Thanks for the Memories

My house in Hatfield

Well, I’ve been home for almost two months now, ever since June 13. I readjusted fairly easily, although to this day the bottles of soda in supermarkets look bizarre to me. (The ones in England are tall and skinny. Now all the ones here just look silly and squat.) Even though I extended my stay, I was feeling traces of homesickness by the end, so it was great seeing my family again. It was especially fun to say things like, “Spaghetti carbonara? The last time I had that was in Italy…” (people get tired of hearing things like that pretty fast, so now I just content myself with thinking it).

Some friends and I at the club on campus, the Forum

The weird thing is I do miss the UK a lot more than I thought I would when I was contemplating coming home six months ago. That little red-doored house in Robert’s Way, Hatfield really became home for me. I miss my room with the shelf I cluttered up with travel books, jewelry, laundry detergent (“washing up liquid”), textbooks, and the photo calendar my sister made for me. I miss the big floor-to-ceiling windows and the glass door that opened out onto the little path zigzagging through the emerald grass between rows of houses. I miss the magpies and the way the birds start chirping at the insane hour of 3 a.m. I miss the food…not traditional English pub food, which I am thoroughly sick of (I will never eat bangers and mash again), but Indian food and Max’s Kebab, which delivered to the campus. Oh, and scones with jam and clotted cream, I miss those as well. I miss having pound coins instead of dollar bills. And I miss being only an hour’s flight from places like Berlin or Dublin. And in this 110-degree heat I miss the fact that it’s 63 degrees and rainy there now.

Oh well. I’ll go back someday. And let me tell you, it is good to be home in a multitude of ways.

I’ve meant for ages to continue writing in this, if only to chronicle my last two trips abroad—Prague and Edinburgh. Both wonderful places that I hope I can visit again. I’ll do Prague first.

View of Prague from a hill near Strahov Monastery

Tyn Church and statue of Jan Hus at Old Town Square

Ever since eighth grade I’ve had it stuck in my head that I wanted to see Prague. This seems odd because you don’t hear people talking about going to Prague the same way they might talk about Paris or Rome. But I read this book that was partially set in Prague, and ever since then I’ve been really interested in it. Enda and I went May 15-19. The timing was great because the weather was beautiful—sunny and cool—and the hordes of tourists weren’t too terrible.

Our flight left at 6:30 a.m., we were wiped out by the time we dropped our stuff off at the hostel, but we still made it to Old Town Square in plenty of time to buy a Czech specialty, fried cheese on bread, before the tour started. Anyway, Prague is beautiful, fascinating, and also cheaper than places like Paris (the exchange rate for Czech crowns is much nicer than the one for euros or pounds). I loved it. The Old Town has the two towers of Tyn Church on one side and the astronomical clock on the other, which has been in use since the 1400s. The streets are cobbled, the houses are painted beautiful colors and flowers overflow from window boxes. It’s so different from a loud busy city like London, where it’s beautiful but grand and kind of overwhelming. Prague seems quainter.

The astronomical clock in Old Town Square

On the tour we saw a statue of Jan Hus, the Powder Tower (one of the huge old city gates from 1475), the concert hall the Rudolfinium, the Jewish Quarter, the Charles Bridge and the Vlatva River, and more. Across the river you can see Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral. The history there is really cool. We heard a lot about the Hussite Wars and defenestration and the Thirty Years War and Czech revolutionaries in WWII. I wish I could remember it all better, though.

That evening we got beers from the brewery called U Medvidku, since beer is a huge deal in Prague—Pilsner Urquell and Gambrinus are a few of the main ones. He got beef goulash (one of the most popular dishes), I got this roast beef in a sweet sauce. It was actually really good. The waiter spoke enough English to understand us fine, although he wasn’t overly friendly. Most of the Czechs I encountered weren’t the friendliest…I don’t know if that’s a cultural thing or just coincidence. They were perfectly helpful, but it was pretty rare to get a smile.

View of St. Vitus and the castle across the river

The next day we trekked to Pražský hrad, Prague Castle, which included a metro ride under the Vlatva and walking up the huge hill where the castle sits. The metros in Prague are funny—the escalators leading underground are the longest I’ve ever seen. I mean, they are so long they look like optical illusions. The metro system is really ridiculously far underground. But I digress…

The tour includes Golden Lane, a street of tiny colorful houses from the 1500s where castle guards, goldsmiths, and even fortunetellers lived over the centuries. Franz Kafka lived at No. 22 in 1916; now his house is a shop selling Kafka memorabilia. I found the whole complex somewhat confusing to navigate. There aren’t really any signs so you just sort of have to explore on your own and hope you don’t miss anything. I thought Prague Castle meant just one building, the castle itself, but it’s actually a whole complex of buildings—a cathedral, a basilica, a monastery, gardens, defense towers, and several museums, even a toy museum.

Golden Lane

St. Vitus

Off Golden Lane stone stairways lead to various towers and rooms, most of them set up to look as they would have centuries ago. There were bedrooms, alchemists’ and blacksmiths’ chambers, racks full of medieval weaponry and suits of armor…and in between all that some cheesy shops selling figurines of knights and dragons and fairy tale trinkets. One of the towers, White Tower I think, used to be a prison and torture chamber. They still had a bunch of the torture instruments—cages and spiked collars and even this horrible man-shaped thing they used to shackle people in. There was also a pit in the floor that they used to lower people into. The Czechs didn’t mess around.

We also got to see St. George’s Basilica and St. Vitus, a beautiful Gothic cathedral with the most amazing stained glass windows that threw multicolored patterns all over the interior. Inside the castle itself, we saw the audience chamber Vladislav Hall and several other rooms. It actually seemed like a rather barebones castle. Some of the paintings and architecture were beautiful, but there wasn’t much inside it at all except the Czech crown jewels.

