Prepare to be jealous:
My spring break is six weeks long.
And what will I do with those six weeks, I hear you ask?
Travel. Lots and lots of travel.
Saturday, March 14 is a red-letter day: my Mom and Dad and Abbie fly into London! I am beyond excited to see them. I'm sad Reid won't be with them, but I know he's excited about being at MU while they're here and going to Colorado the week after.
While my parents and Abigail are here, we are taking a tour of England and Ireland! We're hanging out in Oxford until March 16 (shout-out to my parents' anniversary on that day: 24 years! Way to go, Mom and Dad!), and then we leave to visit Salisbury, Stonehenge, Bath, and Bristol. March 17 (St. Patrick's Day) is Cardiff and Waterford, Ireland. March 18 is Blarney, Ireland, and Dublin, Ireland. March 19 is Dublin and Chester, England. March 20 is Stratford-upon-Avon and London. My family flies out of London on March 22, and I cry.
It sounds whirlwind-ish, and is, but it's going to be a ton of fun. Even though I've lived in England for five months now, I haven't made any trips to any of these great places, so I'm excited about that. Most importantly, I get to see my family! Happiness is sure to abound.
The rest of break is spend travelling with friends. Jacque and I fly from London to Rome on March 22, and we're in Rome rocking the ruins until March 26. Then we go to Florence until March 28 and Venice until March 30. Thus ends the Italian portion of our trip.
Jacque and I will be in Athens (rocking some more ruins) from March 30 to April 2, and then we go our separate ways. I am meeting Erin...somewhere. April 2-5 is a little up in the air right now. The original plan was Prague, but it takes a long time to get there. We may go to Germany, maybe Switzerland, maybe somewhere else!
On April 5, I meet Ashton and Madison in Berlin. We're there until April 8, when we leave for Nice. I leave Nice on April 10, and meet Bill in Paris. We'll be in Paris over the Easter weekend, which means I get to go to Easter services in Notre Dame!
Bill and I meet Sabrina, Nicole, Erin, and Jacque in Majorca (one of the Spanish Canary Islands) on April 14, and all six of us hang out on the beach until April 18. April 18, Erin and I go to Brussels, and then we get into Amsterdam on April 20. We return to Oxford on April 23.
That's 39 days of travel in a row, and I'm pretty excited. I'm also slightly intimidated. Please pray for safety and health every one who's travelling. Also, please pray for no stress and lots of fun enjoying this great world that God has given us! I'd really appreciate it.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
Row hard, row strong
I have been promising a post about rowing for a very long time now, and here it is!
Last term, I joined the rowing team. We didn't do much last term (which I why I rarely wrote about it) because of the weather. When it rains, the river rises, and it becomes too dangerous to row. Since it rained most of the autumn, the river was generally too high for us to row.
This term, though, we did a lot more! The weather was better, except for the whole snow thing, so we actually got to practice.
Rowing is pretty physically demanding. After our first practice this term, I woke up so sore that I didn't get out of bed, I fell out.
To draw the blade (that's what the oar is called) through the water, you have to push with your legs, then lean with your back, then pull with your arms. Then, to get the blade ready to draw again, you have to straighten your arms, lean forward, and bend your legs. To make that clearer, here's a video (shot by my lovely friend Madison, who was awesome enough to come cheer us on at our timed trial to get into Torpids--more on that later) (as a reminder, to play the video, hit the sideways triangle in the bottom left-hand corner of the picture below):
I'm the one with the bright red sleeves, second from the right.
As you can see, the eight rowers are facing backwards. The ninth person in the boat is the cox (short for coxswain, pronounced 'coxen'). The cox has several important jobs. First, he or she is facing forward and can actually see where the boat is going, and steers accordingly. Second, he or she directs/encourages/yells at the crew. For example, our cox in that video, Ray, would yell things like, "LENgthen those strides, LOOKing ahead, BACKS are straight, PUSH with the legs, enGAGE with the water, HEADS in the boat." Whenever he would emphasize something (as indicated by the caps), that would be when we were drawing through the water. During races, coxes yell when you're getting close to another boat and tell you when to push harder.
Getting the boat in and out of the water is pretty fun. We lift it onto our shoulders and walk it out of the boathouse, and then carry it onto the raft:
Then we lift it above our heads. I don't have a picture of my team doing this, but here's a picture of the boys' team:
Then we sort of roll the boat from above our heads into the water:
Here's what the inside of the boat looks like:
We sit on those seats, which roll back and forth, and put our feet into the velcro-strapped shoes.
What are these pictures of, you may ask? (Or, if you are being grammatically correct, "Of what are all these pictures?") They are from Torpids!
Torpids is the Hilary Term race. Now, at Oxford, races are not like normal races where everyone lines up at the start and then tries to get to the finish first. Instead, this is what happens (to watch this video, hit Play):
What you just saw is the beginning of the Women's Division I race (Regent's Park was in Division V, which is why you can hear Erin and me in the background--we weren't racing). There are 13 boats in each division, and they line up along the bank of the river to begin. A gun goes off (which you may have heard at the beginning), and off they go!
The goal in these races is not to reach the finish line first, but to bump another team. Bumping can be accomplished one of three ways: you can actually physically bump the other team's boat with yours; you can get close enough to the other team's boat that the other team's cox can see you and then the other team's cox concedes; or you can totally pass the other boat. The whistles that you may have heard in the video are coaches warning their teams that they are either about to get bumped or are about to bump. This may make no sense, so let's use a picture (from Men's Division I):
In this photo, the white boat is trying to bump the yellow boat, and they are getting very close. You chase the boat directly in front of you. If you bump another boat (for instance, if the white boat runs into/overtakes/forces to concede the yellow boat), you are finished with the race and you get out of the way. If you are bumped (if the yellow boat is run into/overtaken/forced to concede), then you have to finish the race or bump another boat.
Please don't worry if all of that makes no sense. I didn't understand it until I actually raced.
Torpids was four days long, and started last Wednesday. Regent's Park women did alright overall, but not great. We didn't bump or get bumped Wednesday and we got bumped twice Thursday (which was absolutely depressing). On Friday, though, we finally bumped! This was a literal bump: we didn't run into the other boat, but we did accidentally hit their cox and three rowers with two of our blades. The cox had to go to first aid. Oops. Then, on Friday, we were bumped again.
Though we didn't do just amazingly, I absolutely loved it. I can't wait for next term's race, Summer VIIIs.
Here is the amazing Regent's Park Women's Boat Team:
Ailsa (co-captain), Holly, Erin, Joy, Becky, Ula, Lottie, and Kathryn (co-captain)
And here is the equally amazing Regent's Park Boat Club:
Last term, I joined the rowing team. We didn't do much last term (which I why I rarely wrote about it) because of the weather. When it rains, the river rises, and it becomes too dangerous to row. Since it rained most of the autumn, the river was generally too high for us to row.
This term, though, we did a lot more! The weather was better, except for the whole snow thing, so we actually got to practice.
Rowing is pretty physically demanding. After our first practice this term, I woke up so sore that I didn't get out of bed, I fell out.
