Longest. Post. Ever.

Rome:

-After a really bumpy takeoff from one of the smallest-yet-major airports known to man, we landed in Rome, yay!  Had to wait about an hour for the bus to Termini station.  The hostel was really easy to find from there, maybe a 10 minute walk max. Walking down the street that has the address of the hostel, I wasn't quite sure I was still in Italy - all the shop names were in Chinese!  That street had character, I think.  I got to the hostel, including buzzing up through two doors and taking this teeny little elevator up a couple floors.  I couldn't check in til 3 or 4, so I walked around, got some gelato, then went sat in a cute park just right down the road.  I later found out that the park - and the ruins therein - was from the house of the first king of Italy.  Not too shabby!    I considered taking a nap in the park, but it was around 3:30 by this time so I figured they'd probably be okay with me checking in then.   So I did what you know you would've done too (and don't even try to deny it!), I went back to the hostel, checked in, and went with every intention of taking a short sleep.  But then I met Andy, and I guess we were both just so cool to talk to that neither one of us took the nap we'd planned on!  :)

Eventually our other new roomies showed up and we all got to know each other a bit, walked out around the area trying to find a laundromat and some good Italian eatin'!      Mmm, first real authentic spaghetti in Italy.. Benissimo!   And seriously, it really is true that men with foreign accents (not American accents) can totally get away with saying things like "Lovely".  But I digress.   In the process of walking around we'd lost one of our compadres, Austin from Australia.   We popped back to the hostel to grab him, the others grabbed some wine from the little grocery store downstairs from our hostel, and walked right on down to the Colosseum!   (Refer to previous posts for other details on this amazing night.)

Honestly, I felt more comfortable around that group (in particular Andy, Carolyn, and Signy) than I do with a lot of people I've known for ages here back home.   Analyze that however you'd like.

The next morning, got up late and went out to walk around for a while..   Walked around the area where my hostel was located, went up to St Maria Maggiore church, spent a good bit of time in there looking at the paintings and sculptures and such.   It's a beautiful church and has some famous people entombed there.   It's a little bit weird to me, having famous dead people (not meaning to sound disrespectful) entombed in a church building instead of a grave yard.  It makes sense, and I mean I'd certainly like to have such a respected resting place.. but, it's just foreign to me.

After walking around a bit more and grabbing a couple bananas for breakfast, I made my way back to the hostel, kicked Andy out of bed and we went down to the Colosseum/Forum/Palatine area.  Honestly, there are no words quite grand enough to say how amazing I found the ancient Forum.   I'm really glad that we had Rick Steves along with us (in free podcast form) because I think we learned a lot from him - apart from his cheesy humor, of course.    Naptime in the Palatine in the grass, under a tree, in the beautiful weather..  It was so very lovely.

Post-naptime, we headed over to the Colosseum to check out the inside.   While marveling at the awesomeness (awesome like a hotdog) we ran into Carolyn, Signy, Jordan and Jared.  We all walked around, discussing the price of cheese in Vienna (not really), took a couple pictures, and then eventually headed back to the hostel to get ready for the pub crawl that night.   Of course, we girls took forever to get ready and I changed my shirt about 4 times (impressive on a traveling wardrobe) but we finally headed out.

We had dinner at a restaurant just up the street - originally it was just me, Care, Sig and Dubin bros, but Seve and Austin showed up, then Nick and Andy showed up, then Danny and Tyler showed up.  It's like we were all meant to be!  (said with over-the-top enthusiasm typically interpreted as mild sarcasm.)

The pub crawl was oh so very interesting...    Despite remaining the only sober one in the entire 100+ crowd of young travelers (or maybe because of it) I had a super fun time!   Met a bunch of people, mostly stayed with the group but met a bunch of friendly Australians, a weird Bulgarian kid, plus various people whose names and nationalities I don't quite remember..  The Aussies were particularly interesting, lol...  Things started getting a little weird at the end, but the group was ready to go - so off we went in search of transportation home!   We finally made it to the bus stop, got on the wrong bus, and proceeded to spend the next hour and a half trying to find our way through Rome to get home, with Danny "protecting" me from one of the Aussies.  Loved all the accents.     I do still feel a little guilty about that whole thing, though..

Honestly Rome is beautiful.  Especially at 2 AM when the streets are nearly silent.  :-)   There was dancing in the street, a bit of romance in front of the Colosseum, drunken battle challenges, in no particular order and not necessarily happening to me.  We'll leave the mystery open. 

I do have to say, Roman nights were quite interesting.  Certain details shall remain unseen in the Blogosphere, but suffice it to say, Roman nights are a lot more eventful than Utah nights.   And a lot more eventful than my Parisian nights, myself all holed up in my hostel because I was too scared to go out late by myself!   :-)



The next day was comprised of sleeping in until 10, saying goodbye to the Dubin brothers (sad!), then made my way out into the wonderful wide world of Rome (for alliteration purposes, read:  Wome) by my lonesome to visit a few must-sees such as the Pantheon, Piazza Navona - which I keep wanting to call Novano, the Trevi fountan, plus 5 or 6 random piazzas.  I feel quite satisfied with my piazza experiences.  I saw plenty of the big famous piazzas, plus a bunch of random tiny ones that don't really get shown on the maps but are beautiful in and of themselves anyway.   Sadly my pictures of said piazzas aren't very distinguishable from each other, but that's alright.


