June 2011
1 post
June 01, 2011; Paris/New York/Chicago
Leaving today!! So excited to finally be going home, but it is so bittersweet. I loved my time here more than this silly little blog can say. So much happened and I learned a lot. I’m so grateful that I had this experience while I was young. I will never forget my time here.
Sitting at the gate using up the last 8 minutes of free wifi while I wait for the line to board to get shorter. ...
May 2011
29 posts
May 30, 2011; Amsterdam
Had to be up & out of our room by 10 so then we just sat in the hostel bar for awhile. We got lunch at a little canal-side place and hung out drinking coffee after our meal. Thennnn back to the hostel to pick up our bags and off to the train!
We couldn’t figure out wheeeere the hell in the station we were supposed to catch our train so we just wandered around till a screen FINALLY...
PS
Also, when my copy of Picture of Dorian Grey went missing, I figured I’d just misplaced it or it fell down somewhere, or I’m just stupid and left it some where. But when my other two books that I just bought and were still in their plastic shopping bag go missing from the same place, I’m inclined to believe there is a book thief in my dorm. Of all the shit to steal out of...
May 29, 2011; Amsterdam
Final full day in the Hamster! Patrick went to mass, so I wandered around and went to get hot cocoa and enjoy life. I thoroughly enjoyed it! Then after church, Patrick and I walked to the “best doner in Europe” again because it was so cheap and delicious. Andddd we found the cutest park to sit in and stalk cute European dogs for awhile. I sat and read my new Agatha Christie book...
May 28, 2011; Amsterdam
Woke up late today…oops. Anyway, we walked for like 20 minutes [the farthest we’ve gone in this city so far] and it was like….the edge of the city. This place is so tiny and weird…it feels like a space station haha well we got “the best doner kebab in Europe” and OMG yes it was. They bake all the bread fresh there in the restaurant and it was sooo cheap and...
May 27, 2011; Amsterdam
At about 9 am I started getting tired so I went upstairs to take a nap till lunch. Then the hostel cleaning guys came in and started vacuuming and opened the windows and were annoyingly loooud! Anyway, then for lunch Patrick and I went to the Pancake Bakery, where I had an apple and cheese pancake…it was soooo good. They are big Dutch pancakes baked with basically any assortment of things...
May 27, 2011; 7:56 am
Side note: two people in my hostel dorm room have the worst snoring problems I have ever heard in my entire life. I was woken up at 5 am. I did not fall back asleep. I got out of bed at 6:30 to shower and get ready for the day. These people need to see a doctor!! It’s the worst snoring I’ve ever experienced anywhere!
May 26, 2011; Amsterdam
Erghhhh crappy weather todayyyy. Grey and raining and windy and basically just miserable. We walked to find lunch somewhere, ended up getting kind of lost and then just ducking into a cafe/bagel shop when it started to rain really bad. It wasn’t actually bad, but it just wasn’t enough food for lunch! And weird side note: the entire menu board was in English…there was no Dutch...
May 25, 2011; Amsterdam
Woke up early to the sounds of weird drilling construction across the canal from our hostel. Got ready and wandered out to find lunch on the way to the Rijksmuseum. We ended up going to a little canal-side bistro…service in Amsterdam takes forevvvver so we took like 2 hours for lunch haha…I had a grilled chicken club with truffle-eggsalad. Soooo nommy. We went to the museum after...
May 24, 2011; Amsterdam
We left Berlin around 5 to fly to Amsterdam…crazy little European airports and weird terminals. Amsterdam was cold when we got here too! We got all settled into the hostel and dropped our stuff off before searching for dinner. We’re in a kind of seedy area with lots of sex shops and such. It’s hilarious cause the buildings are so old and cute. The canals are really pretty...
7-day Comprehensive Beer List: A Study of One...
· Berliner Pilsner
· Lemke Pils
· Lemke Original
· Efes Pilsner
· Prater Pils
· Radeberger Pilsner
· Kwak (Belgian)
· Signha (Thai)
· Paulaner Original
· Lemke Hefeweizen
· Paulaner Pils
· Fraziskaner Hefeweizen
· San Miguel (Spanish)
· Desperados (French)
· Beck’s...
