we wont ever be friends again!

August 2, 2008: Homeward Bound

Tonight is our last night in Oxford. I could go on for a really long time about how unbelievable it is that our time here is finally up. All week it’s been a strange mix of emotions for me; I’ve been anxious about getting home and seeing people and stressed about finals this weekend. And now that finals are over and my room is all packed, it’s a very bittersweet feeling. I’ve come to love Worcester College, and the thought of leaving my little room, the forbidden grass, the adventurous ducks, the fickle weather, and the awesome English accents is quite sad. I hate ends!

We spent a lot of time this week working on our movie for our Jane Austen class. We had six actors, who’s schedules we all had to coordinate in order to shoot scenes with all of them. The weather cooperated, thank goodness, and we ended up getting some great footage! I was in charge of the boom pole the whole time, and though I didn’t ever hit anyone, I got very close a few times. I’m not sure it’s a profession I should commit to long term!

This last week was full of sentimental “last moments”—the highlight being the Champagne reception we were all invited to attend in the Provost’s Gardens. These gardens have been under lock and key all summer, so getting to go in was a pretty big deal. We all dressed up in our finest, and went and drank champagne and met the provost (the president of the college) and took dozens of pictures together. It was amazing to look around and think that at the beginning of the summer I didn’t know most of the people that I’ve come to be so close to. We ended the evening with a joyous rendition of “Ramblin Wreck”…complete with the Fight! Win! Drink! Get Naked! cheer at the very end. We are a proud, proud, group of students! We spent the rest of the night editing our movie for our Jane Austen class.

Wednesday was another important day in GT Oxford Program history…it was the infamous GT vs. UGA soccer tournament. We all skipped dinner so we could see the entire game, which meant leaving at 6pm and walking two miles to the field! Just like at Tech, game day is taken serious by everyone. We all decided to dress up like we would for a game, which was khakis and yellow polos for the guys and cute yellow dresses for the girls. Most of us didn’t actually bring tech gear with us, so we had to improvise a little. We still looked pretty classy though! Unfortunately, game day is also a time that a lot of people drink crazy amounts of alcohol, and today was no exception. Even by the start of the game people were pretty wild---we had two of our guys trying to give the ref some cider throughout the game. The funny part is that he took some everytime! It might just be the first time in GT history that the ref of a game has been persuaded to make calls for GT instead of our opponents! My favorite part of the evening was the creative cheers and name calling that my not-so-sober friends came up with. One of the best was “uga’s dead” followed by someone else yelling “congestive heart failure” over and over again. A little too mean for me to cheer, but I did laugh a little. They also came up with names for several of U[sic]GA’s players, including Sleeves (he was wearing a long sleeved underarmor shirt and a cut off tshirt), Dorothy (he had red cleets on), and Wolverine (he had a crazy beard). Not thinking, when “Wolverine” ran close to us I noticed that it was a friend of mine from highschool and said to myself “Hey, that’s Boyd.” The hecklers heard me and were very excited that they knew the name of a player, so for the rest of the evening they tried to distract him by calling out his name. The final score ended up being 2-1, Tech winning! It was incredibly exciting to beat U[sic]GA at something, even if it was just a soccer game in Oxford. Some of them started cheering “Lets play football” as we sang our fight song, but we didn’t let them get us down. It was a great night!

The rest of the week was devoted to studying and preparing for finals. The computer room was full basically 24 hours a day, because in typical Tech style we had all procrastinated until the very last minute to finish end of term projects and papers. Some things don’t change regardless of where you are! Finals ended up going well, and our professor loved our movie! Here is a link to it if you are interested: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5426530675283409067&hl=en
We were all pretty proud of it…my favorite is the blooper real!

Tonight we all went to dinner at King’s Arm pub in town, and then to the pub on campus for “European Disco” night. We then made out last pilgrimage to the chip trailer just down the road from campus. We have visited those guys many times during the 6 weeks we’ve been here, and I will definitely miss those fries!

Now I am here in my empty room finished off my two liter of Coke and feeling pretty confused. At this point I just want to be home. This trip has been such a learning experience for me. I’ve grown physically (my pants are way tighter now than when I left…), emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. I had no idea what this summer would be like, and I definitely wasn’t prepared for it to make such a huge impact on who I am. Seeing the world has given me such a great appreciate for how fortunate we all are. I am so blessed to have a wonderful family, friends, school, and city to return to. If nothing else, this trip has shown me what a beautiful place home really is. We leave at 4am Atlanta time tomorrow morning, and return to Atlanta at 9pm tomorrow night. It will be a long day, and I cannot wait to get to baggage claim and give all my family huge hugs.

Thanks so much for reading…whoever managed to stick it out this long. Its been nice to think that people have shared in my experiences this summer. I might do a flight recap post later in the week, but for now….this is the end of Apodomeo 2008.

The end.

Hot 'n Tasty!

July 21^st – 27^th: Our last weekend!

What an incredible week! Aside from tons of school work (for some reason all the teachers decided to pile on the papers…I have three!) we did some awesome things. The highlight of the week was probably our trip to London to see Wicked at the Apollo Theatre in West End. There was a pretty large group of us that went, and it was an absolutely fabulous show! We took the good ole Oxford Tube into the city, and arrived with just enough time to run into the train station to grab a bite for dinner. We all had different seats in the theatre, and Gwen and my seat ended up being 7 rows back from the stage! Having seen Wicked before, it was incredible to be able to see the whole things from so close. The expression of every actor was great, and even the costuming was beautiful! We also had a chance to sneak a peak at the pit while they were playing the encore, and it was amazing! The actors and actresses were all great. Elphaba had an incredible voice…even better than the one in New York I think. Glinda had an English accent, which was awesome! Everyone absolutely loved the play…definitely a highlight of the whole trip.

Wednesday was formal hall, which meant we had to get all dressed up for dinner. The whole ordeal had a lot of traditions we had to follow, so many that Carolyn, our program director, felt that it was necessary to send out an instruction manual beforehand. The dinner itself was neat, but I’m glad we don’t do that every night. We did toast to the Queen (check that off my lifelong to do list) and also to a lot of the Worcester College professional staff. We ended the night by singing Ramblin’ Wreck, which I’m not sure honored the formality of the evening. Something about yelling I was a “helluva engineer” right before they recited the Latin benediction prayer just didn’t seem quite right. It was still a lot of fun though!

This weekend we decided not to travel, which ended up being a great decision. The weather was perfect all weekend long which gave us the perfect opportunity to see a lot of Oxford. On Friday we went punting, which was quite the experience. Punting means you get in a long wooden boat with 3 or 4 people and use a long metal pole to push yourself down the canal. It sounds easy…but don’t be fooled. We ended traveling down a majority of the canal perpendicular to the shore…when we weren’t grasping desperately for it to propel ourselves, that is. There we a lot of other tourist of different nationalities (ask Gwen for more politically incorrect details) that made it difficult to navigate. Needless to say, I am sore all over still from the experience. It was a lot of fun though, definitely a must-do in Oxford. Be prepared to work, though!

On Saturday we spent a majority of the day just walking around the city. We toured the meadows of Christ Church College, and tried to get into the grounds. It was close to closing, so they didn’t let us, but we plan to go back because it’s were they filmed some of Harry Potter…and you can’t miss that! We also stumbled across an old bookshop that had thousands of really old, beautiful books. I bought a Greek and English New Testament Bible that was published in 1899!

Sunday was a pretty chill day. We went back to St. Aldates for our last church service, and it made me miss Midtown Church a lot! I wasn’t aware of the news at the time, but apparently there is a lot of publicity around the Anglican Church and their once every ten year meeting, so a large portion of the service was dedicated to praying for their leaders. It was a really cool thing to see! After church we went to a burrito place and brought our food back to campus for a picnic by the lake. Our two white duck friends came to join us! They are known for waddling right up to anyone who sits around the lake and expect food from everyone. They have quite the personality!

By dinner Sunday night most people were home from their weekend travels, and it was fun to hear all their stories. Nothing beats a peaceful weekend in Oxford, though!