To draw the blade (that's what the oar is called) through the water, you have to push with your legs, then lean with your back, then pull with your arms. Then, to get the blade ready to draw again, you have to straighten your arms, lean forward, and bend your legs. To make that clearer, here's a video (shot by my lovely friend Madison, who was awesome enough to come cheer us on at our timed trial to get into Torpids--more on that later) (as a reminder, to play the video, hit the sideways triangle in the bottom left-hand corner of the picture below):
I'm the one with the bright red sleeves, second from the right.
As you can see, the eight rowers are facing backwards. The ninth person in the boat is the cox (short for coxswain, pronounced 'coxen'). The cox has several important jobs. First, he or she is facing forward and can actually see where the boat is going, and steers accordingly. Second, he or she directs/encourages/yells at the crew. For example, our cox in that video, Ray, would yell things like, "LENgthen those strides, LOOKing ahead, BACKS are straight, PUSH with the legs, enGAGE with the water, HEADS in the boat." Whenever he would emphasize something (as indicated by the caps), that would be when we were drawing through the water. During races, coxes yell when you're getting close to another boat and tell you when to push harder.
Getting the boat in and out of the water is pretty fun. We lift it onto our shoulders and walk it out of the boathouse, and then carry it onto the raft:
Then we lift it above our heads. I don't have a picture of my team doing this, but here's a picture of the boys' team:
Then we sort of roll the boat from above our heads into the water:
Here's what the inside of the boat looks like:
We sit on those seats, which roll back and forth, and put our feet into the velcro-strapped shoes.
What are these pictures of, you may ask? (Or, if you are being grammatically correct, "Of what are all these pictures?") They are from Torpids!
Torpids is the Hilary Term race. Now, at Oxford, races are not like normal races where everyone lines up at the start and then tries to get to the finish first. Instead, this is what happens (to watch this video, hit Play):
What you just saw is the beginning of the Women's Division I race (Regent's Park was in Division V, which is why you can hear Erin and me in the background--we weren't racing). There are 13 boats in each division, and they line up along the bank of the river to begin. A gun goes off (which you may have heard at the beginning), and off they go!
The goal in these races is not to reach the finish line first, but to bump another team. Bumping can be accomplished one of three ways: you can actually physically bump the other team's boat with yours; you can get close enough to the other team's boat that the other team's cox can see you and then the other team's cox concedes; or you can totally pass the other boat. The whistles that you may have heard in the video are coaches warning their teams that they are either about to get bumped or are about to bump. This may make no sense, so let's use a picture (from Men's Division I):
In this photo, the white boat is trying to bump the yellow boat, and they are getting very close. You chase the boat directly in front of you. If you bump another boat (for instance, if the white boat runs into/overtakes/forces to concede the yellow boat), you are finished with the race and you get out of the way. If you are bumped (if the yellow boat is run into/overtaken/forced to concede), then you have to finish the race or bump another boat.
Please don't worry if all of that makes no sense. I didn't understand it until I actually raced.
Torpids was four days long, and started last Wednesday. Regent's Park women did alright overall, but not great. We didn't bump or get bumped Wednesday and we got bumped twice Thursday (which was absolutely depressing). On Friday, though, we finally bumped! This was a literal bump: we didn't run into the other boat, but we did accidentally hit their cox and three rowers with two of our blades. The cox had to go to first aid. Oops. Then, on Friday, we were bumped again.
Though we didn't do just amazingly, I absolutely loved it. I can't wait for next term's race, Summer VIIIs.
Here is the amazing Regent's Park Women's Boat Team:
Ailsa (co-captain), Holly, Erin, Joy, Becky, Ula, Lottie, and Kathryn (co-captain)
And here is the equally amazing Regent's Park Boat Club:
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Housemates
This blog is about my life in England. Since I spend roughly 97.36% of my time with my three housemates, I thought a blog post about them would be nice:
The housemate that lives closest to me is Robyn. When I say she lives close to me, I mean that my room has a removable wall, and her room is on the other side of it. We often open up the divider and chat as we "do homework." Here is Robyn:
Robyn is originally from California, but she's lived in Peculiar, MO, since before high school. (I was going to continue this paragraph with something along the lines of "She likes history and Reese's Pieces, loves to laugh, and knows more about composers than most music majors," but I decided that sounded like a bad personal ad. Then I got this song stuck in my head: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVdhZwK7cS8. (Disclaimer: in posting this song, I am not supporting infidelity. I am supporting Shrek.))
Robyn takes a very long time to get ready in the morning. No one really knows why. She "gets ready" for two hours, actually puts on her shoes, clothes, and make-up in the ten minutes before we leave, and still looks like a movie star. It's one of those mysteries of life. (Side story: when I was younger, my brother Reid would always take forever to get ready to go, and we didn't know why. My mom finally checked on him one day, and discovered that it took Reid 36 minutes to tie his shoes, because his shoe-tying process went something like: tie, un-tie, re-tie, un-tie, re-tie, un-tie, re-tie, un-tie, re-tie, un-tie, re-tie, un-tie, re-tie.)
My second roomate is Sabrina. Here she is:
Sabrina lives in Branson, and before that, she lived in Nashville. Her parents have no connection to the country music business, though. Sabrina and I share an affinity for show and Disney tunes. She knows the words to nearly every musical ever made, including the new Legally Blonde musical (seriously. They made it a musical). Sabrina is the over-achiever of the house. If A++s existed in Britain, she would get them. I suspect her tendency to listen to show and Disney tunes while working contributes to her success.
My third roommate is Erin:
Erin, to use a favorite British phrase, is epic. She's a very modern-day renaissance woman. She's from a small town in Colorado, which means she could probably climb Mount Everest while carrying her sherpa. Also, she's a philosophy major, so she talks about things that are so over my head it's like her brain climbed Mount Everest. She also takes award-winning photographs (the awards are yet to come, but I know they will), and someday I'm going to write for National Geographic and she's going to be my photographer (maybe we'll go to Mount Everest, where she will carry the sherpa and me and a huge camera up the mountain). Most importantly to my life, Erin and I have a regular backrub-exchange.
So those are my three housemates. I really enjoy living with them. Quite often, I'll walk into one of their rooms to tell them a quick something, and I'll end up standing there, leaning against their door, talking for an hour about grad school or religion or politics or philosophy (those are short conversations) or food (this conversation happens a lot) or just about homework and how our day is going. We like to dress up, we mostly eat pasta or curry, and we tend to sing songs about America whenever we feel especially patriotic. We sometimes find ourselves all sitting or lying in the hallway, we're pretty good at procrastination, and we have all developed an attachment to "House."
As four girls who live in a (slightly drama-filled) house together, we decided that we were like a very small version of a sorority. So we formed our own: Beta Rho (as in Banbury Road, get it?).
The four of us knew each other at Jewell, but I didn't know any of them very well before I moved in with them. I feel very blessed about how well our living arrangement has worked out. We spend most of our time together, and we get along really well and complement (and compliment, for that matter) each other. We're all kind of mothering each other (since our moms are, sadly, not in the same country as we are). It's been great.
So there's a really important part of my life: the wonderful girls with whom I live.
Also, on a totally unrelated note: I saw an billboard in the London Tube that made me very happy. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do:
Coming up next: a post about rowing (I know I've promised this post at least twice. I promise it's going to happen next).