Afterward we wandered around that side of the river, took a tram, and found Strahov Monastery. It’s in good shape for a building built in 1149. Right next to it is a restaurant called the Strahov Pivovar. It was getting a little chilly out by then, but the outdoor booths had not only heaters but nicely folded red blankets to drape over your legs (I thought they were Snuggies at first, which I would’ve found hilarious). The food was probably some of the best of the whole trip. I got pork with goat cheese.

Strahov Monastery

 It was nighttime by the time we were finished. I loved walking around Prague at night. I found the streets somewhat confusing—lots of zigzaggy cobbled alleys, but it was nice to see the less touristy side of Prague. The Vlatva River at night reflects all the lights, and Charles Bridge really looks beautiful.

The next day we booked a day trip to see the town of Kutna Hora, about an hour outside Prague. Our guide was a scruffy-looking Dutch guy named Tijo who spoke excellent English. We had to take a train (there is no more horrible sound in the world than the sound of a Czech train braking—it’s like the sound of nails on a chalkboard mixed with the sound of a rusty door hinge), and the scenery was really pretty. The main draw of Kutna Hora was to see the bone church, the Sedlec Ossuary, which I’d wanted to see since I randomly saw pictures on the Internet a few years ago. So many thousands of people were buried in the yard during the Black Death and the Hussite Wars, it soon began to overflow, so in the 1500s they began exhuming skeletons and stacking them into these massive pyramid shapes that reach almost to the ceiling. They’re so precisely stacked that they stay that way without any glue. There’s also a square hole in the center and at the top, which if I remember right is supposed to represent the soul’s path to heaven. In the 1800s, another man began creating designs with the bones, which is why it’s so famous today. There’s a bone chandelier made of every bone in the human body, bones lining the ceiling arches, a coat of arms made of bones…it was really cool seeing it all in person.

Bone chandelier at the Sedlec Ossuary

Kutna Hora itself has a cool history—in the Middle Ages it was a center of silver mining, so there were lots of stories of the horrors of working in the mines back then. You know, the usual. We saw a medieval church that is now owned by Philip Morris, of all things, and serves as offices for the cigarette company. There was also a beautiful church still in use, St. Barbara’s, that had paintings depicting medieval life on the walls. Enda and I bought our moms rosaries there. Then Tijo took us to a restaurant where most everyone got beef goulash, because hey, it’s the thing to do in the Czech Republic.

Old Jewish Cemetery

The next day we explored the Jewish Quarter, which used to be a ghetto and is now actually considered a trendy and expensive place to live. The Old Jewish Cemetery is a fairly small square of ground covered with crumbling old tombstones, where as many as 100,000 people are buried in a tiny area because the government of Prague wouldn’t allot them any more land for a graveyard. We took a tour of several synagogues, which had a lot of history about the deportations to death camps during WWII. Inside one synagogue several rooms have the name of every Jewish person in Prague who was killed during WWII handwritten over the walls. In the attic of the Old New Synagogue lies the body of the golem, supposedly. I’ve always loved that Prague legend. Unfortunately tourists aren’t allowed to explore the attic. Darn.

That afternoon we took an underground tour of Prague. The level of the city has actually risen over the years, and so we got to walk through what used to be medieval houses and streets and prisons, all beneath the Old Town. That was one of the few times the tour guide was actually Czech. He was fairly nice except he kept having a go at me for being American, saying things like, “Yes, this door is older than your country…” I get it, buddy.

For dinner we went to another restaurant near the monastery. The funny thing was some sort of celebration was taking place there. I have no idea what it was—birthday, anniversary, could be anything. All I know is that the place was packed with jovial, well-dressed Czechs who all seemed to know each other and who were all singing at the top of their lungs in their language. They even started a conga line at one point. It was pretty funny, but I just wish I knew what the heck they were celebrating.

Another walk on the Charles Bridge that night, and then another walk the next morning, and that was it. Time to fly back to England. Which, hey, isn’t too shabby I suppose, but I don’t think I was quite ready to leave Prague yet. It really was one of the most beautiful places I’d seen. I was a bit nervous about going to Prague because I’d built it up so much in my head, but I can honestly say it didn’t disappoint.

Ich liebe Deutschland

Temple in the British Museum

My friend Lindsey came to visit me the first week of May. Lindsey has been one of my best friends since high school so needless to say I was excited. Our first full day, I showed her around London. I’m still astonished at how much we managed to fit in—she got to see all the main sites, even if we couldn’t go into all of them: St. Paul’s, Tower Bridge, London Bridge, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Parliament, Westminster, Shakespeare’s Globe. We walked across Millennium Bridge and Lindsey fought her way through a gang of French schoolchildren to get some roasted nuts a man was selling on the street. Good times. One of the best parts was the British Museum, which I still hadn’t visited yet so we had a fun time getting lost in the monstrous complex and getting excited every time we saw a hunk of rock that looked vaguely like the Rosetta Stone.

The next day we fully intended a trip to Hever Castle but couldn’t manage to get ourselves up in time. We ended up sleeping in very late, which turned out to be an excellent idea as we had to pull an all-nighter for our 6:30 a.m. plane ride to Berlin the next morning. That day I showed Lindsey around Hatfield a bit, even taking her to the ever-exciting Asda and to get kebabs, one of my favorite fast foods here even though it’s not actually British, it’s Turkish. Even though it wasn’t very thrilling, we had a lot of fun just relaxing and catching up. That night we caught the 3 a.m. bus to the airport.