Scottish not British

July 14th - 20th: Oxford Week 5

I’ve got to start writing more frequently here. Originally I thought that just doing weekly updates while in Oxford would be enough, but it has been such a crazy week that it is going to take me a really long time to write everything down. Oh well…

Week Four has been a blast. Classes are starting to wrap up now, and everyone is starting to think about heading back to Atlanta. It’s a strange feeling here. Many of us are trying to plan for Fall semester back at Tech, which is difficult to think about when you are in such a different environment over here. My housing boss, Christina, emailed us our resident roster for the upcoming school year, so I have been on email and facebook all week long getting to know all my girls and answering lots of panicked “should I bring a fridge” type questions. All this on top of planning our last weekend trip to Scotland and working out my schedule for the fall… its been pretty crazy to look at my To Do list everyday! I feel like I’m playing the role of about five different people in three different places.

We had a movie screening Monday night for my Jane Austen class. We met in the evening and watched the entire movie in our classroom, and afterwards our professor felt so bad about taking up our entire evening that she took us all out to the campus pub. We got to know her a lot better, and it was great to have that kind of experience with faculty. Bible Study Tuesday night went very well. We have worked out a great routine that consist of someone playing a few worship songs on the guitar, and then a great group discussion about a chapter of 1 John. We have consistently over 20 people coming. I hate that we only have two more weeks to meet!

Wednesday was the last day that we had to get ready before we left for Scotland, and we all had lots of assignments to finish before we left for the weekend. Since we were flying out of the same airport as last weekend, we knew ahead of time how annoying our pilgrimage to the airport was, and we figured it would be best to wrap things up Wednesday so Thursday we could go to bed right after dinner and get some sleep.

And right we were. I went to bed by nine Thursday night, only to wake up at 2am the following morning. I took what ended up being my only shower of the weekend (we stayed in a hostel…what can you expect) and met everyone outside the porter’s lodge at 2:45am. We were traveling in a group of eleven, and surprisingly only one person overslept. I ended up running to get him and then sprinting to the bus station in order to catch the 3:05am bus. We made it with plenty of time to spare, and all proceeded to fall asleep until our bus driver announced we were at the Victoria Station stop, where we were catching our second bus. We managed to meet up with Courtney, who had come into London the night before to spend some time with her brother, and all got to the airport right as the check-in opened for our flight.

We have learned that with Ryanair, the only thing you can count on is that they will be inconsistent. Last week it wasn’t an issue that we had US passports, but this week they had to reprint our boarding passes and made a huge deal out of the fact that they should have charged us a check-in fee. What can you expect? We all made it through the line with plenty of time to spare, and got on our flight right in time. We actually landed in Prestwick about 15 minutes ahead of schedule, which meant we got to celebrate with the cheesy “victory” music that Ryanair plays whenever one of their flights arrives on time.

We had to catch two trains in order to get to Edinburgh, and the train station next to the airport had no one in it to tell us how to get a ticket or even where to go. We saw signs that pointed to Glasgow, which we knew had a train that went to Edinburgh, so we just got on the next train. At this point, no form of transportation can intimidate us!

We sat on the train for about thirty minutes without seeing any kind of train staff that we could ask about buying tickets. We ended up getting off the train without paying, only to be chased down by a guy who Molly described as the “Wizard of the Train” and made us pay the 6 pound fare. It was a slightly intimidating welcome to Scotland. From there we had to walk through Glasgow to another train station to catch a train to Edinburgh…no wizards this time, though. We arrived in Edinburgh about 45 minutes later and went immediately to our hostel. Even though it was only 1pm, we had been up for eleven hours and were pretty much exhausted. The hostel was really cool, just like every other building in Edinburgh it was hundreds of years old and had lots of ornate decorations all along the wall and ceilings. We stayed in a mixed dorm…which wasn’t as bad as it might sound.

There was a “free” tour of the city a little later on in the afternoon, which we decided to take just to get more acquainted with everything. It lasted about three hours and took us through most of the highlights of the city. Our tour guide was actually from Chicago, which made it slightly less authentic, but what can you do? We toured around the castle, through cemeterys, the coffee shop where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter, and several other famous sights. Afterwards we headed out to find some dinner, and ended up eating at a pub that was established in the 1600’s by a woman who had been hung for a hidden pregnancy but survived! The cool thing about Scotland is that everything has hundreds of years of history behind it.

After dinner we walked down the Royal Mile, which is the road coming out of Edinburgh Castle. We found the Queen’s Palace, the new Parliament Building (whatever you do, don’t ask a Scot what they think about the building. You are guaranteed to get an earful about how they spend way too much money on it and how it doesn’t fit in with the city…) and King Arthur’s Seat…which is a huge mountain right in the middle of city. Think Central Park with a mountain range and that’s about what it was. We climbed for a little while, but then it got dark so we decided to head back to the hostel. It was only 11pm or so, but we decided to call it a night.

Day two was the bus tour that we scheduled. We all got up, at out free breakfast of toast and cereal, and then went off to the castle where are bus was suppose to pick us up. As we loaded the bus, we all got a free bottle of Scottish whiskey. Nothing like alcohol at 8 in the morning! From there we started driving out of the city and into the gorgeous countryside.

*** Warning: the next few paragraphs are sure to be full of many repetitive adjectives all ttempting to describe the countryside of Scotland. Let me say now that I know no word will to it justice, so I recommend just going to Scotland and seeing for yourself what I am talking about. ***

We drove through several small towns, and then Glencoe Valley, which was perhaps the most beautiful part of the drive. There is a strong history of clan fights in the region, and a nice Scottish song about the whole thing if you are interested. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9141134108532362584&q=the+ballad+of+glencoe&ei=NZWHSL7JLYuOigLA5s3YCA&hl=en

Our driver, who was a character in and of himself, thought that it would be a great idea to play this for us as we drove through the valley. My seatmate and I both found this hilarious. She and I got along very well. I am horrible at getting people’s names, so I don’t know hers, but she was Lithuanian and had lived in Birmingham for the past three years getting her Master’s degree. (yay Luke!) She was incredibly interesting to talk to about the feelings between the Scots and the English, and believe me there are some tough feelings between the two groups. I had no idea how much they hate each other, but as soon as I set foot in Scotland it became very obvious. Even our bus driver had a strong dislike of the Brits; anytime he would mention a battle that was fought between the two countries he would add how well the Scotts fought the awful British and how horrible they were in general. It was almost amusing after awhile. According to my seatmate friend, that’s a common sentiment throughout Scotland. The English, on the other hand, find the Scottish to be rather whiny and lazy and difficult to work with. I tend to side with the English…

The highlight of the bus tour was arriving in Inverness and at Loch Ness. Yes, that’s the supposed location of Nessie the monster. No, we didn’t see her, but yes, we saw many many pictures, statues, postcards, flags, and other paraphernalia about her. We took a one hour boat cruise around the Loch which was absolutely gorgeous, and really really cold. It came complete with Scottish music, views of castle ruins, and a glimpse at a Scottish wedding (lots of tartan). The ride back to Edinburgh was pretty much a straight shot, but there were lots of castle ruins along the way. I spent a majority of the time talking to my seat mate about the healthcare system in Britain and comparing University systems. Its always so interesting to get a different perspective about the culture over here!

When we got back into Edinburgh we toured a little more of the city on foot, and Jessica, Sophia and I hiked up to some old monuments on a hill in the center of the city. We arrived at the top just as the sun was setting, which made the horizon look like it was on fire. It was incredible.

By the time the sunset it was almost 10:30p or 11, so we headed back to the hostel for the night. Even though all we had done was ride on a bus all day, we were exhausted and anxious to get to sleep.

Sunday proved to be absolutely incredible. We started off the morning early with breakfast and then headed straight to King Arthur’s seat…the mountain range that is in the dead center of the city. We took the very steep, blocked off way up, which ended up not being the fastest way, but was very intense and got us all in the mood for serious hiking. The whole way up we were right along the base of 10-15 ft jagged cliffs—it was absolutely incredible. After turning the bend on the first mountain there was some space for actually climbing on the rock face, which made for some great photo ops even if we weren’t able to get up very high. The weather was fabulous all day long. It was pretty chilly and windy, but with all our hiking we were warm the whole time. There were very few clouds in the sky, and you could see forever! Eventually we found a way to climb over the rock faces, which lead us to the prettiest field that I’ve ever seen. We laid in the grass for a while just trying to soak in how incredible everything was.

