so, i forgot to mention a cool thing i did last week. last wednesday i went to a wine tasting class. it was a step in the right direction of achieving my goal of becoming a wine-o. the class was small, there was jill, christina and myself and two others. we learned quite a bit about the differences between red and white and we also tried cava which is like champagne but specific to spain. i enjoyed all of the wine, even the white which i normally am not a fan of. also, i now know how to correctly taste wine which is pretty cool.
today my dance class started. it was interesting. the teacher is a guy from cuba and it is actually a latin american dance class. it is full of older spanish women, one of whom really couldn't dance and kept running into me. we are going to be learning six or seven different dances during the course. today we learned some salsa which was fun. overall, i enjoyed it and if nothing else it is a chance to work on my spanish some more and learn some basic dance moves.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Sunday, October 5, 2008
London Town = love
so this last weekend i went to london for the first time. it was unbelievable. i am in love. after a long journey (a one hour bus ride to the airport, then a 2 hour flight and another hour long bus ride into london) we finally arrived to our hostel at about 1:30-2 in the morning.
the hostel was an experience. mostly good, some not so good. like a couple sleeping in jill's bed our first night. that was awkward and uncomfortable for everyone involved although we spoke to them the next day and they turned out to be really nice. or the great masturbator. yeah. christina and i walked into our room friday night and this guy was naked and well, you can assume from his name what was going on. or the guy at 4 am who came in and woke everyone up asking if our room was just for girls. but really, other than those few incidents, the hostel was clean and fine considering it is a hostel.
anyways, friday was a jam-packed day getting up at 8 am and headed out the door by 9. our first stop was using the tube to get to parliament and big ben. the tube was definitely an interesting experience for me. now i am used to metros and the overall idea behind how they work. but the tube was strange to me because it literally does remind me of a tube. the cars are much smaller and i felt a little hunched over and im not even that tall.
so we rode the tube and made it to westminster and i thoroughly enjoyed seeing the real-life version of the puzz-3D my cousin, Lauren, and i made way back when, of big ben. very cool. we walked around and saw westminster abby and some authentic british children leaving their authentic british school and ended up at the cabinet war rooms. the cabinet war rooms is where winston churchill stayed during WWII. it was very intersting to see where so many pivotal decisions and history were made. it was also cool to see the rooms like how they were left (for the most part) and to see the maps and telephones that they used and you can see all of the pinholes marking where troops were and where there had been wins and losses.
after the cabinet war rooms we took a stroll through a park that in my opinion, was on the verge of breathtaking, and headed in the direction of buckingham palace. i was disappointed when i got to buckingham though because i was so excited to take pictures with the guards and to try to make them as uncomfortable as possible without getting expelled from great britain. however, the Queen has returned to buckingham, so i got to see my first authentic guard through a gate from very far away. besides that though, buckingham seemed quite cool. i can safely say, judging from the outside, i wouldnt mind living there.
at this point in the day, we decided it was time to take a break and sit down for some grub. we headed to this cute little pub and had some real british cuisine: sausage and mash, fish and chips. i thoroughly enjoyed it. after relaxing for a few we headed over to the tower of london. i was super excited to look at all of the torture stuff because i vaguely remember a classmate of mine who had gone and brought all of these pictures in for my english class senior year (beowulf anyone??) and i remember thinking it looked scary but cool. the actual torture part (at least what i saw) was interesting, but not that extensive. however, we did get to see the crowned jewels which were pretty fab and the bloody tower which held the most interest to me once i heard about the history behind it. i mean, i got to see where "the history of the world" was written!
when we were done with the tower of london, we took a few steps outside and i realized, i was looking at the london bridge. i must admit, it was hard not to bust out into either "london bridge is falling down" or fergie ferg's song about the london bridge. it was very pretty and i took probably too many pictures of it, but whatever, i figured this was the real deal, the REAL london bridge, it was ok to take too many pictures...
