Life in progress

Hello?

2010-12-29T01:44:00.003-05:00

Is anyone still out there?

I'm a gigantic slacker and never got around to making the last few posts about Jordan. Hopefully I will get to that soon.

I'm also going to start using this blog again. Hopefully. Now that I've graduated and moved on from VCU I figure I should probably keep people updated on what I'm doing with my life. Which hasn't been a whole lot at this point, but it's only been a week and a half. Don't judge me.

Fun weekend of fun.

2010-08-06T07:27:00.002-04:00

Thursday night 7/29: Jennifer, Nick, and I rented a car to drive around and see the desert castles that are here. More on those later. We'd wanted to leave Thursday night and just spent the night somewhere in the east, but it didn't work because we didn't even decide to go and to rent the car until 1 that afternoon. So we stayed in Amman, but Jennifer and I wanted to go out somewhere because we had a car. So we went with George, Miriam, and Carissa to a restaurant called The Seven Hills and was maybe 20-30 minutes away? Everything here is a pretty decent drive from anywhere else, so I don't really notice length anymore. Dinner was tasty. Pretty much the same food as usual. But still tasty. On the road leading to/from the restaurant there was a small amusement park. One of the best quotes of the night: "Can I ride a horse ON the ferris wheel?" We were joking with George about riding a horse and riding the ferris wheel too. And then had a fun joke for the rest of the night. Of course it's one of those you-had-to-be-there things, but it still amuses me.

I should mention that maps here are fairly useless because the streets aren't marked, or signs are wrong, or things change, or for any number of reasons. Regardless, we set off for Marka, which we can't figure out whether it's a city/town itself or just a section of Amman (all of which have names). We wound up looking for Al-Quds (Jerusalem) street, and from there were supposed to turn onto Al-Houriya (freedom) street. The irony is delicious. After turning onto some random street and driving for a while, and being stuck in traffic for a while, and having no idea what street we were actually on (but being totally okay with that), we magically wound up on the next street we needed. It was a pretty epic moment. We're not sure that we ever found houriya though. (These are probably only funny if you speak Arabic.)

We wandered around Marka for a while, just up and down the main street. And while we were there we ran into Ali and Othman, two of the Iraqi refugees we meet with in Marka every week and teach English to. We went back to their house and sat for a while, then went back out with them and got ice cream. We joked about eating their fish (in their fishtank) for dinner. It was fun. And we watched random Arabic music videos on TV and made fun of them. Woo.

Friday 7/30: Friday I got up bright and early to go see the castles with Jennifer and Nick at 7am. Ugh. We drove. We got mildly lost. We found the right way and still joked about being lost. Honestly, the desert looks the same whether you're going the right way or not. The first of the castles in the loop that we came upon turned out not to be a castle, but we didn't know this until we got back in the car after seeing it. It was really an old bathhouse for the castle/fort nearby. It was super small and when we drove by it at first we were all like, "No. No this cannot be a castle. What is going on?" So we explored a little. Moved on. The next castle (which was actually a fort) wasn't open for visitors yet, because it wasn't yet 9 am and probably because it was Friday. I'm not sure about that part. Either way, we admired it from afar and kept going. Stopped at Azraq Castle, or whatever it was called. It was in Azraq regardless. Wandered around in it for a while. Drove around and around looking for the Wetland Reserve that we'd been told to go to by other people. Finally found it and then were disappointed by the lack of animals and the lack of wet. It used to be an oasis but most of the water is gone. Whoops. There was a lot of water buffalo poop though. And I mean a lot. We saw some tiny frogs and three water buffalo and that was it. Anticlimactic.

After that we went to lunch at a Saudi restaurant in Azraq. Fun experience there. We asked what they had (menus as we know them in the US aren't too popular here). I remember saying "I don't care what we get so long as it's not an organ of some kind." We wound up ordering kubdeh (?), which sounded familiar to me, but I wasn't sure so I didn't say anything. Nick said he didn't know what it was but had had it before and it was good. So when our food comes, Jennifer tries it and looks at him funny. It was liver and he knew it. (Evidenced by how he started laughing.) Turns out it's not so bad. Not on my list of favorites, but I can now cross "eat something weird" from my to-do list. Yay.

After lunch we went to one last castle, which wasn't a castle but was again a fort. And had the remains of a city with it, but we were exhausted and melting so we didn't care too much about seeing the rest of the random things. Judging from the map I don't know how much of the random things was actually left to see; it sounded more like there was just spots where they thought things used to be. As we walk into the castle/whatever building, a huge Saudi family is leaving. And then they come back in.

And they stare at us. And giggle. And blatantly start taking pictures of us on their phones. It was actually pretty hilarious, in a "is this really happening?" kind of way. The kids followed us around and crowded around us in the small rooms of the castle. Finallyl one girl came over and asked if they could take a picture with us, and I swear there were at least a dozen pictures taken. It was cute. We walked back to our car not long after they did, and they kept staring at us, waving, and even taking pictures from their car in the parking lot. It was so. Cute.

We got back to Amman between 3 and 4. I took an amazing nap. And then I did nothing of import until bedtime. Yay.

Saturday 7/31: Saturday was the last organized trip we had as a group. We started at Mt. Nebo, where Moses is supposedly buried. The church there was closed for renovation. Story of my life; everywhere I go something is covered by scaffolding. So there wasn't a lot to see there. There was the big cross thingy and a hazy view into a few different countries. Still a cool experience, but would have been better minus the haze. And minus the heat. I'm pretty sure they told us that day was the hottest day of the summer. Awesome.

After Mt. Nebo we went to a mosiac school in Madaba, where people learn how to recreate old mosaics. It was impressive but the replics don't have the same feel as old ones. Then we went to St. George's Church in Madaba, where there is/was a huge mosaic map of the world at that time. More for pigrams and such, I think, and less geographically accurate, but still awesome. Except half of it was lost in the 13 years after they uncovered it and didn't do anything to preserve it. Then we had lunch, which was tasty but of course I can't name half the food we ate.

From there, it was Dead Sea time. At the Dead Sea it was over 115 degrees. Death indeed. There are one or two public beaches there (which you still pay to get into), and all the hotels around it have private beaches, so you pay the hotel instead. We did the latter. People burnt their feet on the way down to the beach because the sand was so hot. The water was so warm it was like the most disgusting bath ever. And so salty. Floating in it was cool. At least at the beginning. Then it got kind of old. And they tell you only to swim on your back because people have drowned on the surface of the water on their stomachs because it's super hard to flip yourself over.
We all covered ourselves in mud (so SLIMY!), which is really good for your skin and a really good exfoliator and whatnot. There are all kinds of dead sea beauty products here. And then we washed the mud off. I went up to the hotel pool with Brittney and we went down the water slide, which we figured out after the fact was probably only meant for kids because it was made of fail for us. Stayed in the pool a few minutes then got out and changed because the humidity was just gross. Yeah the heat wasn't fun but it's really the humidity that kills you. It's been 100+ here a lot but it's better than being at home with low 90s but high humidity. Found the hotel bar, got a drink, discovered I don't like pina coladas, and did my homework. Yes, I brought homework. But a lot of us did, because we had like 5 hours there and you can only swim for so long. The bar was air conditioned too, which was the best part.

We got back around 7 and I spent from about 8 until 2am working on a paper for VCU; instead of a thesis like some schools have, the Honors College requires a reflective paper if we want to graduate with university honors (different from latin honors, which is automatic if you qualify). So that was done, finally. It was due by midnight EST, so I finished about 5 hours before it was due. Awesome.

Since sometime before that weekend, today was the first day I've had to get a decent amount of sleep, and it was glorious. It's nasty and hot out again as usual, which is a bit of a problem, but eh. I can't wait to go to VCU and have my own room and bathroom. I'm so over the sharing a bathroom thing. And with 3 roommates here it's been pretty impossible to sleep through the night. Wah. It's not as desperate as it sounds, but being able to sleep for 8 straight hours with no interruptions will be so amazing. Yay. 15 days til Richmond. 10 til Boston. Excited kitty is excited.

Other posts about other things to come in the future, but I'm going to lunch with a friend at her Jordanian friend's house soon and I have to get ready. Bye bye!

Pictures

You Know You've Been Abroad Too Long When...

2010-07-24T10:51:00.002-04:00

...you make faces like this. This is Morgan, me, and Nick making our "excited faces" when we went to see Eclipse on July 8th. Morgan took it, but I just had to share it. I think it's the most ridiculous picture that's been taken on this program. And one of the more awesome ones.

(Does anyone really want me to come home after seeing this?)

Petra photos

2010-07-23T04:52:00.003-04:00

I think I forgot to take a picture of Siggy at the Treasury. Whoops.

Highlights:

The Treasury

Pickles

Tree

The Monastery

Woo old things

Photos

2010-07-22T09:40:00.003-04:00

Dana photos

Day 2: Wadi Musa and Little Petra

Petra photos to come tomorrow, since Photobucket still doesn't like me and is begin difficult.

Epic Jordanian Weekend

2010-07-20T14:27:00.005-04:00

Thursday: Wadi Dana Nature Reserve

Last Thursday we had our midterm at Qasid (our school thing) and some classes, and then we all bolted back home to pack. We had an hour before we left for our epic weekend.

A 3(?)-hour drive took us south to the Wadi Dana Nature Reserve. At the top of a mountain we wound had the option of walking down to the camp or taking their "shuttle," which is pretty much a large pickup truck with benches around it. Most of us wound up walking down. Our guide had said it was "a few miles" but it definitely didn't seem like that on the way. I didn't think to time it, but it's not like we were walking super quickly or anything. We were taking a lot of photos and enjoying the crazy scenery.

We had time to kill before dinner, so after stashing our stuff in our tents I went with Jennifer, Morgan, Brittney, and Ashley and we hiked a little bit. Then sat and kinda sorta watched the sunset, by which I mean watched the colors in the sky change because the sun was behind a mountain that we thought we wouldn't have had time to climb but it turns out we probably would have. Oh well.

I couldn't tell you what dinner was, because I never usually know what food is here anyway. It was tasty though. After dinner we went and sat under some other tents in a little open area and then sat by a campfire and talked. And there were stars. So many stars. If there's one thing I miss about Morocco, that is definitely it. You couldn't see all of them from AUI, but you could definitely see a lot more than you can from home or Richmond. And then of course there were the zillions of stars I saw in Chaouen and the Sahara. But yeah. We could see lots of stars in Dana too. Not as many as I saw before, I don't think, which is weird. Or I could just fail at figuring out nature. Which is likely. Anyway. Yeah. Went to bed after that.

Friday: Showbak Castle, random fortress, Little Petra, Bedouin dinner?

Friday we got up bright and early for breakfast before heading to Wadi Musa, the city next to Petra. Petra being the old city/current park, Wadi Musa being the actual city. Out hotel was little across from the entrance to the park. On the way there we stopped for an hour at a 12-th century Crusader castle. It was empty and partially destroyed, but pretty cool.

We had a really tasty buffet lunch at our (5-star!) hotel, then I headed out with some friends to another 12-century fortress that was just chilling by the sid eof the road 10-15 minutes from the hotel. Just chilling. There wasn't a whole lot left of it, but it was pretty awesome. Especially scrambling up and down on it. We spent probably two hours out there. It was awesome being in the little mountain area and whatnot. But it was really hot and really windy, especially the higher we got up.

After the fortress and a glorious 40-minute quasi-nap, we headed to Little Petra, which was the commercial part of Petra. (The more famous part was the necropolis.) There's not a hole lot there anymore, obviously. Things carved into the cliff/mountain walls. Big things. I mean, they're pretty impressive and pretty cool, but I think I'm hitting the point where ruins aren't super awesome to me anymore. Olympos was amazing; Volubilis was okay but nothing too impressive; Jerash was kind of awesome; and since then I'm kind of getting tired of ruins. They're all pretty much the same thing. Granted all that I've seen with the exception of Petra has been Roman, which really is all the same thing, but... yeah. I still think they're awesome but I'm not in a hurry to see too many more. Maybe I should have gone to Rome during my semester in France, because now I don't know how cool it would be. =P

Dinner consisted of stopping the bus on the side of the road and walking into the desert/mountains a little ways. It was Bedouin style? But still consisted of the same things we have all the time at restaurants and such here. But sitting outside in the beautiful weather and enjoying the food and the people. Though we were all pretty exhausted already so we weren't entirely into it.

Saturday: PETRA

Up bright and early again. Breakfast buffet at the hotel. 8 hours spent in Petra. Lots of walking, lots of sun, lots of hot. The Treasury was awesome though. Tis the building in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Just being able to see part of it from the Siq (path/road/something between two cliff walls) and knowing the rest was around the corner was kind of crazy. Of course the sun was shining right on it so it didn't come out half as epic in the pictures, but it was awesome. I mean, none of my pictures of anything do things justice here. These are things that you just have to experience yourself to really get it.

From the Treasury (which is really a tomb but is so named because people believe/d that a pharaoh hid a treasure in the urn carved at the top of it) we went down the road (the only one in the city really) and then started an epic climb to the "High Place of Sacrifice." Lolz. Along the way we got separated from the large group that our tour guide was leading, but it wasn't really an issue. I wound up with Michael for most of the time. At the top of the High Place we were talking to two French ladies. And my French failed me, which is seriously disturbing. I mean, maybe not failed so much as when they asked us questions I fully understood them but the first words that popped into my head in terms of answers were definitely Arabic and I stumbled over them trying to force the French out. It was so frustrating. I mean, probably a sign that I'm getting a lot better at Arabic but really not my favorite feeling in the world. Meh.

We wound up taking the back way, ish, from the High Place. I mean, there was a trail but it was even more climbing down the back of the mountain and more dirt path behind everything. A few times I wondered whether we were even going the right way, but there was no other way to go. The map I had was a little deceiving in terms of the distance between things. But we found our way out in the end. Saw more old things. And a giant temple. And then had tasty lunch. Which made some people sick, but luckily not me.

After lunch Michael and I stuck together and headed up the 45-minute hike to the Monastery. It's the building in Transformers 2. Which I haven't seen but probably will even though it's supposed to be awful, if only to watch it and say "Hey I was there!" It was a pain in the butt hike, for real. But we made it. And saw the end of the world, which is just the view from the top of the mountains. But it was pretty epic. I have lots of photos of it, but they will have to wait til the next post because I'm having issues logging into Photobucket right now. But for now you get the text version, at least. I know I didn't write a lot but there's not a lot to write. It's a whole lot of seeing things and taking pictures and not being able to describe things accurately because there aren't words to do them justice.

Bah.

2010-07-19T14:50:00.002-04:00

Awesome, so the twitter-posting-thing I've been using seems to have stopped working and the website is down. You can still find my twitter and check it there, though admittedly I've not posted a lot in the past few days. Well I couldn't post anything over the weekend, but yeah.

I swear photos and recaps of the weekend will come soon. But between activities and being super tired the past two days I've not had time to do anything. But they will happen. Soon. Ish. Maybe. Insha'allah.

Daily trivia

2010-07-15T17:01:00.001-04:00

13:27 entering radio silence for the next two days. epic trip will be epic. wadi dana, beidha, and petra. getting back late saturday. peace out. #

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Daily trivia

2010-07-14T17:01:00.001-04:00

07:31 i wonder what it would be like to be in paris for bastille day. everything would be closed, of course, but what else? #
13:37 ohhhh, epic frustration is epic. EPIC. #
16:41 ok so the ants outside decided my feet were tasty. i do not approve. #

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Daily trivia

2010-07-13T17:02:00.001-04:00

07:29 it definitely hit over 100 yesterday. we had dancing lessons. with no ac. awesome. it needs to stop being. #
20:09 talking in english, listening to french music, and doing arabic homework all at once. it's a wonder i can communicate in any language #
20:25 my right knee is like one giant bruise. wadi mujib beat me up. #
21:27 combing hair with glasses on? fail. #

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Yepp, I'm a Nerd.

2010-07-13T14:59:00.001-04:00

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In Arabic. I can't read it, but it looks cool.

Daily trivia

2010-07-11T17:02:00.001-04:00

07:23 i keep forgetting im in asia. wow #
18:28 i will never take air conditioning for granted again. high of 101 tomorrow? لا شكرا #
20:30 i'm melting. mellllltinnnnng #
20:47 there is no water in jordan. how in the name of god is it humid? i do not approve #
20:59 i really miss speaking french. if i had lots of money and no obligations, i would go back to france in a heartbeat. #

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Daily trivia

2010-07-10T17:01:00.001-04:00

16:51 wadi mujib was epic. already really sore, bruised & cut though. rivers and i are not friends. and i just typed half sentence that in french #
20:06 various local mosques were not in sync doing the call to prayer just now. i think this is the 1st time it's happened. or first i've noticed. #

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Wadi Mujib, or "Wait, there's water in Jordan?"

2010-07-10T11:37:00.007-04:00

Dead Sea, with Israel in the background.

So Wadi Mujib was pretty epic. It was this pretty narrow canyon with a small river running through it. The rocks looked pretty amazing. The sandals I bought yesterday were a pain in the butt because gravel + rushing water + velcro = fail. I wasn't the only one with sandals though, and everyone seemed to be having the same issue. Whatever, it was better than destroying my sneakers.

We walked through the river for a while without issue, and then came to a mini waterfall. There was a rope to hold on to but it was pretty difficult. I obviously need to go to the gym more because I have zero upper body strength. Woot. I am super graceful and pretty much managed to fall/slip/do something stupid at every climbing point. I need to get over my fear of getting hurt. Although there was reason to be a little careful this time, because one of the archeologists living in our building definitely broke her leg at Wadi Mujib. But we all came out of it unharmed, except for random cuts and bruises that come with, you know, being in a rocky river.

The hike ended (for us, anyway) at a big waterfall. Very cool to see. And play around in. And float in. With the exception of the waterfall and some of the mini-waterfalls we had to climb, the water wasn't more than knee-high in the deepest parts, I don't think. After a little while we headed back, and going down the waterfalls we'd climbed was definitely harder than getting up.

Me, Morgan, and Kelly in front of the waterfall. Standing up in that water was not easy.

(Totally stole this pic from Nick's facebook.)

Stole this one from Michelle's Facebook. Yay for waterproof camera bags. Thanks Michelle!

Also stolen from Michelle. More for the view of the walls than the flattering picture of me.

I've pretty much done nothing since we got back at 2. Cleaned up my room a little, applied antibacterial ointment to the scrap on my hand countless times, pretended to start working on the essay I have to write to graduate with honors (graduate? me? insha'allah!)... yeah. Nothing too fancy. And I'm about to go watch Bones with a friend. My life is pretty awesome. Or will be, til I wake up in the morning sore from today's adventures and faced with 4 hours of class. Dun dun dun.

Irbid & Um Qais

2010-07-10T11:05:00.001-04:00

Okay, so last Saturday we went to Irbid and Um Qais. In Irbid all we saw was a museum. Well, it was first an Ottoman castle, then was converted to a prison in the 19th or 20th century, then it became a museum in like, the 1980s? It was a pretty small museum, but pretty cool to think, "Hey, this used to be a castle!" Which was a little weird because now it's in the middle of a crowded city with narrow streets and way too many cars and buildings. There were artifacts from all different points in history, but only a few from each point. Bronze or Stone Age tools, Roman things, Ottoman things, other peoples' things. And a view underneath the courtyard of old walls. I assume they pre-date the palace, but I'm not sure. Twas cool anyway. It's funny how I hate history but love seeing old things.

From there we went to Um Qais, which is an old city once named Gadara. And is in the Bible. And is supposedly the place where Jesus drove demons out of a guy and into a herd of pigs who then ran down the hill and drowned in the Sea of Galilee, although according to Wikipedia this location is disputed. (The Sea was pretty far, unless it was super huge back then.) We could also see the Golan Heights and I think Palestine from there? I can't remember. The city also used to be an Ottoman village. The dilemma with excavations there is that the Ottoman stuff is considered ancient and they can't/won't destroy it to access the older stuff, of which there's a whole lot just chilling underground. Oh well.

Sea of Galilee. It's a blue strip that starts about in the middle on the left side.

It was a hazy day so the pictures didn't come out well.

Golan Heights

We wandered a little bit and had lunch at the restaurant that was there. It was tasty. I am so in love with hummus it's ridiculous. I hope VCU's dining hall still has it when I go back. They definitely did before and always looked at it and thought it had to be disgusting. Oh how wrong I was. I mean, I'm sure VCU hummus can't be half as good as actual Middle Eastern hummus, but I'll take what I can get. After lunch we had 45 more minutes to wander. Jennifer and I wandered out to where a temple used to stand, and to where an amphitheatre used to be. Except most of the structure is gone and it's just a huge dirt hill. And we thought it would be awesome to climb up it instead of going all the way back around. That was a fantastic decision, let me tell you. Running up a steep hill made of bone-dry dirt with pretty much nothing to hold on to? It was definitely a workout. And Um Qais was really really hot, too. And a little humid, which was a strange feeling because there is definitely no humidity in Amman. At all.

My shoes got really dusty running up the hill. They were black once.

At some point we were supposed to go to Yarmouk to a battle site from the Crusades (?), but for some reason it got scrapped. Oh well. Not a huge problem. (Because really, what's going to be there? Probably nothing to actually see.) Came home. Did nothing of value. Glorious day.

Photos!

Daily trivia

2010-07-09T17:01:00.001-04:00

09:07 so it finally happened. the building ran out of water. this is going to make life awkward for the rest of the day. #
19:57 when i go home i think i will actually miss the calls to prayer. i hardly notice them now but will likely realize they're missing later #
19:58 also a car backfired near us earlier and i jumped a mile thinking it was a gunshot. #
21:39 it's going to be really, really weird trying to speak english without random arabic words when i go home. and probably really awkward :( #

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Tilapia, Vampires, and Werewolves, Oh My!

2010-07-09T08:11:00.003-04:00

Lame title is lame. Anyway.

Life continues as usual in Amman. Classes, tutoring appointments, the same routine all day. Followed by trying to cram homework and naps into our free time. For my class it's not so bad, but some of the upper levels are just doing homework constantly. I was awesome and didn't get to the gym at all last week, go me. But I will be making up for it tomorrow, for sure. We're going to Wadi Mujib tomorrow (here's another website) and it looks like it's going to be an epic workout. Unfortunately there won't be any epic photos. Swimming and rivers and waterfalls are involved, meaning we can't bring anything that can't get wet. Sadness.

Aaaaanyway, yesterday I went to see Eclipse (the third installment of Twilight) with some of my friends. I wasn't a fan of the first one and loathed the second, but wanted to see this to see how bad it was, basically, since I've read all the books anyway. After our test yesterday afternoon, Nick, Morgan, and I went to one of the malls here, got our tickets, and went to Chili's in said mall. Yes, Chili's. Right next to TGI Friday's. Wow. As far as the movie tickets went, you had to pick your seats before the tickets were even printed. That was a new experience.

Chili's was extremely tasty. I had tilapia with rice and veggies and it was really good, though very spicy. So to balance it, I had a cookie brownie sundae thing for dessert. It was amazing. Gloriously unhealthy, but amazing all the same. We also had the most ridiculous conversations during dinner. And the waiter probably thought we were crazy, but that's totally okay. After dinner we met up with Kelly and Michelle, but they hadn't been with us when we bought tickets so we weren't all sitting in the same place. :(

Once we got inside the theater, we had to wait til 730 (scheduled movie time) before they even let us in the room. And once inside, we had ushers guide us to our seats. Whaaaat. They were cushy seats and there was actually room to walk through the aisle without jumping over people. They didn't recline, though, which was a little disappointing. Going to the movies in the States will never be the same.

The movie itself was kind of meh. I have no reason to like it but for some reason I still do. Really hoping it's just the fact that I was having a great night and even Robert Pattinson couldn't ruin that for me. Yeah, let's go with that explanation. People in the theater talked through the whole thing, though, and answered phones and whatnot. I don't quite understand, but oh well. I got kind of excited during the (two) previews, because they were in English but subtitled in Arabic and French. But then when the movie started the only subtitles were Arabic. Sad face. They went by a little too fast for me to get a lot out of them, but I got some words, so I'm happy.

After the movie I just came back here, watched an episode of Bones, and went to bed. Because I'm that awesome. But it was a pretty good day. Very fun. Even if I did go see Twilight. Today I've pretty much done nothing. Homework, went out with Morgan shopping for shoes to wear tomorrow rather than destroy my sneakers, went to some other stores, came back. And I couldn't tell you what I've done for the past few hours. Whoops.

I know I still have to write about Irbid and Um Qais last Saturday. That's on the way, eventually. And there will be a post about tomorrow, eventually. Probably not too long, but there will be one. Til then, good night!

Daily trivia

2010-07-08T17:01:00.001-04:00

15:10 test today. then going to chili's and to see the new twilight movie with friends. win. #
22:26 that was a fun night. i think i kinda liked eclipse, but hoping it's just misappropriation since i liked the people i was with /psych minor #

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Daily trivia

2010-07-06T17:01:00.001-04:00

07:25 getting adequate sleep is such a foreign concept to me here. it's sad #

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Daily trivia

2010-07-04T17:00:00.001-04:00

14:56 had american style breakfast today. nom nom nom. pancakes. no bacon though. :( #
16:34 i almost bought twilight in arabic today but decided against it. then i almost bought harry potter, but decided to wait. /nerd #
21:08 mmmm. cheeseburgers and hot dogs and soda and american food for dinner. nom nom nom. #

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Ancient Ruins: Jordanian Style!

2010-07-04T10:15:00.000-04:00

Friday morning I left Amman bright and early at 7am with Nick and Jennifer. We found a taxi who, after some arguing from Nick, was willing to take us to Jerash for 15 JD ($20 ish for a 45-minute ride). We bypassed the ticket office somehow and went right in through Hadrian's Gate and the hippodrome. Once we got to the main part of the city there was a gate where they wanted to check our tickets. Whoops. Clearly we're not the only ones to have that problem, since there are two entrance to the complex(?) itself and the ticket office is a 5-10 minute walk from the actual entrance to the city. So we doubled back, bought tickets, walked back again, and finally got in. There was a sign by the ticket office that reminded everyone,

"Be sure that you got your tickets."