The hike down the mountain was quite the experience. We decided to take the “road less traveled,” which seemed like a good idea at the time, but let me just say that its very difficult to judge the steepness of a hill when you are standing at the top of it. What we thought was a moderate climb down the side of the mountain turned out to be an intense, forty five degree angle decent that most of us ended doing on our hands and feet. There was actually a portion of the hill that I slid down on one foot. Once I was down the mountain I was able to admit that it was a lot of fun…at the time, though, I thought was going to die.

Once we were back on solid ground, we went to an awesome baked potato shop for lunch and hiked to the hill in the center of the city to eat. It was absolutely lovely to sit and soak in the views of the city while eating the best potato that I’ve ever had! The rest of our time we spent shopping and walking around. I tried haggis…which I wasn’t too crazy about. We left for the train station around 4pm, and had a pretty uneventful ride back to campus. We got back to Oxford around 2am, and all slept WONDERUFLLY back in our own beds. Definitely one of the best weekends so far!

watch that spontaneous falling...

July 7-13: Oxford Week 3

What a week this has been. Things have really picked up with classes; I had two midterms this week. Both required a lot of reading and writing…not something that I am used to! It was pretty cold and rainy everyday, but we all accepted it as part of the Oxford experience. Gwen and I have found that we are capable of getting a lot of stuff done in the two hours that we have between our classes; this week we went clothes shopping one day and grocery shopping the other. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but all the girls in the program have taken full advantage of a store they have here called Primark. All the clothes are extremely cheap. A lot of the stuff could be classified as “Euro trash,” but if you are careful you can find some great deals. I have purchased several long sleeve t shirts and pants for less than three pounds a piece! It’s been a great way to add warm clothes to my wardrobe!

Bible Study went really well this week. We met in one of the student activity rooms and filled up the space with over thirty people! Gwen’s birthday was this week as well, so Liz and I went and bought cheese pizza and breadsticks to celebrate at midnight, at least that was the original plan. Turns out that in England, Pizza Hut is a high class restaurant complete with a drink menu and fine china. It also closes at 10pm, so we had to slightly adjust our plans for celebrating at midnight. Instead we ended up celebrating two hours before, but the pizza was good nonetheless.

The highlight of the week was definitely our trip to Ireland. Aside from the fact that Ireland is one of the most gorgeous places I’ve ever seen, the fact that we planned and organized the trip entirely on our own gave us a feeling of great accomplishment. Had you told me last year that I could put together a weekend trip to a different country I would have doubted you…my travel skills have definitely improved this summer!

The only aspect of our trip that didn’t go just according to plan was Molly getting sick. The night before we were supposed to leave she came down with a horrible sinus/ear infection and decided to take the weekend to sleep and recuperate. Ireland definitely wasn’t the same without her.

We had to leave incredibly early in the morning, even though our flight didn’t leave until noon. Getting to the Galway required a bus ride from Oxford to London, a separate bus ride from London to Stansted Airport, a plane ride into Shannon Airport in Ireland, and then a final bus ride from the airport into Galway. Thank goodness for the plethora of mass transportation offered here!

We left campus at 5:45 am and walked into Galway about 5:00 pm, eleven hours later. The airport experience was different from any other time that I’ve flown…we used a budget airline service that’s really popular through Europe called Ryanair. The flights are much cheaper than other airlines, which mean they cut cost wherever possible. The check-in experience is very unforgiving and they always overbook, so it’s recommended that you get to the airport at least two hours before your flight is scheduled to depart. We did just that, and stood in line for about twenty minutes to get proper boarding passes. Going through security was also quite the experience. I wasn’t wearing anything metallic, but for some reason I set off the metal detector when I walked through so I had to be hand-searched by an attendant. She was nice and apologetic about the whole thing, but it was still an uncomfortable experience. Liz and Gwen both had to have their bags searched, which meant all of their belongings were completely unpacked and examined. I guess we looked suspicious to security…no telling what a group of American college girls could be up to!

Once we were at the gate we sat in the “queue” for another thirty minutes or so before we could get on the plane. Since seats are first come first serve, the earlier you get to the gate the better your seat will be. We were pretty close to the front, so I got a window seat! Boarding the plane you could hear “unobtrusive advertisements” in the background, which got old really fast. Instead of handing out free drinks they sold them, along with a wide variety of overpriced main course dinner. They also sold lottery tickets, which were surprisingly very popular among all of the passengers. We landed at Shannon with no problems, and found bought our bus tickets without any problem. The bus ride was about two hours, and the bus was one of the most comfortable I’ve ridden on so far. Needless to say, I was asleep almost the whole way. I woke up about twenty minutes outside of Galway, and it was incredibly interesting to see the Ireland scenery. It was very much as I had imagined it would be—everything was very green and there were lots of stone fences everywhere. The suburbs of Galway, however, weren’t all that different from American suburbs. The houses were smaller but they were still grouped in neighborhoods like we have.

Arriving in Galway was very exciting. We had received explicit directions on how to get to the hostel from the bus station, and we found it without any problems. We had also check out an “Exploring Ireland” book that came in very handy throughout the weekend. Our hostel was in the dead center of town, right in the middle of a long line of pubs and restaurants. It was a great location…a little loud at night but we were so tired that noise wasn’t an issue. After checking in and dropping off our luggage, we headed out to find some dinner.

If you made it this far in this entry, then I am very impressed! I just did a word count in Word (where I've been typing all these entries) and so far I've typed over 46 pages...approximately 26,000 words! If you made it this far leave me a comment, I'd love to see who is actually able to get through all my ramblings!

Mind the Gap

June 30-July 6: Oxford Week 2

My second week in Oxford has flown by! Everyone has settled well into a daily routine, and I am continuing to enjoy being in such a peaceful, beautiful environment. Classes are going well, and since this semester is only six weeks we will be having midterms very soon. In ethics we’ve switched from issues dealing with procreativity to issues concerning healthcare, which is something I enjoy debating because of my job at Vascular Surgical for the past couple of summers. In Jane Austen we just finished Pride and Prejudice, and it is definitely in the running for one of my favorite books of all time. What can I say, I’m a sucker for a happy ending!

It’s strange to be on a college campus and not have dozens of extracurricular activities to take up time in the evening. Time that would usually be spent in meetings, in chapter, or at practice is now ours to do with it what we want. There are several grass tennis courts on campus that people play on throughout the day, and I’ve heard that there is a soccer team in the works. Apparently it’s tradition for the GT Oxford students to play a game against the UGA Oxford students at the end of the summer. Several friends and I have been meeting to run in the evenings. We are horribly out of shape, but we’ve managed to run twenty minutes or so every night this week. The weather here is perfect for running, in the evenings it’s usually about 60 degrees with a slight breeze. There is a trail that circles the perimeter of campus we like to run, it goes past the lake with all the tired ducks, and then behind the tennis courts where we say hi to everyone playing tennis. Lately we’ve been doing abs after running…its pretty intense!

We had our first Bible Study this week, and almost twenty people came! We met in the living room of one of the dorms here, its great to have such a great meeting space in someone’s room. Someone donated a guitar to the Oxford Program at the beginning of the week, so Molly was able to sing some worship songs before we started. We are keeping everything very low key; we read a chapter in 1 John every week and then have an open forum for discussion. It’s been a great way to get to know other people on the trip.

This weekend was incredible! Twelve of us spent two days in London seeing everything there is to see. I felt like we were back on the road again, we got up super early and went to bed super late both days. Day one began with breakfast at the dining hall—it was our last meal of the week and we are not ones to skip a free breakfast! We left campus around 8:30, and were on the bus by 8:45. Several bus companies offer student travel packages, and we were able to save a little money by purchasing 12 one-ways to London and splitting the cost between all of us. The ride was very comfortable, and having been trained to sleep whenever we ride on buses, the whole group was out in a matter of minutes. Everyone woke up as we entered London, and we were able to get off right at Victoria Station, right in the middle of everything.

