A London Update

I've been writing so much about my trips that I've completely neglected the fact that I am actually living in London. Well, the fog and cloudy sky is really starting to get irritating. It's been raining almost everyday, and just really unpleasant. I guess that's typical London, and I have to deal with it. Things at the Unicorn are really starting to pick up. We are all getting ready for the biggest production of the year, Cinderella. It stars the Unicorn Ensemble, plus a few guest artists whom I've become very friendly with. It's nice that I am able to socialize with the actors, they are so nice and welcoming to me, and very fun to be around. Last Friday I spent the entire day painting the giant ship/staircase. Because the show takes place on a ship, which is actually a retirement home for magicians (this version of Cinderella is quite different,) and the other side is a giant staircase for the ball. The entire piece is on a revolve that moves about 4 and a half feet per second. Pretty fast. It is huge and we first textured the front of the ship with some gooey stuff called Artex, then spent hours and hours painting every part of this giant structure. The foyer also has been recently decorated with hundreds of giant butterflies in celebration of Cinderella (the ball is butterfly themed.) I had spent days tying 6 meters of fish wire to each side of each butterfly, and they were put up last week. It looks so festive when you walk in. It just looks so magical and welcoming with tons of butterflies swarming above your head. I've also been getting a good handle on the technical world of the theatre. While I strongly dislike rigging lights, doing set fit-ups, and being backstage alltogether, I'm enjoying getting to know what it is like to do other things in the theatre. It's good because now I know that I definitely want to be onstage, or doing something on the creative team. Putting a traveling set together requires muscle strength and getting pleasure out of using power tools. These are two things I do not have. Anyway, I'm really enjoying my time at the Unicorn, and I really have been feeling like I am a part of their team, and I can't wait for Cinderella to open. I've been watching it grow from nothing to a huge production, so it's going to be very exciting on opening night.
Last night our whole flat, plus a few, got together for a real Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone brought a dish, and we had a huge feast. Sadly and pathetically we did not have turkey because it is extremely difficult to get your hands on a turkey in Britain before Christmas, and when you can find one they are super expensive. So we had chicken and pretended it was turkey by putting gravy and cranberry sauce on it. Very pathetic, I know, but with all of the Thanksgiving foods everyone cooked and the company, it was really fun. I made a dish that started as butternut squash but turned into "Autumn Delight" after I had added apples, sweet potato, and pumpkin to it. It was very orange and autumny, and my new creation.
My parents get here on Wednesday morning for a weeks visit, and I am very excited to see them and spend time with them. For Thanksgiving we are probably going to go to a BBQ restaurant that is serving "traditional American Thanksgiving dinner." Hopefully it will be good, but it obviously won't be the same and being home with the entire family. Anyway, I'll be home in about 25 days, and while I love it here in London I am pretty sure I'm ready to go back home. This has all just been one really long vacation. It feels as though I've put my life on hold back home, and I'm ready to get back to real life now. I miss everyone at home, and at Clark, and I am excited to continue my life after having this experience under my belt. It really has changed me, and it has allowed me to really discover who I am and what I want to do with my life. I don't want to make this all corny until I actually have to write my last London blog entry, but I always think about how glad I am that I decided to study abroad here, and also how lucky I am.I'm just loving every minute of it.