On my way back to the metro stop, I picked at random one of the numerous "bars" (which to Italians is really just a grab-n-go food place, usually with sandwiches or something prepared) and had an amazing piece of Margherita (cheese) pizza on the way back to the metro station.. and some fruit.  I was craving fruit a lot on this trip!   Oh and by the way, my cushy American friends, grapes = not seedless here..   We are so spoiled in America.  

Went back to the hostel and took a short little nap.  The rest of us remaining in the group had decided to have an easy night - grab some cheap dinner close by, then just have a night in at the hostel.  So what else do you do for dinner when you're in Italy?  Yep that's right - we got Chinese food.   Hey, don't judge.    You know, I'd never really pictured someone speaking Italian with a Chinese accent.  Go figure.

Queue gelato, hostel, a laptop and some Russel Crowe.  Add it all together and you've got yourself a beautiful relaxed evening!



Late that night we were all treated to the musical stylings of guy-whose-name-I-can't-remember-but-slept-above-Andy.  And by "treated" I really mean "suffered through" and by "musical stylings" I really mean the dude could rip a snore like none other.  Poor Austin, he was so mad!   But what can you do?  He did give us fair warning...   Poor guy.


Next morning, Andy left (sad!) and then it was pretty much just me, Care, and Sig. We went down to St Peter's basilica and walked around inside and outside for a while.  St Peter's was incredible..    I found out later that my dad and stepmom have performed there with their choir, among many other hyperfamous churches in Europe.   That makes me want to get back into choir..

So Carolyn, Signy and I got some lunch (after hunting for a while to find something cheap)  then it was back to the hostel, after getting some gelato of course.   But of course, they had to leave too, so I wandered around Rome some more in the afternoon, just taking in the sights and soaking up as much sun and atmosphere as I could. 


Oh, and dinner at the hostel that night was SO incredible.    I swear they were cooking it all day long, and I'm pretty sure it was the best lasagna I've ever had in my whole 22 years and 8 months.

Although my feet and ankle ended up hurting a lot over this trip, I wish I could keep walking for several hours a day (anywhere ranging from only 3 hours of walking to a full 8 or 9 hours of walking) here back at home. But the reality is, things are just too far to walk to.  I have committed to going hiking a lot more, though.   One can sightsee in nature just as well in a big historical city, don't you agree?


After a ridiculous day of traveling to get home - which included getting up at 4 AM, not sleeping on my flights, and missing my connecting flight in Houston - I finally made it home Sunday afternoon, and my dad must have been reading my mind while I was gone because they'd planned steak, potatoes, squash, and salad, all of which I'd been craving the entire time I was gone.   I never consider America as having "traditional" cuisine, but.. if you ask me..   steak, potatoes and salad with Ranch dressing is full-on American in my opinion.  The end.



One of the things I miss most about traveling (yeah, all 2 weeks of it) was that every day mattered.   Every single day, every hour was important.  It was memorable because it was different and full of, well, being alive.  Even sleeping was important.  This week since I got home has gone by really fast, in fact this morning when I woke up I'd forgotten it was the end of the week already.  It has blurred by because it's been the same ol' thing I do every week.

I know that every day of our lives is important - every single day can be made to count, the way it felt while I was traveling.   I want to get out into the world (as much as is possible in boring Utah) every day.  But I get home and fall back into my comfort zone, my all-work-and-no-play life that is just a bit anti-social.

I didn't necessarily feel this way in London and Paris, but in Rome there was such an incredible freedom.  Apparently when I feel the most free to be anything I want to be, when I can be anything and anyone - that is when I am free to just be utterly and completely me. 

Over the past year, my ever-present calm has been teetering on the edge of volatility.   Maybe I'm just coming up on my quarter-life crisis. Something needs to change.   I almost want to move out of state and start anew - brand new people, brand new job, brand new life where no one knows me or expects me to be anything in particular.  That would be awesome.


The whole point of all 11 of these posts:   this trip was amazing.


Fin.

(Until my next travels!)

Playing ketchup

Get it?  Playing ketchup = playing catch up...   :)   What?   Don't roll your eyes at me!  This is MY blog thank you very much and I'll be as cheesy as I want with it....  hey, if you're reading this then you're probably either family or friend (or myself) and you already know that I can be quite the cheese ball.   Mmm...cheese..   I'm hungry.   Did I mention my randomness, too?  Don't judge.

My trip is coming to a close.  All these people I've been meeting have been/are traveling for a month or two (or more), it makes me feel like anything I say about my two whole weeks is just not justified.  Time is such a funny fiend.   How is it possible that the last 3 days have felt like 3 weeks and yet 3 minutes at the same time?  Who's up for a seminar on time perception?