We were wrecked by the time we got to the airport and even more wrecked when we made it to Berlin. I have to say I was lucky to travel with Lindsey, because few people would have managed to stay in as good a mood as she did after staying up all night and running around so much. We hopped on the train from the airport to Berlin and figured out the S-Bahn that would take us closest to our hostel. Much like the scene when we went to Kansas City for our senior trip and drove to the wrong La Quinta, we had somehow printed directions for a hostel that had the same name as ours but wasn’t the right one. So we trooped back out into the growing heat with our backpacks and attempted to find the correct Berlin Mitte hostel.

At last we found it. Luckily we picked great hostels the whole trip. This one was clean and colorful with very nice staff who spoke perfect English. We changed, collapsed in a couple of armchairs in the lounge and chugged bottles of Coke like they were going out of style. We probably could have gone to sleep then, but there was a one o’clock free tour we wanted to catch meeting at the Brandenburg Tor. So we dragged ourselves up, took the U-Bahn (the subway), then another S-Bahn. Transportation in Germany is much less regulated than in London, where you have to slide a ticket through a machine to get anywhere. In Berlin you can pretty much walk on any train or subway you want. We never saw anyone checking tickets. Also, the subway doors slam shut violently (once almost on Lindsey) and I swear the whole thing goes dangerously fast. We decided somewhere along the way the Germans had a meeting about public transport in which someone definitely said the words,
“Safety regulations...shmafety regulations.”

Lindsey with the Brandenburg Gate

Anyway, trying to find the Gate was where things got tricky. We couldn’t find the train we needed to get to the Brandenburg Gate, so we got on one we thought was correct. I asked a lady who worked on the train if this was going toward the Brandenburg Gate, but she told us we were wrong. Even though she spoke very little English she was extremely helpful. She would say a few English words and then go into German. I took two years of German in high school and two in college, so I understood enough to get by and I even spoke a little (terrible) German back. We took the train back to the spot we’d originally been, then had to go downstairs in the train station to find the train we needed; it was in a really weird, hidden spot that you needed to take an elevator to reach. By this point it was 12:55 or so and we were thinking there was no way we would make the free tour, which would’ve been annoying because that was our only day in Berlin and we wanted an overview of it. Luckily we ended up right in the square with the Brandenburg Gate and found our tour group right away. There are a lot of pictures of us posing stupidly in front of the Gate in celebration of actually having made the tour after all the hassle.

Church in Berlin

The Berlin tour was amazing. It was a beautiful day and everything was so much greener than it was in England (it takes longer for spring to take hold in England since it’s farther north). Our guide was British and took us to the spot where Hitler’s underground bunker used to be (now it’s a parking lot), the Holocaust memorial, the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Humboldt University (where Einstein and the Grimm brothers went), and plenty of churches and opera houses. Berlin is a very artsy city and everything is new since most of the old buildings were destroyed in WWII, which is kind of a shame. For only having a day there and being completely sleep-deprived we saw the highlights (must…see…Berlin. Must…experience…culture). After the tour we found a restaurant our guide had recommended. None of the waiters spoke any English, which means the place was nice and authentic. Lindsey had currywurst and I had schnitzel, which was probably the best I had the whole trip. You’d think we’d crawl back to our hostel for sleep, but all the excitement energized us so we ended up walking all the way back to Brandenburg Gate, behind which a massive concert/festival was now taking place. No idea why but it was great to hear a German band sing various 80’s songs in English. The Tiergarten, a park, was right next to it, so we explored that for a while and found various statues and memorials. Then we returned to our hostel and still managed to stay up until 10 talking, so it was a good but very long day.

Church in Nuremberg

The next day it was time to take the train to Nuremberg. The train ride was four hours long but it was made up of gorgeous scenery—fields, hills, cute villages, meadows of bright yellow flowers, all of it growing steadily more mountainous the farther south we went. I didn’t know this about Nuremberg but it has a well-preserved old town since it wasn’t bombed in WWII. The architecture is really beautiful. We wandered through the city and found several churches, fountains, and markets. Just walking around was a cool experience. I kept getting excited to be able to read signs and understand snatches of conversation. Oddly enough Nuremberg was the city we got lost in most frequently, which was fun until we got very hungry and couldn’t find a good place to eat. At long last we found a sausage stand in one of the markets…delicious. They must have a big Italian population because gelato shops were everywhere in Nuremburg, so we bought some ice cream, sat in a quiet square, and had a deep discussion about growing up which was somewhat spoiled when I dribbled ice cream all over my pants like a kindergartener.

Nuremberg

Then we hiked up the hill to Nuremberg Castle. It was closed for touring but you can still walk around the courtyard and see the view of the whole city from there. They also have what I’m assuming used to be the moat filled in with gardens and tiny little houses where people actually live. That night we sat outside at a little restaurant and had sausages and pretzels. Naturally we got lost on the way back to our hostel and did some backtracking before finally finding our way. You win again, Nuremberg.

The Alps

We took the train to Munich the next day, but after dropping off our bags we set off for the famous castle, Neuschwanstein. It’s a major journey to get there…you have to take the train to Füssen, a town in the Alps, and from there a bus to a little town even farther in the mountains. From there you have to hike the forty minutes to Neuschwanstein or the twenty minutes to Hohenschwangau, the other castle in the mountains. Despite the hassle this was one of my favorite parts of the trip. The Alps were incredibly beautiful. We toured both castles. The best part is they give you live guides as opposed to audio guides. One castle was the childhood home of King Ludwig, the other, Neuschwanstein, was the one he bankrupted Bavaria to build. Hohenschwangau is this adorable yellow castle with scenes from German legends painted on every wall. Neuschwanstein is much larger and grander, even though the hike to it is tiring. Still, the views made it all worth it. We even took a horse-drawn carriage ride down the path from Hohenschwangau. It was very surreal.