J'adore Paris

I went to Paris this past weekend with a bunch of my flatmates plus a few others. I traveled in on the Eurostar train Friday night with Katie (my friend from Clark studying at LSE who speaks French wonderfully,) and got in just in time to meet up with Lilly, who had arrived earlier that day. We walked around Montmarte, where our hostel was, and then found a cute and amazing restaurant where we were even able to eat outside because it wasn’t even that cold. I ate an open-faced sandwich with goat cheese, honey, and almonds. I can’t stop thinking about it! It was so good! The second day we woke up and made our way towards the center of the city where we were meeting a few more friends at a different hotel that was right near the Eiffel Tower. This hotel was about a 2 minute walk from it. It was such a good location. We spent the day site seeing at the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, we walked down the Champs Elysees, and then we went to the Louvre, which I really enjoyed. We also got in free with our UK visa, which was awesome, and seeing the Mona Lisa was kind of unreal.
That night Katie and I met Blanche and Bernard (my Grandma’s first cousins, and only relatives) for dinner. They don’t really speak English, so I was really glad I had Katie there to translate most of what they were saying. The last time I saw them I was probably 10 years old, so I didn’t really remember them at all. It was strange meeting up with family in another country, but it was so nice. Blanche even resembles my Grandma a little. They made reservations at a nice authentic French restaurant, and even reserved a special table by the window that looked out on the city and insisted that Katie and I sit in the window seats. They also insisted that we order an appetizer, main course, drinks, and dessert. They were very nice to us. I just felt bad because while I could somewhat understand what they were saying at some points, I had no way of responding. The extent of my knowledge of French is “bonjour,” “comment allez vous,” “merci,” “wi,” and “au revoir.” So, I used what I knew when appropriate, shook my head a lot, and read from Katie’s French Phrasebook that we brought along. It was really fun having dinner with Blanche and Bernard, but it was stressful because our conversations were obviously very limited. After dinner Blanche and Bernard took Katie and I for a drive around Paris. They showed us all the sites, and it just so nice being able to spend time with them.
They next day we took a day trip to Versailles. It was absolutely incredible. Giant, absolutely giant and so extravagant. We also took a long walk down to Marie Antoinette’s house, which was very pink and girly. It was all very interesting.
Being in Paris was absolutely magical. The best site was the Eiffel Tower at night. It was all lit up, with lights blinking, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. It was also massive! It was a very good weekend, with the baguettes, crepes, cheese, crème brulee, beautiful sites, and good company. I had an amazing time. It is definitely a place that I will have to go back to in my lifetime.

Las Cuidades de Madrid y Barcelona

I am writing this entry with the help of some notes about my trip that I jotted down on the late plane ride back to London, with the help of Pat and Sarah. Spending almost a week in Spain with an upper respiratory infection, I realized that all I really needed was Sudafed Nasal Spray (works like a miracle,) a few packs of tissues, hazelnut gelato, siestas, and friends that rub your back when you feel like you're on the verge of passing out. The week prior to the trip every single one of my flatmates, yes all 5 of them, were sick. I tried to stay away as much as possible, disinfected every common area, and downed cartons of orange juice. While all of that worked for the week everyone was sick, I ended up getting sick right before I left for Spain. Greaaaaaat. The doctor put me on antibiotics, and while they made my stomach rather upset for the first few days, I guess they prevented me from getting worse, which I probably would have because I was traveling. Anyway, I'll stop complaining and start talking about the awesome things that I was able to do while I was away despite feeling sort of like death for the first half of the trip.

Day 1--Madrid: We left at 3:00am in London rain, but arrived in beautiful Spanish sunshine and palm trees. It took 3 transfers on the Metro to get to our hostel, which was in the center of the city, and right next door to a Starbucks...always a plus. We saved some money by staying in a 6 person room (there were only 3 of us,) which meant that we shared this tiny tiny tiny room with 3 strangers. One was from Bangladesh, Nepal, and Turkey. While it was a little frightening staying with people we didn’t know, and sleeping with our wallets, ipods, cameras, and passports under our pillows, it was pretty cool talking to them about the trips they were on and their own countries. After settling in the hostel, we then went to the Prado Museum. I don’t have much to say about it because I pretty much sat down in a chair every chance I got because I just simply couldn’t stand from being so tired and sick. After that we went back to the hostel and took a nice long siesta (nap.) It was great. We also learned that from about 2:00pm to 6:00pm many of the shops and restaurants close for siesta, so we thought we would join in, and it was very well deserved. We ate dinner that night at a place called VIPS, which was sort of like a Spanish version of TGIFridays.

Day 2 – Madrid: The second day we went on a hop-on-hop-off bus tour of the city. This tour let us hop on the bus at any bus stop, and hop off at any bus stop, to hop back on at any bus stop, etc. Pretty convenient. It was a nice was to see the city, and there was even a recording that we listened to through headphones that explained what we were passing. I also enjoyed sitting. We hopped off for lunch at restaurant that was not so much in the center of the city, so none of the employees spoke English. Pat, Sarah, and I all ordered the same thing because we heard a few familiar words thrown in. It was a special of chicken, eggs, and spaghetti. Not so Spanish, but still very good. That night when we got back to our hostel we were surprised to see an Australian couple in our room. They were John and Lucy from Australia. They both were 22 and taking a few months to travel Europe together. They were also both fluent in Spanish, and that night we all went out to a Tapas bar. It really was awesome, we even exchanged numbers and invited them to come hang out with us when they travel to London. We spent the rest of the night talking about the differences between The US and Australia, the US and Europe, and Australia and Europe.