The housemate that lives closest to me is Robyn. When I say she lives close to me, I mean that my room has a removable wall, and her room is on the other side of it. We often open up the divider and chat as we "do homework." Here is Robyn:
Robyn is originally from California, but she's lived in Peculiar, MO, since before high school. (I was going to continue this paragraph with something along the lines of "She likes history and Reese's Pieces, loves to laugh, and knows more about composers than most music majors," but I decided that sounded like a bad personal ad. Then I got this song stuck in my head: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVdhZwK7cS8. (Disclaimer: in posting this song, I am not supporting infidelity. I am supporting Shrek.))
Robyn takes a very long time to get ready in the morning. No one really knows why. She "gets ready" for two hours, actually puts on her shoes, clothes, and make-up in the ten minutes before we leave, and still looks like a movie star. It's one of those mysteries of life. (Side story: when I was younger, my brother Reid would always take forever to get ready to go, and we didn't know why. My mom finally checked on him one day, and discovered that it took Reid 36 minutes to tie his shoes, because his shoe-tying process went something like: tie, un-tie, re-tie, un-tie, re-tie, un-tie, re-tie, un-tie, re-tie, un-tie, re-tie, un-tie, re-tie.)
My second roomate is Sabrina. Here she is:
Sabrina lives in Branson, and before that, she lived in Nashville. Her parents have no connection to the country music business, though. Sabrina and I share an affinity for show and Disney tunes. She knows the words to nearly every musical ever made, including the new Legally Blonde musical (seriously. They made it a musical). Sabrina is the over-achiever of the house. If A++s existed in Britain, she would get them. I suspect her tendency to listen to show and Disney tunes while working contributes to her success.
My third roommate is Erin:
Erin, to use a favorite British phrase, is epic. She's a very modern-day renaissance woman. She's from a small town in Colorado, which means she could probably climb Mount Everest while carrying her sherpa. Also, she's a philosophy major, so she talks about things that are so over my head it's like her brain climbed Mount Everest. She also takes award-winning photographs (the awards are yet to come, but I know they will), and someday I'm going to write for National Geographic and she's going to be my photographer (maybe we'll go to Mount Everest, where she will carry the sherpa and me and a huge camera up the mountain). Most importantly to my life, Erin and I have a regular backrub-exchange.
So those are my three housemates. I really enjoy living with them. Quite often, I'll walk into one of their rooms to tell them a quick something, and I'll end up standing there, leaning against their door, talking for an hour about grad school or religion or politics or philosophy (those are short conversations) or food (this conversation happens a lot) or just about homework and how our day is going. We like to dress up, we mostly eat pasta or curry, and we tend to sing songs about America whenever we feel especially patriotic. We sometimes find ourselves all sitting or lying in the hallway, we're pretty good at procrastination, and we have all developed an attachment to "House."
As four girls who live in a (slightly drama-filled) house together, we decided that we were like a very small version of a sorority. So we formed our own: Beta Rho (as in Banbury Road, get it?).
The four of us knew each other at Jewell, but I didn't know any of them very well before I moved in with them. I feel very blessed about how well our living arrangement has worked out. We spend most of our time together, and we get along really well and complement (and compliment, for that matter) each other. We're all kind of mothering each other (since our moms are, sadly, not in the same country as we are). It's been great.
So there's a really important part of my life: the wonderful girls with whom I live.
Also, on a totally unrelated note: I saw an billboard in the London Tube that made me very happy. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do:
Coming up next: a post about rowing (I know I've promised this post at least twice. I promise it's going to happen next).
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Weather forecast for tonight: dark.
Thanks to the late (great?) George Carlin for that one.
So, let's talk about the weather here where I live.
According to Wikipedia, "England has a temperate climate, with plentiful rainfall all year round, although the seasons are quite variable in temperature. The prevailing wind is from the south-west, bringing mild and wet weather to England regularly from the Atlantic Ocean. Snowfall can occur in winter and early spring, although it is not that common away from high ground."
Just so you know, Oxford is away from high ground. So is London. Nevertheless, last week, Oxford, London, and the rest of Britain experienced THE HEAVIEST SNOWFALL IN 18 YEARS. I'm sure you've heard about it.
This was quite a big deal. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1132144/Its-going-week-Worst-snow-18-years-brings-Britain-slithering-halt--costs-economy-3bn.html (please note that they say Britain comes to a "slithering" halt. What great word choice. Just think of the images that evokes: cars sliding off the road, people slipping on icy sidewalks, snakes on a plane.)
According to The Daily Mail at , this snowstorm cost Britain 3 billion pounds. 6.4 million workers stayed home on February 2, and "London's buses were halted for the first time in living memory - they even continued to run during the Blitz - and the rail network ground to a predictable halt." Heathrow closed both of its runways (snakes on planes, you know), and a shortage of snowplows (which they spell snowploughs) meant that roads were dangerous and sidewalks were sheets of ice.
Now, I saw this snowstorm in Oxford. On February 2, when London was shutting down its buses and the Tube and millions of Britons were enjoying their days at home in front of radiators with cups of Earl Grey and biscuits with blackcurrant jam filling, I was crunching through the inch of snow wondering what the big deal was.
Here's what that "big" storm looked like in Oxford:
And here, to my everlasting joy, is what my neighbor girls did with the snow:
That's right. They made a pirate snowman. I think it's the cutest thing I've ever seen.
The big snowstorm didn't hit Oxford until February 5, a Thursday. You could tell it was coming on Wednesday. My rowing team went out to practice on the water, and our boat and paddles iced over as we rowed. It was quite cold. Thursday brought several inches of snow, which made everything look like this:
(PS, this is not my house. I forgot to take a picture of my house.)
And this:
My backyard.
And this:
Making us want to stay in all day like this:
That's Sabrina and Erin.
To the girls in my flat (three of us from Missouri and one of us from Colorado), the four inches of snow in Oxford wasn't a big deal in terms of stopping the world. In Kansas City, every street except N. Tracy would have been cleared and the sidewalks would have been iced or shovelled by 9 am (I say that with much optimism. This is always not true in Kansas City. But hey, when you're away from something, you only remember the good things, right?).
In Oxford, they had no snowploughs. My friend who lives south of Oxford saw some city workers clearing her street by hand: each of them shovelled his own little three-foot-wide strip of road. Where I live, they let the buses pack down tracks for tires. The sidewalks were deathwalks, except where they threw sand (as in, from a beach); then, they were muddy deathwalks.
I complain, but, truly, the snow was beautiful. The Thursday morning after the big snowstorm, my housemate Erin and I woke up at 6:15 and went down to the river (not voluntarily, it's a long story), and we saw the sun rise over brand-new, pristine snow. The sky was still filled with clouds, and so the sunrise reflected these gorgeous pinks and oranges onto the sky over the river. Honestly, beautiful.
Some snow is still here, over a week later. It's been going through a cycle that goes like this: melt, evaporate 5% of condensation, re-freeze; melt, evaporate 5% of condensation, re-freeze; melt...
And that's the weather report from Oxford. Just so you know, this was sort of a quintessentially British post. One of the first things I was told when I arrived here was to converse about weather in order to make friends here. You've heard that the British like to talk about the weather? It's so true.