We wandered into the amphitheatre, where the acoustics were amazing. Which they're supposed to be, but it was still cool to experience. I just realized Jerash was my third set of Roman ruins but the first two amphitheatres I'd been in. Cool. Anyway. At one point I was at the top of the theatre and Nick was on stage. He started reciting Shakespeare and I could make out every word perfectly. It's so crazy that they figured how to do that so long ago. Here's the video. It's a little hard to hear on my camera, but you can kinda make it out.

And here's me in the amphtheatre.

We wandered more after that and saw more old things. As we were walking Jennifer realized she was hearing Amazing Grace on bagpipes from somewhere. Way off in the distance we saw people in the hippodrome and we're pretty sure that's where it was coming from. I tried recording it and if you listen closely about halfway through the video, you can kind of hear it. It's not Amazing Grace at this point, but some song I've heard a lot. On bagpipes. Maybe at parades? Not sure.

From there we went to the Sanctuary of Artemis. Nick jumped down a hole that maybe used to be a well? And came out the side via a tunnel. Apparently if you climb back up the hole you get a free ring or something. (The Bedouin guy who jumps in the hole first was selling souvenirs and water and stuff. "Authentic" jewelry, I'm sure. Also in the video you can hear Jennifer talking to the two tourist police guys who were sitting there drinking water or tea or something.)

One of the columns of the temple moves with the wind. It's freaky. Watch the spoon.

After that we made our way to the second amphitheatre. Except we took the hard way. As in, we climbed down hills of loose dirt and walked across old stone and I think we were actually walking across the top of the walls of the stage. At one point the stones were barely wide enough for a foot and there was nothing to grab onto and I completely froze. It was scary. I didn't even think I was going to be able to backtrack, but I did. I definitely thought at one point that I would wind up just standing there forever. It didn't help that all the stuff in my backpack was moving around and throwing me off balance. Woo, I'm crazy. But we found a better way around and chilled in the shade of the theatre for a time. As we were going out the door carved in the hill (told you we took the hard way), we passed a group of Americans. I said hi. One guy asked if I was from Boston and I just stared at him. I knew I didn't say anything with an accent so I had no idea how he knew. And then it dawned on my I was wearing my Sox hat. I am so awesome.

We made our way out from there, down the colonnade and past a whole bunch of tourists who were just entering the city. It was pretty awesome; we'd gotten there around 8 am and were done by 10:15 ish. We started to walk to the bus station to take a microbus to Ajloun when this random guy stopped his pickup and was like "Ajloun?" And he said he'd take us there for 4 JD. So we agreed. And it wound up being him and two other Jordanian guys in the front seat and one plus Nick, me, and Jennifer in the back. It reminded me so much of grand taxis in Morocco. It was riduclous and awesome though. We just kept sitting there like "Is this really happening? Are we really doing this right now?" And yes, yes we were. The other three guys eventually got out and Nick moved up to the front seat. Ajloun wound up being farther than we expected.

The ticket office of the castle is at the base of the really steep hill, so we bought our tickets and got back in Mohammad's truck and he drove us up. And he waited for us so he could take us back to Amman for 15 JD (cheaper than a taxi and less hassle than finding a bus!). It took us under a half hour to make our way through the entire castle. Though Mohammad came in looking for us.

Looking like a goof in the castle.

We left the castle just after noon, and we were hungry. We asked Mohammad where the best food in Ajloun was that we could get to go. And in typical Middle Eastern fashion, we wound up at his cousin's restaurant. And got shawarma. And it wasn't to go. But whatever, it was tasty. Then we stopped at a pastry shop across the street and got knafeh (sp?). I have no idea what it was but it was so good. The finally we were on our way back to Amman. On the way he took it upon himself to be our tour guide, pointing out different kinds of trees on the side of the road, pointing out a huge Palestinian refugee camp, making us take pictures of a lake/river/something. It was a special experience. We got back to ACOR sometime between 2 and 230. It was a great day because we got so much done and in such a short time.

After taking a nap I went downstairs to hang out. Jennifer and I kept saying we wanted to go out to a cafe somewhere but never wound up actually going, and then it was too late to go. So we just stayed there and talked to people. It was a pretty great day and I was pleased. Except that I was really tired but was still dumb and didn't go to bed until around midnight that night even though I had to get up at 6 the next morning. Whoops.

Here's Mohammad's truck. Parked on the side of the road when he wanted us to get out and take pictures of the landscape.

Jerash & Ajloun!

Daily trivia

2010-07-03T17:00:00.000-04:00

16:51 so we didn't go to yarmouk today. but that's okay. i think somehow yesterday's adventure was much more fun than today's. #
22:07 just had a great time at a syrian restaurant. 6 people ate tons of food for 10 JD? win. #

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Daily trivia

2010-07-02T17:01:00.001-04:00

07:01 went to bed before anyone at home thought about it, and got up before most actually went to bed. time zones are weird. #
18:29 went to bed late-ish, got up super early, explored super quickly, took a 2.5 hour nap, and now my sense of time is completely screwed up #
21:28 whyyyyy won't my photos upload to the interwebs? #
21:58 facebook just ate my video. aaaack. what is the problem here? #

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Whoops

2010-07-02T16:13:00.001-04:00

I'd planned on writing about Jerash and Ajloun almost immediately after we got back, but I took a nap and then fought with Facebook to upload my photos. And now it's 11:13 at night and we're leaving at 7:45 tomorrow morning to go to Um Qais, Yarmouk, and Irbid, so I really don't have time to go into detail about it. I will post soon. ("Soon" is relative, but it will come.)

Daily trivia

2010-07-01T17:01:00.001-04:00

06:53 well that's unfortunate. my toothbrush cover thing just launched itself into the toilet. #
07:13 no classes on july 4!! epic win. i am sleeping ALL DAY. #
14:56 it's so weird to look out and see nothing but buildings on the horizon. all kinds of hills and just white limestone buildings... #
22:43 jerash in the morning. woooo. #

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Daily trivia

2010-06-30T17:01:00.001-04:00

15:50 going to jerash on friday. woot! #
22:37 it's such a beautiful night. i miss seeing the stars though. morocco was good for something. #

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Daily trivia

2010-06-29T17:01:00.001-04:00

09:05 these classes make me so happy i dont have anything at 8 am this fall. #
14:28 mmm, tutoring appointment. ask me how -not- excited i am. why did i sign up for this? #
16:19 49 days til i'm home. who's excited? #
19:44 spiders in my buildingggg. no me gusta. #
21:19 my american phone is falling apart. woooooot. #

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Daily trivia

2010-06-28T17:00:00.001-04:00

16:19 had mandatory blood tests today in order to extend our visas. that was a fun experience. #
16:20 in other news, i hate wearing skirts. #
18:47 "okay who leaves the empty toilet paper rolls in the bathroom?" "this is how wars are started!" #

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Daily trivia

2010-06-27T17:00:00.001-04:00

07:19 creepy spider on the stairs. eek. #
16:00 i really wish i hadnt left my arabic book at home. i had most of the exercises already done. :( #
20:09 multi-tasking like a pro. meaning i'm updating my blog while i upload photos. lolz. #

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Jordanian things

2010-06-27T12:50:00.003-04:00

It rained yesterday. And by rained I mean it barely sprinkled. But water fell from the sky and I felt it. Ergo it rained in Jordan and I am inexplicably excited by this.

We had a scavenger hunt around Amman yesterday. They split us into 4 groups and we had to go to different places according to clues they gave us. It was fun, but we spent a lot of money on taxis which was kind of lame. I'm sure they factored it in when they gave us our stipends, but oh well. We went to a cafe in downtown, the national art museum, the citadel (ROMAN RUINS FTW), and finally to a cool-looking mosque. It rained while we were at the mosque. After that we all regrouped at a restaurant off Rainbow Street called The Bakehouse. It was an American-style pancake house. It was awesome. Except they lacked bacon and it made me sad. But I ate an omelette for the first time in years. It was stuffed with veggies so I probably couldn't taste the egg so much. I hate eggs, but all three of the meals we could choose from (they'd already arranged it since 40+ people would be there) came with either an omelette or stuffed scrambled eggs, so I chanced it. I won't jump at the chance to get an omelette again, but it wasn't awful. The citadel was pretty epic. We didn't spend a lot of time there because we wanted to win the scavenger hunt (come to find out there were no winners) but now I know how to get there and it only costs 2 JD to get in, so it can easily be done later. I definitely need to go back though because there's all kinds of fun stuff. I am a nerd. Although I really think that nothing can beat Olympos at this point. Except maybe if I go see a show of some kind in the amphitheatre. That would be epic.

So as far as Amman itself goes, I really like it. It's definitely not walking-friendly and you pretty much need to take taxis to get anywhere (or probably buses if we could figure out the system, but they start to fail after sundown anyway so it's sometimes not worth it). But it's a huge city with a lot of history and a lot of people. And crazy drivers. Somehow I can see myself living here in the future. Not that I particularly want to, but I could do it. (As opposed to Ifrane or Chambéry, for example.) It would be a lot easier in the future too because I could dress better too. The problem right now is that Qasid, where we have class, is a very conservative environment, so we have to be pretty covered (eg sleeves past the elbows and skirts/pants past the knees). Elsewhere in the city it's acceptable to wear less. I've seen some Jordanian women wearing less than some of us. And of course I feel like a tool wearing long skirts that I hate wearing anyway and in huge airy tunic tops. Oh well, whatever. Needless to say most of the girls are a little annoyed that we can wear pretty much what they told us is not acceptable and that some of us all left at home. Meh.

I'm also annoyed with myself for having left my metal water bottle at home. I didn't bring it because you can't drink the tap water here. Except you can buy two liter bottles of water really cheaply AND there's boiled/filtered water here in our building. So a ton of people brought their water bottles with them and are refilling from there. I bought one right before I came but left it at home and thinking I couldn't use it. :( Except I went to a supermarket here last week and got a water bottle that was attached to a 6-pack of flavored milk in a box. Don't ask. So I have a water bottle now. Doesn't hurt to have two, I guess. But hey, only 7 weeks til I go home so I can be reunited with my other one soon enough. =P

(So I was in the middle of typing this and then got distracted. I forgot where else I was going, so now you just get this and I will maybe continue later.)

Photos! Finally!

Daily trivia

2010-06-26T17:00:00.001-04:00

16:56 i ate an omelette today for the first time since i was a little kid. not so bad. still not a fan of eggs though. #
17:25 not a fan of the way my new computer organizes my photos. :( old computer was much better at it. #
18:05 awww, i think my face got sunburned today. sad face. #
21:46 definitely got sunburned. not a happy kitty. my nose is definitely bright red. #

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Daily trivia

2010-06-25T17:00:00.001-04:00

22:22 mmm, mcdonald's. that was fun. #
22:26 oh hay. the reason i couldn't get in touch with vcu yesterday? i was calling their fax number. hurr durr. #

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Week 1 Recap. Ish.

2010-06-25T15:54:00.003-04:00

So we've been here a little over a week now and it feels like we've been here forever. Quick recap:

Friday we went to lunch at a Yemeni restaurant and spoke Arabic. Fun stuff. I had no idea what I actually ordered, but it was tasty. And authentic, because there were definitely no utensils. You had to use bread and/or your hands. Nom nom nom. (It's hard when you're eating rice.) More orientating. Friday night we went to Souk Jara, a flea market-type-thing run by the residents' association. Not a lot of traditional stuff, but fun to look at. And they have tasty food. Watermelon juice, cookies, pancakes covered in chocolate and strawberries... mmm. After that I went with Morgan and Emily to a restaurant on Rainbow Street where we got hummus (yum!) and some other stuff I don't know the names of. And while we were there a wedding party came in. It was pretty cool. They were playing instruments and singing loudly and the women were making this yodelly noise that women do here. Fun to watch.

Saturday was orientation at Qasid, the place where we're taking our classes. After Qasid I went and joined a gym. Woo. Super expensive and pretty small, but all of this is by American standards of course, and I think it's actually one of the cheaper ones around? Sounds like it anyway. But they gave us money for the summer so I don't feel too bad about it. If nothing else the price is assurance that I will go, if only to justify it. Went to a cheap, tasty restaurant across the street from Qasid. Large falafel sandwich and 1.5 liter bottle of water for 1 JD? Yes please!

Classes started on Sunday. Our Sunday-Thursday schedule looks like this:
8am - 12:30 pm = class. 5-7pm = Various required activities. 7-8(ish)pm = dinner. From 8am-3pm we can only speak Arabic, as well as during activities and dinner. And when we go on weekend trips those are all-Arabic too. From 3:20-3:40 I have an appointment with my speaking partner as well. Sunday and Monday we work on amiyya (Jordanian dialect) and Tuesday and Wednesday we work on MSA. This time is horribly in convenient in terms of my getting to the gym, but we didn't get to pick so yeah. Thursday from 4-5 we have weekly quizzes. Yesterday's didn't go as well as I'd expected. Not horribly, but I wasn't expecting it to be in the format it was in and we had an essay question that came out of left field that we all struggled with. Stuff happens.

Last night I went with a few people to get ice cream downtown. It was a little expensive, but tasty. Nutella ice cream ftw. Then we joined just about everyone at a movie that was part of the week-long Franco-Arab Film Festival. It was pretty good. After that a group of us wound up walking like 45 minutes from downtown to Rainbow Street. Up and down hills, up epic staircases of death, through a random restaurant... it was so special. And kind of awesome. Amman is really pretty at night. And in the distance we could see some of the Roman ruins. I have to get there eventually. Our group ran into some other CLS people who'd wisely taken taxis to Rainbow Street and we all splintered. My group wound up on the roof of a restaurant where we got pizza and shisha/hookah/argileh/whatever you want to call it. It was cold, but fun. On the taxi ride back, a car jumped the median and we saw it driving in the left lane, going the wrong way on our side of the street, only on its two left wheels. It was ridiculous. Luckily there were no cars driving in that lane or there would have been a horrific accident. As we drove by there was a cloud of dust/smoke and small debris. But the driver got control of the car not long after and I'm pretty sure he got out of the car and walked around. (Our taxi driver had pulled over and was watching to see what happened. As crazy as they drive around here, if there's an accident pretty much everyone just stops their cars in the middle of the street and runs over to help.)

Today Morgan and Rebecca got their hair done at a salon and Morgen and I went along for the ride. Afterward I went with Morgan and Morgen to a souk, then to lunch, then downtown where we were looking for another souk in Morgen's guidebook (which she'd forgotten to bring. Which is usually what happens with guidebooks). Wandered around a lot in the same area we walked through last night. It was pretty uncomfortable because we were surrounded by men. The streets were super super crowded. And it was different from being in crowded areas like Moroccan medinas because at least there there are lots of tourists and there are other women. Here we were obviously out of our element. Sexual harassment is so much fun. So much. Anyway, Morgen eventually called Emily (our sort-of RA who is our go-to for questions about where to go and what to see) to find out where this thing was, and it turns out it's on Rainbow Street right next to Souk Jara. Whoops. We wandered in there for a little bit and came home. I took a nap unintentionally; I'd gone into my room to get my phone and somehow wound up sleeping for three hours even though my bed was covered in stuff. I am awesome. Woke up, went downstairs, went to McDonald's with people. It wasn't bad. It wasn't stellar, but not bad. The fries were good. And now I don't have to worry about getting there again to fulfill my... tradition? I don't know. But I've been to a McDonald's in every country I've been to since Spring 09. It wasn't intentional when it started, but now I'm continuing it, I guess. I'm weird, I know.

I'd planned on writing a lot more about what Amman is actually like and whatever, but it's midnight now and I have to go to bed. We're all operating on a chronic lack of sleep right now, I think. Between jet lag and crazy schedules and now 8am classes with lots of homework, it's really hard to catch up. You have to go to bed between 9 and 10 at night to get a full night's sleep, and there's just no time for that. And during the week there's not time to do much of anything. But we have a scavenger hunt in the morning, so it's bedtime for kitty so she isn't super grumpy. If I have time tomorrow I'll try to write more. And post photos. I've not taken many yet but I'll try to get them up soon.

Daily trivia

2010-06-23T17:01:00.001-04:00

07:29 blogging fail. oh well. one of these days maybe. #
10:11 sleeeeepy. but it actually feels chilly today. and not unbearably hot. now if only i weren't in class. #
20:00 mmmm food. food is tasty. i am eloquent. #
22:57 quiz tomorrow! oh dear. i should probably study. but who does that? #

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Daily trivia

2010-06-22T17:03:00.001-04:00

14:11 tasty tasty tasty falafel sammich. sammich + mountain dew = less than a dollar? WIN. #
14:39 it is REALLY. WINDY. right now. helps with the heat, not so much with the dust everywhere. #
15:46 going to try to get a legit blog post up tonight. not making any promises though. #
18:40 tore the sleeve on my favorite (new!) shirt today. the first time i wore it. i am so awesome. :( #
20:17 DUDE. there is an ancient ruin OUTSIDE MY WINDOW. NEXT TO MY BUILDING. from the hellenistic period. omg this is unreal. #

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Daily trivia

2010-06-21T17:02:00.001-04:00

07:01 oh boo. i forgot true blood was on last night. not that i would be able ro watch it. i know what im doing when i get home then. #
10:17 speaking arabic all day is not as hard as i thought but limited vocabulary makes it a little iffy #
22:52 went to the gym today. it was pretty awesome, even if it is a pain to get to. #

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Daily trivia

2010-06-20T17:01:00.001-04:00

07:30 classes start in half an hour. we have ten minutes left to speak english. eeeek! #
14:55 made it through the first day of classes. didn't go to the gym like i'd planned. whoops. #
15:45 oh wow. just had my first session with my jordanian speaking partner and bombed fantastically. not that i've been exposed to 'amiyya before. #
21:50 arabic overload. whaaaaaaaaaa. #

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Daily trivia

2010-06-19T17:01:00.001-04:00

16:25 mmm, falafel and hummus. i love this place. #

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Ahlan wa Sahlan!

2010-06-18T09:26:00.005-04:00

I'm in Jordan!

I left home on Sunday morning. It took us forever to find the right check-in counter for my flight; my itinerary said United, but it was actually a codeshare flight they run with US Airways, so we had to go to an entirely different terminal. Then to the second or third US Airways counter because apparently they have them in different places for different destinations? Awesome. And then something happened that's never happened to me before. My bag still had room in it for a bunch of stuff! But it was still overweight. Wut? Luckily I'd brought a duffel bag in case my bag was overweight (it felt like it when I dragged it down the stairs in the morning, but I was hoping I was just weak). My plan was to have Mom and Dad just bring random things home with them in that bag, but my suitcase was overeight by six pounds and I really couldn't take that much out. It's likely because of the extra sunscreen and aloe and everything else I brought. So since I only had one carry-on at that point I tossed random clothes and shoes and things into the duffel bag and took that as a carry-on as well. Huzzah.

It was in the 60s (maybe) and raining/yucky outside when I left Boston. When I got to DC it was 90 and humid beyond belief. I'd forgotten what humidity was like. Went to the hotel where orientation was. My taxi driver was Lebanese. We talked in Arabic. Very little. Hung out in my room for a while. Went down and talked to people in our meeting room thing before orientation actually started. Orientated. Then just about everyone in the group wound up going to an Ethiopian restaurant. It was pretty good. No idea what we ate. (Yeah we ordered it, but that doesn't mean we knew what it meant!) Came back, watched the premiere of True Blood on HBO, and passed out at like 1030. It was good.

The next day was entirely orientation. As a group we went out to Maggiano's for dinner. That was amazing. The food was SO. GOOD. And then it decided to pour when we left. Fun times.

Tuesday we had all to ourselves until 5:15 pm. I went with Brittney, Jennifer, and Kelly on a hop-on hop-off bus tour of DC. Or parts of it. We saw the White House, the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial, and drove into Arlington. Got lunch at a cool place with delicious salads and bread. Nom nom nom. Kelly had watermelon habanero lemondae, which was really interesting. Tasty, but bizarre. We made it back to the hotel just in time, basically, because the bus that was supposed to run like every ten or twenty minutes didn't come around for at least half an hour when we were waiting. But we made it, which it what counts.

We took buses to Dulles from DC. It's not as close as I thought it was. When we were on the highway I kept seeing signs for Richmond and it made me homesick for VCU. Aww. I suppose this is to be expected when I've not been there in a year and a half? (Two days last summer to pick up my junk from storage and to get paperwork signed does not count.) Sat in the airport for hours. I slept most of the flight to London, but when I woke up I didn't feel like I'd slept at all. And of course we were all tired having gotten up early for orientation and whatnot, and then wandering around DC for the day. Spent 3-4 hours in Heathrow waiting. Got the flight to Amman. Can I just say I hate United? And all American flag-carriers? They're awful compared to all the European airlines I've flown. And EgyptAir. And even Royal Air Maroc. Their counter service leaves a lot to be desired, but the flight we took to Cairo was actually pretty good. But anyway.

Our flight from London was delayed over an hour, I think, so we finally got to Amman at like 10-something at night? Then there was a long drive to ACOR. Then a meeting. Then we came up to our rooms and I wound up unpacking most of my stuff. Before I gave up and just tossed all the little things that didn't have a home into a pile on my floor. Classy. I'm in an apartment with three other people (Morgan, Morgen, and Rebecca). We have a kitchen but no cooking utensils and really it's almost not worth it to cook here. Two meals a day are provided for us and we got a stipend of 708 JD ($1000) when we got here to cover like travel expenses and the odd meal of the day and whatnot. A lot of people are trying not to eat out often and to save the money but I'm not going to. Not that I plan on going out and blowing all my money, and yes it is a lot of money, but I'm not going to live like a pauper either. Aaaand whatever we bring home is probably going to be lost in translation/conversion at the airport. Oh well. We'll see what happens at the end of the summer.

So far we've spent all our time being orientated again. And having super intensive dialect classes. It's crazy. And exhausting. And fun. Last night I went out with Morgan and Michael to a a street called Shari'a Rainbow. It's a cool place and stuff happens there. We got shwarma at a place called Shwarmama and it was highly amusing. Then we went next door to it to a small ice cream place called Lucky Licious. Apparently it's Brangelina's favorite ice cream place in either Amman or all of Jordan, I can't remember. I doubt it, but this is what we heard. Whatever.

And that is what we've done so far. Wahoo.

Recap: Morocco

2010-06-18T09:25:00.006-04:00

So as the past few posts have demonstrated, I was really not a fan of being in Morocco by the end of the semester. The problem wasn't with Morocco itself so much as the stupid school. If it were in a city somewhere it would have been much more bearable, because there would have been things to do. Ifrane was really quiet, really small, and really far away from everything, to the point that you had to take a 1-hour taxi ride just to get to a train station. And AUI was also so small and closed in and nothing happened. Having been at VCU and Savoie, where everything is wide open, I found AUI really suffocating at the end.

The food in Morocco was pretty good, the sights I saw were great. I could/should have done more travelling but that's a moot point right now I guess. I would like to go back some day, if only to take a week or two and see everything I didn't see. It's harder when you only have a weekend and everything is so far apart and you have to get back to your home in the middle of nowhere. At best you have maybe a day to see things, and you have to spend most of the weekend travelling and you wind up spending a lot of money on food and hotels and whatever. If I could just go back and plan on seeing it all and spending that money I've be perfectly happy. And I could speak French, fusha, and darija and get lower prices. =P And know where to look for the cheaper stores, restaurants, etc.

I know I complained a lot about it but I think it was more out of pent up frustration than anything. Even getting out of Ifrane for a few hours to go to Fes or something was a good time, which leads me to think that really it was just Ifrane and being stuck at AUI. I don't think I'd want to live in Morocco for an extended period of time. I could do it, but nowhere did I ever look around and think "Yeah, I could live here." I've felt that way about France and right now I kinda think that about Amman. Morocco just never hit me that way and I couldn't tell you why.

It's strange. When I left France I wished I'd decided to spend a year there instead (not at Chambéry, of course, but had I spent a year there I'd likely have spent it at a different school); when I left Morocco I wished I'd only done a semester. But then again, some of the people who left AUI at Christmas said they wished they were staying. First semester was a lot of fun so who could've known I'd get so tired of it? Ah well.

I know I could have travelled more. A lot more. But I also don't like doing tourist things, so that cuts out a lot of what there was to do. I'd rather find things off the beaten path, so to speak. Like hiking in Chefchaouen. That was infinitely more fun than just going to Chaouen and hanging out for a day/weekend. I actually didn't even like the town for the few hours we were there. So yeah, if I had the time to spend there on my own I'd probably like it more.

Okay at this point I'm just rambling it seems. Cutting this off here before I start repeating myself even more. Yalla bye bye!

Ancient Ruins! Moroccan Edition

2010-06-18T09:25:00.003-04:00

So this post is a long time coming, especially considering how short it's going to be. But sometime in April (?) Patti and I went to Volubilis, an ancient Roman city outside of Meknes. It was a pretty cool place. Getting there was kind of anti-climactic though. I'd been wanting to go since the beginning of the semester, so there was a huge buildup of excitement and anticipation. Once I finally got there it wasn't as awesome as I'd expected. :( It was still cool, but I think I build it up in my head. Having gone to the ruins in Turkey didn't help very much, because they were so much more epic.

That said, Volubilis is pretty much just the foundations of a bunch of houses, plus two big gates and some random walls. Not very well preserved. Some of the buildings had mosaics as floors and those were roped off but were still easily accessible so they're a little worn down. I'm glad I went, but it's not something I'd jump at the chance to go back to. Ah, well.

Photos

I. Hate. Morocco.

2010-05-16T17:23:00.004-04:00

So my plan was to be in Madrid right now, working on posts about the second half of the semester during my 11-hour layover. Where am I actually? In the airport in Casablanca. Still. Why? Because people who work for Royal Air Maroc are idiots. There are better words to use for them, but this is a family-friendly environment.