Our first sightseeing destination was the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. It was very different from what I had imagined. The palace itself looked more like a royal office complex than a royal home. Everything still looked very elegant though, and watching the different bands march into the premise was neat…it brought me back to my days in band! There uniforms were the stereotypical red with fuzzy black hats, and they played a variety of entertaining music, including the Beatles and soundtrack to the Incredibles! It was all very entertaining. Afterwards, we headed into St. John’s park for lunch, which we packed to save a little money. London is SUPER expensive!

We walked to Westminster Abbey next, and then Big Ben and Parliament. There was a group of people picketing outside the gates with signs about 9/11 and 7/7…it was interesting to see that people everywhere can disagree with their governments. We crossed the Thames and rode the London Eye next…also a really cool experience. The structure doesn’t really fit in with any of the surroundings at all, but it’s a great way to see the city. We took a ton of pictures, needless to say. From the Eye we continued to walk along the river. There were lots of street performers and random booths everywhere, including a huge used book collection under one of the bridges. We took a picture next to the bridge that is in Love Actually (of course!) and then stopped to take pictures next to the Globe Theatre. By the time we got to London Bridge (which is actually really ugly and completely made of concrete, by the way…) we were exhausted from walking and chilled for a little right outside Tower Bridge. We had great views of both the bridge and the Tower of London. We rode the metro back over towards where the bus stop was, and went into Harrod’s for a little while. We definitely didn’t get anything…everything was way out of our price range. I did find a dress that cost 10,000 pounds—over $20,000! It was just as much fun to look at the people that shopped there as is was to look at everything in the store. There were many different nationalities there, and we assumed they were all princes and princesses. Whether or not we were correct is up for debate, but they all had drivers with Bentley’s waiting outside the department store for them…

After Harrod’s we ate Fish n’ Chips at a pub for dinner. We ran into the parents of a Georgia Tech student there, and they were excited to talk to us for a little bit. You never know who is around and watching you…that’s for sure!

After dinner we were very full and very tired so we decided to head home for the evening. We caught the bus home without a problem and got back on campus a little before midnight. It was a great first day in London!

Day two of our London experience proved to be even more exciting! We planned to get up and be headed out by 7:30am, and when we woke up to pouring rain we were all really disappointed. We decided to keep our original plans and just plan for rain, so we left as planned and caught the 8:00am bus. We arrived in the city a little after 9:00am and went straight to the metro to buy day passes. The tube was very easy to figure out, and we made all the way across the city to the Tower of London in no time at all.

There were hardly any people at the Tower because of the rain, so we were able to get tickets pretty quickly. We went straight to see the crown jewels, which were absolutely incredible. They had a scepter with a 535 karat diamond on display! The actually crowns were bordered on both sides by a moving sidewalk, so you only had a brief glimpse at them. It was incredible to see!

We spent a couple more hours taking various tours throughout the complex. The “beefeaters” gave hour long tours explaining some of the history of the place, and they were great at telling interesting stories; I definitely learned a lot. I never realized that people still live in the Tower of London, but there is actually a small community that still lives within the walls and maintain everything. Who knew?

After the Tower we got back on the metro and went to Trafalgar Square, which we quickly noticed was the main headquarters for the Gay Pride Festival that was going on all throughout London. I have never felt more out of place in my entire life, that’s for sure! It was quite the experience, and something that I will distinctly remember for a long time. We wanted to see the Piccadilly Circus area, and as we walked in that general direction we stumbled across the gay pride parade, which was hilarious and very entertaining. I had to go buy train tickets for a friend, which required me crossing over the parade route. That clearly was not an option, so I had to walk several blocks until I found a metro that let me cross under the road. After I got the tickets the parade had basically finished, so instead of walking all those extra blocks I decided just to try and cross the street where people were following behind the parade. You can guess the people I was walking next to…I very quickly figured out that I stuck out like a sore thumb, but I couldn’t get to the other side of the street because of the large number of people and the barricades that hadn’t yet been removed. So yes, for a short period of time, I was in the London Gay Pride Parade 2008. Not to many people I know can say that…

I was incredibly happy to get back with the group and after a brief pause to exchange crazy stories we headed over to Covent Gardens, a cool street market area of London. From there we took the metro to Portobello Road, and saw Notting Hill and George Orwell’s house. The whole area was very trendy and a really cool place to shop around and people watch. We then took the metro to King’s Cross and took pictures at platform 9 ¾, which they have cleverly labeled and decorated with half of a luggage cart, so it looks like you are actually going into the brick wall. Definitely an important photo op!

We decided to visit Chinatown for dinner, and found an all-you-can eat buffet with decent food. We were absolutely starved and each ate our weight in Chinese food. It was a strange buffet because there were rules associated with the meal: you couldn’t leave any food on your plate and you only had 45 minutes to eat. We were up for the challenge, though, and managed to stuff ourselves quickly and efficiently without leaving any leftovers. Don’t doubt the willpower of starved college kids who are on a budget!

After dinner we could barely move, so we decided to call it a night. By the time we got to the bus stop it was almost 11, and we didn’t get into Oxford until well after midnight. It was a long, tiring, day, but a lot of fun!

Sunday was a much needed chill day. We went back to St. Aldate’s Church in the morning, and then spent the rest of the day reading and working on homework. The weather was cold and rainy most of the day, so it was perfect for resting and recovering from two crazy days. Next week is Ireland…and we are already very excited. This coming week is midterms for both classes. I’m not expecting them to be too hard, but it’s crazy to thing that we’ve reached that point in the semester. It seems like yesterday we were just pulling into Oxford…

going to the post

Its the subtle differences that I miss most about home. Case in point, my trip to the post office this morning:

After walking five or six blocks to the post office, or the "post" as its referred to here, I was pleased to not only have remembered where it was, but also with myself for remembering to bring the postcards that I wanted to mail. I walked back to the counter, and proudly told the man behind the counter that I would like to purchase five stamps to mail postcards to the US. After looking at me strangely, he told me I could only purchase stamps in sets of six. I replied that that was fine, and I was sure I could use up the last stamp at some point. He picked out six Frankenstien stamps (whether or not he was insinuating anything I chose to ignore) and told me they would be three pounds sixty nine. Having only large bills in my wallet, I attempted to pay with change. Let me say that there is a significantly larger repertoire of change in all European countries, but in the UK especially. There is a half-pence, a one pence, a two pence, a five pence, a ten pence, a twenty pence, a fifty pence, a one pound, and a two pound. In my opinion all very unnecessary, and judging by the weight of my wallet I was sure that I had at least 3.69 in coins. My friend the cashier didn't find any patience in waiting for me to fish out the correct coins to pay with and began to clear his throat and tap his fingers. I resigned just to pay with a 20 pound note and add even more weight to my wallet with the large amount of change I was sure to receive. Instead of handing him just one note, I handed him 3 on accident, and he proceeded to make a huge fuss, jokingly, about how I was trying to pay him off and what in the world could I want him to do for sixty pounds and didn't his buddy think it funny that he was receiving so much for the post on five post cards. Embarrassed, I laughed and said "its just been one of those mornings." He promptly replied that clearly it had been "one of those nights" and I assured him that was not the case. He laughed and said he believed me, it was clear that blondes were already at a disadvantage for accomplishing tasks such as these.

After getting the correct change, and my two bills back, I decided to leave and drop my postcards in a mailbox somewhere along the way. I started walking down the sidewalk and placing stamps on the postcards at the same time. I kept almost running into people, and I couldn't figure out why people kept walking right in front of me. Until I realized that I had been walking on the right side of the sidewalk, conveniently the "wrong" side in England.

Who knew mailing postcards required so much cultural awareness?

Cheerio!

July 24-29: Oxford Week 1

Sorry for the lack of posting, adjusting to a routine everyday has been quite the change! This week has been incredible, to say the least. I’ve settled into my own routine, which consists of class, reading, meals, and more reading. It’s the most relaxed I’ve been in a long time, and I am enjoying every second!