Gollygeez, I have so much to catch up on here in the good ol' blogosphere about Holly's Holiday.   I haven't written about my last day in London, didn't give many details about Paris, and man alive, I have so much to write about from bella Roma.  Not going to lie, some of it just may not make it from my memory through my fingers to the keyboard inputting info into this blog.   (Anyone else think the word "blog" is really weird?)

As a sidenote, because that's how I roll, different countries' keyboards are really strange.  The essentials are all in the same place (ie, Tab, space bar, numbers, letters, Enter, Shift, etc) but the symbols are all screwed up. 

Okay, down to business.

So my last day in London was... Thursday of last week?  Yep.   Once I finally dragged my lazy butt out of bed in the morning, I went down to St Paul's cathedral.  The inside is just completely gorgeous.  I climbed the 517 steps to the [very windy] top, which has just as good a view as the Eye of London, except free.   And not so claustrophobic/bad for people who are a little nervous of heights.  Not that I'm a little nervous about heights, of course....   Really though - can you believe I climbed up AND down 517 steps?  And didn't die of panic?  No fights with gravity this year. Yeah!    Is it lame to give yourself a high five?

After St Pauls, I crossed the Thames circa the Millenium Bridge (picture the bridge that the Death Eaters destroyed at the beginning of the most recent Harry Potter movie) and because I'm a total theater junkie and adore Shakespeare, of course I checked out Shakespeare's Globe Theater which isn't actually Shakespeare's Globe Theater.  Shakespeare's Globe burned down in 1613, which incidentally is when Shakespeare stopped writing..  Coincidence?   The tour guide lady was a total riot.   I wonder if the tour guides are also actors/actresses... but I didn't think to ask then.  I learned a lot about it, though!!   And there was a very nicely dressed stagehand cleaning the stage while we were all standing there, he talked to us a bit and..  let's just say, I'd vote for him.   Biz-ness!  

What did I do after the Globe?.. Oh!  Hampton Court Palace!   They do this reenactment of Henry VIII's wedding to his 6th wife Catherine Parr with all the period dress and such, but I didn't get there until about 4 pm so it was basically finished.   But I picked up a good ol' audioguide and did a couple of the tours.  Saw the Great Hall and I just had visions of Beowolf going in my head.  I sat in the Queen's chair, some random dude took a picture of me sitting there, walked around the King and Queen's apartments, yada yada..  I know the British people of the times were quite a hardy people, and being in that palace I can imagine even the king and queen being hardy themselves.   Kinda tough, ya know?   The gardens were pretty nice, there were a few really cute ponds and these big trees/bushes that had leaves all the way to the ground.. they looked like giant green Kisses.  (You know, of the Hershey's Kiss variety.)   Really gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "I kiss the ground you walk on."

After that I pretty much just made my way back to Meagan's place to shower and pack and get ready for my train the next day.   Yay!     It was so awesome staying with Meagan, she was so sweet to let me stay there!   I'm pretty sure I left my pajamas there, though...  Go me.

So, Paris.  What have I left out about Paris?    Monday was my last day there, and I had every intention of spending practically the whole day between the Musee d'Orsay and the Louvre, thanks to the forecast of rain.  Which came true.  Very true.  And very wet.    And of course, because I'm an ignorant traveler who didn't think to check the hours of operation for the museums, I got to the Musee d'Orsay and it was fermé.  Which is French for "We hate Holly so we're going to close this museum on Mondays."   Getting to the Louvre from the d'Orsay on the Metro would have been ridiculous and taken forever and included about 5 different changes, so I just walked.   I got pretty soaked, but honestly it was kind of fun!   I love the rain, and that's one thing I really miss about Maryland..  It just doesn't rain enough in Utah.  And even when it does rain, it's such pansy drizzling that barely lasts 5 minutes.   Anyway, back to the story!

The Louvre was pretty sweet.   I didn't really take any pictures, and I didn't spend a TON of time there because a) I was drenched and cold, 2) I was still kind of mad that the Musse d'Orsay was closed and I couldn't go see the Monet collection, and d) I was just tired..  Did a bit of souvenir shopping and just went back to my hostel to get in some dry and warm clothes!   Got some dinner, played on my computer, talked to the Aussie girl that was one of my roommates, and went to bed.  Voila.  Exciting, non? 

I had to get out to this random Port Maillot metro stop to catch the shuttle to the teeny tiny Beauvais airport at around 6:15 AM for my 9:15 flight.   It took about an hour and 15 minutes to get to the airport, so it's understandable!  :)    I wish I'd been able to change my attitude more in Paris, I probably would have had less of a rotten time overall, but... it felt SO good to take off the ground and make it up into the sun above the clouds on my way to sunny, beautiful Italy.

OH!   So, because these two airports were so stinkin' tiny, we got to walk out on the tarmac and walk up the stairs to get on the plane - I've always wanted to do that, like in the movies!

Then comes Rome.

And more details of this shall come at a later time.  :-D   I need to re-pack all my crap, and they're making an awesome dinner here at the hostel that smells amazing.   