I got here at like 1 this afternoon after sharing a van with another girl. Her flight isn't til tomorrow but we had to be out of the dorms today so she was going to spend the night here anyway. So we pretty much sat around waiting for check-in for my 6:15 flight to open. By 6 it hadn't actually opened. There was nothing on the departure boards or anything at all. I asked at the information desk if it was late and the woman told me yes, it was leaving at 7:15 now. So I wait. And I call Natalie by accident because somehow her number was saved in my phone as "Mom." Okay. And then I got really confused, and then I really called Mom. And while I'm talking to her, the check-in desk gets posted so I hang up on her and grab my stuff and run. And wait. And once it's my turn to check in, the woman tells me that my ticket is not in the system because I booked with Iberia. It was a codeshare flight run by Royal Air Maroc. Okay, whatever. So I have to go talk to the manager guy, who fixes it in no time. I go back to check in and not only the lady whom I talked to first but also three other agents all get up and leave their desks. Apparently their shifts were over?

At this point it's like 6:25. I stand there looking exasperated in a line with no agent, and another passenger comes over and starts asking me where I'm going and when and whatever. And he takes my passport and receipt and hands it to the nearest attendant (they were playing musical desks, too; the two who were left kept running around from one desk to another) and tells him I need to be checked in because my flight is leaving soon. The guy comes over, freaks out over my bags (two of them, which I am actually allowed but he was apparently unaware) because they're too heavy (which they're not), runs around and says he needs a supervisor or something. Then when he finally figures out what's going on, he tells me he can't check me in because the system already closed it and the plane is boarding and it's too late. And I should wait 5 minutes til the supervisor comes back. The supervisor comes back twenty minutes later, during which time I've been standing at the check-in desk crying and therefore being stared at by RAM employees and passengers alike. And in the meantime there's a woman loudly berating another attendant in darija and a little French because something similar happened to her and she missed her flight as well. That was fun.

Attendant man takes me into the supervisor's office, supervisor looks at the flight on his computer and tells me there's nothing they can do because the plane has already left. It's 6:50 at this point. I told him two different people told me it was leaving at 7:15 so why has it already left, and he shrugs at me. Attendant man tells me the next RAM flight to Madrid leaves at 9 am. Which is great, considering my Madrid-London flight was scheduled to leave at 7. Then he says I can fly to Heathrow with them instead, except I'd be landing at the exact time my flight to Boston should leave. And then he says it's okay, I should just call British Airways and tell them to hold the plane for me til I get there. Uh... yeah. I'm sure they'll be happy to. I'll get right on that.

So I go to the RAM ticket agency, while on the phone crying to Mom. She calls Iberia while I'm in there. The guy is a complete tool and is incredibly patronizing. He tells me- tells me- "Oh you missed it because you were late." This after I've explained to him that I was watching the boards for two hours and ran to the counter as soon as it was posted. And the entire story. And he still tells me it must be my fault. I can buy a flight to Boston through JFK on RAM if I want, but I have to pay for it. Or I can go to the Iberia desk and work it out, but they're closed til tomorrow. Or, okay, he can try to call Iberia for me and arrange something, but first I have to call and make sure I can change my British Airways tickets. And I just stared at him and asked if he were serious. And repeated that this is not my fault. And he still doesn't care. It's not their fault either and they're not going to pay for it. So I was like, fine I'll go call British Airways. And he tells me that first I need to "settle down" because I'm "too emotional." Gee, ya think? After I've been sitting there crying and telling him I've been here since August and I just want to go home and I have no money with which to buy a new ticket. (Exaggeration? Maybe. But it probably would have helped were I dealing with someone who had a soul.) This guy was an enormous jerk and no help whatsoever.

So I call Expedia and they tell me I need to deal directly with BA. I don't think they really understood my problem either; they kept telling me I hadn't missed my flight (from Madrid) because it wasn't leaving til tomorrow morning. I called BA, got a 5-minute spiel about how disappointed they are that the union is striking and here's what to do, and then the call ends. I have no idea what happened. Mom called me right then anyway, and said the women at the Iberia call center could see, on her computer, that I had gone to the right place and tried to check in. Are you kidding me?? Lots of crying and angering later, and after finding out it would cost $2k to change my BA flights, I have a ticket home through Paris tomorrow because Mommy and Daddy love me. I'm supposed to leave here at 7:50 am, have a 2-hour layover in Charles de Gaulle, and get home at 3:05pm, which is only 1.5 hours after I was initially supposed to be there.

I have another ticket home leaving here on Thursday at like 1:45 am and I was ready just to stay here til then. Which is a really depressing thought. Ugh. But I should be home in 19 hours now. Insha'allah. British airports are now closed from 1am to 7am because of ash. Hopefully Paris won't close at least until I get there. If I get stuck in Paris, so be it. At least it won't be Morocco.

Bah.

2010-05-07T17:59:00.000-04:00

I hate this school. I can't wait to get out of here. It's Friday of the week before finals and the internet is down across campus. Wireless and wired. I have a paper due Monday and one due a week from tomorrow and surprise, I can't get anything done because I can't do research. Granted I have some books from the library but those only go so far because they only mention my topic in passing. I can't even make productive use of my time right now and pack or clean my room or something because it's after 1pm and my roommate is asleep. All she ever does is sleep and it's ridiculous. She'll disappear late in the afternoon or evening and not come back til 3 am (or later), make as much noise as she possibly can, and then sleep until well into the afternoon. She complains that she's doing badly in her classes and can't afford to repeat any of them, but she never goes to class. It's ridiculous. I'm so sick of this place and all of the idiot people who populate it. I'd like to say this wasn't an awful choice but now that I'm at the tail end of it, I don't know if I can honestly say that.

The hilarious part is that AUI is supposed to be the best university in Morocco. If that's the case, no wonder the country can't figure out up from down. AUI students are supposed to be the best and brightest but it's all a joke. They're more worried about the clothes they're wearing (if you can call them clothes) and having the newest (fake) designer purse or about going out to the (seriously awful) clubs in Ifrane and picking up guys/girls.

I'm not going to feel guilty anymore about not liking it here. I think we all feel that way. Morocco is great, but you know what? My day-to-day routine does not involve Morocco, it involves the stupidity of this school. When you tell people you're studying in Morocco they're all like, “You're going to have a great time! It's so exotic! You're going to learn so much about the culture and the people and it's going to be great and you're going to remember it for the rest of your life!” and all kinds of other things that make you feel like you have to like it. And you know what? I don't. I HATE this school. And this school makes up most of my Moroccan experience. So no, I'm not enjoying it here. And if I remember it it will largely be because it's so horrible. The internet is entirely unreliable and doing any kind of work is a challenge because you never know if it's going to cut out on you. Skype is a joke; what kind of phone call is it when you have to reconnect every three minutes? The library has the most ridiculous hours; it doesn't open til noon on Saturday (then closes at 6) and 2pm on Sunday. When they say it closes at 6, they mean they start kicking people out at 5:40 so they can leave at 6 if not before. Books are never where they should be. And even though finals don't end til next Saturday? All books are due back on Tuesday and can't be checked out after that date. And yes, they're serious. Not to mention that no one seems to understand the concept of being quiet in a library. Talking on the phone is not ever a quiet thing. Even the staff aren't quiet. There's almost no point in going, except since we can only check out SIX books at once, it's generally all but required to sit there and collect a pile of books if you want to get anything done. And then you have to hide them or recollect them the next day if you don't finish with them. It's awesome.

The food is barely worth talking about. It goes without saying that college food is low quality, but this place is sub-par. None of the food has any nutritional value (the vegetables are mush) and a good bit of it is fried. On the weekends they close two of the restaurant options, leaving us to choices of fried things or more fried things. There's no variety at all and when there's fruit, it looks rotten. What's the point?

The health center is anything but. They don't listen when you tell them what symptoms you have, insist that you have some other ailment, and if they give you medication at all they pull it out of a drawer full of medicines, give you a sheet of pills without telling you what it is or why you're supposed to take it, and tell you to come back only after you've finished the medicine if you've not gotten better. I'm pretty sure I'm anemic right now, and when I went to the health center after spring break they gave me a steroid “to fight fatigue”and told me to come back in ten days. And by steroid I mean when I Googled the name of it it was actually being sold on websites that cater to bodybuilders and is used to be able to prolong your workouts and get better results. I went back and told them I wasn't taking it, and they put it right back in the magic drawer. Are. You. Serious? And the best part is I won't even know whether or not I am anemic or if it's something else til I go home because they can't even do the simple blood test here! I'd have to go to Fes early in the morning someday to get it done. And it may not be the best life choice not do get it done, but you know what? I'm not going to a hospital anywhere in Morocco. I avoid AUI's health center as much as a possibly can; there's no way I'm going anywhere near any other supposed medical institution. Not a chance.

And then there's the fact that it's so repressive. I understand that parents don't want their kids going crazy, but you know what? If they're going to be delinquents once they leave the house, the problem lies in how they were raised. Having the school act like a babysitter because your adult children don't know how to behave themselves? Not solving the problem. Especially not when there're two liquor stores, two night clubs, and bars in town that all sell alcohol to anyone (except during Ramadan and Muslim holidays, because legal trouble would ensue). So really, what's the point of barring alcohol on campus? Especially when people bring it in anyway. And this segregated dorms business is absolutely ridiculous. There are very few places on campus where you can actually hang out with friends of the opposite sex: restaurants, outside, the lobby of my building, the joke of a student center, or in the hallways of the few class buildings that happen to have chairs or couches. What people want to do behind closed doors is their business; we're all adults here. I just want to be able to go somewhere to watch a movie or something without having to drown out the noise of a dozen other people doing the same thing in the same place or worrying that we could actually be expelled because people are stuck in the middle ages. (Do I really worry about it? No. But they will actually expel you should you get caught.) And really, it should say something to the parents that when AUI started filtering the internet, the main complaint of the Facebook group against said filter was that they could no longer download or watch porn.

It's not like I thought coming to a third-world country was going to be made of rainbows and butterflies and unicorns. Of course I knew there would be restrictions to what we could do and where we could go. And I knew sexual harassment would be a problem. But when it gets to the point that we go out expecting it, that cars slowing down and driving along side us with guys yelling out the window is more an annoyance now than a cause for concern, and that a bunch of kids who couldn't have been more than 14 years old found it perfectly acceptable to badger us at a soccer game, that's when it gets absolutely ridiculous. And I know Jordan will be the same if not worse. But Morocco is supposed to be one of the most liberal countries in the MENA region. There's no reason for this other than sheer stupidity. I'm so tired of everything here.

It's 2pm now. My roommate is still asleep. And still manages to be obnoxious while sleeping. The internet still doesn't work and I'm getting sick of playing this stupid game of “will it or won't it?” The best part is that it says I'm actually connected to the network, that the speed of the connection is very good, but that there's limited connectivity. Someone explain to me how this works? I went down to the IT people thinking maybe it was just my dinosaur of a computer being temperamental. Three other girls were down there and one finally explained to me that the guy was telling them in darija that yes, the internet is down all across campus but they've identified the problem and it should be fixed by this afternoon. This was an hour and a half ago? They probably went to lunch and decided they'd fix it later. Thanks so much.

It's not helping my mood knowing that right now I should be 15 days away from graduating. I know this is my choice and that obviously there's good reason for it, because studying abroad three semesters can't really hurt my resume or whatever, but I am so. Over. School. I want to get out of here. I want to be done and move on with my life. Knowing that most of my friends at VCU are graduating in two weeks doesn't help. Nor does knowing that I could have graduated last spring. Again, this was my choice and it's for the best, but it doesn't make it any better. I'm to the point where I don't care what I get in my classes, so long as I can pass and get credit for them at VCU so I don't have to repeat them and stay a full year. Sure it bothers me that I have this attitude now, because I've always made real attempts at school and tried to do my best. Before I went to France (the grades from there are an entirely different story because VCU's system is stupid), I had two B's in chemistry and a C in calculus that I learned on my own. Everything else was an A and I was proud of it. The fact that all I care about is getting C's in my classes now is not a good thing at all. And I can't bring myself to care. I just want out of this stupid school. I have two papers and two exams standing between me and freedom and they can't get over fast enough.

I wish I could write papers as fast as I've written this 2.5-page Word document. But I've got half a page of one of my papers written so far, and I have a few books I can try to mine for information before the internet comes back, if at all. If it doesn't I swear I will destroy something. And considering it's 2:20 now, I'm also done being the conscientious roommate. My stuff needs to get packed, and if AUI won't let me use the internet to work on my papers, then I'm going to pack all my stuff and not care how loud I happen to be. I'm not planning my day around other people who do nothing but waste oxygen.

Spring Break: Moroccan Edition

2010-03-26T13:50:00.009-04:00

Went on a school-organized trip to the Sahara. Awesome, right? Yeahhhh, not so much.

We left Saturday around 12:30-1am. There were two different trips, each going to different places in the desert. I was on the first; there were 96 people total on our trip. Yeesh. So we drove for an hour and a half, then stopped at 230... for food? Spent an hour whereever we were, with our bus parked right next to a grill, to the point that it got really smoky inside. Awesome. Drove more. Stopped in Errachidia for breakfast around 730? Drove more. Stopped in a gorge for lunch around 1130?

There was salad. With real vegetables. There are no words to express how awesome real, fresh vegetables are. Salad was followed by tasty meatball tagine, and oranges for desert. Left around 130 I think. Got to Ouarzazate and checked into our hotel around 7. It was a pretty fancy hotel. More spiffy vegetables.

Being a tool in the hotel lobby.

Sunday we left almost two hours behind schedule. I know nothing in Morocco operates on time, but really, two hours? We were on the buses for a good 45 minutes just waiting for two guys to come sauntering out of the hotel. I love Moroccans. Drove more. Stopped in Zagora for lunch. Stopped in some place that's famous for rose soaps and stuff? Most of the Moroccan students bought all kinds of stuff, while the 8 exchange students just wandered. Get to M'hammed something-or-other. Pile into SUVs for a 2-hour drive into the desert. The sun set as we were driving. It was pretty lame because it was cloudy/foggy/something-y out. :( I totally hung out the window of the SUV for a good portion of the trip. Like sat on the door and held on to the handles inside. It was awesome sauce.

Sunset

Once we got there it was dark. Very dark. Had mint tea. Had couscous for dinner. Apparently the couscous had crickets in it? That's what another table said. Either ours didn't or I didn't notice. Wandered in the desert with Clemens, Aino, Robyn, Anna-Claire, and Patti to check out the stars. We're pretty sure we found Mars. Realized that if I were lost somewhere and had to rely on stars to find my way, I would probably be lost forever. Yay, city girl. I couldn't even find the Big Dipper on my own. Wandered back. I am awesome and decided to roll down the side of a dune. Apparently came close to bashing my head on one or more rocks? And got sand in every pocket of everything I was wearing.

Robyn and our camp.

Monday morning we woke up at like 530 to go watch the sunrise. Again, cloudy/foggy, so no pretty colors. Breakfast. SUV ride back. We literally spent 13 hours max at the camp itself. 13 hours in the desert, including sleeping. Someone remind me why I paid $150 for this trip? There was no camel riding, no playing in the sand, no nothing. Get there, sleep, leave. On one hand I'm glad I can say I was in the Sahara, but for real, it was a waste of time and money.

My name in Arabic. (Just the sounds. Not the actual word for "cat.")

Guys in the desert with their camels.

So SUVs back to M'hammed. Bus from there. We were supposed to stop in Zagora for lunch, but they apparently decided not to stop since we were already behind schedule. Instead we kept driving to Ourzazate and had lunch at 3:20. So like, 8 hours after breakfast? Awesome. To say we were all cranky is an understatement. It didn't help that they were like "We are leaving at 4:20 be back then!!1!1!!" and the drivers didn't show up to even open the buses til 4:35. Kept driving. Stopped somewhere on the side of a mountain around 8-something? Kept driving. Got to Marrakech at 11pm. Pretty sure we were supposed to have been there at 7? Walked for like half an hour into the city, since we were out in the middle of nowhere. Wound up going to KFC because it was a 24-hour establishment and it was after midnight by the time we got there.

Wound up going to bed around 2 because we obviously got back to the hotel late and there were 5 of us in the room. This hotel was special. Tuesday morning we headed to the Place (Square) Jemaa el-Fna (Jemaa el-Fna being a mosque nearby). Got breakfast. Got orange juice, because there are like 50 carts there that sell fresh-squeezed orange juice for 3 Dhs.

Wandered for an hour. Got henna.

Got lunch. Wanted to get pigeon pastilla, but couldn't find anywhere that had it. :(

The square, from the balcony of the restaurant.

I made a new friend. This cost me 6 Dhs. The guy wanted 100 and I laughed at him. :)

Went back to the hotel only to leave well after we were supposed to. Bus went to Casablanca and Rabat to drop people at the train stations there. In Rabat, after a ridiculously long time sitting on the side of the road, they decided to consolidate the buses. Finally got back to AUI around 1am.

So all in all, it was a waste. We spent most of the four days on the bus. It was totally ridiculous. Totally and completely ridiculous. And the being in the desert part didn't redeem it because we hardly spent any time in the desert and didn't do anything while we were there. It's just super frustrating. Most of the exchange students last semester went to the desert on their own, but I didn't think about joining the group because hey, AUI was organizing one this semester and it would probably be better because they'd done it before. PFFT. Also I could have gone elsewhere this week, but no. Ah well. What's done is done and I can say I've been to (and slept in) the Sahara desert now, right?

Henna. Woot.

Peek-churs!

In Which I Realize I Don't Like Museums

2010-03-08T17:16:00.003-05:00

Saturday: Much less exciting than Friday. But still pretty awesome.

I've seen a lot of Paris, but most of it was from a tour bus in high school. Figured I'd take a 3.5 hour walking tour of the city. It's free, but the tour guides work for tips. I thought it would be a good way to see things and explore the city more. A tour group left my hostel at 10am. What they neglected to say was that that group would be meeting up with the larger tour group where the tour was actually scheduled to start at 11. So after waiting forever in a metro station while the girl helped everyone buy metro tickets, we got to the Latin Quarter and chilled. (Literally. It was cold out.) By 11:45 we'd only made it to Notre Dame, which was about three blocks away. So I peaced out. I'd have wandered around more if I'd had time to kill, but there were other things I wanted to do. If I go back to Paris again I'll try to schedule a day just for exploring. If.

From there I went to the Louvre. I'd gone in high school but we only had like an hour and a half there? So basically we ran to find the Mona Lisa and one or two other things that people knew they wanted to see, and then we took pictures of the ugly glass pyramid, and then we peaced out. So this time I figured I'd wander around and take my time and look at everything. I think I wound up spending two hours there before I get really bored and peaced out. >_> Whoops. I'm not really an art fan, but I thought I'd be interested. Guess not.

Left the Louvre. Walked past the Musée d'Orsay. Never realized how close all these things were to each other since we didn't really walk anywhere in high school. Realized I could've walked to the Louvre from Notre Dame instead of taking a really long roundabout metro trip, but ah well. Passed the Place de la Concorde. Walked all the way down the Champs-Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe. Stopped for a crèpe along the way. It had Nutella, but the guy was out of bananas. :( He laughed when I said that was sad. Mmm, crèpe. Went up to the top of the Arc as well. Pretty cool view. Probably better at night, but hey.

Found a Starbucks on the Champs-Elysées. Stood in line for like ten minutes. It was crazy. But I got coffee and it was beautiful. Went back to the hostel. Had dinner there. Planned on going to bed ridiculously early because I was getting up at like 5. On a whim, I checked an email account I don't use very often. I'd used it for my Critical Language Scholarship Application, and they said we'd hear the results by late March. Late March. Even though it was the first weekend of March and I didn't think I'd hear from them on a Saturday, I totally did. And nearly had a heart attack in the hostel's internet cafe. I won't know where I'm going til April-ish, because we all have to do language assessments so they can place us appropriately. I could wind up in one of 3 places: Tunis, Cairo, or Amman. Anywhere is fine with me. It's not AUI, so it'll be fine. =D

Went to bed. Woke up at 5. Jumped on the metro at 5:30 to take the train back to the bus station to go to the airport. Travelling is such a hassle sometimes. Stood out in the cold (it was around 25 Farenheit) for an hour because I was so early and you can only get on the bus the corresponds to your flight. Killed time in that airport. Killed 4 hours in Madrid. Was back at AUI by 6-630pm on Sunday. I was in such a good mood, even though I was coming back. I'm still in a good mood most of the time, actually. I guess I really needed to get out of here. And I can't believe it was only a week ago that I was in Paris and saw Roméo et Juliette. Ahhh it was great. Definitely had to be one of the best weekends of my life.

Pictures of randomness

Epic French Musical is EPIC.

2010-03-06T16:04:00.006-05:00

Ad for the show in a metro station.

Okay so background had already been covered. I'm a nerd and fell in love with this thing in 2004 and it's the entire reason for my trip to Paris. And the reason I broke out into a stupid grin whenever I saw an ad for it in a metro station or randomly thought about it while I was walking around yesterday. I swear to god yesterday was so long and I thought it would never be time for me to go. But I went. Early, in fact, because I had to pick up my ticket since they don't ship them internationally.

Bought a program because I'm a super nerd. :) And sat in my seat, 8 rows from the stage, slightly to the right side, and freaked out for the next 40 minutes. I was literally shaking the whole time and couldn't stop grinning like a fool. I mean, I was excited to see Les Mis in London. I was super excited to see RENT over the summer with two of the original cast members. There are no words to express how excited I was about seeing this show. It was a teeny bit weird because it's the first one I've gone to alone, but holy god did I enjoy it.

The one thing that threw me off was that they'd tweaked the show a little to update it and such. Nothing major, and I knew they'd added a few songs, but they'd changed some of them slightly or moved them around a little so I, being the obsessed fool that I am got confused because I know all of the songs and all of the dialogue and would be like "omg that's not right!" It was still really good though.

Romeo and Tybalt were the same guys as in the original. I feel like there was someone else too? One of the more minor characters? Never mind, there can't be. I'm just crazy, don't mind me.

I died a little inside when my favorite songs came on. Just sitting there and being like "Oh hey, I'm experiencing this LIVE!" was incredible. Absolutely incredible.

One of the best parts was after the show. I went and hung out at the stage door (with a bunch of French people) and watched all the actors and dancers come out. And the principal cast? They were all super nice! I got autographs from like, 8 of them I think? Romeo, Benvolio, Mercutio, Tybalt, the Prince, Frère Laurent, Juliette... I feel like there was someone else but I can't remember right now. Oh well. And I got my picture taken with the first four. EEEEEE. I know, I'm a huge nerd but whatever. I look super awkward in the photos but whatever haha. I wound up like, thrusting my camera at the nearest person each time and being like "Hey take my picture k? K." But everyone else had friends there taking their pictures so I did what I had to do. =P I kept wondering if it was okay though. Like if it was real. But they were all so nice and were like "Yeah sure pictures are cool!" And I waited til someone else had done it first each time just to make sure. It was weird because when we got autographs after RENT, everyone just lined up and held out their programs, and each of the cast members came out with their own sharpies in hand, went down the line mechanically, and peaced out. And there weren't even a lot of people there. Here there were significantly fewer people, sure, but there were no security people watching us, and the cast just came out, said hi to everyone, talked to everyone (like actual conversations, not just "oh hey"), took photos with people, joked with people, stayed until they'd signed whatever everyone wanted.

You can't really see the autographs in the photo. Wish I'd had one of my nifty silver sharpies.

Romeo

Benvolio

Tybalt

Mercutio

It was really awesome. Really. Really. Awesome. The entire experience was just surreal and crazy and I loved it. I love my life. =D

I will probably update this post later, or make a new post entirely, about the new version vs the old version, just because I'm that much of a loser. But I bought the stupid really expensive CD set, so the first few times I listen to it I'm sure the differences will bother me and I'll want to talk about them all anyway. =D I know only one person will care (if that), but I'm gonna do it anyway, so there. Nyeh. =P

Gargoyles, Museums, and Dead People, Oh My!

2010-03-06T15:03:00.006-05:00

Took this guy with me. Siggy the Frog is my Chapter's mascot. I definitely got looked at funny for wandering around taking pictures of a stuffed frog, but it was fun.

Ignore the lameness of the title. Kthx.

So Friday. Left the hostel around 10 to go do fun touristy things. I finally, finally went up Notre Dame. Except I failed a little. The very, very top (as in all the way up one of the towers) is closed between 11:30 and 2:30 for security reasons. My guess is glare from the sun? But yeah. You go up one tower and across, and then you can go to the very top of the other tower. This fact eluded me, so by the time I realized you could go up the other tower it was 11:28 and they weren't letting anyone else up. Whoops. I could have gone back later (and paid another 5 euro to go up again), but the guard there said it was the same view, just that you could see all around because, dur, it's all the way at the top. So I decided against it. There's nothing super distinctive about the Paris skyline except that monstrosity of a skyscraper. I got up the cathedral and saw one of the bells and that's okay with me. Considering that's the one thing I hadn't been able to do the last two times I was here, I think I'm okay with never coming back to Paris again unless someone wants to pay me/pay for me to do so. (Or unless the other musical I like decides to come back again, but that's a longshot.)

Hey, it worked twice so far, right?

After the cathedral itself, I went to the crypt underneath. I had always thought a crypt was a place for dead people, which this wasn't. But I just looked it up on dictionary.com and found "a subterranean chamber or vault, esp. one beneath the main floor of a church, used as a burial place, a location for secret meetings, etc." You learn something new every day. Anyway, the crypt was just like, "oh hey look at this old stuff that used to be in this spot." Because every new generation of Paris was built on the older ones. So there're remains of Roman houses and baths or something, and of a road that used to run from the cathedral until someone decided to widen it, and there are stairs and walls of houses that used to be there. It was pretty cool. I knew France had Roman and other ancient-people things in it back in the day, but I guess somehow I never thought of Paris as being that old? Or something like that. Turns out there was an ancient city called Lutece. Cool beans. You can't really see any of it anymore obviously. Cool just the same.