Hohenschwangau

Horse-drawn carriage down the mountain

Neuschwanstein

Der Glockenspiel

Our last day we did a walking tour of Munich. Our guide was very strict and kept drilling us about Munich facts. I thought Munich was the most beautiful city we saw. Everything looks old and quaint and medieval but it was actually all destroyed in WWII; they just rebuilt it exactly the way it was, as opposed to Berlin where they rebuilt everything in a modern style. We saw the Glockenspiel, which chimes at noon and is one of the few things that actually is from the 1400s and doesn’t just look like it is. More markets, more biergartens. The Germans definitely like being outside better than the English do, but that’s probably because their weather is a bit nicer…at least it was while I was there. We toured the Hofbrauhaus, the famous beer hall which is crowded with locals and tourists alike. And we saw a ton of people dressed in lederhosen. We thought it was a tourist-attraction thing, but apparently it is very important culturally to Bavarians so they still wear lederhosen often.

Surfing in the Isar River

After the tour we toured Der Residenz, the palace of the royal family of Bavaria. Also largely destroyed in WWII, but Hitler loved old buildings and was so set on preserving Der Residenz he had people photograph every room so they could recreate it exactly as it was, which is what they did. Then Lindsey and I found the English Gardens, an enormous park in Munich and probably the prettiest park we saw in Germany. It’s more like a forest than a park, with the Isar River flowing through it. They also have a nude section; we tried to avoid it but still got a few unappetizing glimpses. The other interesting feature of the English Gardens is the surfers—there is a place in the river that forms a wave, which people in wet suits take turns surfing. That night we dressed up and went to the Hofbrauhaus for dinner. For a famous place it was disappointing. What I got tasted exactly like a microwaved hot dog. At least the rest of the German food I ate on the trip was good. The Hofbrauhaus did have a great atmosphere, at least, what with its mix of shouting Germans and tourists and its lederhosen-wearing band.

We flew back the next day and had a last night in Hatfield, where we ordered delivery kebab and reminisced about our adventures. The next day we went to London for Lindsey’s flight. We had so much fun and did a lot of bonding. Deuces, Germany.

The Europe Highlights Tour 2012

Aunt Karen, Missy, and Mom on the Thames River cruise

On April 2 my mom, Aunt Karen, and cousin Missy came to visit me. I took the train to London and got to the hotel, checked in, made myself a cup of tea, and waited around, enjoying being able to watch TV for the first time in ages. And I waited. And waited. Their plane was due at around 9 a.m. so I figured they would be at the hotel a couple hours later. By around one I was starting to get panicky, so I texted my sister back in the US and asked her what was going on. She told me their plane had been delayed for eight hours and they hadn't flown out until that morning. Yikes.

So needless to say I had the day in London to myself. I went shopping in Oxford Street and spent way too much in Primark, which was near our hotel, and then walked to Piccadilly Circus. My family didn't end up getting in until around one a.m. Even though everyone was exhausted, it was great to see them again.

Our first day in London we took a red double-decker bus tour so they could get an overview of the sights. Missy and Karen wanted to do the Tower of London, but since I'd already done that and it's pretty expensive I said I'd go do the London Dungeons while they did that and my mom offered to come with me. But Missy and Karen wanted us to stick together, so I ended up dragging them to the Dungeons as well. Big mistake. Someone had told me it was really good, but I thought it would be an actual historical experience and not just a glorified haunted house. So between people dressed like Jack the Ripper jumping out at you and the guy in the video about the London fire of 1666 yelling "FIIIIIRE!" over and over again, it was not what you would call a must-see attraction if you only had about a day in London. And it took forever. We ended up asking the lady dressed up as some sort of witch at the end to let us out a side exit. Someone had brought their baby along (WHY?) and had to duck out early, so we asked if we could go too and the lady said irritably, "You too? Fine" and let us out. We managed to race over to the Tower of London and see it before it closed. Luckily everyone thought the whole thing was pretty funny, but I'm still going to be haunted by the stupid London Dungeons my whole life. We later took a river cruise down the Thames, ate in a pub near Big Ben, and took an 11 p.m. walk to Buckingham Palace (no late-night parties for the Queen - the place was deader than Derby after 10).

Clifford's Tower, York

The next day my mom and I woke up early and took the tube to St. Paul's Cathedral. Since it was Good Friday the cathedral was closed to visitors, but we were allowed to come in and sit and look around. It was really beautiful inside...not as big or old as Westminster but very beautiful. Then Mom and I got tea at a little bakery beside St. Paul's.

Afterward the four of us headed out for York, a place my aunt and cousin wanted to come to because they said it was known for chocolate and ghosts. The old part of it still has many preserved medieval buildings and the old town walls are still in place around the city, which we walked over. We visited the cathedral called the Minster, popped in and out of some cute shops, and walked through the old-fashioned cobbled streets. For dinner we went to an adorable tea parlor called Betty's, where my mom and aunt split afternoon tea. The best thing we did in York was that night - we went on a ghost tour. Our guide led us through the dimly lit medieval streets and told us various gruesome stories from the area. We saw Clifford's Tower at night, which was eerie and impressive, and walked through streets called things like Mad Alice's Lane. Afterward our guide, a really nice gentleman whose name I can't remember, took us to a pub called the Swan, the oldest pub in York—from 1407 I think it was. We all bought drinks and then he took us up to a room on the top floor with some dilapidated tapestries and a massive fireplace and told us stories about the supposedly haunted pub. Good times.