Coming up next: a post about my housemates.
So, let's talk about the weather here where I live.
According to Wikipedia, "England has a temperate climate, with plentiful rainfall all year round, although the seasons are quite variable in temperature. The prevailing wind is from the south-west, bringing mild and wet weather to England regularly from the Atlantic Ocean. Snowfall can occur in winter and early spring, although it is not that common away from high ground."
Just so you know, Oxford is away from high ground. So is London. Nevertheless, last week, Oxford, London, and the rest of Britain experienced THE HEAVIEST SNOWFALL IN 18 YEARS. I'm sure you've heard about it.
This was quite a big deal. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1132144/Its-going-week-Worst-snow-18-years-brings-Britain-slithering-halt--costs-economy-3bn.html (please note that they say Britain comes to a "slithering" halt. What great word choice. Just think of the images that evokes: cars sliding off the road, people slipping on icy sidewalks, snakes on a plane.)
According to The Daily Mail at , this snowstorm cost Britain 3 billion pounds. 6.4 million workers stayed home on February 2, and "London's buses were halted for the first time in living memory - they even continued to run during the Blitz - and the rail network ground to a predictable halt." Heathrow closed both of its runways (snakes on planes, you know), and a shortage of snowplows (which they spell snowploughs) meant that roads were dangerous and sidewalks were sheets of ice.
Now, I saw this snowstorm in Oxford. On February 2, when London was shutting down its buses and the Tube and millions of Britons were enjoying their days at home in front of radiators with cups of Earl Grey and biscuits with blackcurrant jam filling, I was crunching through the inch of snow wondering what the big deal was.
Here's what that "big" storm looked like in Oxford:
And here, to my everlasting joy, is what my neighbor girls did with the snow:
That's right. They made a pirate snowman. I think it's the cutest thing I've ever seen.
The big snowstorm didn't hit Oxford until February 5, a Thursday. You could tell it was coming on Wednesday. My rowing team went out to practice on the water, and our boat and paddles iced over as we rowed. It was quite cold. Thursday brought several inches of snow, which made everything look like this:
(PS, this is not my house. I forgot to take a picture of my house.)
And this:
My backyard.
And this:
Making us want to stay in all day like this:
That's Sabrina and Erin.
To the girls in my flat (three of us from Missouri and one of us from Colorado), the four inches of snow in Oxford wasn't a big deal in terms of stopping the world. In Kansas City, every street except N. Tracy would have been cleared and the sidewalks would have been iced or shovelled by 9 am (I say that with much optimism. This is always not true in Kansas City. But hey, when you're away from something, you only remember the good things, right?).
In Oxford, they had no snowploughs. My friend who lives south of Oxford saw some city workers clearing her street by hand: each of them shovelled his own little three-foot-wide strip of road. Where I live, they let the buses pack down tracks for tires. The sidewalks were deathwalks, except where they threw sand (as in, from a beach); then, they were muddy deathwalks.
I complain, but, truly, the snow was beautiful. The Thursday morning after the big snowstorm, my housemate Erin and I woke up at 6:15 and went down to the river (not voluntarily, it's a long story), and we saw the sun rise over brand-new, pristine snow. The sky was still filled with clouds, and so the sunrise reflected these gorgeous pinks and oranges onto the sky over the river. Honestly, beautiful.
Some snow is still here, over a week later. It's been going through a cycle that goes like this: melt, evaporate 5% of condensation, re-freeze; melt, evaporate 5% of condensation, re-freeze; melt...
And that's the weather report from Oxford. Just so you know, this was sort of a quintessentially British post. One of the first things I was told when I arrived here was to converse about weather in order to make friends here. You've heard that the British like to talk about the weather? It's so true.
Coming up next: a post about my housemates.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Procrastinators: leaders of tomorrow
Right now, I'm supposed to be writing a paper. But, see, I just don't care about Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and Mary Wollstonecraft and how they undermined each other during the pamphlet wars of the 1790s. Seriously, who does care about that? I mean, Paine wrote Common Sense and sort of started the Revolutionary War, and Wollstonecraft had some pretty radical (read: absolutely insane) ideas in A Vindication of the Rights of Women, but I don't get to write about either of those. And who, outside of Britain, has ever heard of Edmund Burke?
Actually, maybe if I rant a while longer, I'll just end up writing my paper right here on this blog. However, I will not subject you to a long-winded and short-interest essay. Instead, I figured I'd update you on what's been going on since I got back from break.
The weekend after I got back, my friend Jacque came to visit for three days. We visited several places, including Christ Church. Here I am, with my Harry Potter scarf on, in the Great Hall. Sadly, it does not have an enchanted ceiling like in the movie:
And here is Jacque on steps which you may recognize from The Sorcerer's Stone (Draco Malfoy: "Think my name's funny, do you?") or The Chamber of Secrets (Dumbledore: "Is there something you'd like to tell me, Tom?"):
While Jacque was here, my flat decided to do pedicures. I only mention this so I can post this picture:
Which makes me happy. Those are, from left to right: Robyn's legs, Sabrina's legs, Jacque's legs, my legs, and Erin's legs.
As I reminded everyone, my birthday was a week after I got back, January 16. I decided to give myself a birthday present, which was a trip to London on January 15 with my housemates Sabrina and Erin to see the musical Billy Elliot:
That's me with Erin. Billy Elliot was phenomenal: the kid who played Billy was a pretty good singer and oh man, could he dance. Sabrina and Erin and I were left speechless by the show: the songs were great (although the language was...appropriate to the 1980s British mining town in which it was set), the set was so cool and puzzle-like, and, again, the dancing rocked. Literally, rocked.
Anyway, we saw the matinee of Billy Elliot, and when we walked out, we saw the sign for Wicked across the street. We decided, on a whim, to see if there were tickets left for that night...and there were! Wicked is also amazing. So, happy birthday to me, I got to see two great shows in one day!
The next day, my birthday, I got woken up by my family via Skype, and then I opened the gifts they had sent me. I was pretty psyched to get a bunch of CDs, all of them movie soundtracks, and three out of five of them Disney soundtracks! I also got flowers sent to me again! I really love flowers. (Also, thanks to all of you who sent me birthday cards via e-mail or snail mail! I really appreciate it!)
That night I went to an Indian restaurant with my friends Erin, Brett (beard), Bill, Lena (next to me), Madison (white hat), Robyn, Lydia (green scarf), Ashton (big earrings), and Sabrina:
Then, a week after my birthday, Jacque visited again, this time accompanied (side note: I cannot pronounce that word, and I am always impressed by people who can) by our friend Nicole:
Nicole has this problem with opening her eyes in pictures. This is a chair made out of the ship in which Sir Francis Drake sailed. The wood of this chair is something like 500 years old.
That photo was taken in Oxford's Divinity School, where I learned something very important that I would like to pass on to you: British tour guides are so much better than American tour guides.