From there I walked down the river to the Institut du Monde Arabe (Arab World Institute). The only reason I went was that we were supposed to have an Arabic test on Friday (which we wasn't scheduled for that day when I bought my tickets) and when I told my prof I'd be missing it he was like "Okay so go to this place and go talk to people and give us a presentation on it." And then on Wednesday he changed the date again. Awesome. The place was pretty cool but it was basically just the museum, a bookstore, and a reading room/library thing. None of the employees there were of Arab background so there was no one for me to talk to or anything. I don't know if he'd been there before or was just assuming that I could talk to people there. So I have nothing to talk about on Monday. This is going to be fun.

From there I wandered. Got quasi-lost, in that I didn't know where I was but I really didn't care. Stopped and got a kebab for lunch. Oh god, I'd missed those. Listened to people speaking Arabic, but I couldn't make out a whole lot and I have no idea what dialect it was. Partly because I was listening to all the conversations at once and because the radio was up loud. At least I recognized it as Arabic though. Whee. Wandered more. Picked a direction and walked. Because I am that awesome. Found a metro station.

And went to the catacombs. Spooooky. The stupid building wasn't marked though, so I stood on the corner looking around for a minute or two. Had been eyeing this one building thinking that had to be it. Then an old French man came up and asked if I was lost. I said not really, just looking for the catacombs. When he pointed at the building I'd been thinking about, I was like "Of course!" And he laughed and went away. Yay for cute old French men. He was probably just wondering why I was chewing on my sunglasses. So yeah. Catacombs. Woooo.

Tunnel to get to the catacombs. Two guys walking behind me were humming the Indiana Jones theme.

Not gonna lie, I was a little creeped out. And by a little I mean... pretty creeped out initially. They're all made up of skulls and tibias, it looked like. I couldn't see any other bones. I was confused. I don't have too many quality photos though, because you can't use your flash down there and obviously it was pretty dark. It smelled funny too. Gee, I wonder why. I also had the wrong idea about them though. I'd somehow been under the impression that like, someone had one day gone underground and was like "OMGWTFBBQ there are bodies down here!" But no. They just moved all the people out of various cemeteries. Less epic story, but it was still pretty cool. Though if I stood and looked at one section long enough (like more than a few seconds) I would get creeped out and have to move on. There were all kinds of inscriptions down there. Most were in French, but some were in Latin and I was really bummed when I couldn't read them. Sad face. They were all about death and whatever though. (Duh. As opposed to what, sunshine and rainbows and unicorns?) When I left the catacombs I was a ways a way from where I started, so I played the "let's wander til we find something" game. And I wound up finding my way back where I'd started. I win.

Came back to hostel. Got food. Changed and peaced out to go see Roméo et Juliette!! That will get its own post because I am that much of a nerd. For srs.

Peek-churs

BREAKING NEWS

2010-03-06T14:09:00.004-05:00

I'm not coming home for the summer. =D I just got an email telling me that I got a Critical Language Scholarship!! I don't know where I'll be yet, but I'm going. I still need to take a placement test before they decide the location. I want to say chances are I'll wind up in Morocco because of my experience there already, but we'll find out later.

This is definitely the best weekend of my life. Oh my god. I don't really use the email address I applied with, but checked it on a whim today even though I didn't expect them to send the email on a Saturday. So glad I did. So glad.

I'm going to do a happy dance now. Maybe.

Happy Birthday to Me~

2010-03-06T12:04:00.003-05:00

I'm currently finishing enjoying the most expensive birthday present ever. One which I've given myself. I'm in Paris! Whee!

Junior year of high school my French teacher made us listen to a CD of a musical version of Romeo and Juliet that she'd bought. Most people were less than enthused, but I, being the nerd that I am, fell in love with it. To the point that I downloaded all of the music, copied the DVDs that my teacher had of it, and then translated the entire thing for my best friend so someone could watch/enjoy it with me. (I learned a lot of new vocabulary that way. Super nerd!) Fast forward six years: while playing around on YouTube when I was in France last spring, I discovered a new song from the show. Why? Because they'd updated it as it was almost ten years old. And I also discovered that it was going to be back in Paris this spring for the 10th anniversary. Fast forward again to like three weeks ago: I'm killing time in the computer lab between classes and on a whim I check the website for it. I have no idea what made me think of it, but I'm so glad I did. Oh hey, it's playing in Paris from 2 Feb to 4 April. Bam, I'm there.

I left Ifrane on Wednesday right after my class got out at noon. Spent the night in the Madrid airport. Flew out late that afternoon and got to Paris Thursday night. Spent yesterday wandering around, saw the show last night, spent today wandering a bit, and am peacing out early tomorrow morning. (But not getting back to Ifrane til like 8pm because discount airlines' schedules are made of epic fail.)

This has definitely been one of the most epic weekends ever. I swear I've been in a good mood since my plane landed. I don't think I've stopped smiling. This is the first time I've really traveled anywhere by myself and I LOVE it. And I think I really needed to get out of Morocco. Or at least away from AUI. It's hard to get away from there for an extended period of time because it's up in the middle of nowhere and there's a curfew and whatnot. And yeah, so I skipped two days of classes. Whatever. (I would have come over the long weekend but I thought I would be in Marrakech so I decided against it. Oh well.)

This has really been an awesome, awesome time though. I don't know why, but I feel at home here. I could never live in Paris because I don't really like it that much, but I feel totally comfortable here and nothing has bothered me at all. Sure it helps that I speak the language, but even still. I have been totally fine wandering aimlessly, jumping on and off the metro, and just doing whatever. Logic probably says I should be uncomfortable wandering around in a gigantic city like this by myself with no one I know in the country, let alone the city, but I'm totally okay with it. It' so awesome. I'm going to stop now because otherwise I'll just keep repeating myself. Posts to come later about my wanderings and about the epicness that was Roméo et Juliette. (SO EPIC.) Photos will be added once I get back to Morocco. God I'm such a nerd.

Birthday Shenanigans

2010-03-06T11:57:00.003-05:00

Wooo. Birthday number two in a foreign country. Last weekend happened to be a 4-day weekend. I was supposed to go to Marrakech with Laura but that didn't work out, so I stayed on campus. Again. But it was okay. I got a lot of homework done. Not only caught up on homework, but got ahead. This was important for reasons to come later. =D

So on Friday of the long weekend, I went horseback riding with Lily! The horses are a lot smaller than the horses in the States. They didn't smell so funny either. I approved. My horse did not approve though. It didn't want to do anything at all. It would run like 50 feet when the guy riding with us yelled at it and whacked it, but then it would stop. It didn't respond to anything I said or did, and when I tried whacking it with a stick they guy had given me, it hit me back with its tail. Lame sauce. But it was okay, because I am totally not a horse riding person. Like, it was fun and all but I probably won't go back. Ah well.

On my actual birthday, Lily had a small party at her apartment. One of our other study abroad friends who was here last semester had his birthday that day too. We just hung out and made sad attempts at improvising Pictionary and charades. And sadly, even though the actual holiday was Saturday, no one was selling alcohol on Sunday. :( I'd have been much more annoyed if it had been my 21st birthday though. It was fantastic though; all weekend the weather had been gorgeous after like 16 days of rain and wind and COLD. Thursday-Saturday were sunny. Sunday, however, did not live up to its name. It was absolutely miserable. Rain, wind, cold, sad faces all around. When we went to get dinner I was freezing because my jeans and hoodie had gotten soaked four hours earlier when I walked to Lily's (taxis are never around when I want one) and hadn't fully dried. But I survived. Woo.

More info in the next post. >)

Horsies!

NOM NOM NOM

2010-02-06T16:07:00.003-05:00

So today I went to Fes with Lily. For the express purpose of getting a camel burger, finally. And we did.

And it was delicious.

We got smoothies with fresh fruit, and the burgers came with steak fries and salads, which included fresh, crunchy veggies. I almost died. They were so good. We wandered around the medina a little bit, went back to Lily's apartment and watched a little TV, and now I'm here trying to convince myself I want to do homework. But I don't. >>

Photos!

Ew. School.

2010-02-06T15:04:00.001-05:00

This is my campus. This is what I walked to class in on the first day of school. It SNOWED. In AFRICA. Huzzah. The weather was nice for one or two days of orientation, and has been cold since. For most of the first week it snowed and/or rained off and on. The snow hasn't really stuck though, which is sad. It's been cold but not so bad since.

Classes so far don't seem so bad. My colloquial Arabic (aka Darija) started this past Tuesday, the week after classes started. Scheduling fail for the win. I'm not really a fan of having another 8am MWF, but the professor is funny so it makes up for it a little bit. I skipped a semester of Arabic and am taking Intermediate I now. It's not so bad, but I have more studying to do to catch up. My other classes are just kinda meh. Interesting in theory but so far not what I was expecting. But considering we've only had 2 weeks so far, there's time to improve. They didn't waste any time in assigning homework though. Have I mentioned I hate reading?

To procrastinate on this reading, I've been watching TV. =P I've become oddly obsessed with Glee and rewatched the 13 episodes at least twice each, some more than that. I've also been catching up on NCIS and The Big Bang Theory, and I've been watching The Mentalist in French. I couldn't find it in English, and I've not been doing anything to keep up my French so hay. Killed two birds with one stone and all that.

I'm baaaaack.

2010-01-30T17:30:00.002-05:00

While in the terminal in Madrid, I met three other people coming to AUI. Quality conversations were had. The stupid Ryanair plane was an interesting experience, to put it nicely. I hope not to fly with them again, but that will depend on what I do for spring break, I guess. Once we landed at the Fes "Airport" we had to wait an hour for another new student to come, then headed up Mount Doom. Longest ride of my life, I swear.

Once at AUI we got dinner, parted ways, unpacked, etc. I slept til 1pm. And spent the day studying Arabic. Got about two hours of sleep and went to go take the Arabic placement test. With success, might I add. I skipped Beginner II and am currently in Intermediate I. If I'd been more on the ball and started studying earlier in the break, I probably could have made it to Intermediate II, but oh well. All of the new international students were in orientation all day, so I spent the rest of the weekend doing pretty much nothing, to the point where I almost wished classes had already started so I'd have something to do. Who does that??

Airports are dumb.

2010-01-20T05:26:00.000-05:00

Ugggh. I think the worst part about epic long travel is not the epic longness of it, nor the lack of sleep involved, nor the epic boredom suffered, but the desperate need for a shower that develops about halfway through. I left home just about 24 hours ago now and I feel like I stink. I'm sure everyone wants to know this, right?

So it's 11:12 am local time in Madrid. I can't check my bag with Ryanair for another 3-ish hours, and then my plane leaves 2 hours after that. Hour and a half-ish flight to Fes, where I get to reclaim my bag and try to find the AUI van that's supposed to meet me and other students there. I kinda wish I'd asked for the phone number of the student who's supposed to be with the van, but that would have been too easy. Please excuse random typos; my dinosaur of a computer seems to be rebelling against me and doesn't always register when I've hit certain keys. Makes writing papers really fun. Anyway, it shouldn't be too hard to find the AUI people. Fes Saiss is a small airport, I think, and I'm sure if I look for a bunch of confused/lost-looking foreigners, they'll be AUI students.

The process of getting to Mardid was fun. And by fun I mean annoying and long. After leaving home at like 520 am on Tuesday, I had an 815 am flight to London. I had an aisle seat and no one sat next to me. Win. I slept most of the way, and pretty much only woke up when they came around with food. Turns out the girl in the window seat in my row was on my flight to Madrid as well. The one that left at 620 am Wednesday, when we arrived at like 7-something pm Tuesday. 11-hour layover for the LOSS. After playing “where's our terminal and how do we get there?!” we wound up in a little pub thing in the airport, then chilled in various hallways til 430 am. Found out via CNN that Massachusetts fails at being a blue state. :(

The thing I hate about traveling at length like this is that it takes so long to get to my destination that sometimes I forget where I'm going. I'm sure the lack of sleep doesn't help with this at all. But after sitting on planes for hours, sitting around in airports for hours, and really only focusing on what time it is now and what time I have to be at what gate or something, I don't know if I lose focus or what. Just sitting here talking about this I was like, “OH HAY I'm going back to Morocco now!” Obviously I know that's where I'm going, but I'm not thinking about actually being back and going to AUI and all of that stuff. The concept of “Morocco” just becomes “the last plane ride I take and the place where I have an hour-long car ride.” It will probably be more exciting once Friday afternoon hits, after the Arabic placement test and hopefully a substantial amount of sleep.

Why do airports fail at providing free wireless? I do not approve of this. I'm not paying 5 euro for 30 minutes of internets that I have to use all at once. La shukran. Especially when my battery lasts 2 hours max and I really don't want it to die while I'm using those precious internets. As a result I'm just sitting here rambling in a Word document and will transfer later.

There are a lot of college-age-looking people here. I wonder if any of them will be on my flight. Not that it will really make a difference because I plan on sleeping. Oh hay, some guy just came by and put a flier on my computer. I think it's a solicitation for money for some kind of sports federation thing? Translation fail, woo. Too tired to bother right now, and I didn't want to look at it for too long and make him think I was considering it. I don't have cash on me anyway, unless he wants Egyptian pounds. Speaking of translation fail, knowing random words in multiple languages is sometimes not a good thing. For some reason I was trying to think of a word in Arabic earlier, and I was coming up with it in Japanese instead. Er? Then trying to think of things in Spanish once I landed here, and got the French words instead. Oh, life. I've not had to deal with a lot of Spanish being spoken to me here, but the little that's been said I've understood. Woo. Do I look like I could be Spanish? Because no one has spoken to me in English yet. In France they seemed to use English by default, I think.
Speaking of language fail, there were two women speaking Arabic a few rows behind me on the flight to London. I couldn't pick up most of what was said; I don't know if that's because it was a different dialect, or just a whole lot of words I have yet to learn. Most of what I got was subject pronouns and the word “no” a whole lot. It's something though. Six months ago I probably couldn't even have identified it as Arabic. So I win a little bit.

Wave of tiredness just hit me. I'm going to stop staring at the computer now. Instead I'm going to stare at my Arabic book and hope the words just implant themselves in my brain. Wooot.

End of the Semester, OR Epic Travel Fail

2009-12-31T17:45:00.002-05:00

So my first semester in Morocco ended pretty well. The first Saturday in December we went to Fes again and people finished up their souvenir shopping. Then we went to Kai Tai again, yum. At some point before I leave Morocco for good, I will acquire a camel burger and something with pigeon in it. Possibly rabbit as well, but you can get rabbit elsewhere so that's not too high on my list.

Following that weekend was the last week of classes. It was lame because everyone was working on papers or studying for exams or doing dumb clearly unimportant things related to school. Nothing major happened that week or the following week. Wednesday of finals week I decided to be awesome and pull an all-nighter when I had no real reason to. Sure, we were leaving for Egypt on Thursday and I hadn't finished packing yet, but hey. That night I did put the finishing touches on a paper I had to turn in before I left; finish a scholarship application; clean my room; put away laundry; and start packing. My roommate came back around 5am and went to bed, so I took my computer and went down to the lobby of my building and watched TV for two hours. Went back up, got ready, got breakfast, went to Lily's thesis defense at 9am. And by 9am I mean everyone was there except for one important guy so it started at like, 930? 940? Some ridiculously late time that we all half-expected, I'm sure, but you can't take the chance and show up late to something like that. Lily did well and graducated. Yay. So I went and finished packing. Got lunch. Was sad. Went to Casablanca to fly away. Woo.

For the semester I pulled 4 A's and a B. Am a little disappointed by the B, but the final exam was 35% of the final grade, so I'm guessing even though I think I did fairly well, it wasn't well enough because of the crazy weight of the exam. Oh well.

So about that Egypt trip. We left AUI half an hour later than we were supposed to. Took a 4-hour cab ride to Casablanca. Sat in the airport for 3.5 hours. Didn't sleep a whole lot. Got to Cairo at like 630am Cairo time/ 430am Morocco time. My debit card decided not to work in the airport at any of the three ATMs I tried. Two friends of Mia's friend picked us up. (I think. I was never clear on the relationship.) We drove around trying to find a cheap hostel to stay at because due to even more epic lack of communication, we found out Tuesday that we couldn't stay at the apartment we were supposed to stay at. (We left on Thursday.) Wound up going to a hotel that was $80 (yes, US dollars) per night and totally not worth half that, even though we'd passed other cheaper hotels. Found out my credit card wasn't working either (though neither was Mia's, so I think it was the hotel's card reader. Luckily we had cash to cover the hotel room). Drove around more and got food. Went back to the hotel, sorted out my bank things, and called Mom while the other two girls napped. I'd intended on sticking it out a week to see if it got any better, but while on the phone I decided I was just done with everything and was going to come home. Epic frustration from many directions and mounting tension just killed whatever enthusiasm I'd had for the trip. The only thing I regret about leaving (other than the epic pricetag) is the fact that I was in Egypt and didn't see anything worth nothing. I'm not worried because I'm quite sure I'll be back, whether as a tourist or for my job in the future. It's just lame knowing I went, but spent 22 of my 28 hours there in the airport.

'Bout that. There were two indirect flights leaving that evening that I wanted to try to get on, but I couldn't find the sales offices for the airlines in question in the crazy setup of the airport and it was too close to departure time to buy them online. Mom wound up booking me a flight that left at 10am the next day. I'd gotten to the airport around 130pm. Commence epic spending the night in the airport again. There was no hassle or anything, just a lot of boredom. 12-hour flight to JFK the next day. Get through customs with 2 hours til my flight to Boston, only to find out that every. single. flight. has been cancelled. But I'd been rebooked on a flight 26 hours later. Great, another night in another airport. I was okay with it, but I was talking to other people in the terminal and it seemed that everyone, no matter where they were going, was stuck until Tuesday or Wednesday at the very earliest. So naturally I started doubted whether or not I'd really be flying on Sunday. Called Amtrak; they were delayed but still running. Took a 45-minute ride on the NYC subway to Penn Station. Got a ticket on a train to Boston literally 5 minutes before it pulled in. (Thanks to the two people in front of me who let me cut them in the epic line.) Finally got to Boston at 130 am Sunday, having left Ifrane at 930am EST Thursday. Fail? Fail. (Turns out that flight from JFK did actually fly. But I was home by then so it was a moot point.)

I have mixed feelings about being home. I was really excited for Egypt initially, but as it got closer to go time it just got more and more frustrating as things started falling apart. So I'm disappointed about that not working out. Also disappointed because in retrospect I think I'd have been okay staying in Morocco alone. Or I could have talked to other people about it, because I know at least two other people didn't go home over break. It's not that I don't enjoy being home, but this wasn't the plan so I'm not really happy about it. I did realize that it's a good thing, though. I needed a break. Not so much a change of scenery, but a break from the people. At VCU I at least get to come home once a semester, either for Thanksgiving or spring break, and get away from everyone there. Not so much at AUI, where it's so small you see the same people pretty much every day, and of course I hung out with all the same people, and there's nowhere to escape up there because we're on the top of a mountain. Yeah.

So there's the end of my year. Hopefully this coming year includes just as many, if not more, epic happenings. But maybe fewer weird injuries. But now I'm 2 for 2 in getting hurt while studying abroad, so I almost feel like it will be a letdown if nothing happens this semester. We'll see. =)

In Which I Am Even More of a Nerd

2009-11-29T17:30:00.005-05:00

O hai, tattoo. Sorry about the failure quality, but when I uploaded them any bigger Blogger freaked out and distorted them. Also it may look a little rough because I took them the day I got it. (June 19 woot woot)

This little piece of nerd-dom came out of my French lit book last fall at VCU. I don't remember what the context was but I remember looking at it and going, "Wow." I wrote it in my notebook and forgot about it, and then would randomly turn back to that page and be all "Oh hey, I like this!" Pretty soon it just stuck with me. And I felt nerdy for liking it, but I think it's true.

So I'd been contemplating a tattoo for a long time but never been able to figure out what I wanted or where, and I wasn't going to be one of those people who gets a butterfly or a heart or something girly for the sake of just having a tattoo. I was sitting in my room in France one day doing something entirely unrelated to anything (probably playing games on Facebook) when suddenly I thought of this and was like "YES." Thus plans were made with the BFF to go get myself permanently scarred. Obviously it worked out. The one hangup was that I originally wanted it on my left wrist instead of my ankle. That wrist happens to be the one I sprained and was bothering me at the time, so I decided against it in case I was going to have to wear a brace or do something that would have irritated or ruined the tattoo.

Literally, it means "To translate is to betray." Moroccans here have said "Translation is treason." While more poetic, this is technically not right because trahir and traduire are verbs. (Nerd much?) The latter phrase was in a book (in English) that Liz was reading by some Japanese guy, I think? And the French phrase itself is taken from Italian ("traduttore traditore").

I know it doesn't make sense to a lot of people. But I like it, even though it's hard to me to articulate why. For one thing it's ironic because to me it sounds awesome in French, but when you translate it in English it just sounds stupid and no one understands. Beyond that, translating things and really preserving their meaning can be hard. I don't claim to be super awesome at it, but I've translated two musicals into English for Meghan and on many occasions I hit a wall where I knew perfectly well what the meaning was in French but couldn't put it into coherent English to save my life. That is an extremely frustrating feeling. But because of this it reminds me I need to get better at French because if I have to translate something I can at least try to make it as close as possible. It also reminds me why I want to learn so many other languages: instead of relying on other people to tell me what's going on, I want to know for myself. And if a bad translation has to be made, I'd rather I do it on my own and have no one else to blame. I don't know if this makes sense anywhere outside of my own head, but this is the rationale. So this isn't just a stupid frivolous tattoo. It means something, if only to me. And I'm okay with that.

If you're still confused, I like this person's answer (in French) on Yahoo! Answers. Enjoy.

And Now for Something Completely Different

2009-11-28T10:20:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about this since I was in France last semester: being an Anglophone is made of a little bit of fail. On one hand, sure, it's great, because English is the new international language and everyone else wants to learn it. On the other hand, what reason is there then to learn other languages? Why should we bother? When I was at the Boren Convocation in June a girl who was going to China was telling us that on her flight to DC she was talking to the man sitting next to her and he pretty much asked the same question. Why did she want to learn Chinese? She already speaks English. It should be up to everyone else to learn English; it's not our problem to learn their language. Of course the rest of us were like, "Um, WUT."

Things like this make me sad. It also makes me sad that in the US we don't care about learning languages in schools. If you're lucky you take 2-3 years in high school, maybe a year or two in college depending on your high school grades, and that's it. You're done. And unless you're something special, 2-3 years of a language is just not worth it. You can't really communicate or do anything. I started French ten years ago but I wouldn't call myself fluent yet. (Granted it's pretty much on me to get there on my own now because there's not a whole lot left I can learn in classes, but still.) I'm not saying it takes that long to be proficient in any language, but if all you're doing is taking classes in school you're not going to get anywhere.

When I was in France there were a bunch of Europeans studying there as well. They all spoke their native language, obviously, as well as English and French to varying degrees. But they were learning two foreign languages, and they were practicing them both at the same time because we all spoke to each other in English. This is where I feel like it's a disadvantage to be an Anglophone. Everyone learns English so what is there left for us to learn?

There's also the fact that Americans are stereotyped as not knowing other languages and not travelling and whatever. Both in France and here I've had people ask me if I'm French because of the way I speak. When I say no, they go for British, probably because I'm white. When I say American, I've actually been told that no, I can't be American, because Americans don't speak French, don't go to other countries, don't study in other countries especially, etc. The study abroad coordinator guy at Savoie was British and when I said I was going to Morocco even he was like "Really? But Americans don't go to Morocco." Yeah, I got that. Thanks. And of course when I went to Turkey with Carolyn people flipped out that an American was speaking Turkish to them.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm wired differently and there's something weird about me. I mean, I know there is because I know I understand languages really well and all that, so I'm sure that influences the fact that I want to learn more. But I hate going to another country and not understanding what's going on. It's so frustrating to think that with more time and more pratice I could understand, but I don't really have the time. I wish I'd started learning languages earlier, or that at least when I was younger I would have actually used the teach-yourself-Spanish things I had. (But when you're 7 you don't really think about these things.) When I was younger I did decide that I wanted to be fluent in every language ever. I later dismissed that becuase it was stupid and would never happen. Now I'm thinking it's not as unrealistic as I thought it was. Of course I won't be fluent in every language, but I'd settle for proficiency in a handful of them. Mainly these ones:

*Arabic
*Spanish
*Japanese
*German
*Gaelic
*Hebrew
*Portuguese
*Russian
*something from Eastern Europe
*Mandarin

Not necessarily in that order, but something like it. Not that Gaelic is any kind of useful for anything and Hebrew is kind of limited, but yeah. One day I will be awesome and surprise the heck out of people I meet because I can speak multiple languages very well. إن شاء الله

Just kidding.

2009-11-27T06:21:00.003-05:00

Due to lack of communication and a little miscommunication, we didn't actually go anywhere for this break. Awesome sauce. On the upside, I get to do all my homework. Oh wait, that's not really an upside is it? Meh. Time to make more coffee.

ETA: I found warm fuzzy slipper socks in my drawer. This is a fantastic development. I is a fuzzy kitty.

There Will Be Blood

2009-11-22T19:13:00.002-05:00

Hopefully, anyway.

This coming weekend is Eid al-Adha, the biggest holiday of the year. [Educate yourselves.] We have Thursday-Monday off. Whee. I've been told that blood runs through the streets when they kill the sheep. However, when I asked my roommate about it she said she's never seen that, and that people usually do it on the roof of their house. I'm hoping that if we stay in a medina or something somewhere we'll get to see it.

The plan as of right now is to spend a night in Marrakech and then a few nights in Essaouira. Maybe Agadir as well? We should probably nail this down considering it's a huge holiday and whatever. Ah, well. We're in Morocco. We're polychronic. We'll figure it out.