Bath

Then we were on the move again—this time to Bristol because we’d found a cheap flight to Dublin out of Bristol airport. We ended up going to Bath that day instead of Bristol because our hotel was close to both and my family really wanted to see it. I’ve been to Bath but I enjoyed going again. We toured the cathedral and the Roman baths, and even got to see a wedding leaving the cathedral later. All the men wore kilts, even one of the little boys who looked adorable in his. Mom told me to take pictures so I wove through the wedding party as they left the church to get a few pictures. No wonder they hate tourists. We ate dinner at Sally Lunn’s, which is in the oldest house in Bath. The place had something called a Jane Austen room which my aunt thought was a fancy name for the bathroom, so bathrooms became Jane Austen rooms for the rest of the trip. One of the highlights of that day was our taxi driver who took us to and from our hotel. Most of our taxi drivers the whole trip were extremely kind and helpful, but this one was this really sweet old man who chatted to us the whole way—or mostly he and my cousin Missy talked. I’m pretty sure she promised to come back and visit him someday.

River Liffey, Dublin

After that we took the hour-long flight to Dublin. I really liked Dublin, even though I only got a taste of it. We walked around the Temple Bar area—shops, restaurants, pubs, lots of Irish flags. We browsed around there, then walked to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, then came back for dinner. The Irish are so friendly. We ate at a pub/restaurant named Oliver St. John Gogarty’s (love the name) and the second we walked in one of the guys at the bar called out greetings to us and let Missy take a sip of his beer. We got fish-n-chips and corned beef. The nightlife in that area was really thriving—wish I could’ve stayed longer. After that we walked along the River Liffey, which is lit up with green lights under the bridges at night. We went to what was supposedly the oldest pub in Dublin, but it turned out to be a bit boring. I made sure I had a Guinness, though! The other cool thing about Dublin was our hotel—part of it was a castle from the 1100s. They had a great hall area inside and everything.

Me posing on a mountain road

We wanted to see the countryside while in Ireland, so the next day we booked a countryside bus tour. We got picked up from one of the main streets by our jaunty Irish tour guide and driven to the seaside and then through the mountains for most of the day. I think that was probably my mom’s favorite bit; she was beaming the whole time. For most of my life I’ve listened to her talk about how Ireland is “on her bucket list,” so I could tell this meant a lot to her. Anyway, it was predictably gray and rainy but still amazing. I don’t know how our guide managed to talk to us about everything and drive along the narrow mountain roads. On one of the cliffs he pulled out a bottle of Irish whiskey and gave everyone a shot. I’ve never seen my mom take a shot, so that was a magical moment. We saw waterfalls, little villages, lakes, mountain goats, and had a tea break with massive sugary scones. So a great day all in all—or grand as they say.

Notre Dame

Before we could get too cozy in Ireland it was time to leave for Paris. Paris was a bit cold and damp when we were there, but the buildings were still beautiful. One of the first things we did—after getting some French soup, bread, and cheese—was Notre Dame. Very cool and basically made me want to yell “SANCTUARY!” a lot. We did another bus tour and got a pretty good overview of the city. The buildings there are all so fancy, and I love how many streets are lined with trees. The Eiffel Tower at night is incredible, and for the first five minutes of every hour it sparkles. The second day my aunt and cousin did their own thing for a few hours while my mom and I took the short train ride to Versailles, which I’d always dreamed of seeing. My mom was there a long time ago and she said they had cleaned it up a lot since she’d been. I loved getting to see the Hall of Mirrors. I wish the audio guides had been more informational, though—one thing I’ve learned since I’ve been here is that I hate audio guides, which mainly end up telling you about furnishings and architecture when all you want to hear is some scandal and history. Which Versailles would have had a lot of. Oh well. Still so worth seeing, despite the giant line at the entrance.

Versailles

After that she and I hopped back on the bus tour and went to see Napoleon’s tomb at Les Invalides. It’s gigantic—as my mom said, “Little man…big tomb.” Then we decided to go to the shopping street, Champs-Elysees; we have a painting of it in my house that my parents actually bought in Paris years ago so it was great seeing it in person. We bought some bread from one of the bakeries there and sat outside for a bit despite the cold, then wandered down to the Arc de Triomphe.

Mom and I with the Eiffel Tower!

We met up with the rest of the family, got dressed up, and went out for dinner at a place called Le Coude Fou…which could mean “We’ll Spit in Your Food” for all the French I know. The waiters spoke almost no English but were very friendly. I wanted to try authentic French food so I got paté as a starter and then duck as the main course. So many regrets. What everyone else had was delicious, but I could barely stomach mine. Paté is disgusting. Or at least that one was. Never again.

Sadly my mom left the next day—she only got to be with us a week. We missed her a lot for the rest of the trip. Karen, Missy, and I had a relaxed day wandering Paris. We had a long lunch near a square with a fountain. We passed a statue of a strange man with a golden face, at which point my cousin said, “Wait…I have to see this little golden man” and walked up to it, only to have the statue bend down to look at her when she came close. We all screamed bloody murder and walked away quickly. As Missy, who is from NYC, said, “I’ve seen people dressed as statues before, this ain’t my first rodeo.” Rookie mistake.

We bid adieu to Paris and flew over the Alps to Venice. Getting to Venice was one of the most exhausting parts. You take a plane to an airport on the mainland, then a water bus to Venice itself. We also had a lot of confusion finding our bed-and-breakfast, which involved me texting an Italian who spoke very little English but put a lot of exclamation points and smiley faces as he tried to explain where we should go to reach his hotel. It was about 11 p.m. when we got to Venice, and despite our exhaustion we were impressed—St. Mark’s Square was still well lit and an orchestra was playing nearby. Over cobblestone streets and dilapidated bridges, through winding alleys…it was a lot to take in even at night.

