Friday 12 December 2008
Bells
I realize I never posted any updates about bells. It has been amazing and I am really sad to leave it. This is a really cool activity that I wish we had in the states rather than having everything automated. I looked it up the other day and there are only about fifty towers in the states and sadly none of them are near me. I got to ring at the main practice a few times. I think they let me because they knew I would never have the opportunity to do that. I did really well for the first time. I got to try three times during the practice. The first was pretty terrible but then I got better and better. The third time I hardly got out the whole time. I was awesome. I’m really glad I stuck with this even though it seemed weird in the beginning because I had a really good time with it.
Only Two Weeks Left!!!
December 4th
It’s crazy how fast the term went. Almost everyone is done now (or finishing tomorrow) and we are all parting ways. A couple people are actually going home tomorrow. Everyone else is going out and traveling Europe. I am going to Poland on Saturday and the straight to Germany on Tuesday.
Tonight there was a going away/Christmas party at St. Giles. It was just as fun as all the others. It is nice to get together with everyone like that but really every party has been the same thing. Say hi to everyone and get drunk and go home. I actually did drink at this one though so I guess it was different for me. After the party we went to a club for a while before going home. It was all right but I think I have said before I don’t really like cubs at all. I had fun though.
I can’t believe I am going home so soon. I am so excited to go home and see my family and friends but I am so sad to leave.
Catching Up
Okay so I realize I have been really really really bad about keeping up with this blog so I am going to do some catching up. Here is what I have missed telling everyone in the last three weeks or so.
I have gone to three pub quizzes. This is a fairly popular activity here in the UK and it’s pretty fun. The first one I went too was at the Waterman’s Arms. This is a pub down the street from my flat (probably the closest thing to civilization around here). My team consisted of Rebecca, John (someone who has become a very good friend of Rebecca’s), Mike and Hadrian (friend’s of John’s from the pub) and myself. We did all right considering there were three Americans who knew nothing about Britain. We got sixth out of twelve. I also went to another one at the New College pub. For this one my team was Gareth, Maria, Julian, Bill, and myself. We did horrible. We did not come in last, and that is about all I can say about it. I did really well on the science portion of the quiz but other than that we were basically SOL. The last one I went to was again at the Waterman’s Arms. This time we had Bill on our team as well as another of John’s friends to replace Hadrian who wasn’t there. We got fourth out of six this time. All in all these pub quizzes are a ton of fun even though we usually to terrible.
I have also been to a few college dinners. I went to New College formal dinner with Bill, Erin, and Jamie. It was really nice and I wish I had gone earlier in the term and gone more often. I did go to a few Trinity College dinners as well. Trinity College has much better food than New College. I went to one of their regular nightly dinners and I went to two of their guest night dinners. These dinners are formal occasions where guys have to wear suits and I wore a cocktail dress. It was a wonderful experience. It was like experiencing the upper class you read about and watch on TV but you always know it’s for kings and queens and people of a higher class. It was really nice. They serve a four-course meal and the whole occasion takes about two to three hours. It was really a lot of fun.
I finished up my physical chemistry tutorials on a very good note and I think I did really well. He said he was impressed with my work and my improvements over the course of the term. He also said if I ever have any questions at all to e-mail him because he is always a teacher and will always help a former student out. He said he would be willing to write recommendations for me and anything else I need. I think I may ask him to read my thesis when I am finished with it.
I also ended my Shakespeare tutorials with a bang. He loved my last essay and said that I would be a very good Shakespeare critic. I think I may continue my studies in Shakespeare in the future. Just taking on class at a time that would give me the opportunity to study his works further. I really loved this course. He also gave me a list of plays in the order he would typically assign them if I were to continue studying with him. I may just continue his course slowly on my own and see where it gets me.
I think that is about it that is worth writing about but since I have been doing so badly I may have some little updates later on things I missed.
Thanksgiving
Today was thanksgiving and I was really sad not to be at home. I love thanksgiving for some reason. It is defiantly my favorite holiday. This obviously is not a British holiday and therefore we were all on our own mostly for celebration. OSAP had a wonderful lunch for us. We had turkey sandwiches and pumpkin pie. The pie was really bad though. They don’t eat pumpkin pie here, in fact most of them have never heard of it. It was very nice of them to have that lunch for us though and I really appreciated it.
After the OSAP lunch we went grocery shopping to prepare our own Thanksgiving dinner. It was quite modified but still wonderful. We got a whole chicken because it was cheaper and we could not find anything to make pumpkin pie of our own so we had chocolate cake. We also made stuffing, corn, green beans, and mashed potatoes with gravy. It was a wonderful dinner. There were tons of people here eating and we made a horrible mess but it was fun. We had Rebecca, Andrea, Katrina (a friend of Andrea’s who is studying in Seville), Bill, Lee (a friend of Bill’s from Liverpool), Maria, Jullian, Zoya, Anya (Zoya’s sister), and myself.