A typical day for me, at least for this past week, involved me waking up around 6:30 or so to read before breakfast. Our Jane Austen class has us reading a book a week, so I usually have 2-3 hours of reading a day to complete. I’m definitely not complaining though; I had every intention of reading all the time here so this just guarantees that I will. I go to breakfast around 8:30 with Lauren (my neighbor) and eat a huge breakfast of hash browns, eggs, sautéed mushrooms, baked beans (weird.), sausage. I have found that I eat a big enough breakfast I can eat a really small lunch, which saves me a lot of money. After breakfast its back up to my room to shower and get ready for the day. Then more reading and I’m off to my ethics class at 11:30. I am absolutely loving this class, it’s a structured debate class on all sorts of biomedical issues, and for the past week we’ve been talking about procreative rights and genetic engineering, hot topics for sure.

I have a two hour break between ethics and Jane Austen, which is usually filled with more reading. On the days when I’m able to finish my reading beforehand Gwen I and go out into the town to explore or buy groceries or window shop. Its really neat to have such cool places so close to campus; it’s a great way to spend an extra hour or so.

Jane Austen is a lot of reading, but once we get to class it’s a roundtable discussion on the book, lead by our incredible professor. We are comparing different movie adaptations of the book in movie form, and eventually we will recreate our own movie scene. Our professor, who we call Karen because she is Quaker and doesn’t like having any sort of title to her name, is a very loud, outspoken person who always has something interesting, and sometimes shocking, to say. Our 90 minute class always flies by.

After class we have an hour or so to ourselves before dinner, which I usually spend skyping or reading or doing work. I really enjoy having a room so central to everything on campus; its become a staging ground for everyone to leave stuff during the day, so I always have visitors! I’m so glad that I will have my own room in the fall, it would definitely be difficult to go back to having a roommate to live with. I have adjusted very easily to being able to wake up on my own schedule and play music whenever I want!

Dinner is always phenomenal, we have a three course meal every single night. Its always served family-style, so it really feels like home. After dinner there is always something going on. One night we visited “The Eagle and Child,” the pub that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien use to hang out at, which was so cool. I tried to touch everything that I could so that I might get a little CS Lewis dust on me! We also went running in the town one night, and got out of the tourist district into more of the residential scene. It was like we were running straight through the set of Love Actually! There is also a pub on campus, so all week people have been watching EuroCup games there. None of us have TVs in our rooms, so anything we want to watch we have watch in either the pub or the computer room…a community builder for sure!

This weekend we visited the town of Bath, recommended to us by our Jane Austen professor. We took 2 hour bus ride there, and saw the sights and had tea. There were lots of shops to visit as well. It was definitely a stereotypical English town, all the buildings looked very “proper” and well kept.

Today we went to church, which was such a refreshing experience. It had been almost 6 weeks since I’d been to any church service, and I was so hungry for worship! As we walked towards the church, we ran into a man who lead us in the right direction and was incredibly welcoming. He introduced us the student minister, who thought our American accents were so cool! The service itself was way different than what I was expecting, it was very contemporary and a lot like Midtown is (my home church). It was such a cool experience to see that people across the globe worship the same way I do. One of my favorite parts of the service was when the international minister got up and prayed for Afghanistan. It was so interesting to see a different country’s perspective on the war on terrorism. They didn’t say anything about America or their opinion of the war, they focused completely on praying for the Afghan people and the Taliban. I just can’t get over how powerful it was to see people in a totally different continent praying for the same things that we do in America. It was also neat to be in such an old cathedral, but one that was still alive and full of the Spirit. So many of the churches that I have visited on this trip seem like museums…no one seems to be reverent in them and it feels like their original purpose has been forgotten. In this church, you could see the same old architectural elements, but there were also modern additions: speakers and seating and television equipment. It was neat to think that this church has been in existence for hundreds of years, constantly changing to meet the needs of its people. It was such a living, loving, welcoming body of believers.

After lunch we headed out to lunch, and then did a little shopping. I spent the rest of the afternoon reading out on the lawn in the sunshine in the company of some ducks from the lake. It was almost too perfect to be real.

Sweet Jesus...I just want to sit down!

June 18, 2008

Today was everything Berlin. We started the morning off with a bus tour led by none other than Freddie himself. He drove us through a lot of East Berlin (the Communist side) and we got to see the Berlin wall, which was absolutely fascinating. It’s neat to think that a lot of the changes that have happened in the country have been in my lifetime. We also drove out Checkpoint Charlie, which was the only gateway between East and West when the city was divided. We drove out to the Olympic Stadium, a palace in the city, and the Brandenberg Gates and the Reichstag building. Our tour ended at the Hamburger Bahnhof museum, which is a very modern art gallery. We saw lots of really “out there” pieces, including a large gallery room full of nothing but huge chunks of tallow and a felt suit hanging on the well. It was amusing to watch everyone’s reaction. Combine our feelings for the art with Medina’s appreciation for it and we had some interesting discussions in that museum for sure. I can’t say it was my favorite, but it is definitely one that I will remember for a long time!

After the museum some of us headed to the Reichstag building to climb the dome. (Its what we do when we get somewhere; we have to climb something!). The Reichstag building was fascinating to me because of how recent a large portion of its history is. The dome, completed in 1990 after major damage throughout the course of WWII, is made completely of glass and sits directly over the meeting place of the German parliament. It is suppose to symbolize the fact that the German people will always be “above” their government. To get up we didn’t actually have to climb anything, which was nice. Just a quick elevator ride up and then you had an incredibly view of the city.

We took the train home, and grabbed some dinner at the train station on our way back. We had about an hour to get ready for our final concert of the summer, which no one was very excited about. There is a pretty nasty flu virus going around, and about half of us feel nauseous and feverish. So far I haven’t been to sick, but I think its probably just a matter of time….

The concert ended up being pretty good. A little on the longer side, but it was still neat. The concert venue was some sort of very old city hall building, and the actual room it was in gave it a very “chamber orchestra” feeling. Afterwards, pretty much everyone went back to the hotel to pack and sleep. We are all pretty tired now and a good night’s sleep seems very appealing!

June 19, 2008

Another glorious driving day! When we started this trip it was almost impossible for me to fall asleep on the bus unless I was curled up in a strange position that left me sore with various limbs completely asleep. Now, however, I am fully capable of getting a nice nap in a completely upright position, regardless of the quality of the road or what is going on around me. This makes bus day a great day just to nap and do school work, with today being no exception. The fight for seats has gotten even more ferocious…but Molly and I managed to get a decent seats.

We only made one long stop during the trip, which was to visit the rocks of Extenstein. One of the kids in our group had seen something written about them a few years back, and decided that if he was ever in Germany that he would want to stop and see them. They are kind of a Stonehenge type attraction: large stones with stairs carved into the sides for people to climb up. The rocks just happened to be between Berlin and Beilfield, so we stopped. It was great to be outdoors for a few hours, and it just so happens that there is always a big festival at the rocks for the summer solstice, which is just two days from now. There were already lots of crazies camped out, beating drums, and playing fifes. It was quite a strange environment, but a lot of fun all the same.

We got to our hotel in Beilfield and all got together for Bible study. We have about 13 people coming now! Afterwards we went in search of food, which was much more difficult than we expected. We wanted to go to the grocery store, and we could see one about a block away from our hotel. As we approached we realized that the whole shopping center was fenced in, so we had to walk an addition 2-3 blocks just to get to the store. On the way out we walked a different direction towards McDonalds (the only restaurant anywhere close) and ended up an Audi dealership, trapped once again by the fence. At the point to walk to the gate would have been 3-4 blocks, and we were really hungry, so we decided to jump the fence. I’m sure we looked like stupid Americas, but at this point it was raining and we didn’t really care what anybody thought.

At McDonalds we found almost everyone in our group, and once again had hamburgers and salads for dinner. I’ve eaten more McDonalds in Europe than I have in the past five years in the US. Its good, its cheap, its reliable…what can I say?