Karen and Missy on top of St. Mark's, with a view of the square

Venice was amazing just because it’s so different from every other place. They don’t have cars—everyone walks or goes by boat. The water in the canals is this pretty green color. St. Mark’s Basilica was our first stop. The ceiling is all 24 karat gold and inside the treasure room are saints’ relics in gold cases—old bones, withered fingers, skulls. Gotta love it. I loved all the buildings—they all looked worn and old but they were still so elaborate. My cousin loved all the fanciness. We had some spaghetti carbonara at an outdoor café, then saw the Church of San Zaccariah for the body housed in it that supposedly never decomposed. The body was a bit of a bust because you couldn’t even really see it very well. You could go into the crypt for a euro which we gladly paid. I wanted to see some bones or bodies or something gory. But sadly the crypt was flooded. My aunt and cousin retreated, but I wanted my euro’s worth so I waded a few steps into the crypt. Instant regret followed, along with the unfortunate nickname “Crypt Feet.” Alas.

Venice!

We then hit up the Doge’s Palace. Lots of gold and grandeur, and we got to walk through the Bridge of Sighs. That night we did a gondola ride. They are more expensive at night but it’s also less crowded and everything is beautiful all lit up. That was one of the highlights of Venice. Our gondolier spoke excellent English and told us facts about the city and also about his life growing up in Venice. We rowed through the quiet city to the Rialto Bridge and the area around there. All the lights on the water were gorgeous. Afterward we had a quiet dinner outside near one of the canals. Venice was definitely a highlight of the trip.

Missy and I on the gondola ride

The next day we took a train to our last stop, Rome. I’d always heard drivers in Rome were terrible, which was demonstrated when our cab driver made a few most likely illegal turns and hit the curb a few times. The first day we basically raced to make our tour of the Vatican on time. Loved it…there was so much gold and grandeur and so many beautiful paintings that it’s hard to separate it all out in my head. The Sistine Chapel was cool to see, of course, but I thought the room itself seemed smaller than I expected—but that was probably because it was packed to the gills with tourists. St. Peter’s was also beautiful and slightly overwhelming for how massive a scale everything was on. My aunt really liked the Michelangelo sculpture, the Piata.

Since we were starving by this point, we hunted down a restaurant our hotel recommended only to find out it wasn’t open until 6. We ducked into a little pizza shop for a snack, and the mozzarella pizza we had there turned out to be the best pizza of the whole trip—much better than the more expensive pizza we got at other restaurants. Wish we would’ve gotten more food there! After dinner we walked to Trevi Fountain, which I loved, and then basically collapsed back at our hotel.

Trevi Fountain

I really like ancient history, so we went to Palatine Hill and the Forum the next day to see some Roman ruins. I wish we’d gotten an audio guide or something because there were times we didn’t know what we were looking at, but our faithful Rick Steves book was of some help with that. My aunt had also been before so she remembered a lot of cool facts. The Colosseum was incredible to walk around in as well. The only downside was the windy, rainy weather. Our next step was the Pantheon, the best preserved Roman building because it’s been in use for thousands of years. After that my aunt took us to a quiet, less touristy square where we walked through a church and listened to the fountains as evening fell. It was a more relaxing end to a somewhat hectic day.

We flew back to London for a night, ate excellent fish and chips at Poppie’s and strolled around Piccaddilly Circus, and they left on the morning of the seventeenth. I had a wonderful adventure with them—still can’t believe we did it all without dying of exhaustion, really! So grateful to my family for coming and so happy I got to see them!

Cousins at the Colosseum

I’m still really behind on this blog considering this happened about two months ago and I’m leaving the UK in less than two weeks…oh well! More updates to follow!

Hi Blog, It's Been a While

Well, I feel sheepish. I haven’t updated in a really long time. And that is really mainly down to the fact that I literally have not had the time. In the time between my last post and this one, I have written two essays, one 2500 word story, studied for and taken a final exam, and traveled to Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick, the Cotswolds, York, Bristol, Bath (again), Dublin, Paris, Venice, Rome, Berlin, Nuremberg, Neuschwanstein, and Munich. And I’m about to go to Prague next week and probably Edinburgh at some point. So I have a lot of catching up to do on this thing! I do have to say that everything has been incredibly fun and wonderful, and I feel so lucky to have experienced and seen everything that I have.

First things first… My Aunt Kim came to visit me in late March. Since she lived in the UK for a few years, it was great having her here to navigate around as we toured the countryside of England. She rented a car, picked me up from my house, and we set off to Stratford-upon-Avon. It was a really cute town full of blooming tulips and thatched houses. Our first order of business was to find the house where Shakespeare was born and go for a tour. I really loved it. They had the house made up exactly as it would have been in the 1500s, even down to the furniture, and they had dressed-up guides in most of the rooms explaining facts about Shakespeare’s life and the era. The garden in the back was really beautiful, and the coolest part was they had dressed-up actors walking around who would randomly start performing excerpts from Shakespeare’s works. We stopped and watched a girl and guy perform from The Taming of the Shrew. Then someone started calling out requests from other plays and they both just started performing scenes from these plays right out of memory. That would be such a fun job…if you had a really good memory for that kind of thing and were good at acting…which I am neither…but still.