You know what they say about traveling...   Once you pop the fun don't stop!   Wait...that's the Pringles slogan.   Same thing, though - once you've started traveling, you never really want to stop.  I'm excited to go home tomorrow, I miss my family and my friends and my bed...ohhhh my bed...  and being able to eat Gluten-free easily.   I don't want to quit traveling quite yet.   I want to go to Florence with Signy and Carolyn, to Cinque Terre and Nice and Barcelona with Andy, to Switzerland with the Dubin brothers, to Venice and Greece and Prague and and and...  Hey parents, I'm not possibly some kind of heiress am I?

Those three little words...

"When in Rome!!"


So, this whole Europe thing is way cooler when you actually meet people.   People that are nice, that is.

My hostel in Paris was technically nicer than this Chianti hostel I'm in here in Rome, but..  I got put in this itty bitty room with 9 other people, and honestly... it's awesome!  It's kind of funny, we've got 2 Canadians, 4 Americans (me, two brothers from Houston and this guy from Chicago), an Austrailian and a Kiwi (New Zealander).  So we're just so very diverse...  all English-speakers as our first language..  The brothers and the two Canadian girls knew eachother already, they've run into eachother several times over the past few weeks of traveling.  Small world!! 

We all hit it off really well.   Freakishly well, honestly.  Since you all really want to know all their names, we've got Signy and Carolyn from Canada, Jordan and Jared from Texas, Seve from Chicago, Andy from New Zealand and Austin from Australia.  (breathe)    We hung out all afternoon yesterday, we walked all around our area trying to find a laundromat and a restaurant for dinnner...  Mmmmm.... first authentic Italian meal in Rome...  So good..   I'm sure there are better restaurants, this one was random and pretty cheap (which is fine by me!) but, soo good...   And yes, I kicked my Celiac disease out the window for a couple weeks, and I had me a nice bowl of spaghetti.   Yep, you heard me!!   HA!   ...although, I'll be happy to get back home, live off steak and vegetables, and not feel wheat-sick.  That'll be nice.  But hey.  When in Rome..

After dinner, we met up with a couple other Canadian guys, Tyler and Danny, got some Gelato (duh) and then walked the (about) half a mile walk down to the Colloseum.   It's just amazing!   Sitting outside of this big huge building that is thousands of years old...   Man..  Sure puts life in perspective.  We just sat in a row on a railing looking up at this big lit up ancient spaghetti bowl and talking and enjoying eachothers' company, and to top things off, some guy started playing the saxophone somewhere behind us.   That may have been my favorite moment in Europe so far. 

Today, Andy (the Kiwi) and I plan on going down to the Colloseum again and exploring the Forum and Palatine hill and such.  So awesome.

Tomorrow?  Hmm.   Maybe exploring random places, going to the Trevi fountain, etc..  Friday = Vatican, I think.

When in Rome!..

What the Crepe

Paris weather needs to make up its mind.   So fickle.

I went to the heart of Paris today.  Finally, right?  I made my way on the Metro (and bought too many tickets in the process) to Notre Dame.   And since I know you're going to ask, yes I did have "God help the outcasts" stuck in my head the whole time.   There was a service going on, yet the hallways around the main servicey area were totally packed with tourists like moi.  I felt a little bit bad..  It must be distracting for people trying to attend Mass to have all these people walking around inside, taking pictures and such.   But c'est la vie en Paris.  (dans Paris?   a la Paris?)    The stained glass windows are freaking amazing..  You know,  just imagining the people building the cathedral, the ingenuity it took to build something like that with the limited tools they had - amazing.    I feel like the human race has become so architecturally lazy these days.

I hopped on a red double-decker tour bus (another checkmark on SarahBudge's list-of-things-I-must-do!) and can I just say that Paris looks a whole lot less dirty from the top of an open-air tour bus?  :-D   The sun even made a few appearances!     The obelisk in the Place du Concord = 3,000+ years old.  Holy crap!!  Saw the sites, took the photos, you know the story.   It started getting even more windy and chilly, so I hopped off the bus, got a crepe (yay!) and hopped back on - this time on the lower level, out of the wind...    We drove through lots of amazing places, drove over the tunnel where Princess Diana died (there were some bouquets of flowers laid down in the area, even) and just made our way around.  It was nice, especially since I wasn't walking too much.  Mister Blister went away, but Cranky Ankle has reared his ugly head.   Hooray painkillers!  :-D

Let's take a moment to remark on the Paris metro system.  It's huge, and can get you anywhere.   But holy crap, it's nuts!   I'm sure it all makes sense once you've studied it out and remember where everything goes...  but, there are like 15 different metro lines, all different colors, different numbers of the same color, that go one direction and then suddenly become another number.. Definitely more difficult than the London tube system.  But seriously, you can get anywhere and everywhere on the metro.  It's crazyawesome. 

I went up to Sacre Coeur again this evening.  Don't judge.    I wanted to snap a few shots of Le Tour d'Eiffel at night with it all lit up since my camera was dead the other night..