After dinner we borrowed Mary’s laptop and watched the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy….SO GOOD. It was like spending the evening was good friends. Most of the guys watched the soccer game, and we knew exactly when the game was over because the whole world went crazy. Not only did we hear yelling in the hotel, cars outside honked for hours after the game ended. It was neat to be in a country when their soccer team won; I wish the US had that kind of spirit about a particular sport. That was about the extent of our excitement of the evening, for the rest of the night we hung out with our usual crowd.

June 20, 2008

Day two of driving to Brussels. The seating situation on the bus has gotten pretty out of control…yesterday they told us that bus doors wouldn’t open until 8am, and if we wanted good seats we had to be lined up outside the bus when they opened. The four of up hoped that people would try to be rational and not show up super early to the bus. We were wrong. When we walked out to the bus at 7:50 (ten minutes before we could get on) we were the last people in line. Apparently the line had started to form around 7, and people had developed a complicated set of rules about who was able to save seats for who and how many seats could be saved. Leave it to Tech students to make everything way more complicated than necessary. An IE behind me kept complaining the whole time about how inefficient the system was. I ended up getting a seat in the very back corner, but it wasn’t all that bad. This drive was the shortest so far anyways.

We didn’t have any big stops along the way, which was good. We got to Brussels very early, so they decided to take us directly to a music museum instead of checking into the hotel. Of course everyone was upset about it…at this point museums are equitable to legalized torture. It was a music museum, different than so many of the art museums we’ve been to, and I thought it was pretty interesting. We all wore huge headsets that activated when you got close to a particular instrument display, which was cool unless to got too close to a group of displays, because then you’d hear several music pieces at once…it was a little overwhelming! We were all suppose to meet at the top floor of the museum to hear some jazz students from the local university play their final exams. Dr. Haydn really talked up the performance, so were expecting some pretty talented musicians. He was way off…the students, particularly the marimba player, were not very good but thought they were awesome…a dangerous combination. After two pieces, Dr. Haydn signaled us and we all got up and left. A little rude maybe, but I don’t think I could have kept a straight face through the whole thing…

Our hotel here is awesome, probably my favorite so far. The rooms are very nice and some of the larger rooms that we’ve stayed in, which is good since we have a lot of studying to do for finals. We are right in the middle of the city, which is also a good thing. We had time before our welcome dinner to go use the gym, take a shower, and even do a little laundry. We also wrote our last music paper, which felt really good to finish up!

The dinner was way too sophisticated for a simple girl like me. I’m sure a classier person would have enjoyed it, but salmon pate just isn’t my thing. We ate on the 9^th floor of the hotel, which gave us a great view of the city. After dinner we went out exploring the area a little, but everything closes early here, so we weren’t able to find much. We are in the shopping district of Brussels, so there are stores and malls everywhere! We are also just south of a long line of strip clubs….I guess we wont be going much north of the hotel. We did find a good place for internet, so tomorrow we will be able to check email!

June 21, 2008

Today we went to class and studied. The End.

Just kidding! We did have both classes, which was a lot of review for finals tomorrow. Afterward we headed to the Victor Horta museum, which was really cool! It was actually his home, which he built in the Art Nuveou style. It was a nice change from the normal art gallery type of museum, and a good museum to end on. We rode the metro there and back, which was a strange hybrid of subway and tram. There were some strange people on the tram, that’s for sure…

When we got back to the hotel we picked up our computers and went to use free internet a restaurant close to the hotel. Our intention was to study, but internet is such a luxury that I ended up sending emails the whole time. We had to go back to the hotel and do some intense studying, and then for dinner we took a study break and went to a place called Cheese Cake Café. It was probably the most American restaurant we’ve been to so far; there was lots of food and it came pretty quickly.

After dinner it was more studying. We had about 10 people in our room and we were blasting the classical music. I tried to call and get a different pillow from the reception (a special service that the hotel offers) but due to a slight miscommunication, they brought us a large stack of towels. Three separate times. The fourth try was the charm, I finally got an awesome “firm” pillow. We decided to go to bed and wake up early in the morning to finish studying.

June 22, 2008

Finals day! Molly and I got up at 5:30 to finish up studying, and then we opened up breakfast at the hotel at 6:30. Have a mentioned how awesome breakfast has been so far? Belgian waffles and everything! We studied with other people at breakfast, and then headed to class. The final ended up being alright…it wasn’t too easy but we all think we did pretty well. We had a little time to kill between art and music, so I went back to the hotel and ate more breakfast…don’t judge! The music final went well too. It feels so good to be done with class for a while!

We all came back to the hotel and got ready to explore Brussels. Hank and I asked the reception if there were any protestant churches around; since it was Sunday we thought it would be cool to go to a service. They responded by handing a list of every catholic mass in the city…oh well! We found that most of the city is closed on Sunday, especially in the shopping district, but we still saw some of the most popular tourist spots, including the main square and the statue of the boy peeing. Everyone had talked about how famous the statue was, and when we finally found it I was so disappointed with it. Its just a little brass fountain about a foot and a half tall, peeing into a little basin. At least I can say that I’ve seen it…

We ate Belgian waffles from a small stand…twice. Once again, don’t judge me! We also hiked to a park on the edge of the city. It was a strange place, there was a lot of garbage everywhere and not a lot of green space. Walking to the park was a lot of fun though, we came across a market selling a lot of jewelry that was fun to look at. We came back to the hotel and chilled for a little while, and then Freddy took us to his favorite place in Brussels…called Brue Park. It was a strange combination of a water park, themed restaurants, and a gigantic molecule structure from the World’s Fair in the 1950’s. It wasn’t what any of us were expecting, but Freddy loved it so we had fun as well. The bus ride back into town was the best of the trip…we all sang Cher and Freddie blinked the isle lights the whole way. There was also some dancing in the isles…what can I say, we know how to party!

Everyone in our group is getting very concerned with the idea of adding 100 more people to our social circle. We’ve decided that Group 2 is clearly the best and we really don’t need anyone else. It really has been a blast getting to know everyone. There are certainly a lot of people that I would never have met in Atlanta that I am so close with now. We all decided to go out together for our last night traveling, and we ended up leaving just as the Spain/Italy soccer game. Spain won, and it was crazy throughout the city. People were cheering and waving flags and running around and honking…pure insanity. We cheered with the best of them, though, despite the fact that none of us really had any loyalty to Spain. It was a cool environment to experience. We all went to a pub and enjoyed each other’s company for one more night. We left really late, and people were still out cheering and celebrating the game as we walked home. It was a perfect end to an amazing European trip.

We had an exciting scene waiting for us at the hotel when we returned. We saw lots of police in the lobby, and one of our professors. We couldn’t really figure out what was going on until Molly saw two kids from our group in handcuffs. You can imagine the rumors that started flying! We came up with some pretty crazy stories, but we couldn’t get any firm answers on what was going on. News travels fast, and by the time we were walking into our room we could hear lots of people speculating about what had actually happened.

June 23, 2008

Our very last bus day! Despite all the drama of the last couple of rides, everyone got decent seats for the last leg of the trip. There wasn’t even a long line thirty minutes before the doors opened! It was good to pack everything up and know that we wouldn’t have to do it again for six weeks. We were pressured to leave right at 8:00am in order to make our Chunnel appointment, and we left pretty close to it, which is saying a lot for our group. The two kids we had seen in handcuffs the night before were on the bus, which we took to be a good sign. It didn’t help our curiosity, though. Someone talked to a bellhop who said that they had thrown a glass bottle out of their window and hit someone on the sidewalk…but no one knows for sure.

Everyone was anxious on the bus and it was much more difficult to sleep than usual. We made it to the chunnel with plenty of time to spare, and when we loaded our train car we ended up being on the same car as both other Tech groups headed to Oxford, so we got to say hi to people we hadn’t seen in weeks and compare stories. Our story about getting arrested definitely trumped any other groups, even the group who had someone projectile vomit in the middle of class. We are awesome.

We had another couple hours to drive after we arrived in England, so all the Tech kids got back on their groups’ busses. Everyone’s thoughts about group two being better than the others were confirmed, and we decided we really didn’t need to go to Oxford with them after all. Its going to be difficult adjusting to having so many more people to talk to every day!