In other news, have some photos of Ifrane. The first chunk is campus. The last 4 are at the souk, which is pretty much a huge market. That has everything. Yes, even the kitchen sink. The picture of the park is a playground just built by the National Initiative for Human Development. Hence the title about developing humans. We're punny.

Now that I've spent two hours writing three posts and uploading an obscene number of photos and completely ignoring my homework... it's bedtime! Whee!

24 days til Egypt. 24 days til everyone leaves. Sad kitten is sad.

Welcome to Morocco, Land of the Flying Fences.

2009-11-22T17:34:00.007-05:00

Last Saturday (the 14th) was a World Cup qualifying match between Morocco and Cameroon. Guess who went? Oh yeah. Took a grand taxi to Fes with Andrew, Ben, Ally, and Annemarie Saturday morning to watch the game.

But first, we passed a Japanese tour bus in Ifrane. Ben was really excited.

We were let off in the centre ville and walked to the medina. It wound up being something like half an hour. Which is nothing when you hiked 9 hours in two days the previous weekend. But that's beside the point.

So not too long after we leave the taxi station and as we're walking through downtown, we're crossing a street. Which is dangerous in and of itself. I decide it's safer to walk on the sidewalk than in the street. Usually a good idea. Not a good idea when said sidewalk consists of wet cement.

I laughed about it the entire day.

I stepped up onto the sidewalk, sank into it a little, put my other foot down like a fool, screeched, and jumped back into the street. Ally and I laughed for like a block and a half. I wish now that I'd taken a photo of my shoe prints. :( And for the record, the sidewalk was not roped off and there was no warning about the cement. I guess they expect you to watch where you're walking or something. (Something Moroccans don't usually do either, but that's beside the point.)

So we found the medina, finally. After walking by a construction site and learning they're putting a Carrefour in Fes! But not til like 2011, so it's dead to me. I miss Carrefour though. But I digress. Medina. We almost got run over by a few donkeys, mopeds, and dirt trucks. Went to a restaurant. Talked to Ally's friends there. =P Waiter man decided Andrew and Annemarie were married and that he and I were siblings. I'd say it's just because we're white, but Ben was not included in the family affair. Maybe Ben was just giving off "Don't mess with me, I'm Canadian" vibes at this point. Ally was off making new friends in the restaurant. There were a bunch of guys from Cameroon there getting lunch before the game too.

Oh god, I just lost The Game.

Moving on. Party over here:

Annemarie, Me, Ben, Ally, Andrew

Post-lunch (mmm, tajine!) we went souvenir shopping in the medina. I has a scarf. Ally is amazing at bargaining. Of course, after she argued with the scarf guy and got us 50 Dh scarves, we passed a stall maybe 10 feet away selling the same scarves for 20 Dh. Oh, life. I mean, it's a different of $4, but still. Wandered a little. Took turns leading and getting us lost. More souvenir shopping. Failed attempts at getting Morocco jerseys. Suddenly realized we had like an hour and a half before the game started, so we booked it out of the medina and got cabs to the stadium.

Petit taxis only take a max of three people. We had five. Clearly we had to split up. Andrew and I were the designated French speakers.

Ally: I call Cat!
Ben: I call Andrew!

...Smartest decision ever. Let's send the two boys (and Annemarie) together and me and Ally alone. This didn't really occur to anyone until Ally and I were dropped off on the other side of the stadium from everyone else. And were pretty much the only girls in sight. However, cell phones are amazing and we eventually found the others. Found out the ticket window was closed. Oops. Also found the only guy in the country who doesn't speak French. That one threw me off. But yeah. We didn't have tickets because you can't buy anything in this country online. The stadium was pretty far out of the city, so we didn't go beforehand. We figured we could buy them right before we went in because we didn't think many people would be going. Even if Morocco won they weren't going to the World Cup. We could have bought scalped tickets, but while Ally and I were wandering a soldier warned the others against buying from a scalper.

So there were fences up to keep the crowd out. At some point not long after the game started, the crowd starts rushing the fences and then they break through. So people take off running. And then run back, because the soliders are beating them back. Literally. And the cycle repeats. And then Ben joins the crowd. And tells us, "If I get arrested, it's my own fault. Don't worry about me!"

And he was never heard from again.

Okay that's a lie. But sounds more epic. He made it through. And not long after that we all got through, because they just let everyone go. Which Ben's roommate had said they would probably do in order to fill the stadium.

The game itself was actually kind of lame. It went by really quickly though. And really made me miss playing. Aww. I can't remember what the score was. It was either 2-0 or 3-0 Cameroon. Morocco did get a goal though. Some random guy got on the field carrying his own soccer ball and ran from Morocco's goal line all the way down to Cameroon's. He stopped in front of the goal and punted the ball into the net, then fell to the ground dramatically. The players and the refs just stood there and watched it happen. Cameroon's goalie wasn't even in the net. After that, while everyone was cheering, the police dragged the guy off the field and beat him. Yeah.

During the later part of the second half we made some new friends too. And by made friends I mean a bunch of young boys came over and started talking to us. Mostly in Arabic. Hey guys, let's go talk to the white people in Arabic! I'm sure they'll understand! They had a great time when they asked Ally in Arabic, "Do you speak Arabic?" and she said "La." (No.)
Then, in Arabic, "Do you speak French?"
"La."
Again in Arabic, "Do you speak English?"
"Oui."

...Well played, Ally. So they amused themselves for a good five minutes repeating that exchange. I should probably mention that in addition to being teenagers, maybe younger, (which makes them obnoxious by default), and in addition to being boys (which not only makes them more obnoxious but also means they have no respect for women), they had been huffing wood glue or something from a plastic bag. So these kids rose very quickly on the list of people I want to hurt. They had a great time babbling at us in Arabic. At some point they realized I speak French and one of them invited me to his house for couscous. And then tried to steal my sunglasses. Off my face. This country is so special.

Suddenly, when there are probably fewer than five minutes left in the game, everyone runs up to the top of the stands. Except for the confused foreigners. A soldier comes by and has us move down about ten rows. We found out later, via Ben, that the charging was to avoid getting hit by flying chairs. Because people just tear them up and throw them. Awesome. We didn't see any of this. We did see three soldiers chase someone and start beating him like three rows behind us.

So we left. And there's minor chaos going on outside. People are yelling and throwing things and running around. And there are a lot of these fences lying around from when the crowd rushed them earlier.

And people are flinging them around? Ally and I are trying to navigate our way out of the chaos before she has an anxiety attack. Andrew and Annemarie are a few feet behind us. There is metallic scraping all around us as fences are being dragged, pushed, and flung.

And OH HAI, one hits me in the leg. It was on its side, and the part that hit me was the foot of it. Right in the back of the knee. Initially I was just like "Okay wut? I got hit by a fence?" And we kept walking. Ben materialized out of nowhere. And we walked back to centre ville. Traffic was crazy and there was absolutely no way we were getting a taxi, at least not from the stadium. At some point I stopped and looked at my leg and was like "Oh hey, big angry red spot!" It was maybe six o'clock at this point. We were in search of a Japanese/Thai restaurant that some other exchange students had told us about. The first guy I asked about it looked at me funny and said it was about 5km (3.1 miles) away and that we should take a taxi. Hah. Again, the taxis were few and far between, and those that we saw were all full. So we kept walking. A lot. I asked maybe four more people where it was just to make sure we were going the right way. Yay, French.

Finally got back to centre ville. Passed the infamous wet cement sidewalk, but we couldn't find my shoe prints. There were a lot of others though. Got taxis to the restaurant. Which happens to be a semi-fancy-ish place. And we're all sweaty and gross. And my shoes have cement on them. Whee.

But oh my god the food. There are no words for how awesome this food was. I got sweet & sour something or other and I died a little when I tried it. It was actually a little sad, I think, how excited we all were over it. God it was so good though. As we were getting ready to leave another group of exchange students came in. We laughed. And then came back to Ifrane. Went out for a few drinks. Came back and got sandwiches at the cafe. Pretty much had an awesome day.

And then I took this picture.

Hahaha. I feel like I should be angry that I was hit by a fence. Or... something. I swear to god all I've done is laugh about it since it happened. And probably annoy people to death by going, "Guess what color it is today!" Although I think Mom's reaction was the best. I called her, told her to get on Skype, and then said, "Want to see something awesome?" To which she replied, "I'm afraid." [She reminded me this is pretty much how I announced my sprained wrist last semester too. I need to change my approach if I get another epic injury.]

Lastly, this photo is my leg on Monday.

None of that discoloration is birthmark. It's all bruise. I LOL'D.

Since then it's just gotten progressively yellower. Now it's yellow with a little purple around the edges. You can see where the leg of the thing hit me too. I kinda hope it scars, but I don't think it's going to anymore. Sad face. I know I'm twisted, but come on. That's an epic story. "You see this scar? Yeah, that's from when a fence attacked me. That's right. A fence."

Slideshow!

One Does Not Simply WALK into Mordor...

2009-11-19T10:16:00.008-05:00

...One hikes there.

So Friday night, November 6th, we left campus at midnight to drive 5 hours (ish) to Chefchaouen. "We" being, me, Andrew, Ben, another American, and 11 Moroccans. The Explorers Club organized the trip. And I should correct myself, we left at 1am. Piled into an AUI van. Rolled into Chaouen at like 530 am, before the sun was out. It was fantastic. And bumpy. We had breakfast at some little cafe/sandwich shop right by where the van parked. Spent the next 5 hours wandering around Chaouen. Took pictures like this:

Chefchaouen is known for being blue. Also known for its hash. But whatever. Which isn't to say we didn't get a bunch of guys asking us if we wanted any. One guy wanted us to go to his farm 35 km away. That would have ended well, I'm sure. Great story though.

So yeah, wandered til noon. I was with Andrew and Tom the whole time. We got lunch at like 11:15 because we were supposed to meet at noon to be on our way to make sure we'd have enough daylight for the hike. Then we found that everyone else was just sitting down to lunch. At noon. We finally left Chaouen at 2pm to hike up to the place we were staying that night.

Protip: When you need AT LEAST 4 hours of daylight, likely more, and the sun goes down around 6... you don't leave at 2. But hey.

The hike kind of killed me. It was really rough at the beginning but at some point it got better. Until my leg rebelled. Earlier in the week I'd tweaked the arch of my foot doing yoga, but it hadn't really bothered me since so I figured I'd be okay. Not so much. Then my knee started bothering me too because I was walking funny. It was great.

Still pretty near the beginning of the trek.

But dude. The views from the mountain were so epic. And then we went into the Shire and Mordor. It was crazy. But like, being that high up was one thing. To be able to see it all was amazing. And at multiple points we were in the clouds. In. The clouds. As in the clouds were rolling right by us. It was ridiculous. And everything was so green and the sky was crazy colors and looking out through the clouds was just... wow. And it's kinda sad because the photos don't really do it justice. The light kept changing and it's just crazy. I was walking with Andrew and Ben and Ben's roommate for the most part, and we kept making jokes about being in Mordor and such because it really looked like that at some points. We lost the game a couple times too. There were all kinds of silly things talked about and stupid jokes and things to remember forever.

Also there was a lot of this:
"Hey guys, let's cut up the mountain!" Because we were behind everyone else. So clearly it's faster to cut up the side than follow the path. Mmyepp. It wasn't so bad, except for the time I fell and high-fived a prickly plant. Above picture is Andrew and Ben. And Ben's Canadian coat.

By the time we reached the actual top of the mountain it was completely dark. Yay. We were under the impression that once we got up we were done. Nope, there was like another 1.5 hours to go down. But there were tire tracks or something weird that had created ruts, so we had to go pretty slowly or risk death. >> Also no one had flashlights. And cell phones didn't help a whole lot. In the end we were all rescued by a Land Rover owned by the people we were staying with. That was a special ride. There were like 9 people crammed into it. It was fun.

The place we were staying turned out to be the house of the people who owned the hostel thing that we were not in fact staying at. The Explorers' Club had been trying to arrange this trip for a long time but it wasn't working out so I guess finally they were like "Can we plz stay here?" And so we stayed there. IT WAS SO COLD. I mean, up in the mountains. No electricity. Coldness. But we had lots of mint tea, and harira (Moroccan soup), and chicken tajine. All of which was really good. And then it was bedtime.

The next morning, surprise, it was still cold. We had an amazing breakfast of bread, olives, tea, awesome coffee, something else?, and some kind of honey thing that was amazing. Again we wound up leaving like two hours later than planned, but whatever. We left just before 10:30am. It got significantly less cold as we kept hiking. Which was almost sad because I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt since the weather forecast had been all "OMG COLD AND HIGH CHANCE OF RAIN." This hike seemed a lot easier. We went up and down a lot, but we stayed in a group almost the whole time because we were walking along a path that was lined by prickly bushes and was barely wide enough for one person as it was. Also there were berries. Lots of berries. That everyone decided they needed to pick from the bushes and eat. And by pick, I mean stop dead in their tracks on this narrow path on pretty steep inclines. We were not amused. The berries weren't even that good. They were weird, actually. Kind of spiky but not? Idk.

Lots of walking and trees and mountains later, we got to the village of Akchour at the end of the trail. And there was much rejoicing. And a little bit of dying. And a half hour drive back to Chaouen, where we had a delicious dinner. Yay, tajine. And salad. Nom nom nom. And then a 5-hour drive back to campus, during which we stayed awake until the last hour. Fail.

And then we had class the next day. And I'm pretty sure we all died a little every time we had to move. It was such an epic weekend though. I feel like this post is way too short for the amount of fun that was had, but most of what happened was things that you had to be there for, either because stupid things were said or done and will always be inside jokes, or because there's really no way to describe the crazy views and they way it felt to be there. Either way, epic weekend was epic, and totally worth the cold and the pain we felt later. Yay, Morocco. <3

Peekchurs!

OH HAI.

2009-11-15T06:36:00.001-05:00

Wow. So clearly I fail at this whole blogging thing. Nothing particularly blog-worthy has happened though. Midterms were a pain in the butt but I did fine on all of them. It's funny here because everyone freaks out over midterms. Mostly because they never do the homework and then have to cram everything come exams. But hey, whatever.

We've played Trivial Pursuit so often since that first day that we know the answers to at least a quarter of the questions. It's funny when someone reads a question and everyone is like "Aw, we've had this before." I'm going to own at this game next semester when the new group of exchange students comes in. Tee hee hee.

Also, I think Pictionary is my new favorite game. We just discovered it last week. So far I've won and lost a game. It was hilarious when we won because some of our pictures had nothing to do with anything. I was highly amused. It was highly amusing. Good times all around.

Now that there's only a month left in the semester, I'm starting to do fun things. I guess I kinda fail haha. But there's always next semester. It saddens me beyond words that in a month and two days everyone will disperse and I will likely never see most of these people again. I know the same is true for my friends at VCU; a bunch have already graduated and most will graduate this year. But it's still different. I haven't been at VCU since last December. Yes it will be weird to go back and not know a lot of people, but at this point I'll be expecting it. As far as AUI goes... having spent an entire semester with awesome people and then coming back after break not to see any of them is just wrong. It's just going to be made of fail all around. :(

Moving on from that super happy topic: I'm not coming home for Christmas. When I left home initially I wasn't planning on coming home. Then I figured I would, because it sounded like everyone else was going home and I wasn't going to stay in Morocco by myself. After talking to people I changed my mind again. And now plans have changed a lot, but mine have been finalized: I'm spending Christmas in Cairo. Mia has a friend who lives there but won't be there during break and is letting us stay in his apartment. She and I will spend a full month there before coming back to Morocco, and Ally will be with us for 3 weeks before she goes back to the States. I am super excited about this. We get to go see the Pyramids. In Egypt. Wut? There will of course be trips to see all the rest of the awesome awesome things, but dude. Egypt. How much win is this made of?

I would love to continue rambling, but sadly I have homework to do. Ew. There should hopefully be two more posts this week, though, because the past two weekends have been entirely epic. Consider yourselves warned. :)

Oh, College

2009-09-28T13:58:00.003-04:00

This past weekend was the stuff college is supposed to be made of. Friday involved a lot of doing nothing, and then a lot of silly things. Twas fun.

Saturday... was made of epic. Left the building at 2 to go get lunch. It was chilly and cloudy, but not too cold. Started raining lightly as I was walking to the cafeteria. Got a sammich with Ally. It was disappointing, so we went to the restaurant for french fries. Ran into Andrew there. After lamenting the sad, soggy, cold state of the fries, Ally went back to her room and Andrew and I went to get coffee. The coffee was neither sad nor cold; it was quite the opposite. While we were partaking of delicious black gold, the sky opened up. It straight poured. So we opted to stay in the cafe...

...for 3.5 hours. Oh yeah.

During this time, a bunch of international kids came in and out. Andrew and I were there the entire time, joined at different points by Bernardo, Simone, Eric, Lily, Annemarie, Kai... fail, I forget who else. I think at one point there were at least seven of us together. We made a tower of at least 13 cups: 1 orange juice, a few hot chocolate, some cafe au lait, and a few espresso + hot water. And a box of orange juice and some food wrappers. There would have been more but some people threw out their trash when they left.

The original plan had been for Andrew to go to the library and do work after we finishecd our initial coffee, and I would go back to my room and do the same. Instead, we stayed in the cafe til 6, stood outside for a while (it had gotten a lot colder but was only misty at this point), collected more people outside got food from the restaurant somewhere between 630-7, and then came back to the lobby of my building. I played Trivial Pursuit with Lily, Andrew, and Eric. I cam super close to winning, and then failed. And in the process I learned that I can't count to save my life, and I can't speak French. Also, gerbils are Mongolian and guys in Georgia are named either Bubba or Lester. Who knew? [Not Lily.] Poor German Lily kept getting American history/culture questions. It was sad but hilarious.

Yesterday I woke up for breakfast with Laura, but we didn't go. Instead I did homework with Jon and Liz. We went to lunch Charlotte and Eric and Lily and played Trivial Pursuit again. We played in teams of two, but Lily had to leave before it was over. Thus I was a lonely kitty. But I/we ultimately won, which was epic. Huzzah. I did some homework, ate some dinner, got more coffee, and then watche Moulin Rouge with Lily. And quoted it way too often. It was sweet.

I think I kinda like Morocco. =D

Fes

2009-09-20T09:33:00.002-04:00

Last weekend I went to Fes/Fez with a bunch of people. The name of this city will forever bother me. In Arabic it's spelled with an "s" sound, not a "z." But I've seen it as both "Fes" and "Fez" on signs. Make up your minds, guys. Thanks.

Anyway. Friday was extremely eventful. We left at 430, right after my last class got out. And it was pouring. Hard. We took taxis from school to the grand taxi station. (There are two kinds of taxis here. Petit taxis only run within city limits. Grand taxis run between cities.) Six of us crammed into one car for the hour-long ride down the mountain to Fes. Did I mention it was pouring? At one point you couldn't see the road and you could barely see the headlights of oncoming cars. And the windows kept fogging up. It was fun. But people here are used to it, so we kept driving. Oi.

Once we got to Fes we wandered around a little trying to find a hotel. Gave up and had dinner. The coffee here is so good. *-* (I would still kill for a Dunkins or Starbucks or some other to-go coffee place.) Found a hotel. Wandered around Fes. Met up with Jonathan and Richard who, due to miscommunication (or total lack thereof) wound up with no place to stay. We had two extra spaces, so they stayed with us. We got really disappointing ice cream and went to the medina to meet up with a bunch of other AUI students who were there. After wandering around in an unsuccessful attempt to find a particular café, a bunch of us wound up at this one restaurant and basically just sat there for a while. It was funnn. Before going back to the hotel, Lena, Ally, and I went to a restaurant to get food. At like 1 am. More fun.

Saturday morning we went to a different café in the medina and had coffee. Mmm. Wandered a little, went to a drum and pottery shop, went to a brass and jewelry store, wound up going back to the same café for more coffee and a crepe-like thing. They have something here that's half-Nutella, half-vanilla spread. It was SO GOOD. From there, more wandering. Went to a tannery. It smelled funny. I got a wallet that I overpaid for. It still smells funny. Wandered even more. Wound up at a cafe. Took a taxi ride back to the other side of the medina, almost hitting a rogue donkey on the way. That was fun. >> Spent two hours at a restaurant just sitting and doing nothing. I don't think the guy liked us very much, but we bought food, so there. And since it was Ramadan it's not like anyone else was waiting to eat there. Some of the most ridiculous conversations ever were born during that meal. It was great.

From there: chilled at a hotel room some of the guys were sharing. Went to yet another café, but we didn't get anything. I definitely need to go back, though, because they have camel burgers. I am dead serious about trying one. From there we went to another restaurant for a joint birthday party; one girl's birthday was Saturday, the other's Sunday. The group I was with didn't stay too long though, because we wanted to get back to Ifrane that night and we kept getting conflicting reports of when the grand taxis stop running. Needless to say, we got back in time. I fell asleep for most of the ride and woke up just in time to ask the driver to leave us at school instead of taking us all the way to the marché. Got some seriously un-tasty dinner at the cafeteria, came back, went to bed. Huzzah, fun trip to Fes. The end.

Morocco pictures!

Lazy Cat is Lazy.

2009-09-11T06:42:00.002-04:00

I know, I fail at updating this thing. Sorreh. But pretty much all I've done for two weeks is go to class, so there's not a whole lot to say.

However. Going to Fes today and coming back tomorrow night. Huzzah, touristy things. There will be photos eventually, depending on how long it takes to upload them here.

You Mean I Have to Do HOMEWORK?

2009-09-07T06:29:00.002-04:00

So France this is not. Last semester I had 13 classes that met once a week for two hours each. This semester, 5 classes 2-3 times a week for 50 or 80 minutes. The classes are actually interactive. And they assign homework and take attendance, as opposed to last semester where, if you were so inclined, all you had to do was show up to the exam. It's a little weird readjusting. Obviously I'm used to it, as this is what I've done all my life, but after having gotten accustomed to sitting around doing nothing of import all day and not worrying about skipping the occasional lecture, I'm kind of like, "Waaaiiit... what am I doing now?"

Arabic: MWF, 8 am. Not a fan. It's not as easy as I had anticipated, mainly because I forgot we have to learn the alphabet before we can move on to actual language things. The more letters we learn, the better it's getting, so while after the first class I was like "OMG what am I doing?" I'm feeling pretty good about it now. The hardest part is the sounds; you can transliterate it using our alphabet, but you have to remember that an "a" doesn't make our "a" sound. And you have to remember that sounds are written differently anyway. I hear what I think is an "e" and get confused because that letter doesn't exist in Arabic. But hey, it will come with time. We've only had three classes so far.

Contemporary World History: MWF. Not really a fan. It's history from 1500 on. I hate history, but this classes fulfills one of my gen ed requirements at VCU and nothing else that I needed would fit my schedule, so there we are. It shouldn't be too bad because I've already studied the Renaissance and the Reformation and Industrial Revolution and all that a million and one times. We'll probably focus more on this region than my previous courses have, but I'm not worried. My prof is less concerned with our memorizing names and dates than our being able to analyze and explain things.

Comparative Political Systems: MWF. Intro-level Poli Sci. There's me, an American grad student, a German grad student, and a bunch of Moroccan undergrads. This class is amusing. I do a lot of just sitting there and listening because when he asks questions about Moroccan politics I obviously can't answer. Have I mentioned this class is amusing? The students especially.

Economic Development in the Middle East and North Africa: TR. Not a whole lot to say about this one. It should count for my degree, which is really all I care about. With any luck it will surprise me and I'll like it.

Women and Economic Development: TR. See above. Not really a fan of the prof, but hey, what can you do?

Such is my life at the moment. I can say chicken, rice, and yes in darija (literally "dialect," but also the name of the Moroccan dialect. Clever.) Progress is progress, right?

This Post is Not Interesting.

2009-09-04T13:24:00.005-04:00

I am really not a fan of the school's internet. And by really not, I mean I want to kill it. It's way too slow. I can't use Skype or Magic Jack to call anyone, which is fantastic. The call goes through, but the video lags and freezes, if there's video at all, and the audio constantly breaks up and makes people sound like the teacher from Charlie Brown. Unfortunately there's nothing that can be done about it, because this is just how the network is. Everyone is having trouble, and when I asked my roommate about it, she called a friend who said he never uses Skype here because the connection is so bad. Right now I'm thinking that maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll be able to try it this weekend since a lot of people are gone. Selwa, my roommate, said that a lot of people normally go home on weekends, moreso right now because it's Ramadan.

Anyway, backing up.

My luggage finally appeared last Friday! I had been expecting it, but didn't want to say anything in my last post and jinx it. I'd called the airport Thursday morning to check on my bags, and was told they were supposed to land in Fes that night and to call back Friday morning to make sure they were there. I had to argue with the woman in French, which was fun of course. People from the school's Office of International Programs were making a trip to the Fes airport that night to pick up a student around midnight and to pick up bags belonging to at least 8 people. They were all on the same flight from Casablanca to Fes and apparently someone decided the plane was too heavy so they took bags off at random. I gave them my claim ticket and whatever and they said I'd get a phone call when my stuff was dropped off at the dorm. I was awake for a while and there was no phone call. Every time I heard a car or a suitcase outside I'd get up and check, and I saw nothing. When I woke up in the morning I went downstairs and didn't see any luggage, so I wanted to kill something. There was also no one at the desk. When I came down 45 minutes later to leave for breakfast I discovered it was hiding on the other side of the desk. Huzzah. Turns out they never called anyone about it; a girl whose bags were in that group said she was walking back to the dorm around 12:30 and they were just unloading the suitcases at that point, and they must have just kept them chilling there all night. Needless to say, I was super happy to have clean clothes and shampoo and all that fun stuff.

Weekend consisted of more orientating. Most of it was actually a waste of time because things didn't go as planned, weren't ready on time, etc. Sunday I went to the marché (market) in town with Laura because we needed ID photos for our residency cards. I got a Moroccan SIM card there, but it's not working in my phone. I haven't had the chance to go back and switch it out or something, because things have crazy hours because of Ramadan. They close mid-afternoon and open back up some time after F'tor, the huge meal for breaking the fast. I'm going to try to go up tomorrow. If I can't get it to work I may just buy a pre-paid Moroccan phone because they're pretty cheap. We'll see how it goes.