An American tour guide will take an awesome building, and proceed to tell you about the kind of rock it's made out of, where the rock was quarried, how many men carried the rock from the quarry, how much money it took to build the building, who gave the money, why they gave the money, the number of children they had, where they lived, how far that is in miles and kilometers from the building in which you're standing...basically, American tour guides, with few exceptions, talk until you feel as bored as the square stones you've been staring at for the past ten minutes. American tour guides have a script that they had to memorize, darn it, and they're sticking to it until they or (more likely) everyone on the tour dies. Don't deny it, you know it's true.
Conversely, a British tour guide tells you that the building is "typical British architecture, that is," that it's better than French architecture because French architecture is "more flamboyant," that one of the symbols in the stone is a pagan symbol, points out the Virgin Mary on the ceiling, then leaves you to contemplate the splendor of the building and ask whatever questions you have.
The next day, January 25, was the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns's (Burns'?) birth. Robert Burns was a pretty cool guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Burns. To celebrate, we had dinner with our neighbors, the Mills family. We had traditional Scottish food--including haggis--read a Burns poem, and listened to Martin Mills address the haggis (as in, "hello, haggis," except poetically).
And then it felt like term officially began, because my tutors gave me homework. I have two tutorials this term: English Literature 1740-1832, which I have once a week; and Andrew Marvell (a seventeenth-century poet), which I have once every other week. I'm enjoying both so far, although I've discovered that seventeenth-century poetry is a bit over my head (which isn't hard to do, right, Reid?).
Coming up next: the rowing team, and an in-depth comparison of dinner in Jewell's cafeteria versus in Regent's Park's dining hall.
Actually, maybe if I rant a while longer, I'll just end up writing my paper right here on this blog. However, I will not subject you to a long-winded and short-interest essay. Instead, I figured I'd update you on what's been going on since I got back from break.
The weekend after I got back, my friend Jacque came to visit for three days. We visited several places, including Christ Church. Here I am, with my Harry Potter scarf on, in the Great Hall. Sadly, it does not have an enchanted ceiling like in the movie:
And here is Jacque on steps which you may recognize from The Sorcerer's Stone (Draco Malfoy: "Think my name's funny, do you?") or The Chamber of Secrets (Dumbledore: "Is there something you'd like to tell me, Tom?"):
While Jacque was here, my flat decided to do pedicures. I only mention this so I can post this picture:
Which makes me happy. Those are, from left to right: Robyn's legs, Sabrina's legs, Jacque's legs, my legs, and Erin's legs.
As I reminded everyone, my birthday was a week after I got back, January 16. I decided to give myself a birthday present, which was a trip to London on January 15 with my housemates Sabrina and Erin to see the musical Billy Elliot:
That's me with Erin. Billy Elliot was phenomenal: the kid who played Billy was a pretty good singer and oh man, could he dance. Sabrina and Erin and I were left speechless by the show: the songs were great (although the language was...appropriate to the 1980s British mining town in which it was set), the set was so cool and puzzle-like, and, again, the dancing rocked. Literally, rocked.
Anyway, we saw the matinee of Billy Elliot, and when we walked out, we saw the sign for Wicked across the street. We decided, on a whim, to see if there were tickets left for that night...and there were! Wicked is also amazing. So, happy birthday to me, I got to see two great shows in one day!
The next day, my birthday, I got woken up by my family via Skype, and then I opened the gifts they had sent me. I was pretty psyched to get a bunch of CDs, all of them movie soundtracks, and three out of five of them Disney soundtracks! I also got flowers sent to me again! I really love flowers. (Also, thanks to all of you who sent me birthday cards via e-mail or snail mail! I really appreciate it!)
That night I went to an Indian restaurant with my friends Erin, Brett (beard), Bill, Lena (next to me), Madison (white hat), Robyn, Lydia (green scarf), Ashton (big earrings), and Sabrina:
Then, a week after my birthday, Jacque visited again, this time accompanied (side note: I cannot pronounce that word, and I am always impressed by people who can) by our friend Nicole:
Nicole has this problem with opening her eyes in pictures. This is a chair made out of the ship in which Sir Francis Drake sailed. The wood of this chair is something like 500 years old.
That photo was taken in Oxford's Divinity School, where I learned something very important that I would like to pass on to you: British tour guides are so much better than American tour guides.
An American tour guide will take an awesome building, and proceed to tell you about the kind of rock it's made out of, where the rock was quarried, how many men carried the rock from the quarry, how much money it took to build the building, who gave the money, why they gave the money, the number of children they had, where they lived, how far that is in miles and kilometers from the building in which you're standing...basically, American tour guides, with few exceptions, talk until you feel as bored as the square stones you've been staring at for the past ten minutes. American tour guides have a script that they had to memorize, darn it, and they're sticking to it until they or (more likely) everyone on the tour dies. Don't deny it, you know it's true.
Conversely, a British tour guide tells you that the building is "typical British architecture, that is," that it's better than French architecture because French architecture is "more flamboyant," that one of the symbols in the stone is a pagan symbol, points out the Virgin Mary on the ceiling, then leaves you to contemplate the splendor of the building and ask whatever questions you have.
The next day, January 25, was the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns's (Burns'?) birth. Robert Burns was a pretty cool guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Burns. To celebrate, we had dinner with our neighbors, the Mills family. We had traditional Scottish food--including haggis--read a Burns poem, and listened to Martin Mills address the haggis (as in, "hello, haggis," except poetically).
And then it felt like term officially began, because my tutors gave me homework. I have two tutorials this term: English Literature 1740-1832, which I have once a week; and Andrew Marvell (a seventeenth-century poet), which I have once every other week. I'm enjoying both so far, although I've discovered that seventeenth-century poetry is a bit over my head (which isn't hard to do, right, Reid?).
Coming up next: the rowing team, and an in-depth comparison of dinner in Jewell's cafeteria versus in Regent's Park's dining hall.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Bookends Theme
Reid and I went from Barcelona to London on January 6. We visited the London Gatwick Airport for the first time, which was pretty exciting, and then we found our hostel.
Finding the hostel was kind of interesting. You know how I got really grumpy in Grenada because I was hungry? Well, it was Reid's turn to get grumpy in London because...we got lost. Not totally lost, mind you. We just walked up and down a few wrong streets before we found the right street sort of on accident. But hey, we made it to our hostel!
We were ready for lunch, and so we decided to go to this pub I remembered, The Dickens Pub. It's the Longest Pub in London, and it had good food. The problem was, I forgot where it was. I was convinced it was just outside of the Victoria tube station, and so Reid and walked all the way around the Victoria tube station before deciding to go to another pub called The Victoria. It turns out that Dickens is outside of the Piccadilly tube station. But hey, we made it to a pub!
We had a delicious lunch in The Victoria, where we met a nice couple who brought their rat-like dog into the pub. Apparently the rat-dog's name was Joy, too, which is some kind of funny. Another kind of funny: the lady let the dog drink her beer. Now, I don't know much about alcohol and its effects on the canine body, but this dog was maybe four pounds, and I think a few sips might have seriously impaired this dog's judgment.
After lunch, we went to the London Eye:
We ended up going at night because it was 4:30 pm and England gets dark roughly three minutes after the sun rises, but that made London look even cooler from the Eye.
We took a lot of pictures in the Eye. In this one, I think we look related:
Which we are.