Arriving at Oxford was such a unique, special experience. We pulled in front of the college and a security guard with a beautiful English accent got on the bus to give us instructions about checking in. It was so exciting! We all got our rooms, and then proceeded to run around the campus and look at everone’s. There are quite a few different types of rooms in the college. I am in a dorm that is probably older than the United States, and it is the coolest place I’ve ever been in. There is a small parlor room when you first walk in, and then a tiny bedroom/sink in an adjoining room. I am on the top floor of “staircase 11,” which means I have to walk up three levels of winding staircase to get to my room. I absolutely adore it!

Most of our group is across campus (only a 5 minute walk) in much newer dorms with their own bathrooms. Everyone is really excited about where they are, and we are all wondering why Georgia Tech housing can’t be like this. Hmmmm….

Dinner was perfect. They served us family style, and it was so refreshing not to have chosen from a menu what we wanted to eat. The food was delicious, we ate butternut squash soup, and salmon, roasted potatoes, broccoli, and an excellent cake/berry dessert Molly described as “communion food.” Afterwards we went to a short orientation about the campus, and they told us what grass we couldn’t walk on and a lot of other rules we have to follow.

We explored the campus a little afterwards. It’s difficult to describe how beautiful it is here…it doesn’t even seem real. We also went into the town, which is just as charming and picturesque as you could ever imagine. Now I am sitting at my desk, looking out my window, talking to my mom, and having some alone time for the first time in four weeks. It doesn’t get much more peaceful than this.

Hairy Mustachio!

June 14, 2008

Prague is an absolutely gorgeous city. We woke up early this morning, at ate a very intereting breakfast, complete with baked beans and hot dogs and pasta salad. Weird. After class we all took the metro into the heart of the city and explored a little before our walking tour with Dr. Medina. We bought huge hunks of sausage for lunch, and then went to a little coffee shop for dessert.

During our walking tour Dr. Medina pointed out all the different types of architecture in the city, and we watched the turn of the hour on the astronomical clock in the town square. Everyone crowded around to see it, so we expected that something really cool would happen. At the turn of the hour, the bell started to ring and a small skeleton guy danced around mechanically. We were all slightly disappointed with the whole thing. Apparently the clock was a major feat back in the day, and the king was so proud of it that he had the clockmaker blinded so that he couldn’t make one for any other city. Poor guy!

We walked over the main bridge of the city and got a great view of the river and the city. From there we took the trolly to the Mozart museum, which was actually his summer home. It was neat for a little while, but at this point we are all pretty disillusioned with museums, and we were ready to head back to the hotel.

We got back to the hotel with just enough time to grab some pizza from our new favorite pizza place and get all dressed up for the Opera. Everyone pulled out the same dresses that we wore in Rome, and rode the Metro to the opera house. Apparently large groups of nicely dressed people don’t frequent the metro, because we got lots of strange stares from locals. The opera was quite an experience. The opera house was similar to other ones that we’ve toured. We sat in the very top section, which was great because we had a good view of the pit and the stage. There were ornate carvings everywhere, and a huge chandlier in the middle just the Paris Opera House. The actual opera wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever seen, but that might have something to do with the fact that they were singing in German and there were Czech subtitles, which made it slightly difficult to understand. Definitely a neat experience though. Everyone should go to at least one opera in their life!

We got back around 10:30 and some people went to a five-story disco tech that’s really popular in Prague. Liz and I weren’t feeling all that great, so we just stayed in for the night. It was great to just chill out for a while.

June 15, 2008

No two days have been remotely similar on our trip, but for some reason I seem to be falling into a routine when it comes to journaling about them. I always start off with “today was [insert fun-sounding adjective]” and then proceed to recount the day’s events in chronological order. That must be really boring to read about. Unfortunately, I am not a good writer and an extreme creature of habit, so you will just have to bear with me. I apologize J

Today was awesome! (How’s that for a lame fun-sounding adjective?) Class in the morning and then over to Prague castle for a walking tour of the area. The weather here is crazy, one second it will be warm and sunny, and the next minute it will cloudy with a breeze that makes you cold in no time. Our hike up to the castle was a good example of that. I got really hot climbing up, but as soon as we got to the top the wind picked up and the clouds rolled in and I was freezing. Its difficult to adjust to, that’s for sure.

We got to the castle just in time to see the changing of the guards. We all took pictures next to them, with their interesting uniforms and straight-faced dispositions. Dr. Medina lead as around the castle, the cathedral, and the surrounding courtyards. Being on the hill provided an excellent view of the city. It was neat to see the centuries-old architecture spread throughout the hills.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on who you are and how much you like museums…) the Dvorak Museum was closed for the day, so we had the rest of the day free. We went back into the center of town, and ate a café close to the metro.** From there we tried asking people where H&M was, and each time someone gave us different directions. We did stumble across a neat open-air market in the process, with lots of food, jewelry, and marionette dolls. After exploring the market for a while we took the metro back to the hotel and chilled at the pizzeria with internet for a while. Since it was Father’s Day we all tried to call our parents, but to no avail because, once again, it was Sunday and everyone was at church. The time change is a difficult thing to work with sometimes!

We headed back into town after resting for a little bit, and finally found H&M and another store that’s popular in Europe, C&A. We weren’t too impressed with either, but being next to the mall gave us a good choice of places to eat dinner, and we ended up eating at an expensive place that served lots of traditional Czech food. I had something with lots of dumplings, steamed red cabbage, and meat. I don’t remember at all what it was called, but I really enjoyed it!

After dinner we headed back into the square once again to watch the Czech/Turkey soccer game. We ran into some people from our group completely by chance, and they lead us to the rest of the group. We had to snake through a very packed crowd to get to everyone, and there were a couple uncomfortable confrontations. Our group was located right next to a crazy Czech man, probably homeless, who had about four teeth and was more into a soccer game than I’ve ever seen in my life. The guys we were with were awesome about separating all the girls from him and all the other crazy people around…it was definitely an experience, probably one of the coolest experiences I have had so far. Everyone was INCREDIBLY spirited, screaming “Czech-ee” all the time. (I’m sure that’s not how you spell it, but that’s the phonetic gist of the word…) When Czech scored the crowed went wild, there was a lot of jumping up and down and cheering and hugging and high-fiving. They were ahead 2-0 until about the last fifteen minutes of the game, when Turkey scored three goals. Everyone was devastated. Our homeless Czech friend got punched in the face for some reason (we aren’t sure if he instigated it or not…I wouldn’t be too surprised if that was the case) and within seconds the crowd separated and there were several huge bouncer-type guys separating them. After the game ended, everyone quietly walked out of the square. We were all so disappointed. Our little homeless man cried; he had a very rough night.

We headed back to the hotel to pack after the game. We definitely weren’t in Prague for long enough!

**Let me take a second to say how awesome the metro system is in Prague. Not only is it clean and safe, its very quick, efficient, and gets you wherever you want to go. It’s really easy to figure out and enjoyable to use. Definitely my favorite so far.

June 16, 2008

Yet another day of travel. We were suppose to load the bus at 7:45am, and by 6:45 am there were people waiting outside the bus to make sure that they got the seats they wanted. I’m glad we only have a few days left…its getting pretty fierce on the bus early in the morning! There are rumors that Freddie can be persuaded to let people onto the bus the night before we leave to let people reserve the prime seats….the system has been corrupted! Since the seats we sit in are not considered prime real estate, we generally don’t have much of a problem getting seats together. We pulled out a few minutes early (no drunk people this time!) and I was asleep about two minutes into the trip.

We stopped at a concentration camp on the way to Berlin in Terezin. This camp was the one that Nazi leaders used for propaganda to tell the world that the Jews were being treated well…they prepared well-equipped rooms for red cross inspections and videos that were circulated around the world. Initially I was a little upset that we wouldn’t be seeing a more “realistic” camp, but I had no idea how powerful visiting this camp would actually be.