First week of classes went pretty well. There were a few hiccups along the way. For one, my 8am Arabic class was changed to 9am, then changed back to 8am but no one told us. So all but one person missed the first class, because she didn't know it was changed in the first place.

URRRRGH.

2009-08-27T14:13:00.005-04:00

28 hour trip = made of epic fail.

Tuesday, just after noon: After getting lost in the parking deck at Logan, we get into the terminal so I can check in. We took our time because, hey, my flight didn'tlleave for another two hours. We stand in line to check my bags and suddenly the woman is changing my flight to the one that's currently boarding and leaves in less than half an hour. This, of course, leaves me with all of five seconds to say goodbye to my parents as I run to security and then to the gate. In tears, mind you. I'm sure I looked pretty awesome. I was a wreck the entire flight to Newark.

The flight to Newark was scheduled to be 1 hour and 50 minutes. The flying itself took about 46, and the rest was spent chilling on the runway in Logan and circling above Newark. Jeez. The Newark airport is a gigantic pain in the butt, and it took the opportunity to let me know I had blisters from my sneakers. Awesome. Luckily I had my flip flops in my carryon and I was able to squish the sneakers in. The flight to Rome wasn't so awful. I watched Star Wars (even though I almost fell asleep by the end). [EDIT: Wow I'm dumb. I watched Star Trek, not Star Wars.] I didn't have anyone next to me. There was a guy I wanted to punch in the face because he threw a hissy fit over not getting to sit with his friends. By "guy" I mean he had to be at least 40 and by "hissy fit" I mean he was yelling and swearing at not only the flight attendants but also at other passengers. Yeah. Awesome. Oh, and the little kid in the row behind me kept throwing up.

The airport in Rome was also a huge pain in the butt. Getting through security was ridiculous. The airport itself was yucky. And I was one of those annoying people they have to page because the aircraft was almost done boarding. I'd been standing at the gate the whole time, but the woman had announced that business and first class passengers would board first, then economy class. So naturally I'm waiting for her to announce, "Okay, economy class now." There were still plenty of people sitting in the waiting area so I didn't think anything of it. Then she announced my name and two others. Whoops. And of course this is one of those crazy European airports where you have to take a bus from the gate to the acutual plane. But people still hadn't finished boarding by the time we got there, so it was okay. That doesn't mean I didn't feel like an idiot anyway. The plane was almost half empty, so I got my own row. I slept most of the flight. The food was awful. I think I got maybe 5 hours of sleep total between the two flights.

When I got to Casablanca, SURPRISE my luggage didn't get there. Not just mine, but half the people on the flight. They didn't explain why, just took a ridiculously long time to fill out claim forms. And they don't deliver luggage here like they do in other countries. I was ready to kill something because I did NOT want to make the 5 hour trip again (each way) to get my bags. But when I told the guy where I was going he said they'd send them to Fes, which is about an hour away from here.

As a result of my bags being lost, I had about three minutes to get to the train. I decided to forgo stopping at an ATM for cash because I didn't want to waste time. Oh surprise, they don't take credit cards. So by the time I went back through security, went back up to the ATM, and came back down, the train was gone. Which means I had to wait an hour for the next one and miss the connecting train I wanted, meaning I'd get into Fes an hour and a half after I was supposed to. Oops. Called the school to change my pickup time. And cried again out of sheer frustration. Because I am that awesome.

So there I am, silly white girl sitting on the floor in the middle of the train station, crying, on the phone. And then on the train. At no point was I ever sobbing or anything, not even leaving Boston, but I was sniffly and teary and obviously upset. An older woman and her adult son sat across from me and offered me a kleenex. Aww. We talked in French for a little while (why was I upset? Did my boyfriend leave me? [HA.] Was I crying just because I was in Morocco?). It was hard to understand the woman because the train was super loud and she had a bit of an accent. They were nice though, so I appreciated it.

That train ride was 35 minutes. They don't announce the stops like they to in the US and Europe, you just have to hope you can see the sign for the station from where you're sitting. I managed to get off at the right stop, though, and find my next train (4 hours!!). It was a little awkward at first because it was a train with compartments like in Harry Potter, and apparently you just go and sit in whatever compartment you can find space in. I stood in the hallway for a little, amazed by a sketchball who didn't understand that my pointedly ignoring him meant "go away plzkthx." One guy getting off the train was like "Hey you can sit in there where I was." So I did. And then even though I was pretty sure my stop was the last one of the train but I was afraid to fall asleep anyway. I wound up sleeping for like 10 minutes at a time before jolting awake thinking I'd missed something. Not fun.

Finally at Fes, I met up with the Student Ambassador who was picking me up, and happily ran into Laura, the other girl who's here on the Boren Scholarship, and a guy named Steve. Hour long ride from Fes to Ifrane. They drive CRAZY here. Not as bad as Turkey, I don't think, but still pretty bad. Or at least there are fewer cars on the road so it doesn't seem so bad. Got to campus. Laura and I are in the same building, yay! The rooms are HUGE, even for two people. We have a milion and a half drawers, and an actual closet, and our own bathroom! For the two people. I'm kind of excited, because I was expecting to share with a lot more. I guess we lucked out being in the newest dorm. I haven't met my roommate yet because continuing students haven't moved in, but I hope things work out. The longest I've had a roommate was 10 weeks, I think? But we had an entire apartment and Renée is pretty awesome anyway, so that was a leeetle bit different from being here for a year. Pictures will come soon, anyway.

So dinner yesterday was a little disappointing. We can't tell yet if the food is always like that or not because it's Ramadan so the vast majority of people on campus aren't actually eating when we are. Between last night and today I met so many people though. I can't remember names or anything, but hey. So far everyone has been really nice and awesome. Orientation today was boring, as orientations tend to be. Only three more days of it, yay! We get to register in the morning, huzzah. I need to try to change one of my classes. More on that later.

So the travelling here was miserable, but the being here so far is pretty awesome. Turning out different from my trip to France, but I'm totally okay with that. I broke six nails during my travels, and normally I wouldn't care except they're all broken at crazy angles and both my nail clipper and nail file are safely packed away in my suitcases. Typing is actually difficult as a result. Awesome.

No pictures yet. Maybe later. Maybe when I have clean clothes and don't think I smell funny when I go out in public.

No comprendo :(

2009-07-13T00:59:00.003-04:00

Wahoo! Only a month after the fact, I'm finally posting about my trip to Barcelona. Better last than never, right? Right.

The trip started off swimmingly. Courtney, Tristan, and I went to the train station around noon to get a train to Geneva, from where our flight was leaving at... 6 something? [Can I say "from where" in English? It works in French.] We found out there was no train, only a series of buses making random stops because they were working on the tracks on that specific route. Three days out of the whole month they were working on it, and we picked one of those days. So we got on the bus, got to where it stopped (an hour from Geneva), and were told we had to wait something like an hour and a half for the next bus. Which would take us somewhere else, where we could get a new bus that would take us to Geneva... buuuut we wouldn't get there in time for our flight. Awesome! So after I talked to the train info lady, we wound up taking a cab. To Geneva. For a grand total of 100 euro. Aaaand Tristan lost her keys somewhere between Chambéry and wherever the heck we were. Culoz?

After the cab ride, we suddenly have plenty of time to spare at the airport. This involved wandering around doing a whole lot of nothing. Whee. The flight to Barcelona was uneventful. After a train ride from the airport and a few changes on the subway, we found our hostel. The directions on the website lied, of course, so we walked by it a few times before we found the right street. Went back to the main part of the city but couldn't find Cori. Nobody's French phone wanted to work in Spain. :( Thus mine was rendered useless as well; I could call and text, but it didn't do any good since no one could answer. Fail. Had really expensive tapas. I tried crocodile & cheese. It was actually pretty good.

I may be slightly crazy, but when the guy said crocodile I was like "Must. Try." If only to say that I have.

Best part of the night:
In a train station. I freaked out a little. It was awesome. Even though it was closed.

Sunday we went to see la Sagrada Familia. It's pretty much the most ridiculous church I've ever seen. They've been building it since the late 1800's and at this point the projected finish date is like 2030. Yeah. Not going to post any of the 200 photos I took because you can't see half of it in any of them. You can see them on my Photobucket.

From there we went to lunch, met Cori, and went up to this old castle-fort-thing. It was interesting. La Sagrada Familia stood out from the Barcelona skyline. It reminds me of a giant spider creature, like something you'd see in Harry Potter or LotR. Go figure. We wandered around Barcelona a bit, then went to dinner at a place called Les Quinze Nits. Super cheap, really awesome. Super long line always starts in Plaça Reial, but it's so worth it. Went back to the hostel that night, talked to one of the guys at the check in desk, watched part of Iron Man with him and an Egyptian guy at the hostel. Hostels are cool for meeting people. :)

Next day we did a walking tour of Barcelona (it was free! I love Europe). It rained a little. Sad face. Wandered down to the harbor but didn't go to the beach. Had dinner at a place called Travel Bar, which was just that; little hideaway place for tourists. The dinner was only a euro with the purchase of a drink; we split a pitcher of sangria four ways, which meant 4 euro dinner. Epic win? Yes indeed. Wandered a bit, went back to the hostel, went to a club. I was in a fantastic mood the entire time because my wrist had decided it hated me again.

Tuesday was our last day in Barcelona. Slept late, went to Park Guell, which is this ridiculous park that Antonio Gaudi designed; he's also responsible for a lot of the ridiculousness in la Sagrada Familia. Went to the beach for a little while (sunburn fail!). I didn't go in the water, but I'd been in the Mediterranean twice before so whatever. Cold water is cold. Went back to Travel Bar to meet up for a cooking class they offered at their sister bar near the waterfront. Cooking class was less "class" than "sit here and watch me explain how to make paella." Also learned how to make sangria. That went over well. Seafood paella was pretty good, though having to peel the heads and legs off the shrimp wasn't fun. From there we went with a couple people from the cooking class to a little shot bar called Espit Chupitos. Chupito means shot. How clever. This place has over 500 shots and it was pretty awesome. They don't tell you what's in them, but some of them are fun. Some of them were scary (like the one called "diarrhea." No thank you.). There was a Harry Potter one that sparkled (by lighting the bar on fire and throwing sugar in it). Bob Marley one was layered green, yellow, and red. Etc. They were pretty clever. Went back to the hostel after a little while, got packed, and went to sleeeeep. Got up super early the next day to get to the airport, flew back to Geneva, killed a few hours there before catching a train back to Chambéry.

Overall, Barcelona was probably my least favorite place. There wasn't a whole lot to do or see. The stupid church is its biggest draw, I think, except maybe for the beaches. I did really like the old city and the few Roman things we saw, but that was really it. The city also reeked of urine, which was less than pleasant.

When it comes down to it, I prefer historical things to big cities, I guess. Paris and London and Istanbul all worked because they've merged the old and the new. Maybe I'd have liked Barcelona if I'd had more time to spend in the old city, I don't know. If nothing else, I can say I've been to Spain woo.

Y helo thar.

2009-06-04T17:00:00.002-04:00

So. This time next week I'll have been home for almost two days. If you define home as a general "that side of the Atlantic," since my flight doesn't land til around six-ish at night. I have a lot to blog about: grades, a two-day trip to Geneva, a four-day trip to Barcelona. General end-of-the-semester reflections. Unfortunately, you're probably going to have to wait til I get home to read all that. My internets are disappearing on Saturday and I'm not getting home til Tuesday night. Sad face. Blogger hates entries that are copy/pasted from Microsoft Word, too, so I may or may not type things up over the weekend and try to post them when I get home or something. We'll see. Beyond that, nothing interesting has happened in my life. I've watched three seasons of NCIS in less than a week. Good times. I'm going to pack now. Ta.

You Know You're a Nerd When...

2009-05-21T16:51:00.003-04:00

Monday [May 18] was my last final and a big last hurrah dinner with 23 other international students. We're a crazy bunch, let me tell ya. More on that later. We got back around 1130, I think? And then Courtney and I were up til 2-something trying to plan travels. We settled for Barcelona, whee! I didn't get to sleep til after 3 that night, which wouldn't have been too bad...

...except I had a 6:10 am train to Geneva, and had to be up at 5. Ewwww. I managed, somehow. When I got to Geneva I met up with Carolyn (the one from Italy/Turkey) and our friend Catherine, who lived on my floor my freshman year [I lived in her old room my past three semesters. Hee.], then graduated and ran off to Geneva for grad school. We spent 3-3.5 hours sitting in Starbucks talking about VCU, the Honors College, wreaking havoc on the world when we're all FSOs, and... scholarships. Yes. So to complete the post title, you know you're a nerd when you meet up with friends halfway across the world to talk about school and scholarships and other nerd things. Clearly, we're a special bunch. And I'm all the more excited now to gain a functioning knowledge of a third language.

After we left Starbucks we walked to the old city to get some lunch at Chez ma cousine. It was delicious. They had potato wedges and chicken and yum. We passed a protest of some kind on the way but we couldn't really figure out what it was for. After lunch we went to Clavin's church, which was closed. It was pretty huge though. And there's a museum underneath but it cost lots of francs to get into. Oh wells. We wandered around Geneva a bit more before heading back to Catherine's apartment. At which point we may or may not have harassed the National Scholarship Coordinator in the Honors College via Skype chat. He said something to the effect of, "I can only imagine the trouble you three have gotten yourselves into." Great to know people back home have faith in us. =D

We talked more about taking over the world. We made dinner. We watched CSI: Miami. The next day we ate the leftovers from dinner, because 2.2 pounds of pasta is a LOT. Back in town we went to a little store that had all kinds of American products that you can't get in Europe: Kraft Mac & Cheese, Betty Crocker, root beer, Mountain Dew, Reese's... it was amazing. And it made us happy. Even though it was a little expensive, but hey. You do what you have to do. We walked to the lake and got ice cream. Met up with two of Carolyn's friends from RVA. Walked around the lake to the massive water jet they have there. Sat in Starbucks with Catherine for another hour and some change after Carolyn left.

Pretty awesome two days. Solidified the fact that I am a nerd and I love it. :) And I love my friends. (Awwwww.)

Lazy lazy lazy

2009-05-13T07:22:00.004-04:00

Wooooot. Today is made of win because I'm not doing anything. For starters, I slept until 12:30 and it was glorious. Why? Because in the span of a week I had 10 exams, plus a paper.

The paper was 10 pages long, and a comparison of Camus' L'Etranger (The Stranger) and Balzac's Le Père Goriot. Lee, Veronica, and I wrote the paper together, but it was a pain in the butt to do. Père Goriot was 270 pages of text. Period. No chapters or anything, just continuous story. Ugh. The entire thing was an ordeal, but we got a 14/20, so no one's complaining. I know it looks bad, but it's a B.

The French grade on a scale of 1-20. 10 is average/passing. 18-20 are impossible to get. So 16-17 is A, 14-15 is B, 12-13 C, 10-11 D if you equate it to the American system. I'm pretty sure it's impossible to get 16-17 too. So while the honors kid in me is frustrated over having gotten a B, the exchange student in me is glee-ing over having gotten a 14.

Oh, god. Completely unrelated, but I'm looking at Facebook where people are talking about unpacking all their dorm stuff and cleaning their rooms at home and I just realized I'm going to have to do that too. Oh, fail.

Anyway, yeah. 10 exams? Not fun. 6 between Tue-Thu of last week. Two each this past Monday and Tuesday. One I know I got a 15 on. That excites me because it was an oral exam too. Hee. Some of them I think I did well on, some I'm not so sure. I can find out my grades starting May 25, and I will defintely do so.

I have two more classes tomorrow and an exam Monday and then I am DONE. And then I will hopefully catch up on the traveling I never did this semester. D: For now, I'm settling for being lazy and cleaning my room. Kinda contradicting, I know, but my room is a mess and I didn't have time to clean it while I was having an aneurysm over all of my finals. So cleaning my room = less stress = me being more chill. Word.

BRB, MOROCCO

2009-05-01T11:03:00.002-04:00

Holy god. I'm shaking right now. I could just die. But that would be counterproductive. Oh my god seriously though.

I'm going to Morocco next year. I'm studying at Al Akhawayn Univsersity in Ifrane.

And the US Government is paying for it.

Oh. My. GOD.

There are no words to describe how I feel right now. No. Words.

In January I applied for the NSEP/Boren undergraduate scholarship, which pays up to $20,000 for students to go somewhere and learn a language that is critical to national security. It was ridiculous and frustrating and I've been waiting since February to hear about it. I got an email at the beginning of April saying "Hey we're still considering your application!" and that they'd announce the winners in May 1st. So needless to say I didn't sleep a whole lot last night and I've been up since 9 am going absolutely nuts: refreshing my inbox, refreshing the page with last year's winners on it, refreshing my inbox again, having a heart attack when I got a new but unrelated email... it's been bad. Being 6 hours ahead is just painful.

So Mom Skyped me and we were talking about it and both just being "omg i can has email plz?" And then she was looking at my Turkey pictures and I refreshed my email and almost died. I stopped, stared at it, and went "YES!" and then froze again. And nearly bounced off my chair. It was ridiculous. I just kept laughing and almost crying. And shaking. There was lots of shaking. I can't believe it. I'm grinning like a fool but omg. There were 896 applications for this thing. I don't know how many they actually gave out but OH MY GOD.

This is absolutely ridiculous. So ridiculous. Ahhhh. I was trying so hard not to just assume that I would get it. So hard. I'd applied for two other things to do over this summer but didn't get either of them and if I didn't get this I would have died, I think. I'm still about to die, but in a good way.

This is very quickly going to dissolve into ramblings, so I'm just going to stop now. I'll post the link to the website once they update with this year's winners. MY NAME IS GOING TO BE ON IT. AHHHHH.

This post lacks a witty title.

2009-04-27T13:26:00.002-04:00

If you're keeping up with this, you'll probably noticed I skipped a few days. I've done the shorter days in Turkey first for the sake of having something written. Be sure to check back later and scroll down, because eventually everything will be posted in chronological order. And if you scroll down a lot more, I finally posted about Avignon. There are no photos up in the posts themselves as of yet, but there are or will be links to my photobucket for each post.

I ran out of titles.

2009-04-25T14:35:00.024-04:00

Saturday, 4.18.2009

We went out with Ahmet and his sister Nalan for some sightseeing in Ankara. First we went to Estergon Castle. It's a museum now but I think it used to be a castle?

It was kind of small for a castle though. It had all kinds of displays of cultural things. Then we played foozball. It was highly entertaining. Next we went to a restaurant right next to the castle. There was çay, of course, (I burned my tongue!) and lots of nuts. Which turned out to be rather embarrassing because I couldn't for the life of me peel the shells off the pistachios. Or any of the other nuts. So after I accidentally sent a few flying across the table, Nalan cracked a few and gave them to me. Oh yeah, I felt special. I forget what the things we ate were called, but then there was quasi-ice cream for dessert. It was like turkish delight, but cold. Very, very cold. It also melts very, very quickly.

From the castle we went across the city to Atakule Tower (I think?). It's a huge tower with an elevator that you can ride to the top for a 360-degree view of... everything. You could only take pictures from half of it (it's surrounded by glass and parts of the glass are blacked out) because parts of it look over government buildings and stuff they don't want you taking pictures of.

Carolyn, being awesome.

From the tower, we headed off to... the zoo. Yes, I went to the zoo in Turkey. Nalan was wearing a shirt with an elephant on it. Either I didn't understand what the shirt said or I didn't recognize the elephant... somehow this became "I've never seen an elephant before." So we went to the zoo in search of an elephant, only to find out later that it had died two years ago. Hah, oops. Regardless, there was zoo. It was fun. But they had dogs there, which made me sad. :( There was also a hippo chilling in his own house thing with a pool. And he farted. And everyone promptly ran away. Hi-lar-i-ous.

Way to fail at being creative, C.S. Lewis. :(

I think we spent the better part of two hours at the zoo. After that we went to a supermarket so Carolyn could buy food. =P Apparently they don't have Pringles and Lay's chips and a bunch of other things in Italy. Spent more time at Ahmet's house. Went to dinner with him and Nalan and their friend whose name I can't remember. Fail? And we had all kinds of Turkish things that I also can't remember. There was ayran, which is a drink of yogurt + salt + water. Emphasis on the salt. It counteracts the insane spices in food. The salt threw me off though. There was also köfte (meatballs); specifically, I think Içli köfte? I somehow lost the list Carolyn gave me, but wikipedia is helping me remember. We had stuffed eggplant (some kind of dolma?) as well. And lamb kebab something or other. It was all pretty good, but there were lots of crazy spices going on; it was pretty harsh compared to bland French food and all the spaghetti I've been eating.

After our ridiculous dinner, we headed straight to the bus station for a fantastic trip back to Istanbul and lame old Europe.

peeeekchurrrs

The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round

2009-04-25T14:35:00.021-04:00

Friday, 4.17.2009

Not too much to say about this one. Got up, ate breakfast, almost missed the shuttle from the hostel thing back up to the top of the mountain. Played with a kitty who had just had kittens while we waited for the minibus back to Antalya. Got lunch at the bus station. I don't even know what I got. Doner kebab I think? Discovered that I'm not really a fan of Turkish yogurt. It's not bad, I just don't like it. (As opposed to European yogurt, which is just yucky.) Commence 8-hour bus ride from Antalya to Anakara. What movie did they play on the bus?

The Patriot.

Yeah. So we're on a bus full of Turks, watching a movie about the American Revolutionary War. Awesome. There was something wrong with it the first time, so they just gave up. They restarted it after our half hour stop and this time it worked. I think Carolyn and I were the only ones watching it. I don't even know if I count since it was dubbed in Turkish and I obviously had no clue what was going on. I'd never seen the movie before. Oh well. But yeah. Most of the bus was asleep while the movie was on. It was fun stuff.

We pulled into Ankara under the most threatening-looking clouds ever, but it didn't rain too hard at all. We stopped at a bakery to get a birthday cake for Carolyn's friend Ahmet, at whose house we were spending the night. The music in the bakery? "As Long As You Love Me." By the Backstreet Boys. I laughed. A lot. This song is 10 or 11 years old. I know this because I sang it in the talent show in 5th grade. (shudder) Moving on. Got to Ahmet's house. He spent some time studying at VCU. [I thought he and Carolyn went to the same uni in Ankara, but I was wrong. Surprise.] Everyone in his family spoke English except his dad. That made it just a little awkward for me, but hey. We ate some Turkish food with the family and it was good even though I have no idea what it was. Walked around the city for a little bit, hunting down some of Carolyn's friends. Went back to Ahmet's house and passed out. Fun stuff. For some reason, being on a bus for hours is really exhausting. =/

A few pics

I am a nerd.

2009-04-25T14:35:00.020-04:00

Thursday, 4.16.2009

First order of business: delicious breakfast. Bread, tomatoes, cheese. Yum. The fact that I hate eggs came back to bite me, though, because the main part of the meal was an omelette. Ooops. Oh well. Also, it goes without saying that çay is part of every meal we had, ever. Nom nom nom.

Hiked on the other side of the river today. I'm really glad we did it in this order, because today was definitely the harder part and yesterday we hadn't slept well or any of that. So yeah. Oh god, it was epic though.

City wall

Carolyn, conquerer of ancient cities.

Mosaics! *-*

This was EPIC. It's the portal to a Roman temple. But it's pretty much the only part left. But it was HUGE. Incredible. Absolutely... wow.

One day, I will learn Greek. I know the alphabet, but that doesn't help very much.

We spent part of the climb trying to remember what acropolis meant. It was pretty lame in the best of geeky ways.

When we got up to the acropolis there was a family there trying to set the timer on their camera to take a group photo. Carolyn took it instead. And we found out that, of all the place in the world, they were from Virginia. I forget where, but they said halfway between Richmond and Fredricksburg. For real? We go all the way to Turkey and we meet Virginians? Give me a break. We talked with them for a little while, took our own pictures, and scrambled down to the bottom again. We lay on the beach but it was too cold to go in, really.

This picture makes me so happy. It's currently my desktop picture. It's just so pretty. It was gorgeous. Just sitting up there and looking out at the sea and listening to it and looking around at the mountains and the ruins... it was so peaceful and amazing.

That light rectangle in the middle? That's the portal to the temple. That's how epic it was.

On the way back to the hostel thing, we stopped and got potato gözleme. Delicious. We also found a store that took credit cards. Yay! We hadn't known on the way down that the hostel only took cash for payment, so that cut into our resources. We also had to make sure we had enough cash for the bus rides back to Antalya. And of course there were no ATMs to speak of at the bottom of the mountain. We lucked out, simply put. But then to find a place that takes credit cards? Eee! We walked back with cookies, snacks, soda, and ice cream. Oh yeah.

Dinner was pretty much the same thing. Instead of hanging out outside, we went back to our room and both tried to get some reading done. Stoopid homework.

Pictures, of course.

Home, sweet... wait, no.

2009-04-25T14:35:00.010-04:00

Sunday, 4.19.2009

Not a whole lot to be said about this one. Overnight bus from Anakara to Istanbul. Got to the airport around 4. We had to go through security to even get into the airport. Then we checked in and chilled for almost two hours before our 6:40 flight. Wound up watching NASCAR, of all things, in the food court for a while. Got on our flight and we both passed out for the 2 and a half hours til Munich. When we got there, Carolyn got on her flight to Milan almost immediately. I, however, was fortunate enough to have to wait until 3:10 for my flight to Lyon. And it was only 8:30ish. Awesome sauce.