You know, Paris overall has been kinda chilly, rude, unfriendly and a little smelly - but even if I hadn't had other awesome experiences here (which I totally have - I don't want it to sound like Paris sucks!) it would all be 100% worth it, just to see the Eiffel Tower.


And the souvenir shops here are SO much cooler than the ones in London.  Just sayin'.




Still left to do:
-Musee d'Orsay (added to the list, as author previously did not know that d'Orsay houses the biggest collection of Impressionist paintings, ie Cezanne, Monet, Manet, etc...  Hello, boys!)
  ---try not to spend more than 4 hours in this museum..
-The Louvre?
-Eat another crepe
-Re-pack and figure out how the heck to get to this totally random airport I'm flying from on Tuesday..


In closing,.. Ma famille me manque.

Marie! The baguettes! Hurry up!

So, Paris.    Hmm.   You know, I always thought it was a totally exaggerated stereotype that French people (in particular Parisians) are kind of spiky/rude.   And I'm completely positive that somewhere in Paris, there are some super nice Parisians.  I just haven't met any yet...

I met some "nice" African guys yesterday afternoon while walking up to Sacre Coeur - they made me a bracelet and wanted to be my boyfriend(s).   lol   [Author's Sidenote - in conversation with Nate- me: "So did I tell you about my new African boyfriend?"  Nate:  "Oh dear...  he's probably not as cool as my African boyfriend tho :-p"  ...  Hilarious.]

I'm finding I want to just kind of hide in my hostel the whole time.  But despite this, I've done a couple of things... last night I did go out with two of my hostel roommates (who both left today, sad!)  and we walked around the Montmarte area where our hostel is.  We're right by the Sacre Coeur, but also right by the Moulin Rouge & co....  Very, ahem, interesting.  lol    But we walked up to Sacre Coeur as well, and it was dark outside so the cathedral was lit up, and - the best part - we could see the Eiffel Tower, all lit up from the distance!!   What is it about the Eiffel Tower that just makes your heart happy?   I don't know.

Today I went out to Versailles - can you say freaking GORGEOUS?!  Honestly, everything was just so amazing.  The ceilings had the most amazing painting on 'em, the doors were all gorgeous, and the gardens..  oh my goodness, the gardens...   I can't even say.  I want to live in those gardens. 

My feet are losing some of their stamina.  Or perhaps my shyness is in cahoots with my feet, trying to make me hide in my hostel.  Hmmm...  Either way, tomorrow I'll go see more sights - the Eiffel Tower in the day, Notre Dame, possibly the Luxembourg Gardens...  I might save the Louvre til Monday, as a) it'll be less packed because the first Sunday of each month is free so it'll be busy tomorrow and 2) it's supposed to be icky weather on Monday, which lends itself well to being indoors looking at old paintings I know nothing about.  :-D  

Next time I come to Paris, I definitely don't want to come by myself.  I really do wish I had someone here with me - but I'm still really glad I came, if only to see Versailles and the Eiffel Tower! 

Oh, oh!  AND!  I totally ordered my lunch today 100% in French.  Yesterday when I was walking around in the afternoon, everyone seemed to know automatically that I was American...  spoke to me in English automatically..   Today people spoke to me in French automatically... It must have been the scarf.   Yep, definitely the scarf.

Still on the list of To-Do's:
-Eat a crepe
-Get up close to the Eiffel tower
-See Notre Dame
-See the Louvre
-Musee Rodin?  (ie, that dude who sculpted the Thinker statue)
-Eat another crepe.

You say 'erb, we say Herb

Okay, so, a few details.  I'm going to start with today because it's freshest on my mind, mmkay?  Got a problem with that?  Well too bad!  Does it say "[insert your name here]'s Holiday?"    Didn't think so.  Deal.

So, today started just like any other (of the past 4 days).   She woke up to the melodic sound of car horns coming through the open window just above her head mixed with the buzzing of her alarm-in-a-cell-phone.  She then proceeded to push Snooze and sleep for another 15 minutes. 
Time is a funny little bugger.  Isn't it weird how sometimes we can feel like it took forever to fall asleep, when in all reality it was only like 5 minutes?  They say that the average adult human being takes approximately 7 minutes to fall asleep.   Sometimes it feels like ages.  Why is that, really?  And why/how did the American people lose the British accent?  I mean, America started out British.   How did we come up with the "accent" that we have now?  Is it like the color black - a total absorption of all the other accents that mingled their way in?  And on that note, why do Canadians sound so similar to us when they're a completely different country?   Honestly, people.  But I digress.


(This non-sequiter was brought to you by our proud sponsors at o-dark-thirty.  And now back to your regularly scheduled blog post.)


Then she finally made herself get up, check her email, talk to a couple friends online, and then finally got ready for the day.   And here's where our story starts, folks.

[Author's insert:  Do you ever wish that bloggers would skip the cheesy fluff and just get to the point?   You don't?  Oh good.]