I am not the biggest fan of heights (I once sat cross-legged on the top of a mountain for ten minutes, terrified that I might fall over the three-foot-high safety fence and roll picturesquely to my death), and the Eye is 450 feet in diameter. This means that it is 450 high at the top, which is very high. And scary, if you are me:
And here, ladies and gentlemen and children, is London at night:
Pretty impressive, yeah? Here's another picture of London at night:
You might notice Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey right there in the middle. That's what they look like at night from 450 feet in the air.
Then we got off the Eye, and our mom called me with some good news. Reid got the IB Diploma! Yay, Reid!
We left the Eye and went to King's Cross Station. Hm, you say, King's Cross Station sounds familiar. Why is that? Well, I will answer your question with two pictures (both of which have the sign for Platform 9 and 3/4 in them):
I think now is an appropriate time to inform you that I am not actually at Oxford University. I am at Hogwarts.
After being magically whisked back and forth through a brick wall, Reid and I went to go see a show in London's West End. We chose Zorro! Zorro! was a perfect choice because it had little bits and pieces of Spain and Spanish culture in it. There was even some flamenco dancing. While Zorro! was not the most impressive show we'd ever seen, we enjoyed it a lot. The actor who played Zorro was hilarious, and the actress who played Luisa sang beautifully. Plus they lit a 'Z' on fire at the beginning, and hey, who doesn't love (safely and professionally controlled) fire? Reid and I both felt like seeing Zorro! was a great way to end our Spain trip outside of Spain.
On January 7, Reid left, and I was very sad. It was quite a task getting Reid home, as his plane in Heathrow was delayed for two and a half hours. We were all kind of worried for a little bit because all Reid had with him, besides clothes, was his MU ID, 5 English pounds, and 12 American dollars. (On an unrelated note, Reid, you owe me 5 English pounds and 12 American dollars.) He eventually got home to Kansas City, and I went on my way back to Edinburgh to meet Robyn, Brett, and Madison again.
On sort of a side note, between December 29 and January 9, Reid took seven airplanes, five buses, and six trains, and I took five planes, five buses, and seven trains. That is a lot of sitting in small seats.
Robyn, Brett, Madison and I were in Edinburgh January 7 and 8. We visited the Royal Mile, the outside of Holyrood Castle, and Brett and I bought plaid things. I also discovered the two coolest streets in Edinburgh. Here is one:
And here is the other:
Forsyth's Close, incidentally, might have been named after my ancestors on my mom's side. The plaid I bought was the Forsyth tartan, the official plaid of the Forsyth clan. Yeah, we have a clan. And it's Scottish, and maybe has a street named after it.
The night before we left Scotland, we watched the movie Highlander. Robyn had been telling us about this movie for days, because it was set in Scotland and apparently a movie you just have to see. Well, I am here to tell you: you have to see this movie. It takes "bad movie" to a whole new level.
It was made in 1986 by the same director who later brought us such classics as Tale of the Mummy, Duran Duran music videos, and, yes, Highlander II. Sean Connery is an immortal Spaniard from Egypt with a Scottish accent (and we all say together, What?), the villain sounds like his throat is full of gravel, and the only other English-speaking role the main actor had before this movie was Greystroke: the Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, where he only had a few lines. Oh, and Queen did all-new original music for the score. Please, just humor me and watch the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq4SqgxIKM0
Seriously, it's the worst movie you will ever see in your life.
On January 9, Robyn and Brett and Madison and I had the longest. bus ride. ever. from Edinburgh to London. It was nine hours, and there wasn't enough leg room for the rat-dog named Joy, let alone any of us.
We then had to take another bus from London to Oxford. Our bus driver was Lucifer. As in, the Devil. If ever anyone was a walking anti-smoking ad, this guy was. His voice was so ruined that when he spoke over the intercom to announce the next stop, it sounded as if we were slowly descending through the circles of Hell.
We got back to Oxford quite late on January 9, slept very well, and then woke up the next morning ready to begin the term!
My break was great. I loved spending time with my little brother (even if he does put his thumb over the street names on maps), and it was great to visit two new countries! Thanks for persevering with me through this five-part trilogy (Don't Panic.) about my break of travels. From now until March 14, it's back to normal: I won't want to do homework, so I'll update this blog instead.
Finding the hostel was kind of interesting. You know how I got really grumpy in Grenada because I was hungry? Well, it was Reid's turn to get grumpy in London because...we got lost. Not totally lost, mind you. We just walked up and down a few wrong streets before we found the right street sort of on accident. But hey, we made it to our hostel!
We were ready for lunch, and so we decided to go to this pub I remembered, The Dickens Pub. It's the Longest Pub in London, and it had good food. The problem was, I forgot where it was. I was convinced it was just outside of the Victoria tube station, and so Reid and walked all the way around the Victoria tube station before deciding to go to another pub called The Victoria. It turns out that Dickens is outside of the Piccadilly tube station. But hey, we made it to a pub!
We had a delicious lunch in The Victoria, where we met a nice couple who brought their rat-like dog into the pub. Apparently the rat-dog's name was Joy, too, which is some kind of funny. Another kind of funny: the lady let the dog drink her beer. Now, I don't know much about alcohol and its effects on the canine body, but this dog was maybe four pounds, and I think a few sips might have seriously impaired this dog's judgment.
After lunch, we went to the London Eye:
We ended up going at night because it was 4:30 pm and England gets dark roughly three minutes after the sun rises, but that made London look even cooler from the Eye.
We took a lot of pictures in the Eye. In this one, I think we look related:
Which we are.
I am not the biggest fan of heights (I once sat cross-legged on the top of a mountain for ten minutes, terrified that I might fall over the three-foot-high safety fence and roll picturesquely to my death), and the Eye is 450 feet in diameter. This means that it is 450 high at the top, which is very high. And scary, if you are me:
And here, ladies and gentlemen and children, is London at night:
Pretty impressive, yeah? Here's another picture of London at night:
You might notice Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey right there in the middle. That's what they look like at night from 450 feet in the air.
Then we got off the Eye, and our mom called me with some good news. Reid got the IB Diploma! Yay, Reid!
We left the Eye and went to King's Cross Station. Hm, you say, King's Cross Station sounds familiar. Why is that? Well, I will answer your question with two pictures (both of which have the sign for Platform 9 and 3/4 in them):
I think now is an appropriate time to inform you that I am not actually at Oxford University. I am at Hogwarts.
After being magically whisked back and forth through a brick wall, Reid and I went to go see a show in London's West End. We chose Zorro! Zorro! was a perfect choice because it had little bits and pieces of Spain and Spanish culture in it. There was even some flamenco dancing. While Zorro! was not the most impressive show we'd ever seen, we enjoyed it a lot. The actor who played Zorro was hilarious, and the actress who played Luisa sang beautifully. Plus they lit a 'Z' on fire at the beginning, and hey, who doesn't love (safely and professionally controlled) fire? Reid and I both felt like seeing Zorro! was a great way to end our Spain trip outside of Spain.
