the Apple stores designed it. The last time I had Spanish was 10th grade and unfortunately the menu wasn’t the same as Taco Bell, so I basically ordered blind, only knowing that my dish came with some cheese somewhere in it. I got what I think was pork with various melted cheeses on it. Sounds not too appetizing, but it was pretty good cause they used really good cheese. The portion size was what I considered to be a little more than appetizer size, so we all went back to the apartment and had a second dinner. It was quite similar to the people who were on the documentary ‘I consume 20,000 calories a day’ on TLC I watched at some point this summer. Only no mayonnaise and bacon sandwiches were involved.

So afterwards, we went to the “Dow Jones Bar.” This was actually a really cool concept. There were flat screens throughout the bar with the prices of all the drinks on them. Based on the popularity of the drink, the price would rise or fall. Every half hour or so, there would be a ‘market crash’ and the prices would all reset. They really only fluctuated like 50 cents, so you really weren’t saving all that much unless you were buying copious amounts of the drink. Which I guess, is kinda like the stock market, but lets be real, no one is buying 100 gin and tonics at a time.

So when we get home, I can’t find my bus tickets. Great. So I set my alarm for 9:30 giving me a full hour to get to the station and beg for mercy in a mix of broken Spanish, French, and English.

As im standing in line at the bus station the next morning, rehearsing what Im going to say, I find what I though to be my luggage receipt in my coat. I was hoping that this would work to my advantage as proof that at some time, I actually did have a ticket.

Brian then took this receipt, unfolded it, and showed me that this was in reality my bus ticket.

Better to feel like an idiot and save bus fair, than feel like an idiot because you have to pay the fair twice.

All in all Id say it was a great way to spend 36 hours, and I would definitely go back but with so many other places to see, I doubt I’ll have a chance for repeats.

Break

Im sorry for the long lapse in updates. I was traveling for ten days (London, to Florence, to Milan-with a small stop off in Modena for the Ferrari factory and museum) and could not get on the Internet for long enough to write a proper post. However, last night I got into Geneva and spent today going to classes, unpacking, and getting myself settled so I will have a chance to get back to writing entries.