I'd decided that I wanted to go see the Imperial War Museum today to check out the stuffs there...   They have all these old war tanks and airplanes and non-explosive bomb shells and all this crazy-go-nuts stuff.  On the Lower Ground floor (yay European floor/level-naming scheme) they had these two exhibits - the Trench Experience and the Blitz Experience.  With both, they have a model trench/bomb shelter set up that you walk through, and they've tried to recreate the sounds and smells and model-sights that you would have seen in an actual trench/bombed neighborhood in The Blitz.   It was a little bit cheesy if you take it that way, but it was also really kind of... cool in a not-cool way.  Eye opening.   Home-turf violence is so completely foreign to us American young adult civilians.   Part of me wants to think that warfare has become more civilized - but then I remember how many Afghanistani civilians have been accidentally killed by American air raids.  Hitler tried to bomb England into submission - trying to bomb the Taliban into submission isn't going to work.  And isn't working.  And is just pissing off the civilians.

As a fairly ridiculous side note, every single time in the above paragraph that I typed the word "bomb," my fingers typed "bomg"...  B-omg folks!  Hehe...   Oh be still my text-happy heart..

After the Imperial War Museum, I made my way on the Tube back to the City to check out Buckingham Palace.  The flag was up - the Queen was home!   It's kind of funny that they only fly the flag when the queen is home..  Shouldn't it always be flying?  Hmm...  So I took some pictures since I couldn't really get in (they only do tours of the State Rooms during the summer) and some pictures of the Queen Victoria monument that's in the square (more of a circle really) in front of the palace.  I tried to get myself in a few shots, to prove that I was actually there... but we'll see.  lol     And then, Harry Potter 7 audiobook still playing in my ears, I walked down St James Park - which is gorgeous.  So pretty!  There's this big pond with loads of birds - some pigeons walking around the outside of the pond, about 6 different species of ducks (including these ones that were like 3 feet tall, what the heck!)  and 3 white/pink (yep) pelicans, and a few black swans.  And these weird little dodo-bird looking things that were small and black with red beaks.  They looked like ducks in the water, but then on land they looked... I don't know.  Weird.   But cool, because being a black bird with a bright red beak kind of automatically makes you cool.  It was a super cloudy day so the color quality in all of my outdoorsy pictures today really isn't super amazing, but that's okay - it's all part of the London experience.  Clouds included.

Once I got to the other end of the park, I went to the Churchill Museum/Cabinet War Rooms (the rooms that Churchill & Cabinet used during 1939-1945).  Really historical, really awesome, kind of hard to describe. 

It's just so weird being in these places and picturing these people 60 years ago, living/walking/breathing in this same spot, not knowing exactly what was about to happen.  What were they thinking about?   What were their names?  (Other than Churchill, of course.)   Who did they worry about?  Did they have children they'd sent out into the countryside?   What did they eat for lunch on November 10th?   and the like.

Then, saw the  Changing of the Guards, took a video of course - because I'm so obviously a tourist, wearing white/silver tennis shoes - and attempted to take a picture of myself with one of the guards behind me.  It's on the list of things to do that SarahBudge wrote for me before I left, so I had to do it!  I hope I can fulfill her request for what I need to do in Italy...hehe...   We'll see...     After the self-portraits were taken by a silly-feeling tourist such as myself, I wandered down the street and crossed Downing Street (where the Prime Minister lives?/works?) and tried to take a picture of 10 Downing Street (see above ( )s)  but of course, the road is blocked off by gates and police guards.   Because it'd be silly to be able to just meander up to the Prime Minister's pad and be like, "Sup dude, fancy a bomb with your morning cuppa?"  So, my uber zoom was employed and I believe a decent picture was had.  

Continue down Parliament Road, to the first Tomb of the Unknown Soldier - which is, I believe, the only one that's actually empty.  Picture snapped, consideration given, thoughts turned to those fighting..   Continue walking on my sad little feet, starving, past some Lion-something pub that's famous, and also seems to be the only eatery within a (x)-block radius of where I was.  And I was hungry where I was.  Very hungry.  Understandably so in my book, as it was nearly 15:00 and I'd eaten naught but a bit of cheese and Gluten-free roll prior to the ImpWarMuse.   (Nice abbreviation job, Holly.)   So I stopped at the Tesco Express, which is a sorta grocery store, and got some cheese and a bit of bread.  Yeah.... and I enjoyed the heck out of that gluteny goodness.   Mmm....  I really might just throw the whole thing out the window for Paris and Rome.   Even here, everything revolves around sandwiches.   And who goes to Paris and doesn't have a crepe?

It was chilly, so instead of waiting til 5:00 to get into the Evensong at Westminster Abbey, I went back to Meagan's place and duked it out with a not-very-understandable desk guy at the dorms to get the spare key, since Meagan wasn't home.   Grabbed my jacket, headed out to the British Library to see a bunch of ridiculously awesome things such as the original manuscripts of:  Jane Austen's Persuasion, "Lewis Carroll" (pen name)'s Adventures of Alice in Wonderland, Handel's Messiah, plus the Magna Carta and loads of other awesome things.   I could live there.

