Trevor reminded me that I "murdered [my] sporadic telegraphs from London", and I feel badly about it, so I'm going to try to do a quick update. Let's be honest... I'm not really doing much else with my evening but trying desperately to open a jar of gherkins. I'll give that a rest for a bit.

I had my heart set on going to Dublin, Ireland this weekend. First, I called up the touring agency I usually travel with and reached a young man who had no idea how to do anything related to booking trips (go figure). This was the same man I reached twice last week, thus causing me to miss the trip to Amsterdam. So, having given up on that plan, I looked up flights and hostels to go with Carly and Becky, who are just going by themselves. It would be about $100 round trip for the flight and there are no vacancies at their hostel, so I'd be staying at a different hostel for about $50. But here's the real issue:

This coming Tuesday, I have one 2500 word paper and one 1500 word paper due. And then, on Thursday, I have another 2500 page paper due. That's a LOT of writing to get done between now and then, and I'm not sure I could get it all done if I left for the weekend. Bummer. Don't they know I didn't come here to write huge papers? I came to see the world.

Ok... now it's picture time.

A couple weeks ago, Thursday (that's the name), a band near and dear to my heart, played at Metro, the club I intern for. It...was...fabulous--in a "oh wow, I feel like I'm reliving the romances of my sophomore year of college (music, independence, and cute tall boys in tight pants) all over again" sort of way.

Carly and Dan
These are the strange kids I associate with. They're allergic to photography.

So are they.

I have no explanation for these two (Brian (l) and George (r)).

This is part of a project (not-so-ironically entitled 'Mood Map') I did for my Neighborhood Narratives class. I plotted my mood every hour for one day on a scale from 1 to 5. Then, I took the grid plot and affixed it over a map of my neighborhood. At each one of the dots, I left one of these cards in a plastic sleeve with the map on one side and a description of my mood at the time (I feel...), a picture taken at that time, and the url to a corresponding blog describing the project. To sum it up... it was a lot of time and stress, but I'm pleased with the results.

These are pictures from The Cotswolds, a beautiful area in West London that I visited last weekend. It's made of a few tiny villages of stone buildings and amazing coutryside as far as the eye can see.

This is the motor museum I visited so I could take photos for the car buffs back home (not because I actually care about a bunch of old cars). hah

A house in Bibury, often described as the most beautiful village in England.


This castle is actually in Wales. We stopped for about 20 minutes to hang out. Can we say, 'shortest trip to Wales ever?'
I think this town is Bourton on the Water. It's the one that has the motor museum.

Pictures of Bath and Stonehenge to come soon. I'm going to finish up my book so I can start another tomorrow.

Denmark

I've been a busy bee the last few weeks. At times, I thought I might unravel: school tugging on one string--family and friends at the other. And it's not over yet. I have 2 huge papers and an enormous project to finish between now and next week, and I can feel the stress oozing through me. But, while I have just a few minutes before going in for my internship, I'll blog about my trip to Denmark.

I got to Copenhagen airport and followed the directions Mike gave me: take a train to the Norreport stop. There, I would be able to find something to eat, do some window shopping, and find a couple museums to kill time until he got out of class. To my surprise, it seems that everyone and their pet goldfish rides a bike. What's more shocking is that they don't lock them up like in Philly (with a huge, impenetrable U-lock); they just lock up the back wheel with a built-in lock and leave it. If bikes were left like that in Philly, they wouldn't last 10 minutes.

I wandered around for a bit, checking things out. It was a dreary day, which I hear is typical. This is part of a fountain in one of the open squares.

I stumbled upon the Glyptotek museum, and for 50DKK, I spent the next couple hours admiring fine sculptures and ancient Egyptian artifacts. Unfortunately, I was exhausted from waking up at 4:30am for my travels, so I just parked myself on a bench in the atrium until I could gather the energy to find some lunch.

I found a cute cafe down the street, where it looked like it might be easy to communicate (it had English food descriptions in the windows). Mike said that just about everyone speaks English, but I wasn't taking any chances. Language barriers and me aren't the best of friends and I figured I'd take all the help I could get. One delicious veggie burger and two cups of coffee later, I was out 140DKK ($25)--but that's including the 30 Kroner ($5.30) tip I didn't know I didn't have to leave. Ah well... an hour and a half well-spent.

The National Gallery

The got a blizzard while I was there, making it unbearably cold and miserable to go anywhere. Still, we went to a concert in a small hippie village in the middle of Copenhagen, and despite the weather, we had an awesome time.


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I'm not going to kid myself. I've had this much written for a couple of weeks now, and I don't think I'll finish it. I have so much new stuff going on. You can see the rest of the pictures when i get home. Sorry! To sum it up, though, I got my flight out virtually on time and went to Rome. Though the touristy areas were nice, I didn't care for the city much at all. It's dirty, with grafitti and litter everywhere, and most of the people I met were sly/rude/creepy. And to top it off, I couldn't really communicate because most people pretend to not know English unless it's in a tourist area, and then you're going to get ripped off anyway.

I did enjoy myself, though. Katie was an excellent tour guide and it was lovely seeing her.

Hey all,

I'm safe, sound, and excited to be back in an English-speaking country. I have tons of great pictures and tales of my adventure. Unfortunately, I won't get to posting them until after the weekend because Katie has been visiting this week, wearing me out, and I haven't had the time or energy to do an update. Thom will be here Saturday and Christie and Bernie, on Sunday. Busy busy!

Alright - I'm off to bed (before midnight). Night!