after crossing the bridge, we came across this amazing cafe that i recommend to anyone that goes to london. it's called "the bridge lounge" and it is on tooley street just a few blocks away from the london bridge. the irish coffee is to die for and the service was very nice and the food is delicious as well.
anywhoo, we ended up meeting one of jil's friends from school for dinner and afterwards walked around a little bit and went through chinatown.
saturday, we got up early and headed towards windsor castle. we decided to try to get there first thing in the morning because there was other stuff we still wanted to do plus, i was supposed to meet up with my friend, lynn, who was in london for the day to see a play at the globe. needless to say, nothing worked out like how we had planned (although the day still ended up being great) due to the magnificent (sense the sarcasm) london train system. we hopped on the tube heading towards our destination and when we were a few stops away from it, informed that everyone had to get off because of work being done on the underground. that would have been nice to know BEFORE we had gotten on. so we had to go all the way back to where we had started. needless to say, we got to windsor about an hour and a half later than we had hoped for. but we toured the castle and the grounds and looked around windsor a little bit and i really liked it. i found the town of windsor to be adorable and the castle was cool because the royal family still lives there. although, i do think i like versailles better, but mainly because it is much more extravagant and marie-antoinette interests me more. but i do still like windsor.
when we were done with the castle, we tried heading home, but that too turned into an ordeal. we got to the train station (which you get to by taking a 5 minute train ride from windsor) and after getting there we were informed that we had to go back to windsor to the other train station because due to a train fatality, our train was not running. so again, we lost at least an hour or so of time getting back. our original plan was to have gone to windsor and returned to london by 1:30, we got back at 4 or 5.
at this point, i was starting to get ancy because lynn was supposed to call me when her play got over which it should have been almost over by the time we got back. however, i did not hear from her. so we decided to go to abbey road because that was the only place we wanted to go that wasn't closed, and by the luck of the irish, i ran into lynn in the tube station. so that was fun. so lynn went with christina, jill and myself and we trekked to abbey road which was so amazing for me. i am a beatles fan and am slightly obsessed with "across the universe" so being on abbey road was awesome. i was a little disappointed though because i wanted to copy the album cover (a real original idea, i know) but was unable to because it turns out that abbey road is a very busy road. i almost got hit by a car like 10 times. so we settled with pictures of the road and studio instead.
after abbey road, lynn headed back to cambridge and christina, jill and i went back to the bridge lounge for dinner and we stayed there drinking our irish coffee and feeling intellectual until we could stay awake no longer. we got up very early this morning to make our flight back to barcelona, so needless to say i am exhausted but am also a very happy person. i do believe i shall live in london someday, i was quite a fan.
the hostel was an experience. mostly good, some not so good. like a couple sleeping in jill's bed our first night. that was awkward and uncomfortable for everyone involved although we spoke to them the next day and they turned out to be really nice. or the great masturbator. yeah. christina and i walked into our room friday night and this guy was naked and well, you can assume from his name what was going on. or the guy at 4 am who came in and woke everyone up asking if our room was just for girls. but really, other than those few incidents, the hostel was clean and fine considering it is a hostel.
anyways, friday was a jam-packed day getting up at 8 am and headed out the door by 9. our first stop was using the tube to get to parliament and big ben. the tube was definitely an interesting experience for me. now i am used to metros and the overall idea behind how they work. but the tube was strange to me because it literally does remind me of a tube. the cars are much smaller and i felt a little hunched over and im not even that tall.
so we rode the tube and made it to westminster and i thoroughly enjoyed seeing the real-life version of the puzz-3D my cousin, Lauren, and i made way back when, of big ben. very cool. we walked around and saw westminster abby and some authentic british children leaving their authentic british school and ended up at the cabinet war rooms. the cabinet war rooms is where winston churchill stayed during WWII. it was very intersting to see where so many pivotal decisions and history were made. it was also cool to see the rooms like how they were left (for the most part) and to see the maps and telephones that they used and you can see all of the pinholes marking where troops were and where there had been wins and losses.