On January 7, Reid left, and I was very sad. It was quite a task getting Reid home, as his plane in Heathrow was delayed for two and a half hours. We were all kind of worried for a little bit because all Reid had with him, besides clothes, was his MU ID, 5 English pounds, and 12 American dollars. (On an unrelated note, Reid, you owe me 5 English pounds and 12 American dollars.) He eventually got home to Kansas City, and I went on my way back to Edinburgh to meet Robyn, Brett, and Madison again.
On sort of a side note, between December 29 and January 9, Reid took seven airplanes, five buses, and six trains, and I took five planes, five buses, and seven trains. That is a lot of sitting in small seats.
Robyn, Brett, Madison and I were in Edinburgh January 7 and 8. We visited the Royal Mile, the outside of Holyrood Castle, and Brett and I bought plaid things. I also discovered the two coolest streets in Edinburgh. Here is one:
And here is the other:
Forsyth's Close, incidentally, might have been named after my ancestors on my mom's side. The plaid I bought was the Forsyth tartan, the official plaid of the Forsyth clan. Yeah, we have a clan. And it's Scottish, and maybe has a street named after it.
The night before we left Scotland, we watched the movie Highlander. Robyn had been telling us about this movie for days, because it was set in Scotland and apparently a movie you just have to see. Well, I am here to tell you: you have to see this movie. It takes "bad movie" to a whole new level.
It was made in 1986 by the same director who later brought us such classics as Tale of the Mummy, Duran Duran music videos, and, yes, Highlander II. Sean Connery is an immortal Spaniard from Egypt with a Scottish accent (and we all say together, What?), the villain sounds like his throat is full of gravel, and the only other English-speaking role the main actor had before this movie was Greystroke: the Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, where he only had a few lines. Oh, and Queen did all-new original music for the score. Please, just humor me and watch the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq4SqgxIKM0
Seriously, it's the worst movie you will ever see in your life.
On January 9, Robyn and Brett and Madison and I had the longest. bus ride. ever. from Edinburgh to London. It was nine hours, and there wasn't enough leg room for the rat-dog named Joy, let alone any of us.
We then had to take another bus from London to Oxford. Our bus driver was Lucifer. As in, the Devil. If ever anyone was a walking anti-smoking ad, this guy was. His voice was so ruined that when he spoke over the intercom to announce the next stop, it sounded as if we were slowly descending through the circles of Hell.
We got back to Oxford quite late on January 9, slept very well, and then woke up the next morning ready to begin the term!
My break was great. I loved spending time with my little brother (even if he does put his thumb over the street names on maps), and it was great to visit two new countries! Thanks for persevering with me through this five-part trilogy (Don't Panic.) about my break of travels. From now until March 14, it's back to normal: I won't want to do homework, so I'll update this blog instead.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
España no es buena en transporte público
Loosely translated, this means "the dereliction of the conveyance of aggregated peoples in Spain."
Okay, that's true. But what that means exactly and literally translated is "Spain is not good at public transportation."
Our first experience of Spain's inadequate public transport came when we took the train from Grenada to Sevilla. Remember when I told you about the Spanish conductor coming in to the car and assuming we knew what he was saying? Well, what he was saying was, "The train tracks ahead are flooded. You need to take a bus to avoid the flooded train tracks, because trains do not float very well." Now, I understand flooding. But I sort of feel like rain is a common occurrence (after all, the rain in Spain does fall mainly on the plain, Eliza Doolittle), and maybe the Spanish should find a better way to deal with it (rain) than bussing 500 passengers between 2 and 8000 miles out of their ways.
Our second experience of Spain's rather questionable understanding of mass transit was when we flew from Sevilla to Barcelona. After Reid and I got to the airport, we sat for a while in the waiting seats, and then we heard the announcement that our flight was boarding. It was even on time. Hooray! So all 250 passengers got in the line that led to the boarding gate, and then we...stood there. For half an hour. I generally understand the "ing" part of "boarding" to mean "in the process of getting on board" as in "moving," but this is apparently not the case.
We eventually got on our plane after a nice long walk on the tarmac (not to the tarmac, on the tarmac. I felt like a Michelle Obama, climbing up the stairs to my very own private-plus-249-other-people plane), and sat down. Unfortunately, I was seated next to a Spanish lady who looked liked Jabba the Hut and didn't seem to understand that "no hablo espanol" means that I don't speak Spanish.
The fact that I was sitting next to George Lucas's inspiration for a worm-fiend did not detract from the fact that the landscape over which we flew was gorgeous. Barcelona is surrounded by some of the most beautiful and picturesque mountains I have ever seen. They certainly don't have the grandeur of the Rockies or the wooded splendor of the Appalachians or the snow of the Alps (okay, I've never seen the Alps), but their combination of jutting rocks and rolling hills spread in greens and golds and browns was amazing. Plus they had those cool white windmills that actually turn air into energy.
The oddest part of the trip was the end, actually. After we touched down at the Barcelona airport, the entire plane burst into applause. It was as if the Spanish were saying, "Hooray! We made it without dying! Thank you, Mr. (or Ms.) Pilot for only jarring our bones just a little on this touchdown and for making it the whole way through this hour-long flight without running into the side of a mountain!"
Now, I have since learned that applauding at the end of flights used to be common. And, as we all learned after the US Airways incident on the Hudson, pilots certainly should be commended for doing a good job. But I'm more inclined to think that the Spanish were applauding because they are so used to bad mass transit that they are overjoyed when they make it somewhere without trouble.
So anyway, we walked for about half an hour from the plane (on the tarmac again, I did my Jackie O wave walking down the steps) to the building. This I learned: never ever fly into Barcelona Reus airport. It looks like they began to build it in 1983 and then just forgot to finish. Then we got on a bus and rode two hours, and then we were finally in Barcelona. Yay (or yea!)!
In Barcelona, we mostly walked around. I'm pretty sure we explored most of the city because we got lost several times, but we also were not on a schedule and that was great. We bought some delicious apples at a two-story grocery store:
Seriously, how cool is that? That is, by the way, Reid, not some random stranger. And then we went to the Sagrada Familia temple, designed by Gaudi.
This temple/cathedral/whatever (I'm honestly not sure what exactly it is) is amazing. Antoni Gaudi began to design and build it in 1882, and it's still a work in progress. According to Barcelona's tourist guide, it's not expected to be finished until sometime between 2033 and 2083. Yeah, wow.
Gaudi was clearly ahead of his time in his designs:
And the inside is just beautiful:
Just look at those colors!
Humans (Reid and I are in the middle, wearing black and brown and looking related) were again dwarfed by the size of the building:
Reid and I paid the 12 euro to get into the cathedral, which was probably worth it. It's worth going just to see the outside, though.
Then we wandered around the city some more, found a Burger King for dinner, and returned to our hostel by 7 p.m. We were very tired, so we hung out in our room until we finally went to sleep.
The next morning, we went to the good Barcelona airport (called the Barcelona airport instead of the Barcelona Reus airport. That should've been a hint to me), and again discovered that Spain does not know how to move people. We had to take a bus from the boarding gate to the plane. Does that make sense?
Anyway, we ended up in London, which is a day for another post. Or a post for another day. I feel like both phrases actually apply there.