Actors in Shakespeare's garden

After that we stopped at a tearoom for afternoon tea and scones. This is going to sound silly, but that was my second cup of tea ever in the UK…mostly because I’m a heathen and like Coke better than tea. But I discovered a love for it on that trip, probably because of the sheer number of times we did stop for afternoon tea. It really perks you up, and not just because of the fact that I put on average about 20 spoonfuls of sugar into mine. Also, scones with clotted cream and jam might be the best thing the Brits have ever done for the world. The tearoom was really cute and Shakespeare-themed, with his quotes painted in gold all over the place.

Stratford-upon-Avon

That night we bought tickets to see Richard III. As you might imagine Shakespeare plays are very popular in Stratford and supposed to be really great. I can say with certainty that it’s true—I really loved the play and I wasn’t sure I would, since Richard III isn’t really his most lighthearted work. Inside the theater it was built something like it would have been in the 1500s, with tiers of wooden benches. The actors were really wonderful. It was a really long play—I think it went from 7 to 11 or something like that. Definitely worth it, though!

That night we stayed in a bed and breakfast my aunt had picked out. I’ve never stayed in a B&B but it was this adorable house in the countryside and—best of all—it had sheep. It was lambing season so there were lambs chasing each other all over the place. Our second-story window even looked out onto them and we could hear them bleating in the morning. There was also a white horse and two or three very friendly cats roaming around. I kind of went nuts trying to take pictures of everything…as I usually do. The homemade English breakfast—fried eggs, bacon, sausage, tea, and toast, always toast—we were given in the morning was also worth the price of admission.

LAMBS!

The next day we visited the house of Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife. The main thing I remember about that is a very informative lady explaining the huge stone fireplace in the main room and all the tricks of using it for cooking back in the 1500s, which was basically a whole day process. Makes me thankful to have microwaves. I also remember going to the gift shop at the end and having to fight my way through a horde of tourists who were all talking really loudly. I couldn’t think why they annoyed me or why their voices were so jarring until I realized they were all American and I hadn’t been around that many Americans together in a while. Now I kind of know where they get the “loud American” stereotype. Anyway, after that we visited the church where Shakespeare is buried with his very cool epitaph of “Good Friends, for Jesus’ sake forbear, To dig the bones enclosed here! Blest be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones.”

Anne Hathaway's house

We left Stratford and drove to Warwick because I’d mentioned wanting to see a castle. A few people had warned us that Warwick Castle had turned more into a tourist trap than a historical place, but it was still really cool even though there were some cheesy elements. Once you get inside castle gates they had it set up something like a Renaissance fair, with people in pseudo-medieval costumes walking around and souvenir stands set up. Luckily you could still walk through parts of the castle itself like the great hall and everything. Also one room randomly had all these wax figures of King Henry VIII and his wives set up for no particular reason, but it was interesting. They also had shows on every so often, like jousting, hawking, and so on. We caught the trebuchet show. My dad would have loved to see it. The guy put on his little performance and talked about how dangerous it would have been for the people operating this thing; two men have to run in this huge wheel to work it and if they tripped they would have been dashed around inside the wheel. Then they had the trebuchet hurl a rock. After that we caught a falconry show, even though it was actually eagles (and an owl!) that he used instead of falcons.Two were American bald eagles. Also, we saw a wedding party later in the day heading toward the castle for the reception. The bride and groom went through the gate in a horse-drawn carriage. Can’t imagine being able to get married in a castle from the 1100s.

In Warwick we also stepped inside a beautiful old cathedral and Aunt Kim started talking to the lady who worked there. She was very distinguished and had an upper-class accent. My aunt asked why some of the statues on tombs got to wear crowns when they were only earls and not kings, and the lady explained that they were coronets and that nobility could wear them. Then she got a bit uncomfortable and very reluctantly said something to the effect of, “I don’t mean to brag, but my husband is one of the lesser nobility.” Apparently on her wedding day her mother-in-law gave her a diamond coronet to wear (but she stressed that she couldn’t keep it since she had only married a younger son). We wanted to ask more about who her husband was and what his rank was, but we didn’t want her to consider us “vulgar Americans” so we just thanked her and left. That taught me it pays to talk to people…I would have just thought she was just an average person working at a church, but she was nobility. Pretty cool.

After Warwick we headed out to the Cotswolds, which is a string of beautiful old villages all located near each other. They look very cozy and authentic. Plus they have funny names. We visited Stow-on-the-Wold (you can’t make this stuff up), Upper Slaughter and Lower Slaughter (really), and Bourton-on-the-Water. All very beautiful. The first and last ones were a bit touristy, but still neat and full of friendly people. As you can imagine these trips encompassed more afternoon tea, more scones, more sheep, and more gorgeous countryside.

It was a really relaxed and fun trip, and I’m grateful to Aunt Kim for taking me around. This post is already running long, so I’ll leave it here for now. Stay tuned for details on my Easter break trip and my Germany trip!

Springtime in England

The weather this past week has been unremittingly gorgeous. Blue skies, sunshine, in the 60’s. I love it. It’s funny how the British get on nice days…all the girls start wearing shorts even if it’s still a bit chilly and everyone just goes out on the field near the LRC to laze around. I went on a picnic the other day and some guy behind us was by himself juggling. Then I looked around a little while later and he had strung some rope between two trees and started tightrope walking. We acted like he was a weirdo but I think we were all just impressed.

Anyway, I’ve got most of my big assignments out of the way as far as schoolwork goes. On St. Patrick’s Day weekend I went to the St. Patrick’s Day parade in London. They had a huge stage set up in Trafalgar Square with live music and stands selling Irish foods and knickknacks. The parade was a bit random but still it was cool to be there, and we were right in the front.