1 tag
May 23, 2011; Berlin
We went back to bonanza coffee heroes in the morning and chilled with some espressos nomnomnom. Then we went to a grocery store to get snacks and sat in a park and watched cute dogs and babies pass by us. Some man was practicing his flute, dogs were sniffing butts, babies were riding bikes…..what a beautiful day!
After the park we wandered into a bar/cafe where we sat for like two hours...
1 tag
May 22, 2011; Berlin
Uneventful day. Except for when we got ticketed on the S-Bahn because we validated our tickets too many times…oops. Anyway, the ticket control man wanted 40 euros cash, which I didn’t have so he took down my address so they can mail me the ticket. Except he wrote down my US address and he like didn’t even know how to read a driver’s license and kept asking me what...
Crazy old lady in a youth hostel accosts young...
Crazy old lady: Your cell phone. It disturbs me.
Patrick: I'm sorry I don't have a cell phone.
COL: Yes, but when it goes off it disturbs me.
P: I don't have a phone. Maybe it's someone else? I'm sorry.
COL: Yes but I see you wake up every time it goes off. It must be your phone. And it disturbs me.
P: I DON'T HAVE A CELL PHONE. You can check my stuff if you want.
COL: What country are you from? English? (Note: this is not a mistranslation. She actually said "English.")
P: No, I'm American.
COL: Oh well....*shufflemumblegrumbleshuffle*
May 21, 2011; The rapture
Well let it be noted: no one has ascended back to heaven…and I’m not in hell [yet]. So suck on that crazy rapture preacher!
Anyway….we didn’t do much today other than drink beer and walk around and nap. In that order. We woke up from our nap to find the crazy old lady in our dorm yelling at Patrick because his “cell phone makes her crazy.” She’s...
May 20, 2011; Berlin
Another very eventful sight seeing day in Berlin!
First we went to the Berlin wall memorial, where there are pieces of the wall still standing and all sorts of informational panels telling you cool stuff about what happened. It was really informative, mostly because I hardly knew anything about what really happened since I wasn’t alive. The area where the memorial is was called the...
May 19, 2011; Berlin
Hmmm slightly less productive day. Woke up and ate breakfast, and then I fell back asleep for two hours…whoops! We went to get lunch at a pizza place and it started to downpour for awhile so we couldn’t leave the restaurant for a long time. Then we went to a beer garden! Ahh so cool. I will be compiling a comprehensive beer list of all the different beers I have tried in Germany...
May 18, 2011; Berlin
We woke up bright and early [meaning 10 heehee] and got breakfast at the hostel. Then we had a busy day walking around the German history museum for a few hours, and that was really fun and I got to see several millenia of German history! Woo, really fun for a nerd like me. After the museum we walked to the Brandenburg Gate and walked around there for awhile (including the American Embassy!! ...
May 17, 2011; Berlin
Arrival in Deutschland! Woo. We got to the airport and the hostel gave us terrrrible directions so we stood around confused trying to figure out which buses and trains we needed to take to get into the city and it was just a mess. Anyway, we finally got here! Our hostel is really cool, it’s called “Generator” and looks like a space station. Zetus lupetus as Zenon would say. ...
May 16, 2011; Venice
OHHH the sight seeing…we went to Piazza S. Marco and were swarmedddd by tourists. EVERYWHERE. Anyway, the line to go inside St. Mark’s was crazy long so we went to the famous cafe Florian on the piazza, which has been there since 1720! It was beautiful and the waiters wore white tuxedo jackets and our hot water came in a silver pitcher. A real silver pitcher. The coffee for both...
PS
Also, I’m beyond depressed that my dear friends are graduating from college today and I am not there to say good bye. I love them all more than words can say! Congratulations to all my wonderful UA grads!
May 14, 2011; Venice
Last morning in Florence….we had breakfast at the hostel, walked around the leather market and got coffee at a little corner place down the street. We realized almost too late that our train to Venice was at another train station (not the one in the part of town where we were staying), so we had to HAUL ASS with all our shit and book it to make our train to Venice, which we caught with a...