after the cabinet war rooms we took a stroll through a park that in my opinion, was on the verge of breathtaking, and headed in the direction of buckingham palace. i was disappointed when i got to buckingham though because i was so excited to take pictures with the guards and to try to make them as uncomfortable as possible without getting expelled from great britain. however, the Queen has returned to buckingham, so i got to see my first authentic guard through a gate from very far away. besides that though, buckingham seemed quite cool. i can safely say, judging from the outside, i wouldnt mind living there.
at this point in the day, we decided it was time to take a break and sit down for some grub. we headed to this cute little pub and had some real british cuisine: sausage and mash, fish and chips. i thoroughly enjoyed it. after relaxing for a few we headed over to the tower of london. i was super excited to look at all of the torture stuff because i vaguely remember a classmate of mine who had gone and brought all of these pictures in for my english class senior year (beowulf anyone??) and i remember thinking it looked scary but cool. the actual torture part (at least what i saw) was interesting, but not that extensive. however, we did get to see the crowned jewels which were pretty fab and the bloody tower which held the most interest to me once i heard about the history behind it. i mean, i got to see where "the history of the world" was written!
when we were done with the tower of london, we took a few steps outside and i realized, i was looking at the london bridge. i must admit, it was hard not to bust out into either "london bridge is falling down" or fergie ferg's song about the london bridge. it was very pretty and i took probably too many pictures of it, but whatever, i figured this was the real deal, the REAL london bridge, it was ok to take too many pictures...
after crossing the bridge, we came across this amazing cafe that i recommend to anyone that goes to london. it's called "the bridge lounge" and it is on tooley street just a few blocks away from the london bridge. the irish coffee is to die for and the service was very nice and the food is delicious as well.
anywhoo, we ended up meeting one of jil's friends from school for dinner and afterwards walked around a little bit and went through chinatown.
saturday, we got up early and headed towards windsor castle. we decided to try to get there first thing in the morning because there was other stuff we still wanted to do plus, i was supposed to meet up with my friend, lynn, who was in london for the day to see a play at the globe. needless to say, nothing worked out like how we had planned (although the day still ended up being great) due to the magnificent (sense the sarcasm) london train system. we hopped on the tube heading towards our destination and when we were a few stops away from it, informed that everyone had to get off because of work being done on the underground. that would have been nice to know BEFORE we had gotten on. so we had to go all the way back to where we had started. needless to say, we got to windsor about an hour and a half later than we had hoped for. but we toured the castle and the grounds and looked around windsor a little bit and i really liked it. i found the town of windsor to be adorable and the castle was cool because the royal family still lives there. although, i do think i like versailles better, but mainly because it is much more extravagant and marie-antoinette interests me more. but i do still like windsor.
when we were done with the castle, we tried heading home, but that too turned into an ordeal. we got to the train station (which you get to by taking a 5 minute train ride from windsor) and after getting there we were informed that we had to go back to windsor to the other train station because due to a train fatality, our train was not running. so again, we lost at least an hour or so of time getting back. our original plan was to have gone to windsor and returned to london by 1:30, we got back at 4 or 5.
at this point, i was starting to get ancy because lynn was supposed to call me when her play got over which it should have been almost over by the time we got back. however, i did not hear from her. so we decided to go to abbey road because that was the only place we wanted to go that wasn't closed, and by the luck of the irish, i ran into lynn in the tube station. so that was fun. so lynn went with christina, jill and myself and we trekked to abbey road which was so amazing for me. i am a beatles fan and am slightly obsessed with "across the universe" so being on abbey road was awesome. i was a little disappointed though because i wanted to copy the album cover (a real original idea, i know) but was unable to because it turns out that abbey road is a very busy road. i almost got hit by a car like 10 times. so we settled with pictures of the road and studio instead.
after abbey road, lynn headed back to cambridge and christina, jill and i went back to the bridge lounge for dinner and we stayed there drinking our irish coffee and feeling intellectual until we could stay awake no longer. we got up very early this morning to make our flight back to barcelona, so needless to say i am exhausted but am also a very happy person. i do believe i shall live in london someday, i was quite a fan.
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