I'd very quickly like to give some impressions of Spain that I have thus far saved:
--The Spanish like piercings, especially lip piercings. You know the ones that kind of look like moles or zits right above or below peoples' lips? A ton of people had them, and very few people pulled off the look. There were also multiple ear piercings, eyebrow piercings, and nose piercings.
--Another aspect of Spanish fashion is this: they are trying to re-vamp the mullet. It is not working. We saw all sorts of mullet-ish hairdoos. The best one was the dreadlock mullet. Please imagine: business up front, hippy party in the back. It was awful.
--While the Spanish have not mastered mass transit, they are good at individual transit. There are many people who walk, lots of small cars, and a ton of motorcycles. Reid considered stealing a few of the motorcycles, but we decided that they would be hard to get through customs (almost as difficult as the fighting bull we were going to bring Dad--we settled on a t-shirt instead).
Spain, overall, was a wonderful place to visit. Reid and I began in a very traditional Spanish town (Granada), and ended in a very modern city (Barcelona), with Sevilla falling somewhere in between traditional and modern. While our trip was non-stop travelling, I think we took enough time in each place to enjoy what it had to offer. I enjoyed it very much, and I think Reid did, too.
Okay, that's true. But what that means exactly and literally translated is "Spain is not good at public transportation."
Our first experience of Spain's inadequate public transport came when we took the train from Grenada to Sevilla. Remember when I told you about the Spanish conductor coming in to the car and assuming we knew what he was saying? Well, what he was saying was, "The train tracks ahead are flooded. You need to take a bus to avoid the flooded train tracks, because trains do not float very well." Now, I understand flooding. But I sort of feel like rain is a common occurrence (after all, the rain in Spain does fall mainly on the plain, Eliza Doolittle), and maybe the Spanish should find a better way to deal with it (rain) than bussing 500 passengers between 2 and 8000 miles out of their ways.
Our second experience of Spain's rather questionable understanding of mass transit was when we flew from Sevilla to Barcelona. After Reid and I got to the airport, we sat for a while in the waiting seats, and then we heard the announcement that our flight was boarding. It was even on time. Hooray! So all 250 passengers got in the line that led to the boarding gate, and then we...stood there. For half an hour. I generally understand the "ing" part of "boarding" to mean "in the process of getting on board" as in "moving," but this is apparently not the case.
We eventually got on our plane after a nice long walk on the tarmac (not to the tarmac, on the tarmac. I felt like a Michelle Obama, climbing up the stairs to my very own private-plus-249-other-people plane), and sat down. Unfortunately, I was seated next to a Spanish lady who looked liked Jabba the Hut and didn't seem to understand that "no hablo espanol" means that I don't speak Spanish.
The fact that I was sitting next to George Lucas's inspiration for a worm-fiend did not detract from the fact that the landscape over which we flew was gorgeous. Barcelona is surrounded by some of the most beautiful and picturesque mountains I have ever seen. They certainly don't have the grandeur of the Rockies or the wooded splendor of the Appalachians or the snow of the Alps (okay, I've never seen the Alps), but their combination of jutting rocks and rolling hills spread in greens and golds and browns was amazing. Plus they had those cool white windmills that actually turn air into energy.
The oddest part of the trip was the end, actually. After we touched down at the Barcelona airport, the entire plane burst into applause. It was as if the Spanish were saying, "Hooray! We made it without dying! Thank you, Mr. (or Ms.) Pilot for only jarring our bones just a little on this touchdown and for making it the whole way through this hour-long flight without running into the side of a mountain!"
Now, I have since learned that applauding at the end of flights used to be common. And, as we all learned after the US Airways incident on the Hudson, pilots certainly should be commended for doing a good job. But I'm more inclined to think that the Spanish were applauding because they are so used to bad mass transit that they are overjoyed when they make it somewhere without trouble.
So anyway, we walked for about half an hour from the plane (on the tarmac again, I did my Jackie O wave walking down the steps) to the building. This I learned: never ever fly into Barcelona Reus airport. It looks like they began to build it in 1983 and then just forgot to finish. Then we got on a bus and rode two hours, and then we were finally in Barcelona. Yay (or yea!)!
In Barcelona, we mostly walked around. I'm pretty sure we explored most of the city because we got lost several times, but we also were not on a schedule and that was great. We bought some delicious apples at a two-story grocery store:
Seriously, how cool is that? That is, by the way, Reid, not some random stranger. And then we went to the Sagrada Familia temple, designed by Gaudi.
This temple/cathedral/whatever (I'm honestly not sure what exactly it is) is amazing. Antoni Gaudi began to design and build it in 1882, and it's still a work in progress. According to Barcelona's tourist guide, it's not expected to be finished until sometime between 2033 and 2083. Yeah, wow.
Gaudi was clearly ahead of his time in his designs:
And the inside is just beautiful:
Just look at those colors!
Humans (Reid and I are in the middle, wearing black and brown and looking related) were again dwarfed by the size of the building:
Reid and I paid the 12 euro to get into the cathedral, which was probably worth it. It's worth going just to see the outside, though.
Then we wandered around the city some more, found a Burger King for dinner, and returned to our hostel by 7 p.m. We were very tired, so we hung out in our room until we finally went to sleep.
The next morning, we went to the good Barcelona airport (called the Barcelona airport instead of the Barcelona Reus airport. That should've been a hint to me), and again discovered that Spain does not know how to move people. We had to take a bus from the boarding gate to the plane. Does that make sense?
Anyway, we ended up in London, which is a day for another post. Or a post for another day. I feel like both phrases actually apply there.
I'd very quickly like to give some impressions of Spain that I have thus far saved:
--In Barcelona, people lisp--that is, their accent means their "s" is pronounced "th." Thus, Barcelona sounds like "Barthelona." Also thus, it is common for people to spray it and say it (or thpray it and thay it?).
--Also, in the north of Spain, there are two different types of Spanish: Castilian and Catalan. Therefore, in Barcelona, all the signs were in three different languages (those two and English). I found this fascinating. Apparently Castilian is the traditional Spanish, while Catalan is a mixture of Spanish and French (thank you, Yahoo! Answers).
--Everyone smokes in Spain, including young children and pets (okay, that part's not true). I think this is gross.--The Spanish like piercings, especially lip piercings. You know the ones that kind of look like moles or zits right above or below peoples' lips? A ton of people had them, and very few people pulled off the look. There were also multiple ear piercings, eyebrow piercings, and nose piercings.
--Another aspect of Spanish fashion is this: they are trying to re-vamp the mullet. It is not working. We saw all sorts of mullet-ish hairdoos. The best one was the dreadlock mullet. Please imagine: business up front, hippy party in the back. It was awful.
--While the Spanish have not mastered mass transit, they are good at individual transit. There are many people who walk, lots of small cars, and a ton of motorcycles. Reid considered stealing a few of the motorcycles, but we decided that they would be hard to get through customs (almost as difficult as the fighting bull we were going to bring Dad--we settled on a t-shirt instead).
Spain, overall, was a wonderful place to visit. Reid and I began in a very traditional Spanish town (Granada), and ended in a very modern city (Barcelona), with Sevilla falling somewhere in between traditional and modern. While our trip was non-stop travelling, I think we took enough time in each place to enjoy what it had to offer. I enjoyed it very much, and I think Reid did, too.
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