Everyone else left for break today (Spain), but I don't leave until Tuesday, so I'm hangin' out here solo. I don't really have a whole lot going on and can't think of any sights I want to see, so I'm just kinda bee-boppin' around--getting in some "Becky time". I went shopping (bought some bathing essentials), strolled around the neighborhood, and did my first--yes, FIRST--round of laundry since I've been here. It cost me £5 to wash and £1.60 to dry, which is about $13.15, but it's done! Hurray! Then, I made some lunch, folded my laundry, and relaxed for a bit, checking out some websites of prospective future job opportunities I found. When I'd had enough, I went back out to campus the neighborhood and eventually ended up at a pub to have dinner and a pint. And on my way home, I decided to write a blog entry mentioning a few things.

-There's a church around the corner with a plaster (or some other material) Jesus on a wood cross... but Jesus only has one arm.

-Riding with a British driver is like riding with one of your friends who gives you reason to fear for your life, but swears they're a good driver, and never gets into an accident. I have yet to see a fender bender here, yet drivers swerve around each other and speed down crowded streets without thinking twice.

-Whereas in America, motorcyclists are expected to stay within the lines and obey the same traffic rules as cars, here, they squeeze and zig-zag around cars with ease.

-Cars park facing both directions on both sides of the road. So, it's acceptable to cut through oncoming traffic to back into a parking spot on the opposite side of the road.

-Iaian Archer is my new love. He's not a real, date-able boy; he's a musician I've taken a liking to. Go to http://www.iainarcher.co.uk/ and click on Listen, if you care to hear his stuff. He's formerly of Snow Patrol, one of my favorite bands, and is now doing his own thing.

-I've been having the craziest of dreams lately. Last night, it had something to do with being caught in every natural disaster imaginable and, somehow, not dying.

-We've all noticed that people with babies or pets get really weird when you fuss over / smile at their baby or pet, and we couldn't understand why. I mean, in the States, it's pretty common to look at someone's small child, think "aww, how cute", and shell out a huge grin. Well, Leah asked one of her co-workers and found that British people tend not to trust others, and tend to feel that people who smile at their child or pet are being creepy and might possibly want to steal it. Well!

That's all I can think of for now.

My upcoming travel plans are looking like this:

Feb 20-22: Denmark
Feb 22-26: Rome
March 3: Salisbury & Stonehenge
March 4: Leeds Castle & Rochester
March 23-25: Amsterdam

Other trips yet to be worked out include Germany, Ireland, & Whales. That is if I have any money left.

And to all you readers... get your fingers in motion! I tell you all about my adventures, but rarely hear from you. Don't be that creepy dude lurking my page for three months without saying hello. I'm not keeping this blog for my health (I could run a mile in less time). What do you think? Did you learn something? Am I an idiot for not knowing ___? What picture did you like best? What do you wish I'd talked about? How is your week going? What have you been doing for fun lately? What's the weather like? I don't care what it is; I just like to know you're still there.

Paris, cont.

On the second day, we visited the Palace and Gardens of Versailles.
There's a ton of history and fun facts around the estate, but I don't remember most of them, so I'll just refer you to the website, which is quite interesting:
http://www.chateauversailles.fr/en/110_Construction.php
You can navigate through the pages by clicking the numbers all the way at the bottom.

When we first arrived, we just couldn't get over how huge it was. We had two hours to explore the grounds and we surely weren't going to spend that time standing in the cold--and the three of us are history/sight-seeing enthusiasts--so we paid to go inside and explore. It was, without a doubt, 13,50€ extremely well-spent.

Most hallways were filled with statues and/or lavish paintings. How do you find that many sculpters?? Ask Louis XIV, I guess.

Marie Antoinette had the most ridiculously huge and beautiful gardens.



Every room was filled with beautiful paintings--on the walls AND ceiling. A person could spend 15 minutes in a room and not take it all in.

This is the hall of mirrors. You can read more about it on the website mentioned above (page 2, I think).

Someone's bed chamber. Louis XIV, I think. Must be they picked up his dirty laundry and took out the tv and video games so people wouldn't steal them.

I could have spent all day in this room looking at the paintings. It blows my mind thinking about the number of artists and years it took to do them all!

After escaping the merchants outside, harassing tourists to buy anything from scarves to handbags to keychains of the Eiffel Tower, we boarded the bus and departed to see more sights.

This is in front of Mansart's dome at Les Invalides, where Napolean's tomb is located. It is now a hotel. We didn't go in, but I hear he's in there under the dome.

And finally, the moment I had been waiting for...

Notre Dame!!

The gargoyles are rain spouts, and they're all over the huge cathedral.



I couldn't believe I was actually inside the Notre Dame Cathedral. It was beautiful, but not in the same sense as St Paul's, which is well-lit and full of color and majesty. ND was dim and mysterious, yet inviting just the same.

And then, since I lost the others I came with, and we still had plenty of free time before having to be back on the bus, I went exploring. I found St Michael's Place, and was hoping to find St Michael's Church because that's where my Uncle Donald served as choirmaster and organist. It wasn't on the local map I found (but neither were any other churches), and I don't speak French, so I just wandered around for a while. I did not find the church, but I did find St Michael's Fountain:

As I was wandering, I got a craving for dessert (I had a delicious crepe before going into Notre Dame), so I popped into a grocery store and picked up a package of cookies. They said 1,38, but they rang up as 3,something. She told me my total, but since I was looking at the screen for the scale and not the cash register, I thought she was asking me a question, so I got really confused (because I don't speak French and didn't know how to respond), and it turned into a big deal. Well, I thought about just leaving the cookies and walking out, but then i saw the actual screen (with the price on it), paid, and left feeling like a dumb tourist.

Here's the Sacre Couer ("sacred heart"). We hiked up that huge hill and went inside, and it was quite lovely, as is the area of shops next to it. There, Becky and I made an enemy by pretending we were going to sit down and eat, but really, we just needed to use the toilet. Sometimes, you do what you gotta do.