2 tags
May 12-13, 2011; Florence
The hostel we are staying in offers free walking tours of the city so we did two in the past two days. Lots of cool monuments and tourist-y shit. We always got lunch and gelato after the tours and of course they were magnificent. nomnomnomnom I will never get sick of Italian food.
Our days have mostly consisted of filling time between meals, which I have no problem with, but it doesn’t...
May 11, 2011; Florence
Woke up at the crack of dawn to catch our train from Milan to Florence. I sat in a Hogwarts Express-esque compartment with some little old Italian people. They tried speaking to me and I stared blankly back at them until I stuttered out “no parlo italiano” to which they sort of smirked and still tried asking me questions in Italian. Finally I was like “francais ou...
May 10, 2011; Milan
Soooo today we went back to il Duomo (and don’t worry this time I wore pants! Lest I offend….whoever it is I might offend my showing my knees inside a church) to walk around inside and take pictures, etc. The inside was actually really pretty and had lots of cool stained glass and it was a very beautiful cathedral all in all. Then we decided to buy tickets to the top of the church...
May 08, 2011; Milan, cntd...
Patrick left for mass and the plan was to go meet him at the Duomo so I could take a look around inside. So we were waiting in line etc, watching old Italian men feed pigeons and such and then a security guard at the church starts yelling at me in Italian. I politely tell him that I don’t speak Italian, to which he goes “Espanol?” to which I reply “Francais?” ...
May 07, 2011; Milan
We left Ibiza on a flight with a total of 18 other passengers. It was the most hilarious flight I’ve ever been on! It was not even economically beneficial for easyjet to run that flight, but they did anyway. Also the Ibiza airport is ridiculous, mostly because of the whack job security. For one, Patrick never had to present his passport at any point during our time at the airport; not...
May 06, 2011; Ibiza
Sunburned beyond belief, Patrick decided not to sun bathe with me. I probably should have done without the two hours asleep in the sand, but it was our last day in Ibiza. I regretted it immediately afterwards when I attempted to shower. HOT WATER+SUNBURN=800 DEGREE BURNS ON MY SKINSSSSS. Well, at least I’ll be nice and bronze for the rest of my trip. I’ve also had enough topless sunbathers...
May 4-5, Ibiza
So yesterday Patrick and I flew out of Paris into IBIZAAAA. Wow, this place is just not real. We were tired and hungry and it was late when we finally got to the hostel. The lady was really nice and let us check in even though we were late and showed some places to eat. We went to Tijuana, a Mexican restaurant (haha) and I had tacos with a Dos Equis. Our waiter gave us free tequila shots. ...
April 30-May 1
Saturday during the day Liz, Grace and I went to the boulangerie down the street to get croissant aux amandes….and they were delicious obviously. Then I finally started packing (ha what a joke) before we went to meet up with people for falafel at Chez Hanna. I bought gifty things for people while we were out and about. Liz and I went into a really smelly cheese shop and got three cheeses...
April 2011
9 posts
April 30, 2:45 am
It’s over. This semester has come to an end. I never thought it would go as quickly as it did. I have severe mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I’m so happy to go traveling and see Europe and experience awesome things that only college kids gallivanting around Europe can experience. But I’m also very sad that my time in Paris has ended. I’ve wanted to be in this...
1 tag
April 28
Wow, last night was interesting to say the least….we finally decided to go out to a club. So we obviously drank a lot and didn’t wear coats. So we get to “Le Queen” and they were dumb bitches and didn’t let us in because we didn’t have proper IDs! Wtf, do I seriously not look over 18 to you people? It was ridiculous and we ended up missing the last metro...
April 20
I’m starting to finally think about how soon this semester is ending. I got really sad when I realized that everyone is packing up and going home in less than ten days. I’m worried….am I going to go home and feel that I fulfilled everything I wanted to accomplish by coming to Paris? Am I going to regret doing/not doing anything? Did I see and do everything I wanted to see and...
April 18
So this genius thought today was Easter Monday, when it is in fact actually next Monday….I learned this at about 4 am when I thought “I don’t need to wake up tomorrow, the studio’s closed!” Joy.
pllllleeeeaaaaasssseeee let me finish all my classes! Only like 40 left. I can do it!