After dinner we played charades and everyone got pretty drunk. They made a mess of the apartment that was a pain to clean up but it was worth it.
Wednesday 3 December 2008
Paris
Rebecca and I left on Thursday the 20th from Luton airport (in London) to Charles de Gaulle, an hour long flight, which was half the time it took to get to the airport. When we landed Rebecca’s three friends, Jerry, Kate and Amanda were waiting for us just outside the gate. We got on the train into the city and they took us to our hostel - the Young and Happy - in the Latin Quarter so we could check in and drop off our bags. The hostel was nice and seemed clean, safe, and comfortable. Our room had four beds one of which was occupied and the other which was taken on our second night there. The hostel also provided a breakfast in the morning of a croissant, a roll, juice, coffee, and tea.
Then Rebecca’s friends took us to a small Italian restaurant that was delicious. I had lasagna and we got some wine for the table. I actually liked the rose we got, and I usually hate wine. After dinner we went to the Eiffel Tower. It was so cool to get off the metro and see the bright blue lights of the Eiffel tower shining over everything. Currently the tower is blue because France is the president of the European Union and it is decorated like the EU flag. It has the stars in a circle and everything. Jerry went with Rebecca and I to the top. It was an amazing view of the city but it was freezing and windy. I was scared to death but it was worth it. While we were up there Jerry did his best tried to point out all of the landmarks to us. Afterwards we met up with the a lot of students that Rebecca’s friends have met since studying in France and headed to the bars. Rebecca and her friends stayed out really late club hopping but I only went to one of the clubs and then Jerry walked me back to the hostel for the night.
The next day we woke up and had breakfast at the hostel and then Amanda picked up Rebecca and I and we headed off to Notre Dame. The first thing we did there was step on the center of Paris (indicated by a round stone in the pavement with a star in the middle. They say if you step there you will return to Paris someday. We met Kate and Jerry there and toured inside. It was beautiful. After Notre Dame we went to the courtyard of a local teaching hospital. There is a statue of the hospital's founder in the courtyard and every year the seniors paint the statue. This year they painted it as Heath Ledger's Joker from The Dark Night. They did an amazing job, and it was really cool. Next, we got crepes at a ittle stand on the street. I had banana and nutella, which was absolutely amazing. Then we headed across the street to Shakespeare & Co., a famous bookstore that used to be frequented by such authors as Hemingway.
After the bookshop, we walked down along the Seine to the Musee d'Orsay. We looked at a lot of impressionist work because that is precisely the topic which Rebecca is studying in one of her tutorials. We also went through a mask exhibit that is currently there. After Musee d'Orsay, we got baguettes for lunch and then walked through the Tuleries. This was highly unimpressive due to the winter weather however it’s obvious that this is a beautiful place most of the year. Then we waked to the Place de Concorde where you can see the Obelisk Napoleon, the Eiffel Tower, and down the Champs Elysee to L'Arch de Triomphe. We did not take the walk down the Champs Elysee because we wanted to head to the Opera. We walked down passed Madaleine, the cathedral where you get married in France if you're famous, and then on to the opera house. We only admired the outside and the lobby of the opera, because you had to pay to go inside any further than that. We then took about a two-hour break at Jerry house so Rebecca could nap and everyone could have a rest before our planned trip to the Louvre. We had to wait until later (past six) to go because on Friday’s students at the schools in Paris can bring in a friend for free so Jerry and Kate took Rebecca and I in for free. It was amazing. I’m not much of an art person but you can’t look at all of the wonderful artwork and not be impressed. We walked through all of the renaissance work because that is Rebecca’s favorite artwork. I don’t mean to sound like all of our museum trips were to mae Rebecca happy because I thoroughly enjoyed them, however as an art history minor she was the best qualified to narrow our explorations of these huge museums. It would take an entire day to even attempt to see everything in the Louvre. I loved seeing the Mona Lisa in person. I have always been fascinated by it regardless of the criticisms people have for it. After the Louvre we had dinner and went back to the Latin Quarter. I walked back to the hostel with Rebecca and Vikki so Rebecca could change and while I went to bed they went out to the student bars.
The next day, Saturday, was our last in Paris. We woke up early and caught the metro to the famous cemetery, the Pere Lachaise. We saw the graves of Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Gertrude Stein, and Oscar Wilde. After the cemetery, Jerry and Rebecca went back to the Louvre so she could get a book on Mantegna while I went with the girls to get lunch. We bought baguettes and cheese then sat behind Notre Dame and had lunch. Then we walked through some tourist shops and I got one last nutella crepe in Paris. Then we got onto the train to head back to the airport.
The weekend was short and very busy but it was amazing. I love Paris and I cannot wait to go back sometime!
Friday 28 November 2008
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