This last Saturday I went on a day trip to Wales. We went to the town of Brecon, which is in a beautiful area known as the Brecon Beacons. I thought the landscape would be harsher and more mountainous but the Beacons are these huge, gently rolling green hills. There were sheep grazing all over and lambs chasing each other around, as well as horses and foals. We had to stop for a while to watch some lambs playing in a field. They are adorable (incidentally, they are also delicious in kababs).

Everywhere you looked it was just like a postcard or a page from a calendar. Amazing. The town of Brecon was nestled right in the midst of it. Brecon had the remnants of a castle as well as old stone bridges and cute shops. All of the signs in Wales are written in both Welsh and English—and some not even in English. I also saw several signs with “Meredith” on them, since that is a common last name in Wales. I wonder if they were any relation to me, since I have ancestors from Wales with the last name of Meredith! I meant to get a picture of one of the signs for my mom, but I didn’t get a chance to. Anyway, we ate at a nice—though overpriced—pub in Brecon called the Puzzle Tree. I had Welsh sausage and mash, and it was very good. I really wanted to overhear someone speaking in Welsh but alas, I didn’t. But it was really worth it because Wales was beautiful. I thought it was hilly around Hatfield but now I realize it’s practically flat here in comparison!

My Aunt Karen and I are still trying to work out the final few details for our trip, booking train tickets and the like. I can’t believe how close it is! I still have a lot to do. Anyway, I probably won’t have a great many interesting things to say before then. March has been insane...wonderful but insane, and I’m starting to think April will be the same!

Baths at Stonehenge, Baths in Bath

Last Sunday I went to Stonehenge and Bath. Not too much I can say about Stonehenge. I think my view of it was slightly soured owing to the fact that the weather was horrible when we went. It was cold and sprinkling when we waited in line for tickets, and by the time we got up to Stonehenge it was icy and pouring. That wouldn’t have been too bad but for the horizontal gusts of wind that constantly buffeted us. I couldn’t hear the person on my audio guide so I gave up trying to learn fascinating facts about Stonehenge. The other bad thing is you can’t walk among the stones anymore; they have a little path you have to view it from. We stayed long enough to snap a few pictures and then hustled back onto the bus. I was drenched from head to foot…it felt like I’d taken a bath fully-clothed. It was cool to see, but I wouldn’t make a second trip there!

Then another hour and we were at Bath, which is a beautiful city with Roman ruins and plenty of Georgian architecture from the 1700s. We took a city tour starting at a cathedral that had been built by Henry VII in the 1500s. The tour was really interesting but again the weather was not accommodating. It was cold and gusty and at one point it started hailing. Our poor tour guide…I think he could tell our attention was wandering, especially since none of us had eaten. Anyway, we saw the Circus, a collection of beautiful old houses where Nicolas Cage apparently used to live, as well as the Royal Crescent. Lots of cool stories about how they used to have duels on the lawns and how the city was the Las Vegas of its day—all these lavish parties and gambling halls. It was cool because a lot of the streets look so much like they might have centuries ago. Apparently one of the streets we saw was used to film 18^th century London scenes for that Vanity Fair movie.

We wandered back through the cute little streets to Sally Lunn’s, a restaurant in the oldest house in Bath (built in the 1600s) that is famous for its Bath buns. We actually ended up eating in a pub beside Sally Lunn’s, but oh well. I wanted something traditional so I got a steak-and-ale pie and mash (aka mashed potatoes), which was delicious and exactly what I needed to warm up. Outside it cleared up and a rainbow came out. The weather seriously went through all the seasons that day…spring, winter, and then it got warm and sunny. Guess England isn’t so different from Kansas, after all.

The Roman baths were my favorite part of our time at Bath. The museum is amazing. They have tons of Roman artifacts, including skeletons and burial stones and old accounts. And the Roman baths themselves are really beautiful. The hot springs were first used by the Romans and then later became very popular as a resort for royalty and nobility in the 1700s. You could tour the ruins of the bathhouse and temple the Romans had built. Their spas were set up very similarly to modern ones, with changing rooms, massage rooms, saunas, etc. The hot springs themselves were really neat. You weren’t supposed to touch the water but Andrea and I did when the attendants weren’t looking. It wasn’t really hot, just lukewarm—pretty much exactly like bathwater. They also had people dressed as Romans walking around and I guess you could talk to them, but they went on break before we could get over there. There’s authenticity for you. Anyway, we spent several hours there and before we left we flipped a coin into this pool in a Roman room called the frigidarium and made a wish, which is apparently what people have been doing for centuries. It was very cool!

Other than that, I haven’t been up to too much. March is going to be my crazy busy school month. I finished one 2,000 word essay this weekend but I have two more due next week. Yuck! One nice thing is the weather has been improving. It was almost in the 60’s today. I’ve noticed it has been getting rainier, but oh well. The nice days and warmer weather make up for it! The other week Tom came in and bullied Chelsea and me into getting ready early and going out for a walk because the weather was so nice. I’m glad we did, especially as we ended up doing one of my favorite things—eating—at this around-the-world cuisine place at the Galleria.

In my spare time I’ve been trying to help my Aunt Karen plan our Eurotrip over my Easter break. She, my mom, and cousin will be visiting. We are spending some time in England—London, Bristol, the Cotswolds and maybe Bath, then on to Dublin, Paris, Venice, and Rome. All the flights are booked and a couple of the hotels…we are still working on booking the rest. It is a lot of work and I haven’t planned anything like this before, so we are helping each other out! Before that, in late March, my Aunt Kim will be visiting as well and touring some of England with me, so I’m looking forward to that too. And I found out one of my best friends will definitely be visiting the first week of May, so I’m stoked for that. We are going to visit Germany if possible. I am just trying to enjoy the time I have. It is moving incredibly fast. I can’t believe it’s already March! Where is the time going?