April 15
Nothing new and awesome to report the last few days. Still not sleeping, having weird dreams, etc. Weird how fast the semester has passed. Only two weeks left! CRAZY SHIT. And then starting May 4 I will be drinking my way through Europe. SUCCESS.
April 10, 4 am
WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL AWAKE?!?!?!?!
April 7
So sad….just found out Mahalia has to go home early cause of her fucked up knee. =[ She has to start physical therapy right away so she can start dancing in the fall.
Looks like it’s just gonna be me and Patrick roaming Europe in May! We’re just gonna be so drunk all the time, I’m almost worried. Almost.
April 4
I JUST BOUGHT SO MANY PLANE TICKETS! I’m going places! Yayayayayayayyyy!
Ibiza, Milan, Venice, Berlin, Amsterdam….it’s gonna be a great month!!
April 2
SPRINGTIME IN PARIS. It’s real. And it’s just as cliché as you’d think. The population of this city exploded yesterday. It was more crowded than I had ever seen it! There were tourists EVERYWHERE. It was so hard to move….I felt like I was in Disneyworld or something.
Grace and I went on a picnic in the park across from our dorm. It was glorious! There were little...
March 2011
17 posts
March 27-31
Ugh I have been so bad about keeping up with this lately. I think it’s mostly because my sleeping is so fucked up that I don’t even bother updating what dance classes I took that day and what I ate for dinner. I can never fall asleep before 2 am (now 3 am because France had daylight savings the other day), and I can never make myself wake up early! Everyday my alarm is set for 9 am,...
March 23-27
Ooops, I’ve been bad about posting lately, mostly because PARIS IS FUCKING BEAUTIFUL IN THE SPRING. It’s finally nice and sunny outside and all I want to do is frolic and soak up the Parisian sunshine.
Pretty quotidian shit the past few days, dancesleepdancelouvredancedancedinner…. Thursday was Nick’s birthday…he turned 20 (bitches!) so we went out to celebrate at...
March 22
Ooopsies, missed 11 am ballet. Oh well, still got to take an overwhelmingly sweaty 2 o clock ballet class!
Nick and I went to the amazing Italian lady after ballet. She’s this little old Italian woman slaving away in a tiny kitchen, and she hand makes allllll the pasta in the “restaurant” (because it’s like a take away counter type place). Literally everything is...
March 21
Hmmmm what an exhausting day it has been. I kicked my ass into gear with these dance classes and took four in a row. Owwie.
Ballet at 11, ballet at 2, jazz with Hugues, then barre au sol. I thought barre au sol would be a nice relaxing stretchy type class, but it was harder than anything else I took today! I swear to god my hip flexors feel like they’re going to snnnnaaaap! But it felt...
Barcelona, March 11-19
Miscellaneous
Since we are all cheap and would rather spend money on eating or drinking, we spent a lot of time just walking around the city looking at things. There are a lot of narrow, winding passages in the old part of town, and it all looks very medieval. Lots of sculptures of old dead kings scattered around town. We went shopping, but obviously not crazy expensive local designers. Woo...
Barcelona, March 11-19
Food and drink
There was a lot of it. We tried to be cheap and make our own food/snack a lot of the time, but we were on vacation so obviously we ate out a lot too. We found two favorites: La Rosa Negra and Bo de B. La Rosa Negra was a cheeeeeap and yummy Mexican restaurant with cheap food, and even cheaper margaritas. We went here twice, both times I indulged in several margaritas (delish)...
Barcelona, March 11-19
Ok so I’m not going to write 8 separate posts about my trip so Barcelona so I’ve decided to break it down into categories….
Sightseeing
We went to the beach a few times, mostly because we missed the sun shine that we are oh so lacking in Paris. Too bad it rained for most of our trip…anyway…the water was freezing, but it was fun to frolic around in the sand. ...
March 10
Had a pretty crappy day, but I keep telling myself that it’s okay cause I’m going to Barcelona tomorrow! This morning, I gave the woman at the boulangerie 20 euros to pay for my sandwich and drink, but she only gave me change for a 10. So I politely informed her that she gave me the wrong change, that I had given her a 20. She snapped back at me “No, you gave me a 10. ...