Fun weekend of fun.

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...

...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

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

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.

Yepp, I'm a Nerd.

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

Jordanian things

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!

Spring Break: Moroccan Edition

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!

Sur le pont d'Avignon

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.

I is old. :(

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

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.

La Belle Paris

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!

"C'est chaud comme sport!"

So the strike was most definitely not as epic as they made it out to be. Transportation was running fine. Classes were cancelled though. Some of the other Americans went out and watched the protests ("manifestations"). My friend Cameron in Le Mans went out too. I, as usual, stayed in and did mildly productive things. Mildly.

At 7 I went out to dinner with Juli, Victoria, Elizabeth and Jill. We wound up at a place called Nuits Indiennes (Indian Nights). I had agneau (lamb) tikka masala, which was really good. From there we went to a bar/pub called Charly's and played darts. We were killing time before we met the rest of the Americans; everyone but Juli and me was going to a club called L'Opéra around midnight. From Charly's we went to O'Pouge's and eventually saw everyone. Whee.

Friday was nothing special, except that I didn't fall asleep til after, which was made of fail since I was getting up at 6. Why did I get up at 6am on a Saturday? Pour faire du surf.

Yeah. I went snowboarding in the Alps.

Shuttle buses run from Chambéry to a couple mountains. We went to La Féclaz. Got there around 9ish and hit the slopes at probably 10:20? Juli and Veronica waited for their ski lesson at noon, and I went up with Courtney, who's good at boarding, Sarah and Jill, who are both good skiers, and Victoria, who was going boarding but had never been before. I rode up with Courtney and Sarah; the view was breathtaking, until I gracefully tumbled off the chair at the very end and took Courtney with me. After much difficultly the five of us started off, Victoria and I falling every ten feet or so. It was rough even on the green trail. D: I got the hang of it eventually and took off down a hill. Eventually I only fell every kilometer or so. I was getting really excited when we reached the end and I was looking forward to going down again and being super awesome. All of the trails converged at the one exit and of course it was there that I lost control. I managed to turn around so that I was going backwards. I very gracefully lost my balance and fell back, landing hard on my wrist. I wound up having to take off my board and walk the rest of the way because I couldn't put any weight on my wrist to get back on my feet.

I hung out on the mountain for two hours while waiting for the bus back. Got a crepe and realized roblochon cheese is super nasty. Went to the hospital here in Chambéry (lucky!) since there was no doctor on the mountain. It took half an hour to check in, two and a half to wait, and then less than an hour for them to take x-rays, give me a brace and some prescriptions, and tell me the ligaments and tendons were a little torn. Whee, so my first trip snowboarding since I was 9, and I sprain my wrist. I was disappointed because I'd wanted to keep doing it all day, and because we're suposed to be going to the Championnats du monde de ski alpin (Alpine World Ski Championships) on Friday and then I think we were going to whatever we wanted on Saturday and Sunday. So I get to do nothing, yay.

Either way though, I can say I went snowboarding in the Alps. Oh yeah. =D Muscles I didn't know I had are sore now and my butt is ninetenn shades of bruised, but I totally went snowboarding.

My super cool snowboard.

The ski lift!

Me and Courtney

Me and Sarah.

Where I fell. x_x

The snow sparkled!

View from the ski lift, take one.

View from the lift, take two.

View from the ride back. Mountains and clouds and mist, oh my!

Photo dump: Chambéry

Room at the Art Hotel, where I stayed Thursday night.

Notice the lack of shower curtain.

And if you turn your head to the side, you look like a fool. I mean, you can see part of the Château des Ducs.

Closer view of the Château des Ducs de Savoie.

More château.

Back of the château.

Mairie (city hall).
Fontaine des Elephants.

Y helo thar.

The water in the Elephant fountain isn't drinkable. Most water in France is.

"To the Savoyards who died for their country." (Savoyards = people from Savoie/Savoy, which is the department we're in.)

Ads for Dexter are all over the place. Sean keeps telling me to watch it.

"All different, All equal"

"exploitation, speculation, misery, war, famine, hate among people. Capitalism is killing our world. Let's stop capitalistic barbarism." They've got signs everywhere decrying one thing or another. One day I'll take a picture of the one about television.