So really, there's not a whole lot to do in the Munich airport. I liked Frankfort a lot better. Munich had a bunch of overpriced sit-down restaurants, but that was it. No fast food. No sandwiches under 7 Euro. Free coffee courtesy of Lufthansa though, which I definitely indulged in. I lounged, listened to music, read part of a French book I'm supposed to be writing a paper on this week, stared off into space, and fought off sleep. Flight to Lyon was full and landed late, surprise. I spent the entire flight and the wait for my bag worrying about missing my train back to Chambéry. I had more than enough time though. On the train, we were ready to go and the doors had shut... unfortunately there was an old guy on the train who wasn't supposed to be on it still. His grandson (I assume) was traveling alone, I guess, and the guy was helping his find his seat and stow his bag and whatever. He went back to the door just after it had shut and then he flipped out when he couldn't open it. He kept banging on it and yelling "I have to get off! I have to get off! Let me off!" Then he pulled the emergency lever. Some TGV guys came down and were definitely not pleased. So then the train left late. And I spent the hour long ride sitting across the aisle from an Italian family on their way to Milan from Paris (7 hours, yeesh!); the youngest girl was probably 6 and kept crying. Fun stuff.

I finally got back to good ol' Chambéry around 630. Dropped off my stuff. Went back out to get dinner because I really didn't feel like cooking. Where did I go? To a Turkish kebab place. Wound up getting a cheeseburger though. Yeah, I'm lame. Came back. Talked to Lee in the kitchen for a while. Checked my email. And then promptly passed out. That was a good night. (And then I had class at 8am the next day. Whee!)

All in all? Epic spring break was epic. Forget Miami and Cancun and whatever. Turkey ftw!

Pictures of Munich from the plane.

"Never Get Involved in a Land War in Asia!"

2009-04-25T14:34:00.005-04:00

Title = epic quote from "The Princess Bride." There were no wars in the creating of this vacation. There was, however, some Asia. We actually crossed into Asia Tuesday night (the Bosphorous is the divider, meaning part of Istanbul is European and part is Asian). But hey, now I've been to three continents. Wahoo!

Wednesday, 4.15.2009

Got off at the bus station in Antalya. Got breakfast. I had some kind of bread with cheese in it. Of course I have no idea what it was. Sorry. Took a mini-bus for an hour, maybe hour and a half-long ride to Olimpos. Chilled for a while, then took a shuttle thing down to the... I don't know what to call it. The bottom, haha. We were on a mountain and the shuttle took us down to sea level, I guess. Checked into our hostel thing. The big thing down there is tree houses. We stayed in a bungalow instead of a tree house though, because the bungalows had running water. Oh yeah.

Headed out to the beach. I just have to say, Olimpos is absolutely the most epic place I have ever, ever been. You have to walk (or hike) through ancient ruins to get to the beach. I'm not even kidding.

So we scrambled through a necropolis, a Roman theatre, a Roman bath, past someone's sarcophagus, and through a bunch of former walls and columns and roads and such. It was amazing. You have no idea. I was grinning like an idiot the entire time because, really, ancient ruins? When in your life do you get to do that? It was all still in the wilderness too, which gave it more of an epic and ancient feel. Like this stuff was just chilling there. So it was different from running through castles and stuff in Ireland, and even seeing the Roman leftovers in Arles and Nîmes, because that stuff was obviously kept up. This was just... gah. Gah, I say.

So the road finally leads out to the beach. There's a river separating the ruins into two areas, really. We did one side today and the other tomorrow. But oh hey, beach!

There are even ruins on the beach!!

Yes, I'm a geek. Yes, I loved it. Yes, I desperately want to go back. The Mediterranean was beautiful. And cold. But I went in anyway! Twice. But it was so blue. And so many shades of blue. Ahhh. And the surroundings of course were amazing. Mountains and ruins and green. I think I've only seen that much green in Ireland. Can you tell I'm in love? D:

After a few hours we hiked back, showered, and lounged around doing nothing until dinner. Dinner was very Turkish, I'm told. Salad and soup and bread and... well that's all I can name. There was other stuff and it was really good. We sat around outside for a few hours, around a fire they'd made. We mostly listened to other people talk. (There was a really obnoxious Canadian with a group of people... I don't know if he assembled the group or attached himself to it. But he was funny to listen to, in that "Are really hearing this?" kind of way.) Also tried to figure out the languages other people were speaking when we heard them. Geeks? Nah.

And then glorious sleep. It was glorious. There was a wannabe club thing over the dining hall and you could hear the music loud and clear, but it didn't keep us from passing out for nearly 12 hours. Mmmm.

Ancient Ruins!!

Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

2009-04-24T11:04:00.007-04:00

This little guy was just chilling in a window like, "Hey. I'm a doggy."
Sean, this is your souvenir from Turkey.

Tuesday, 4.14.2009

Day one, officially. The guy we stayed with drove us back to Taksim. We got breakfast at a place called Simit Sarayi. Simit is like... bagel-shaped bread with sesame seeds on it. [I'm going to suggest that from here on, if you don't know what something is, wiki it.] It was good. Wandered around some. We had all our stuff with us because we were catching a bus that night.

Here's the thing. Turks are huge on hospitality. So rather than dragging our bags all around Istanbul all day, we left them with Ahmet's mother's cousin (?), who had a store near where we were. It was the most ridiculous thing ever, but in a good way. I like Turkey. =D

We walked down a massive hill, crossed the Bosphorous. (People fish on the bridge. There were just buckets of fish chilling there.) Looked at a mosque and wandered around the courtyard of it. On our way out, Carolyn says,"This might be dangerous." Uhh? "You might get pooped on."

Oh.

Walked through the Egyptian Spice Market. The guys there speak a lot of languages. I was crazy jealous. One day I'll speak that many languages too.

Went to the Basilica Cistern. Very cool place. Very dark and wet, too. But I discovered that the night mode on my camera works and I like the pictures I took. =P

There were massive fish there too. I want to know how they got in. From there we went to the Ayasofya and promptly turned around because of the massive line. Wandered a bit, decided to hit the Grand Bazaar. It was a crazy, crazy place. Lots of scarves and clothes and evil eyes and such.

"Wait, I need to get a picture of this!"
"You're such a tourist."

Inside the Bazaar

Went to lunch. Everywhere we went people looked at Carolyn and were like, "You speak Turkish? o__O" This restaurant was no different. It was amusing even though I had no idea what was going on. I got some kind of pizza thing whose name escapes me at the moment. Sad face. It was pretty good though.

Moving on. We wandered through the Hippodrome and saw a big obelisk. Went to the Blue Mosque. Went to the Ayasofya. Carolyn had already been like three times, so I wandered around by myself... and she fell asleep. Epic. I'm not going to post any pictures here because I have a lot of them and it would just take forever. Click the link at the end of the post to go to my Photobucket and check them out.

Back on the train, back to Taksim. Got our bags. Went to McDonald's. Oh yeah. Got fries and ice cream. Healthy? No. Turkish? No. Delicious? Yes. From there we went to the bus station and waited for our bus to Antalya. Our 13-hour bus ride. 12, really, because the busses make half hour stops every few hours, so the bus wasn't actually going for 13. But still. I just have to say that these buses absolutely PWN Greyhound. They give you snacks and drinks. It was sweeeet. And they play movies. Not that I had any idea what was going on in this particular movie, but there was still a movie. I pretty much passed out once we got our snacks. Woke up when it stopped. Got food. Gözleme is pretty sweet. It's like a crêpe, but there's cheese inside it. Like goat cheese? Yeah. Different, but good. You can also get it with potatoes or something else inside.

Got back on the bus and passed out again. Magically arrived in Antalya when we woke up. Sleep is awesome.

Slideshow!

Turrrrkeyyyyy

2009-04-20T09:48:00.002-04:00

Monday, 4.13.2009

Carolyn, my friend from VCU who's studying in Milan right now (and whom I spent my birthday with), spent the last academic year studying in Turkey. She was going back and we just happened to have the same spring break, so I jumped at the chance to go with. The original plan was that she would go to Turkey the week before (she had two weeks for break) and we would run around Italy last week, but that changed. So we went to Turkeyyyyy.

Best way to start your spring break? Spend the night in an airport. Yeah, it was special. Monday was Easter Monday, which is a holiday in France. And that meant that the buses and trains to the airport in Lyon were running on the weekend schedule and there was no way for me to get there in time for my 10:25 am flight. I did book a hotel for Sunday night, but that would have involved taking a train to a different station in Lyon, then taking a bus to the airport, then a taxi to the hotel, and then a taxi back in the morning. Too much hassle. That, and Lufthansa had an earlier flight that I hoped I could get on standby for. So I cancelled the hotel reservation and just spent the night at the airport in Lyon. Not a whole lot of fun. And when I asked about standby for the flight the girl straight up told me "Non." The end. Sad face. So I just went on my original flight. Had a short layover in Frankfurt. Got to Istanbul around 5. wooot.

So you just buy a visa at the airport. It's a sticker that they just put in your passport and then that the passport control dude stamps. I was stuck behind the stereotypical idiot American the entire way. The visa was $20, and somehow she heard "Two hundred." I don't see how she confused the two. But she stood there and just kept saying "What? Two hundred? What? What?" until I told her. To which she just said, "Oh." Sorry, but if someone wanted to charge me $200 for a visa, I'd get back on the plane and go home. On to the passport check. There are red lines on the floor; both the lines and the signs on the booth say to stay behind the line until the person in front of you is gone. Aaaand this woman is completely oblivious and is right behind the person at the window. Like on top of her. And talking super loudly on her iPhone the entire time. And then walks forward, puts down her phone and passport on the window while the other woman is there, and start rummaging through her bag. When it's her turn she's still on the phone while staring at the sign that says "No phones." And she just nods when the guy tells her to get off the phone. But doesn't get off the phone. I was embarrassed. It was fantastic.

Moving on. Grabbed my bag and found Carolyn. Went to Starbucks because it was a million degrees in the airport. The guy there didn't know what to do with "Cat" so my name became "Ms. Esra Ayşe Fatma," three very common Turkish names. It was funny. Carolyn got a new name too but I forget what it was. From there, three trains to the Taksim part of Istanbul. Met up with two of Carolyn's friends. Tried not to get run over by card or random people. There weren't too many cars on this street, but there were people everywhere. Went to this fancy restaurant for dinner. They didn't really have anything super Turkish on the menu, so I was lame and got chicken alfredo. It was good though. =P

We drove around with them for a while and went to get çay (pronounced chai), which is just tea. The Turks are really big on their çay. Went back to one of her friend's houses, where we spent the night. All in all not a super duper exciting action packed day, but still. I went to Turkey!!

Forget Cancun,

2009-04-19T17:50:00.001-04:00

I went to TURKEY for spring break!!

And it was beyond epic. So awesome. SO. AWESOME. EEEEEE.

Right. So I have over 300 pictures to upload, I think. I also have a severe case of lack of sleep, and I have class in 8 hours. So you get to wait a while longer.

I WENT TO TURKEY.

Oh hay!

2009-04-11T18:13:00.002-04:00

I know, I'm awful about updating. Prepare to wait even longer. I went to Avignon on March 28th and have an entry like half-finished, but I still have to add pictures and such, so it will probably take a while. Went out with a bunch of people to a restaurant for dinner last Sunday. Went to a karaoke bar on Tuesday. That was interesting. (I still can't sing.) This week is spring break and I'm leaving tomorrow to do some globetrotting. Should be pretty awesome. I'm getting back next Sunday night, so between then and Christmas, maybe, there will be details. Til then... er. Yeah. Watch a French movie or something.

Happy Easter!

Sur le pont d'Avignon

2009-04-05T08:39:00.003-04:00

L'on y danse, l'on y danse...

Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQXkNSB9KlY
Words: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sur_le_pont_d%27Avignon

SO. Y helo thar. Welcome back. Etc. On March 28 I went to Avignon with Tristan, Cori, and Juli. It was pretty sweet. And cold and rainy, but sweet all the same. It was two or three hours on the train each way, I think, and of course we left super early in the morning. [Excuse me if there are random typos here; I'm in the computer lab at school and French keyboards are set up differently.] We got in to the station around 11ish I think. Took a bus from the station to the city because we were pretty far out. The entire city is still surrounded by the medieval ramparts. It was awesome.

After a little bit of wandering we made our way to the Palais des Papes. Decided to get lunch first. Then got ice cream. Then Juli and Tristan bought paintings from people. Then we went back to the Palais des Papes. And I realized once we were inside that yes, it was a historical castle thing, but it was entirely empty. Because it would make sense to leave all the expensive stuff when the popes went back to Rome, right? Dur. So we walked through the entire thing and just looked at the empty rooms and the signs that said "This room used to be this and this kind of stuff used to be here." It was a little disappointing because I like seeing historical things, but whatever. It was still pretty cool to be all, "lol hay I'm in a castle where all kinds of cool stuff happened!"

From there we took a long detour around the castle in order to get away from an obnoxious group of eigth graders. Eventually we made it to the Pont Saint Benezet, otherwise known as the Pont d'Avignon. It was much fun, even though it was really raining by this time. The story behind the bridge is that God told a shephard to go build a bridge at this spot across the Rhône. He went and told the people in the city, who laughed at him and told him to pick up this huge boulder for the first stone. He did, and now there's a bridge there. Yay bridge.

There's not a whole lot else to do in Avignon, so we went to a café before going back to the train station. During our stopover in Lyon we got dinner at Subway. Quick, what are the French names of all their random veggie toppings? Yeah, that was amusing. All in all, it was a good day. Tiring, but good. We spent the train rides in the morning talking about books and majors and geeky things, and the ride from Avignon to Lyon talking about music and swapping earbuds. Geeks? Yeah, what of it?

Peek-churs.

Yeah, I'm still here.

2009-03-17T14:08:00.003-04:00

But nothing interesting is going on in my life. Sorry to disappoint. The most interesting thing right now is that I really like cereal. Oh argh, I just realized I'm out of chocolate cereal and the store closed ten minutes ago. Fail.

Classes are... going. Not well, not badly, just going. I hate the classes, really, because all you do is sit there for 2 hours writing whatever the professor says. There're no textbooks, no quizzes, no homework. No attendance-taking. You just show up, takes notes, and hope you don't fail the exam at the end of the semester. Bah. One of the classes I and most of the other Americans have been wanting to take is a linguistics class. It hasn't met yet and we just thought it would meet the following week. Well today- 8 weeks into the semester, btw- they put up a sign saying "Well this guy's still on strike, sorry. We found someone to teach his grammar class, but not linguistics. Oh and that grammar class is going to meet for FOUR HOURS for each of the next four weeks." If they do that with linguistics I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be able to take it, which is made of fail. This school is awesome.

...haha, just kidding. >>

I hope you appreciate me.

2009-03-08T21:53:00.002-04:00

It's 2:54 am and I just now finished all of the updating and uploading of posts and photos, even though the entries are backdated. I'm going to be miserable in class tomorrow and it's going to be great. College students don't sleep anyway, right? =P

Okay really. Gnight.

Jai ho!

2009-03-08T18:19:00.002-04:00

I'm almost done catching up with my travels, I swear. I was going to have finished tonight, actually, but something came up. =) I decided I was too lazy to cook, so I went out to get a kebab and fries. Nom nom nom. However, the store looked like it was closed, so I turned around and came back. Ran into Courtney, Veronica, Cori, and Vanessa in the lobby. They were getting ready to go out to see "Slumdog Millionaire" and asked if I wanted to go too. So we went. And I got my kebab on the way, but most of it sat in Veronica's bag for the length of the movie, because apparently French people don't eat food during movies. Sadness. But epicness. I went and saw an awesome movie with awesome people. I like very much. Yaaay.

I is old. :(

2009-03-08T11:23:00.002-04:00

My birthday went better than expected. And by better than expected I mean that when I got here I figured it would be lame and I would be sitting in my room not caring. This sounds a lot more pathetic in writing than it really is, oops. But I don't usually make a big deal out of my birthday anyway, and the only reason people care about their 21st is that they get to drink, but I've been able to drink since I got here. So there.

ANYWAY. My friend Carolyn from VCU is studying in Milan, Italy, right now. We were thinking of going somewhere else the weekend of the 28th, but that fell through. So instead I went to visit her. I took a fantastic 4-hour train ride from Chambéry to Milan and got there Friday afternoon. After dumping my stuff at her apartment we went to the Duomo, which is a massive, massive cathedral. (Which, like every other epic tourist thing I go to see, was covered in scaffolding.) Took some pictures. Got gellato. (Mmmmm!)

Oh right. And in Milan, Carnavale lasts a week. So small children, their parents, and crazy teenagers were running around in costumes. Vendors sell bags of confetti to be thrown at people, and of course there's the silly string. We were lucky enough not to get sprayed with it, but we came close. The entire thing would have been cute if it weren't mildly obnoxious.

Back to the apartment to wait for a guy who was supposed to fix their internet but never showed up. Boo. In the meantime, we had pizza. Italian pizza. So good. I got a veggie pizza of some kind; I think it had onions, eggplant, and zucchini? I think that was the first time I'd had eggplant too. I'm trying all kinds of fantastic things over here. Around midnight we left to go to a club called Le Banque. And I have to say, it bothers me to no end that it's le banque. "Banque" is the French word for bank, but it's feminine. Bank is also feminine in Italian. So where did they get this name from?

Anyway. Le Banque. Pretty cool place. They had decorations up for Carnavale. But it was fashion week in Milan and Friday night was apparently model night. Lots of people came in through the VIP door looking a lot better than we did. Oops. So we spent most of the night just people watching since it was wayyy too crowded to dance. But it was okay because it was free to get in that night. (Drinks were 12 euro each, so we passed on that option as well. Yeesh!) Got home at 5:30 in the morning. Faaantastic.

Slept for a while. Birthday meal? We went to McDonald's for lunch. Classy. =D It was really good though. I got a bacon cheeseburger with some kind of weird sauce on it and it was yummy. We also got curly fries and chicken nuggets. Made of real white meat chicken, not whatever American McDonald's try to pretend is chicken. Soooo goood. Wandered around shopping with Carolyn and her roommate Melitta. I broke down and got a tshirt I'd almost bought the day before. Whatever, it was my birthday, right? And it's cute. Maybe not worth 13 euro, but still cute. =P

For dinner, went with Carolyn, Melitta, their roommate Dana, and Dana's friend Kate for apertivo (sp?). Basically, we went to this bar/restaurant(?), paid 7 euro for a drink, and got an awesome buffet included. Yaaaaay Italian pasta! It was yummeh. And my first "official" drink was a delicious strawberry daquiri. Nom nom nom. I'd had virgin ones before, so I figured I needed to try the real thing. After dinner we hung out on the street some because it was wayyy too early to go back to Le Banque. You can drink on the streets there/here. It's weird just seeing people walking or standing around with a beer in hand.

Back to Le Banque. More hanging around and people watching. Attempted dancing but there were too many people, and Italians are creepy. So we went back and sat down and were lame. And by lame I mean we had fun. Got back to the apartment at 630 this time. Slept. Got kebabs for lunch because in Italy, like France, everything closes on Sundays. Except kebab places! I hadn't noticed this before since I gave up going out on Sundays, but I noticed when I got back that hey, all the kebab places are open. Whee!

So ended my fantastic (and fantastically exhausting) birthday weekend. Well, it actually ended with a 4-hour train ride back to Chambéry. On a packed train. Sitting opposite a family with 3 kids. That was not so fantastic.

So now I'm 21. And I feel like I'd only just gotten used to saying I was 20. I feel no different and I remember the entire weekend. Clearly I did something wrong somewhere. But yeah. So the only thing I have to show for being older is an expired driver's license. Oops. Well, and I have a lot of white hair, but that's nothing new, sadly.

Huzzah!

PHOTOS.

London, Day 3

2009-03-08T11:22:00.008-04:00

Friday, 20.2.2009

Today was the easy day. We'd seen just about everything there was on the first two days. We too our time getting ready and heading out. I bought a fantastically overpriced memory card for my camera because I forgot to buy one before I left home. Fail.

We went back to the Tower of London and paid the 14 pounds to get in. Ick. However, it was pretty sweet. We hung around for 15 minutes waiting for a tour and wound up with a pretty funny tour guide. The tour was about an hour and it consisted mainly of standing around outside and hearing the history of the castle. Which was pretty sweet.

Catapult!

Tour Guide man sir. All the tour guides are Yeomen.

After the tour we were free to roam around and do whatever we liked. First we went into the Tower/Castle itself. Which, like everything I ever go to see, was under construction. Or reconstruction, as it were, so half the rooms were closed. It wasn't as big or fun as the castles we saw in Ireland forever ago (ten years?! I feel so old D:), but it was still cool. There were exhibits on weapons and armor and money through the centuries. There was a staircase on the outside (why, I have no idea), and that's where the bodies of two young princes were found a few months after their uncle (who later became king, go figure) "put them to bed" one night. Slash probably killed them, yeah?

"THE TRADITION of the TOWER has ALWAYS POINTED out THIS as the STAIR UNDER WHICH the BONES of EDWARD the 5th and of his BROTHER WERE FOUND in CHARLES the 2nds TIME and from WHENCE THEY WERE REMOVED to WESTMINSTER ABBEY."

Picture of the princes.

This was a toilet. A hole cut into the floor on one of the upper levels. And it just opened up to the ground below. Faaantastic.

We left the castle itself and wandered over to the spot where 7 people were killed over the years. Apparently stories of killings and toture at the tower have been exagerrated over time. A lot of people were imprisoned there though.

Memorial to the people beheaded on that spot. There's a little poem going around the base of it and their names are carved around the outer edge of the glass.

I have more pictures on Photobucket (link at the end of the post). In all of the places where people were imprisoned, there're carvings in the walls. Sometimes just names, sometimes pictures or prayers or affirmations of faith. Twas interesting. But wayy too many pictures to post here.

After all that we went and got overpriced hot chocolate and muffins from the café and stood in line to go see the crown jewels. They were pretty neat. No pictures allowed in the building though, sadness. Also sadness? The epic expense of all the stuff in there. Like, all of the diamonds and rubies and everything were HUGE. And they're just sitting there behind glass, chilling. I can't imagine anyone being able to buy them the way they are, but surely they can be put to better use? And really, there's an entire robe/cape/thing that weighs like 20 pounds and it made entirely of gold thread. Not just gold-colored, but actual gold. What's the point?! Argh, people frustrate me. "Heyyyy! Check out my bling, yo! My clothes are made of goooold!" >__>

Moving on. We wandered around most of the outside of the castle from there. Not all of the wall was open for tourists. There was a little exhibit thing on what they did when the castle was attacked (see below) and on how during a revolt of some kind, people broke in and stole armor and such. There was also a gate that at one point was called "Watergate" but then was renamed "Traitor's Gate." Commence bad jokes. They renamed it though because oh hay, water ran through it at first and then later they brought in traitors (new prisoners etc) through it on little boats.

Uhhh...

I made a new friend!

We made our way down to the Bloody Tower next. It's the one where they did all the fun torture things. They had examples of the rack there, and manacles, and this thing that I forgot what it's called, but basically they'd just squish you into a ball (or a giant acorn, according to Stacey) for a few hours.

The Bloody Tower.

THE RACK. One of three torture devices on display.

Having spent around 4 hours in the Tower of London, we bid it adieu and went off in search of the Globe Theater. Heyo. Found it with a little bit of difficulty no thanks to street signs failing at life. Were disappointed to find out that it cost like 8 pounds to get in. Took pictures of the outside and left. On the way by there was some kind of construction going on, and the barrier around it said "Temporary Eyesore" all the way around. I wanted a picture but it wasn't possible because of the way it was written. Fail.

Globe Theater woo! I still hate Shakespeare though.

Onward to dinner! Where did we go? Pizza Hut. Yes, that's right. Pizza Hut. Except it seemed like a classy establishment? Dear London, you're doin it wrong. They had a Happy Hour special from 3-6; garlic bread, an individual pizza, and a soda for 3.50. I approved. Got a pizza with peppers and tomatoes and it was made of yum. Back to the hostel. Packed our stuff to get ready. Went on a pub crawl that was run by the people who ran the took we took the first day. Crowded clubs were crowded, yeesh. Got back around... 1230ish maybe? And then joy of joys, we left the hostel at like 330am. Walked a few blocks to a bus station, took a bus to another station where we had hoped to get a cheap bus to the London Stanstead airport, which is like an hour out of London. No such luck since it was like, the phantom bus. Fail. So instead we got 20-pound train tickets to the airport. More fail. But then we got to the airport, got Starbucks, and all was right with the world. Smooth journey home except for some bizarre reason our train was half an hour late getting back here and we were stuck with two obnoxious screaming French children next to us. Yeahhhh.

In sum: London was pretty cool. I'm glad I went, but I don't think I'd go back anytime soon. Unless maybe it were for a show (Spring Awakening opens March 21st! D:) and someone was paying the super expensive travel fees. It is really expensive there, even ignoring the awful exchange rates (I think 1 pound was $1.60 when we went?). And it just reminded me too much of Boston. Touristy things aside, it's just another big city. Crowded, loud, and expensive.

It had the most inefficient public transportation I've ever seen, and that's saying a lot compared to both the T and the GRTC. I'll take the Paris Metro anyday. Once I dig out the map again I'll upload a photo, but god it was stupid.

And there were Starbucks and McDonald's everywhere. We saw two Krispy Kremes, a KFC, a few Subways, two Pizza Huts, and some other things. It was kind of sad. But downtown anywhere is pretty much the same.

I was a little bit disappointed in the theatre part. There are like 40-odd musicals supposed to be playing there, and I thought the West End was supposed to be the theatre district. I was expecting to walk onto a street and be bombarded with huge signs and marquees like on Broadway. But no, not really. They're scattered all over the city and it made me sad over the lack of epic. Oh well.

MOAR PICTURES.

Oh I just can't waaaiiit to be kiiiinggg

2009-03-07T19:42:00.005-05:00

---

EVERYBODY LOOK LEFT!

EVERYBODY LOOK RIGHT!

EVERYWHERE YOU LOOK...

I'M STANDING IN THE SPOTLIGHT!

---

Do You Hear the People Sing?

2009-03-06T07:45:00.004-05:00

This post relates entirely to Les Misérables and its epicness. You have been warned.