There was a steady, cold rain the entire time we were in the camp; it was very somber and fitting. We were lead through the camp by a little lady with a very thick accent who was incredibly difficult to understand. The first place that she took us was the entrance offices and original barracks. At the beginning of the war the camp started out being a place where prisoners were held, and then eventually became a location where many Jews were brought. The first barracks that we went into consisted of three levels of bunk beds that were fastened to the wall. People were meant to lay perpendicular to the wall, which allowed officials to place many more people in them than if they had regular bunks. The room that we were in was probably about 20 feet long and 10 feet wide and was meant to hold 100 people. Even the 50 of us that were on the tour had a difficult time fitting in, and it was incredible to think that twice that many people lived there for months on end.

We walked through more barracks and isolation chambers and saw were Arch Duke Ferdinand’s assassin was kept. The cells were originally intended to hold one person, but as over-crowding became an issue as many as 15-20 people were forced into a single cell with no light and very little ventilation. Prisoners in the camp were allowed to shower once a week and the shower facilities were unbelievable. There were several heads coming directly from the ceiling that five or six people were meant to share, with an incredibly limited supply of hot water, no matter the outside weather conditions. We saw a room full of comparatively nice sinks and mirrors, which our guide said was a room built solely in case of a Red Cross inspection and was actually never used by prisoners.

We went through a 500 meter stretch of tunnel through the perimeter of the prison that led to the execution area. It was a horrific place to stand, but what was even more terrible was the fact that directly on the other side of the wall was the home of the commander and other military officials, where families with children lived through the duration of the war. We saw larger barracks built by prisoners during the war next. These barracks were built to maximize efficiency and minimize cost, so they installed skylights in the roofs to save electricity. Aside from being horrible insulators, they produced a greenhouse effect in the room, and it would actually rain on prisoners in the night as the steam that collected in the room during the day condensed with the colder night temperatures. These rooms were relatively large, and held as many as 600 people at any given time. Clearly disease was rampant throughout the camp.

On our way out of the camp we walked through a memorial to the people that died in Terezin, approximately 80,000. There was a large Star of David and a cross overshadowing grave markers and a field of red roses. It was a breathtaking sight, and a very respectful memorial for those that suffered there. I am so thankful that we had the opportunity to visit the camp. It was an incredibly difficult thing to see, but something that I will never forget for the rest of my life.

The rest of the bus ride was a combination of sleeping and studying and preparing for the music test that we have tomorrow. We pulled into Berlin around 4, which gave us a couple hours to chill before the welcome dinner. Any chill time is very welcome and so enjoyable to have!

The welcome dinner was the best yet. We ate at a restaurant off the river, and it was just really good, familiar food. The chocolate mousse we had for dessert was probably one of the best things I’ve ever put into my mouth. We spent the rest of the evening studying for our music listening tests, which involved making a play list of about 18 classical pieces and putting the player on repeat, then identifying each piece as it came on. We were studying with our door open, and before long there were about 10 people in our room studying together, all listening to classical music. I’m sure the hotel personnel thought we were incredibly strange Americans. We had the window open the entire time, and you could hear crowds across the city cheering every time Germany scored a goal in the soccer game. It was neat to hear, even if we couldn’t be a part of it. Another chill night, but it was still a lot of fun to hang out with everyone, even if we were just studying.

June 17, 2008

Our first full day in Berlin was absolutely beautiful. Berlin is very different than any other city we’ve visited…its buildings are much more practical in their design and a lot less ornamental, especially in the East portion of the city, which was controlled by Communist for about forty years. We had out music class at a hotel pretty far away from where we are staying, but it gave us a great opportunity to see some of the city and get our bearings. Our test ended up not being difficult at all; all our studying paid off!

After class we went back to the hotel to regroup and get ready for the day. We took the train to the first museum we were visiting, with was the Old National Gallery. There are two kinds of train in Berlin, the S and the U. The S is the above ground track, which is a lot more enjoyable to ride on than anything underground because you get to see so much of the city. There is a wide variety of architecture visible; there are old, ornate, domes and modern, sleek buildings painted with bright primary colors…its quite a contrast! The museum itself was built in a very interesting style, portions were very ornate and beautiful while other portions were pretty bare. There were quite a few interesting pieces of artwork to look at.

We had about an hour break before we had to be at the second museum, which gave us just enough time to get some ice cream and enjoy it next to the river. The weather in Berlin is very strange. When the sun is outside its pretty warm, the kind of weather that shorts and a t-shirt are good for. But if a cloud or a breeze comes around, the temperature drops significantly. Its difficult to plan for!

Our second museum of the day was the Pergamon Museum, which houses lots of Ancient Greek works, including the original face to the Pergamon Chapel. During the 19th century the Germans went crazy and tried to collect as much art as possible from all over, including Greece. They brought a lot of amazing works back to the city and rebuilt portions of huge buildings indoors. They are fascinating to look at! The museum was located behind the Berlin Wall, and Dr. Medina said that it was incredibly exciting for the art world when the wall fell because it meant that they could once again go and see so much fascinating artwork!

After the museum a lot of people decided to head back to the hotel, but a couple of us decide to walk around Berlin for a little longer. It was just too pretty a day to head back to our rooms. We walked down one of the main roads of the city, window shopping and admiring all the buildings and scenery. We saw many important buildings, but the most memorable thing was the memorial to the 6 million Jews that were murdered during WWII. The memorial wasn’t built until after the fall of the Wall, and it is a very simple, bold statement. They made over 2700 rectangular cubes and placed them in a grid pattern along two city blocks. It’s a very ominous, bare reminder of what happened.

We came back to the hotel after our Berlin exploring, and decided to go get some dinner at the train station. I wanted some traditional German fast food, so I went to the Weiner Worst stand, of course. I was looking over the menu trying to figure out what to get, when a really cute guy with a little bit of a Swiss accent came up next to me and asked if I needed any help ordering anything. I was very happy to get any recommendation, and he described something that sounded good, so I was in. He asked me if I would like him to order for me, which I gladly took him up on. The meal, which ended up being a Reisencurreyworst combo I believe, was great. It was a whitish sausage looking thing cut up and covered in spiced ketchup and paprika. He also ordered me fries with mayo and ketchup…a surprisingly good combination. I love meeting locals! After dinner we came back to the hotel, wrote our music papers, and watched the soccer game for a little bit. A good European evening for sure!

June 18, 2008

Today was everything Berlin. We started the morning off with a bus tour led by none other than Freddie himself. He drove us through a lot of East Berlin (the Communist side) and we got to see the Berlin wall, which was absolutely fascinating. It’s neat to think that a lot of the changes that have happened in the country have been in my lifetime. We also drove out Checkpoint Charlie, which was the only gateway between East and West when the city was divided. We drove out to the Olympic Stadium, a palace in the city, and the Brandenberg Gates and the Reichstag building. Our tour ended at the Hamburger Bahnhof museum, which is a very modern art gallery. We saw lots of really “out there” pieces, including a large gallery room full of nothing but huge chunks of tallow and a felt suit hanging on the well. It was amusing to watch everyone’s reaction. Combine our feelings for the art with Medina’s appreciation for it and we had some interesting discussions in that museum for sure. I can’t say it was my favorite, but it is definitely one that I will remember for a long time!

After the museum some of us headed to the Reichstag building to climb the dome. (Its what we do when we get somewhere; we have to climb something!). The Reichstag building was fascinating to me because of how recent a large portion of its history is. The dome, completed in 1990 after major damage throughout the course of WWII, is made completely of glass and sits directly over the meeting place of the German parliament. It is suppose to symbolize the fact that the German people will always be “above” their government. To get up we didn’t actually have to climb anything, which was nice. Just a quick elevator ride up and then you had an incredibly view of the city.

We took the train home, and grabbed some dinner at the train station on our way back. We had about an hour to get ready for our final concert of the summer, which no one was very excited about. There is a pretty nasty flu virus going around, and about half of us feel nauseous and feverish. So far I haven’t been to sick, but I think its probably just a matter of time….

The concert ended up being pretty good. A little on the longer side, but it was still neat. The concert venue was some sort of very old city hall building, and the actual room it was in gave it a very “chamber orchestra” feeling. Afterwards, pretty much everyone went back to the hotel to pack and sleep. We are all pretty tired now and a good night’s sleep seems very appealing!