Enter Meagan back on the scene at the library.   We headed out to Piccadilly Square to hopefully get tickets to see Les Miserables, which we did successfully.  And since the whole Gluten thing was already out the window....there was a Cinnabon there...   Yes, I had a Cinnabon.   Since gluten makes me blow up faster than Aunt Marge, hopefully I'll still be recognizable when I get home. 

Les Miserables was incredible.  Way more incredible than I remember it as a 10-year-old seeing it at Capitol Theater in Salt Lake.  I cried.  I'm such a baby.  It was soo good!!   :'-)


Oh and seriously?  Piccadilly Square = Times Square, except with 400+ year old buildings. And driving on the wrong side of the road.  

And now I'm back at my temporary home-away-from-home, typing this blog for all you lovely folks (read: myself).   The dull thudding of complaint from my feet is far more easily ignorable today than it was the day before yesterday.  I've got an awesome blister on my right foot that I've been trying to convince to take a vacation to the Bahamas.   He hasn't been persuaded yet.   Europeans must have some seriously tough feet.   Honestly, I really like walking around everywhere, and taking the tube everywhere, and riding the tube, and watching other people riding the tube and walking everywhere.  My feet and Mister Blister don't much care for it, but I totally love it.  It makes my little heart happy.

I really should type details about the past 2 days as well...   But as it's already past midnight here, and I really should get to bed since I'm climbing St Paul's tomorrow morning and walking Hampton Court Palace and Gardens in the afternoon, I think I'll head to sleep.   Get it?  Got it?  Great!  :-D

I can't believe tomorrow's my last day in London.   But I am quite excited for the train ride to Paris, and just freaking being in Paris.. 

Highlights of Day 3 - where does time go??

Can I start a petition to have Vacation days last for 26 or 27 hours instead of 24?  That'd be great, kthx.




Highlights, again to be explained later:

-Getting lost for 2 hours in random bits of London, trying to find a shoe store that sells athletic/running shoes - which is nearly impossible, apparently...

-Finally giving up and going down to the City to visit the Xactware office - Andrew Bresler was out for lunch..sad panda.

-Tower of London!!!   Hilarious Beefeater tourguide.   It's a bit morbid, but I could spend all day walking the walls and towers and dungeons and everything.  I stood in the place where Anne Bolynn (sp?) got her head all chopped off..   Oh, and the Crown Jewels = huge.  500+ Carat diamond.  Dibs!

-KFC in London - who'da thunk?

-Orange Fanta -- actually tastes like carbonated orange juice, ftw!

-Camera battery died, so, detour back to Megan's place for a couple hours..

-Harrods.  Omg.   Chocolate bar.   Full city block, one store, with everything imaginable.  Nuff said.

-King's Cross station and Platform 9 and 3/4.  :)   Which, incidentally, due to construction in platforms 9 and 10 had been moved to just off platform 8.  Go figure.


Tomorrow:   Imperial War Museum, Buckingham Palace, Parliament/Big Ben in the day, Cabinet war rooms, Westminster area and Abbey, hopefully Les Miserables at night..


Some pictures uploaded to flicker - http://www.flickr.com/hoddiebee  .  It's in reverse order currently...

Highlights - to be explained later..

--Portobello Market/Notting Hill

"Travel Bookstore" from the movie Notting Hill

-cute old lady - pearl jewelery

-single's ward and funny stories (yogurt/learning to feed yourself vs being forced, "shortest" serving prophet, etc)

-Hyde park = gorgeous

-Dinner - cheese and gluten free ciabatta rolls

-London at night by myself, seeing Big Ben/Parliament all lit up

-Guys on the metro doing pullups...hilariously entertaining!




DAY 3 (Monday)

-Covent Garden

-Walking around lots and lots of shops

-Musicians in Covent Garden (awesome quartet playing Brahams and such!)

 -Tottingham Court Road while listening to Harry Potter audiobook section where they're in the Cafe on that road and they get attacked by Death Eaters.. :)

-Walking down Drury Lane (theater stuff)

-British Museum  (!!!!)

-Indian food experience

-Feet=OUCH.

The end.

Day 1 details

(Blog post alternatively titled: "Why can't I come up with more clever blog post titles")


I think jetlag gets a bad rap.   Jetlag didn't come at me with flaming jaws of fury like they say, he only gave me just about the most fulfilling 3.5-hour Saturday afternoon nap that has ever been experienced in the history of all of Holly's Saturday afternoon napping experiences.  