Okay, so seeing this show simultaneously made and ruined my life. I'm not sure when I started getting obsessed with it, but I know I have Mom to blame. PBS showed the 10th Anniversary Concert on TV every so often, and she would watch it. And she has the Original London Cast soundtrack, and I remember when we were little Sean really liked "ABC Café/Red and Black." Fast forward probably a decade (!! oh god that's awful). Somehow it comes up in conversation that "I Dreamed a Dream" was played at my friend's prom (?) in high school. We talk about the show's epicness. She gets me the soundtrack to the concert for my birthday. Like an idiot I ignore the revival tour, only to regret it once it's left Boston. A year later Meghan and I go to NYC to see Wicked and we see some guy with a Les Mis playbill as we head back to the bus station. And I want to kill something because I didn't think to check and see if it was playing in New York, which was so stupid of me. (Lea Salonga was in it then too! I could have killed to see her! D: I think she was playing Fantine at the time, which would have been weird, BUT STILL. ...Okay, tangent: after watching her do "I Dreamed a Dream" on YouTube, it would not have been so weird because she's still amazing. But I still like Ruthie Henshall's version better. More on that later.) ANYWAY. So for three or four years now I have desperately wanted to see this show.

AND I GOT TO SEE IT IN LONDON. We went to a little store that sold tickets for basically all the plays and musicals that were running; they were supposed to be cheaper the day of or day before because they were last minute tickets. We were open to seeing a number of shows, but this turned out to be the best seats for the best price. 36 pounds to sit in row K of the stands/orchestra? Uh, yes please!

So because I am a massive geek, I bought a playbill (they're not free in England. saddness), a photo book, and a mug. I almost went for a baseball tee with '24601' on it, but I've seen better ones online. The show surprised me by starting on time, which is unheard of in the US.

I sat there grinning like an idiot when the orchestra started the Prologue. I bounced up and down in my seat like a three-year-old. I was full of GLEE and it was made of win. Before this I had been to various theatres at least 8 times for musicals and twice for operas. None of those experiences compares to this. It was absolutely incredible to sit there and feel the bass resonating through the room during "Work Song." And to see it being acted out made it real. Mom's DVD is just a concert; the actors are in costume, but they just stand there and sing, it's not the whole show. I'd watched clips of performances on YouTube, but it's so not the same. Everything came together and filled in gaps in what I knew of the story... yay.

I have to say, one of the best parts was not having to listen to Colm Wilkinson as Jean Valjean. That alone made it worth it. =P Going in I was a little worried that the show wouldn't be as good as my CD was, or that I wouldn't like it as much because I was too used to the cast on the CD. No worries there. They were all amazing. I was worried about Javert because of Philip Quast's awesomeness, but the guy was really, really good. The only one I didn't like so much was Fantine. The character has a lot of bad things happen to her in quick succession, which should make for a lot of emotion. The woman that night was not as emotional as I had expected and didn't seem as heartbroken as she should have. "I Dreamed a Dream" was not nearly as powerful as it should have been, which made me sad. That was really the only song I was actually disappointed in. I'm sorry, but if your life is falling apart around you, you're not going to stand there and be ambivalent about it. Please. Thank you.

Backing up a little bit, "Valjean's Soliloquy" was actually really good. Again, it probably comes out of my hating Colm Wilkinson. Not to take away from the actor that night, but I definitely think I went in with low expectations. "Who Am I?" turned out pretty powerful and I was surprised to find later that I actually liked "Bring Him Home" despite the god-awful high note at the end. Gleeeee.

Okay, I lied a little bit. "Master of the House" did disappoint, only because the Thénardiers in the concert were so crazy. The people we saw weren't bad by any means, but I was expecting it to be a little sillier. Again, the drawbacks of having something to compare it to.

Another of the most epic parts was "ABC Café/Red and Black" and "Do You Hear the People Sing?" And by epic I mean oh my god. It was really powerful thanks to a combination of the music resounding through the room and the emotion of the actors and the number of people singing all at once and just the song itself. It was made of wow.

So I'm not a fan of Cosette's character because I don't like Judy Kuhn either. Oops. The girl in the show wasn't bad, but I could take her or leave her.

Eponine. Was epic. Not Lea Salonga, but epic. I haven't really liked any of the other Eponines I've heard via YouTube, but this girl was really good. Whee! It made "A Heart Full of Love" bearable and omg "On My Own" was fantastic. Very emotional. So tortured. Eeeee.

I was a little bit confused because on the CD I have, "The Attack on Rue Plumet" starts Act 2. So when the show went right into it I was like, "Uh... guys?" But then I realized it made a lot more sense this way. Most shows end the first act with an epicly awesome uplifting song ("Defying Gravity," anyone?) and then pick up from there. This worked out in my favor, because instead of my having to sit through the intermission painfully waiting for "One Day More!" I got to be excited and all but flip out during "The Attack." I started bouncing in my seat again in anticipation and omg it was so epic. So. Epic. I love the song anyway and I love the way everyone sings their own parts and how it all flows together and whee. It was amazing. I was totally high on life during the intermission.

Act Two. As I said, "On My Own" was made of wow. "A Little Fall of Rain" was even better. I cried. And I don't cry, ever, so that says something. So awesome.

Beyond that, epic show was epic. I really liked the effects during "Javert's Suicide." "Empty Chairs at Emtpy Tables" was just as sad as it should have been. Something about Marius' appearance bothered me during the whole show, but I couldn't tell you what it was. Maybe the hair. He had weird-looking hair. Ah, well.

I was really sad when it was over. Like, it was too awesome to be over and what was I supposed to do now? When the cast was coming out to bow the third(?) time, Valjean pretended to attack Javert and it made me laugh. And then they were smiling and talking and being all friendly and it made me happy. I'm weird, I know.

Music aside, I think my favorite part of the show (wait, there's more than the music?) was the stage: most of the stage is a huge circle that moves. So like when action is progressing or someone's running away, they just walk in one direction while the circle (and everyone else on it) moves in the other and it's really really cool.

So this show was unbelievably awesome. Moreso than any of the others I've seen (which says a lot). And it has also ruined my life because now the CD I have is slightly less epic since I've seen it live. And because I want to go back and see it again so badly. But it's kind of expensive to get to London. :(

For reference: 10th Anniversary Concert on YouTube divided up by song.

London, Day Two

2009-03-06T07:44:00.003-05:00

19.2.2009, Thursday

We took it easy today. Partook of the fantastically cheap but included breakfast at the hostel again. Went back to the British Museum so I could buy the necklace I'd seen the day before. Wandered a bit, looked in some souvenir shops. I've realized now how kitschy and useless most souvenirs are. It's kind of disappointing.

Hopped on the bus and went to Buckingham Palace, getting there just in time for the changing of the guard. All in all, it was pretty anticlimactic. Maybe because we stood there for a while with no idea what was going on? All of the guards paraded down the street through the gate. There were some guys on horses leading them and a band playing fancy music. Once they were all inside they kind of just... stopped. And lined up there for a while. A lot of spectators left and the rest of us were like, "Okay, is it over now? Do we leave? What's going on?" We watched some guys walk back and forth, but nothing was happening...

And the band played ~~Waltzing Matilda~~ "Dancing Queen" and "Mamma Mia" by ABBA. Uh, what? They were playing music and people just stopped and listened like, "They're not really playing 'Dancing Queen,' right?" But they were, and people walking by started singing it. And "Mamma Mia" followed. And it was epic. They played a third song but I have no idea what it was. I feel like it had nothing to do with ABBA though.

After standing there for maybe 45 minutes, Courtney and I decided to leave because nothing was happening. Aaaand surprise, stuff happened! We'd crossed in front of the palace and noticed that, hey, they were moving. So we wound up at the gate they were leaving through. Yay for awesome timing.

Stopped for lunch on our way to a train station. We both got cottage pie (hamburger topped with mashed potatoes and brown gravy) and it was soooo good omg. Also split a profiterole sundae. That was yummy as well. After finally wrangling our check from the guy we went to the station. I got a coffee from Starbucks. We saw the theatre Wicked was playing in. And we took a really long bus ride down to St. Paul's Cathedral. Drove down Fleet Street (as in, "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street") but I couldn't get a picture of any of the signs. Stopped at St. Paul's Cathedral, which was massive. And which I'd wanted to see because it's mentioned in "Jekyll & Hyde." Yay, musicals. I love London.

From there we went to the Tower of London. Which, for the record, is not a tower. "Tower of London" refers to the entire stupid castle. Way to go, British people. Way to go. All we did was take pictures of the outside because it cost 14 pounds to get in and because it was closing in like an hour.

Sadly, Mr. Yeoman Tour Guide Man decided to talk to us while we were taking the pictures. Hence the awkward face.

So we wandered a bit, got on a bus, got stuck in traffic, and went back to the hostel to change and scarf dinner before we went to see Les Miiiiissss! We were running fantastically late and I forgot my city map so we got lost before we even got started. I gave up and we got a taxi, which only got us there with 7 minutes to spare; had we walked or taken the bus we would have been super late and I would have cried. Epic show was epic. Went to Starbucks afterward, then took the bus home. I was totally high on life. It was great.

This is the smallest police station in London, located in Trafalgar Square. I really don't think you can actually fit anyone in there.

Peeeek-churrrs.

"There's no Place Like London!"

2009-03-03T18:23:00.008-05:00

Title from "Sweeney Todd." Notice a trend yet?

So, first full day in London. 18.2.2009

We had a fantastic breakfast of corn flakes and toast, then headed out to the British Museum to kill time. This place is made of awesome. We didn't see a whole lot, but it was free. And it had the Rosetta Stone. omg. I know I'm a huge geek but it was epic. Yaaaay silly linguistical things! I did see a Celtic cross necklace that I liked at the gift shop, but I didn't buy it. Sadness.

From the museum we went near Hyde Park to meet a tour group by the Wellington Arch. There’s this company call New Europe that runs free tours in big cities in Europe, one of which happened to be London. Yay, free things! From the Wellington Arch we walked to Buckingham Palace. Our tour guide was really funny and told us how security there is not all that fantastic; she had three different stories about how random people wound up inside, including two Germans who camped there overnight by accident, instead of in one of the surrounding parks. Heh, oops.

From Buckingham Palace we walked to two other royal homes. Of course I have no idea what they were called, but one is where Prince Charles and his family live currently and the other is where Princess Diana lived. We walked down Pall Mall Road to a house where a woman named Nell Gwynne lived. She was a mistress of a prime minister way back when (one of many, I think), and she held their baby over a balcony one day, threatening to drop him unless the PM gave him a title. So the kid wound up being duke of something or other, a title that still exists today. That was pretty funny. As we continued down Pall Mall Road we passed a memorial for Waterloo. Then we came to Trafalgar Square. There were lots of pigeons. Lots of them. The National Gallery is there. There’s a huge statue with a lion in each of the corners, except they’re not quite lions. They’re supposed to be, but the guy who carved them had never seen a real lion before. As a result, the heads are lion-like (because he’d seen pictures), but the bodies look like his cocker spaniel. There’s your useless trivia for the day.

Onward! To some kind of archway thing? The weirdest thing about it is that there’s a nose on one of the columns. Just chilling there like, “Hey, I’m a nose.”

It's that odd-colored spot right above the person's hair.

No one knows how or why it got there. After that we saw the place where they’re playing beach volleyball in next year’s Olympics.

Uh… yeah.

We could also see the back of the houses on Downing Street. You can’t go down it anymore because Margaret Thatcher decided that was a security risk. Sadness. Onward to something involving Churchill and planning for war. There is supposed to be a network of tunnels underneath it that lead all around London. Whee, tunnels.

From there: Westminster Abbey and Parliament! I have a million and a half pictures of both, and Big Ben. They’re both so big that it was absolutely impossible to get an entire building in one photo. Westminster Abbey was super expensive to go into, boo. Something like 14 pounds I think? The tour ended there.

Courtney and I went back to our hostel, grabbed lunch, and headed out to find Leicester Square to get tickets to a show. A well-meaning Brit gave us convoluted directions on how to walk there, which didn’t turn out too well. We found a discount ticket seller and just stopped there. And walked away with ticket to LES MISERABLES. I was beside myself. Also found out something bizarre (that probably means nothing to anyone reading this). Courtney was looking at a brochure for Hairspray (which we couldn’t get cheap tickets to because it’s so popular; the cheapest were like 77 pounds!) and I looked over her shoulder and exclaimed “Michael Ball is in Hairspray?!” and the ticket guy kind of smiled and said, “Yeah, but you wouldn’t recognize him.” Michael Ball is an amazing singer who played Marius in Les Mis and has done lots of other things. I didn’t really understand what the guy was implying, but the more I thought about it, the more I wondered. So the next time we rode the bus by the theater Hairspray was in, I took a good look at the signs. Turns out he’s playing the crazy mother (John Travolta’s character in the movie). I absolutely cannot imagine that. At all. Even though I don’t really like the musical, I kind of wish we’d been able to see it, just so I could see him. Ah, well. I’ll pay money to see shows, but 77 pounds was a huge no-no.

MOVING ON. Walked to Picadilly Square. We were trying to get to Westminster Abbey for the 5pm Evensong service, but we wound up going the wrong way down a street. So instead we turned back and went into the National Gallery. Spent a good hour there, then went to the one place in London that every tourist absolutely HAS to go to: King’s Cross Station. More specifically, Platform 9 and ¾!! We stopped off at McDonald’s first so Courtney could get coffee. In the meantime I called Sean just to double check that we were going to the right place. The conversation went as follows:

“What’s the name of the station where Platform 9 ¾ is? Is it King’s Cross?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Because I’m standing right outside it and my friend and I are going to go take pictures.”

**Cricket chirp**

I thought he’d hung up on me. Instead he just stopped talking, then asked if the conversation was over yet. I love my brother. So we walked around the station for a few minutes trying to find the platform and not quite wanting to ask anyone about it. I, for one, was grinning like an idiot. We knew it wouldn’t be a real, actual platform, but we still couldn’t see it anywhere. Finally I asked someone who worked there. I was surprised that he was totally unfazed by the question. Not even an eye roll or anything. But we found it, and it was totally just a random wall that they had stuck a sign on and bolted half a luggage cart to. But that does not make it any less epic in any way. Because dude, it’s Platform 9 ¾!! No words can describe the epicness. So we took our silly pictures and went back to the hostel for the night.

All in all, it was a great day. We were both exhausted by the end of it, in a combination of getting up early, being busy all day, and walking everywhere. But it was pretty sweet.

Sliiiideshowww

Pardon the Interruption...

2009-02-26T17:05:00.002-05:00

I know. I fail. I've had half a week to upload hundreds of pictures and blog about everything. And I haven't finished yet. I really should have finished by now, but oh well. Only 99 more London pictures to resize and upload. And three days of London to write about. I'll get to that later.

For now? I have to go pack. Again. =D I'm going to Milan, Italy, for the weekend. One of my friends from VCU is studying there, and I'm going to visit for my birthday. I have no idea what she has planned, but I'm sure it will be made of awesome sauce.

I'm not going to lie, I wish I could be in Richmond and hang out with a bunch of my friends instead of just one. Or home. Home would be nice too. But I'll take what I can get. After all, how many people celebrate their birthday abroad to begin with; on top of that, how many can say, "Yeah, I'm going to Italy for the weekend." So yeah, always look on the bright side of life. *whistle* It's a little bit anti-climactic though; I've been able to drink since I got here. Ah, well.

Ciao!

"First we'll go to Calais, then a boat across the sea!"

2009-02-26T16:33:00.003-05:00

It took us about three hours to get to Calais from Paris. We had to get out and do fantastic immigration control things before getting on a ferry to Dover, England. But I has another stamp on my passport now! Yay! We got lunch on the ferry. I think it was almost two hours? Maybe three? But it was better than being stuck on the bus. We thought we were going through the Chunnel on the bus. We were a little bit disappointed about not taking the Chunnel, but I really do think I preferred being able to walk around. Go figure.

View of Calais from the ferry.

Oh, post title courtesy of "Les Misérables." Foreshadowing, clearly.

Finally the bus got to London. We dragged our luggage and ourselves from the coach station to the nearest tube station at 6pm-ish. Dear god. In addition to costing us 4 pounds each (!!!) for the fare, the ride was just crazy. We had to change once or twice and oh my god. It was worse than trying to get through Kenmore after a Sox game. Since the tube is so old to begin with, the trains are super small. Anyone over 6 feet should find alternative means of transport because it's just not worth it. And you have to take an elevator from the train level to the ground level in most stations because the only stairs are narrow, winding, and number over 175. Craaaaazy.

After that fun experience we went to our hostel (after taking a detour since their directions were made of fail), which was disappointing compared to the other two I'd stayed it, but I think this is what a hostel usually is like. Ick. It wasn't super dirty or awful or anything, but it was an experience. More on that later. We explored the immediate area a little and discovered that even though there were Starbucks everywhere, they all closed no later than 8pm. That's just stupid. Wound up at a pub for dinner.

I got fish and chips.

Oh yeah. Dinner was sweet. Went back to the hostel, planned for the next day, and went to bed since we were getting up bright and early. Wahoo!

La Belle Paris

2009-02-26T13:52:00.004-05:00

So after Switzerland I had maybe 18 hours before my next journey: Paris!

Last week was the first of two vacations we get. Originally I had no plans outside of Switzerland. I thought maybe I'd just get on a train and go somewhere in France for a day or two maybe, but otherwise just stay here and chill. Then the Thursday before break Courtney asked if I'd like to go to London with her. Uh, yes! She was spending Saturday-Tuesday morning in Paris with a friend and leaving for London from there, so the easiest thing for me to do was go to Paris Monday and leave with Courtney on Tuesday.

SO. Thankfully no issues traveling this time. Got to Paris around 1:30, got to my hostel around 2:30 and dumped my stuff. Headed straight to Montmartre to feed the obsession I have with the movie "Moulin Rouge."

Word up. So there's the Moulin Rouge. I promptly got back on the metro (but not before getting a McFlurry at McDonald's!) and headed to Notre Dame. Pigalle is... interesting. Highly interesting. Not so much seedy and dangerous (during the day, anyway) as cheesy and just... weird. And cheesy. Very cheesy. I wish I'd stuck around in Montmartre a little longer, but there's not too much to do except see Moulin Rouge and the Sacre Coeur, which I'd already seen. So off to Notre Dame it was.

And it was made of fail. I really wanted to go up in the towers, but I missed the last tour by like two minutes. If I hadn't gotten confused when changing trains I would have had more than enough time, but there are two train systems in Paris, and I had to go from one to the other, and it was not fun. So I missed the tours. *pout* But I did go through the Cathedral again and take pictures of all the things I took pictures of in high school. And then deleted those pictures again because hey, it's not like the rose windows changed. I went into the treasury this time though, where they kept all sorts of cool things. They had reliquaries and really really old things, and robes from this or that king or pope, and lots of old chalices and things used in Mass. History is cool.

After that I called a friend I hadn't talked to since high school; she's studying in Paris right now and we met up for dinner. I wound up waiting an hour for her since she got hung up by a repairman at her apartment, but the weather was nice so I just chilled in the big plaza thing outside Notre Dame.

Oh hay!

And I took lots of pictures. This is one of the better ones. It's really hard to get the entire stupid cathedral in one shot when you're holding the camera at arm's length. Ugh. And then there was the star thingy, which is the center point of Paris. They say if you step on it, you'll go back again some day.

Hey, it worked once, right?

Those were the two biggest things I wanted to get back to Paris to see. I've already been to the Eiffel Tower and stuff. If I go back again, I'd like to go to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, finally get up the tower of Notre Dame, and go back to the Louvre. In high school they only gave us two hours there, and it took us about that long to find the Mona Lisa. So I'd like to go and really get to see everything.

After I met up with Haley we went into the Latin Quarter for dinner. I got...

FROG LEGS!

And spines, by the looks of it. It was.. interesting. And they tasted like chicken. Which apparently they're supposed to, because my friend looked it up on Wikipedia. I wouldn't have thought about it except aforementioned friend is also one of my Brothers and had asked if I'd eaten Siggy (the frog, our Chapter's mascot) yet. So this is all Phil's fault. And I've been telling people that from the beginning. They were pretty good, but there's not a lot of meat on them, so I think next time I'll get a better appetizer. I also got duck. Which was interesting. Didn't taste very different. Wasn't bad, but wasn't all that impressive either. Neither was the cheap red wine the waiter suggested to go with it. Buuut whatever. That waiter was interesting as well. Apparently he liked Haley, which meant things got silly and awkward very quickly, and it took us forever to get our check and leave. When we left the restaurant though, we wound up on the same street we'd had dinner on in high school! We actually passed the restaurant we went to and the guy there tried to get us to go in. (Which is what they do, and it's kind of unnerving. They just stand there and say "Hey come in here! Why not? Come on! Rawr!") I wanted to go back and take a picture, but not with the guy standing there arguing with the restaurant guy across the street. We also found the same souvenir shop we went to four years ago, but there was nothing of interest there.

So. Went back to the hostel. And again, like a good tourist, I promptly went to bed. Everyone talks about how hostels are great places to hang out and meet people, but clearly I fail at this. I can't help it if I get tired, haha.

Next day I went to the bus station where I was supposed to meet Courtney. I didn't have her phone number, and even though she had mine half the time it doesn't like people here, so we didn't meet up until we were actually on the bus. I'd been super early and got on the bus once it started loading to save her a seat. She had come later and waited downstairs to try to find me. But it worked out okay, and we sat together for the epic long bus ride.

Slideshow is here!

Exotic Switzerland!

2009-02-22T11:52:00.005-05:00

Title courtesy of the movie "Moulin Rouge!"

Saturday the 14th I got up bright and early at 4:30 to get ready and catch a 6:10am train. I went with Juli, who's from Chicago and is here with the same exchange program as I'm on. We had bought our tickets online to print out in the station, but for some reason the machine decided it didn't want to print them. As a result, we had to buy new tickets from Chambery-Geneva, Geneva-Berne, and back. Epic, epic fail.

So we got to Berne around 10? Dropped our stuff off at our hostel. Explored a little bit. Stopped and got coffee because we were super tired and because it was snowing and absolutely frigid. We wandered some, took pictures, and got lunch. There really isn't a lot to see in Berne. Yes, it's the capital of Switzerland and yes it's a World Heritage site and it's medieval and all, but for the most part it was just a lot of stores. They did have museums, but we didn't go to any. I did, however, have spaghetti with Bernese sauce (or something to that effect). It was red sauce with bacon/ham, mushrooms, and pork, I think? It was really really good.

From there we wandered more. Went to Lush, which is like Bath & Body Works or The Body Shop, but entirely natural/organic, totally awesome, and may or may not be more expensive; I lost track of exchange rates. I bought a weird but awesome exfoliating moisturizer thing. All the labels were in German so I kind of just picked one up and went with it. I really liked the store, though, and I'm excited because there's one in Cambridge and one in the Burlington Mall. Guess I'm going shopping when I go home. =P

The one problem I had was that everyone there spoke German and no one really spoke French. Switzerland had 4 official languages, according to Wikipedia: French, German, English, and Romansh. I feel like Italian should be in there somewhere though. Anyway, so I was thinking, "Awesome! I can still speak French!" ...except no. There are French, German, and Italian regions of Switzerland, and they speak Swiss French, Swiss German, etc. Aaaand we wound up in the German region. So it was frustrating not to be able to communicate or to have to search out people in the stores who spoke English, and frustrating not to be able to speak French. I would rather have gone to Genève or somewhere French if I had known, because I hate being the person who just goes somewhere without being able to speak the language. But what's done is done. It was still a good experience, and made me want to learn German even more now. Like I need more of a reason to learn other languages.

We went to dinner at a restaurant called Punkt, which served a mix of various Asian foods. I got shirataki, which is Japanese, but I couldn't tell you what was in it. I got a Japanese beer called Asahi to go alone with it. They didn't have sake, which was disappointing. Both were pretty good though. We wandered more, then were lame tourists and totally passed out for like ten hours.

Sunday we got french fries at the McDonald's in the train station in Berne. Because we're cool like that. Had three hours to kill in Genève, so we went to lunch. Unfortunately, Genève is in the French part of Switzerland and apparently follows all the same customs; hardly anything was open at lunchtime. We wound up at an Indian restaurant. I don't know what I got because it wasn't the same thing I ordered. It wasn't bad though.

Overall, it was a decent weekend. I thought there would be a lot more to do in Berne, so I was a bit disappointed. It was cool to see a place like that though, where things were clearly medieval and quaint and such. And now I can check off Switzerland from the list of countries I haven't visited. :) I would like to get back to Genève at some point though.

Slideshow of all 86 pictures I took can be found here: Yay pictures!

Super quick update GO!

2009-02-13T08:16:00.004-05:00

Okay, so I know I promised an update soon. It will come, eventually. In a nutshell: went to the World Alpine Ski Championships last weekend. Super fun. Have gone to some classes, still haven't gone to some others. Not super fun.

Going to Bern, Switzerland, tomorrow and staying overnight. Should be super fun. Next week is vacation and I didn't have anything planned, but I'm going to London with Courtney from Tuesday-Saturday!! So now I'm scrambling to get things done and organized because we're leaving from Paris, so I think I'm going to Paris on Monday. Wahoo.

10 Things I Hate about France

2009-02-12T08:18:00.002-05:00

Real updates will come soon, with pictures. Until then, snark.

1. Everything is closed on Sundays. D:

2. Almost everything is closed on Monday, at least in Chambéry.

3. It costs 3 euro to do laundry?!

4. Strikes. I love not going to class just as much as the next college student, but I'd appreciate knowing class is cancelled before I hike a mile and up some hills to my campus.

5. There are construction guys outside my window and floodlights on at 7am.

6. I miss people. D:

7. Time differences are inconvenient.

8. Exchange rates.

9. Under no circumstances can you get a cup of coffee to go.

10. France made me sprain my wrist.

Not as snarky as I anticipated. I forgot some of the fun things I wanted to say.