So my flight landed this morning at Heathrow at around 7:30 AM.  (By the way, if you've never flown internationally, I'd recommend it - tons of free stuff!  Free movies, TV shows, hours of entertainment...  also they were offering free beer and wine to those over 21, which I did not partake, but still!  Free.99!)   I picked up a trolley (hey America, let's get on the ball with the whole trolley-at-the-airport thing mmkay?), picked up my luggage - which all showed up - bought some postcards and some purple Rockstar, and made my way to the train to get to London Paddington station where Meagan met me.  I realized later that I totally forgot to take a picture of "Mind the Gap" and I haven't seen it on any of the Underground stations..  Here's hoping I'll see it again!   Meagan only lives about a block away from the station, in this cute old ex-hotel dorm building type deal.   She's got a private room with an attached full bathroom and kitchen and to stay here (for a cot rental and such) for the entire 6 days is still costing less than a single night at my hostels in either Paris and/or Rome.   Woohoo!   So I feel no remorse over having blown quite a bit of money today not doing a whole lot.  lol   Plus, it's nice to kind of ease into this whole foreign experience thing with someone I know, who knows a lot more about the city and where things are (and when to switch to a different metro line to get where you want to go...)  

We spent some time talking and thinking about what we wanted to do today, then we finally headed out and got a traditional English breakfast.  (Which includes:  eggs, potatoes, sausage/bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, and baked beans.  I passed on the fungus and gag-inducers.)   Seriously, baked beans for breakfast?  Are we sure I'm not in North Carolina?   Apart from the mind trip, they were delicious.

Then we headed out to the Underground station, I bought an Oyster card (basically a 7-day free-for-all Bus and Metro pass for the 2 main zones, covering all the areas in the City and some surrounding - all the touristy areas)  and off they went to the grand ol' opry.  I mean Trafalgar Square.

I really hadn't been feeling tired at all at this point.  We walked around Trafalgar square a bit - you can totally see Big Ben from there! pictures to come - and went into the National [art] Gallery which is right there.   The steps of Trafalgar square lead into the gallery.    Saw a bunch of old Catholic paintings, some super old triptychs and ditychs and such, plus of course a bit of Monet and Manet and Renoir and Cezanne and all those lovely French painters that make my little heart happy.  [P.S.  Totally stoked to go to Giverny when I'm in Paris.  Just sayin'.]

{Anyone else getting irritated with how often I'm using ( )'s and [ ]'s?}

Point is, National Gallery = rocksauce.   We'd been handed a flier about a concert tonight at the church there in the square,  St. Martin-in-the-fields, an orchestra concert doing some famous Baroque pieces like Vivaldi's "The Spring" and "Concerto for Two Violins",  Pachelbel's "Canon" and some Bach and such.  It was beautiful!   I really miss going to things like that even back home - and here, the church was so old and authentic and there were these pretty chandeliers that they'd dimmed to the amount of light candles would have had.  I sat there with my eyes closed (our cheap tickets didn't have a view of the 6-person orchestra anyway) listening to music I've known since childhood and imagining myself surrounded by people in turn-of-the(last)-century clothing, with the gloves and everything, sitting in a candlelit church listening to really well-performed music.  There was a guest flutist (flautist?) and it was just all quite lovely.

I find myself wanting to say things the British way, like instead of saying "Is it supposed to be...", you'd say "Is it meant to be.."   At times I think,  "No Holly, you're American, you can't go pretending you're British" but then I remember - my last name is Bradford.  There's a whole freaking city named Bradford up north.   Both sides of the family are predominately British.  So seriously, folks - it's in my blood!  ^.^

In between the National Gallery and the concert, we walked around quite a bit trying to find this one grocery store, and then came back to Meagan's room and took the aforementioned 3.5 hour nap because we were both really tired.  Tired after walking around the city on a Saturday morning/afternoon.  Go figure.

And then we ate dinner in a freakin pub.   I feel so local!  Awesome dinner (chicken veggie soup and chips [fries]) and the fact that everyone kept calling us "Love" was fairly delicious too.

Whatdya think, folks?   Day 1 = Success?

Tomorrow's potential plans - Portobello Market / Notting Hill, Single's ward in London (mm mm mm!) across Hyde Park, and...?  Not sure what else yet, though the single's ward is from 2:30 til 5:30.   Go figure.

Day 1

Landed safely -- hangin' out with Meagan, we're headed out to hit the town!  More later!

Debut

It doesn't really feel real. The reality of the weirdness of having the same word used several times in one short sentence is quite a bit more real than the reality of the fact that at 9:50 AM Mountain Standard Time tomorrow morning (Friday, September 25th) I will be on a Boeing 757 on my way to New York JFK airport, at which point I will switch to a Boeing 767 headed for Heathrow airport in London.

Dude.


As a more practical explanation of why this blog was created... A couple of years ago, my dear roommate (may she [livemarried] in peace) and I decided we wanted to go spend a year living in Europe. Although she ended up meeting the man of her dreams and I ended up getting caught up in work and school and broken limbs, the idea never really faded. But, a year (sans school and occupation) turned into a couple months (one semester off school, possibly leave of absence from work) which then turned into 2 weeks of PTO used instead. A list of 12 major European cities was cut down to just 3, and I am so freaking excited! :-D

And because I'm a walking cliche, I'll probably be blogging plenty while I'm out there in the Great Beyond-the-Atlantic, taking loads of pictures, shooting and writing whatever the heck I dang well please. Deal.


Dude!!