Day 3 – Madrid y Barcelona: The morning before we left for Barcelona we took a walk that took about 3 minutes to the massive palace called Palacio Real de Madrid. It was huge! We took a tour of the inside, which also included entry to the Armory and The Royal Pharmacy Museum. Pretty neat. We took a lot of pictures, and even got an amazing view of the entire city from the back of the building. Walking back into the center of city we were graced with the wonderful music of an old Spanish man on an accordion playing Havah Nagilah, which I found to be very funny. In the center of the city we came across an overweight man dressed as Spidarman, smoking a cigarette, looking for people to take pictures with so he could make a few Euro. We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to take pictures with this guy because it was just too hilarious. He was actually very nice, and very hilarious, and Pat only paid him about 1 Euro for the handful of pictures that we took. That night we flew to Barcelona.

Day 4 – Barcelona: We had met up with 7 other friends in Barcelona and we all stayed together in the “Ideal Youth Hostel.” That was its name. I guess it was ideal because it was right in the center of the action, but the filth was not too ideal. Anyway, we dealt with it for 3 nights, and at least we were sleeping next to our friends and not strangers. That morning we went on a boat tour on the Mediterranean. Talk about turquoise water! It was beautiful. That night we had paella and tapas for dinner, and we ate outside on the most famous street in the city, Las Ramblas. It was a lot of fun.

Day 5 – Barcelona: Since I was still kind of sick I stayed behind while the rest of the group went on a bike tour. I walked around for the day with another girl from our group who also wasn’t feeling too well. We went to a market that was just incredible. There were immense amounts of fruits, vegetables, nuts, fish, meat, chocolate, and candy. Everything looked so amazing, and we took so many pictures of all the vendors. We also went searching for one of the Gaudi houses. Antoni Gaudi was a famous modernist architect from Barcelona, and he built a handful of houses around the city that are just unbelievable. After roaming around for a while, and asking people on the street “derecha o izquierda?” (right or left,) we finally found La Casa be Batilla. It was so beautiful I can’t even begin to describe it. We took a tour of the house, and took tons of pictures. We then ventured to find El Palacio de Musica, which is a giant concert hall. That building was just as beautiful as Gaudi’s. Halloween in Barcelona was crazy. Instead of dressing up in cute or funny costumes people dress up in scary costumes. Everyone was all about blood and gore, but the night life was really fun. We attempted to stay up until 6 in the morning like the locals do, but us Americans just couldn’t keep up, and we ended up crashing around 4.

Day 6 – Barcelona à London: We started the day off with some Dunkin Coffee, which is actually an exact replica of Dunkin Donuts, which we found very amusing. We did some quick site seeing at the Olympic Park, another Gaudi house called La Sagrada Familia, and then even another Gaudi house called La Casa Mila, and then slowed it all down for some McDonalds at the end of the day. We hoped on a plane, and arrived in London around midnight.

It was a great trip, and despite being rather ill for most of it, I was able to experience Spanish culture in 2 different cities and I even got to practice speaking Spanish. It was very rewarding, and I’m so glad I went, and I am grateful for that nice lady that translated the pharmacist for me when I went in the middle of the night.

Quick Update

Hello.
The very first thing that I would like to do right now is write a brand new and long overdue blog entry, but I have to finish a paper and get to bed relatively early. Quickest update ever: Today I went to the Tate Modern, had a tour of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, saw Jersey Boys. 2 weekends ago I went to Cambridge and went punting on the River Cam, I wrote a short story for my Creative Writing class, I went to Harrods, Camden Town Horse Stable Markets, and had a tour of Parliament. Last week I saw Mother Courage at the National Theatre, The Lion King, a play called Rigged at the Unicorn, and I went to the Cinema to see the newest and last Heath Ledger film. I've been sitting in on rehearsals for The London Eye Mystery, helping sand and paint sets, and creating a small wooden model of a seagull to assist in the making of Gavin the Seagull in the Unicorn's twisted and mixed up version of Cinderella. I've also been trying to stay relatively healthy because every single one of my flatmates are sick and think they have the flu right now. A week from today I'll be off to Madrid, then Barcelona for Halloween. That's 5 nights in Spain! Can't wait! Ok, I tried to push that all in somehow, but hopefully once all these midterms are over I'll have some more freeish time.
Til then,
Allie

"Wow guys, it's like really leaning!"

It is extremely late right now and I am so overly exhausted from the weekend, and while I have work tomorrow morning and have to wake up at 8am I feel as though I need to write a little something about my Italian adventure that was exciting, interesting, and a bit stressful. After taking a 2am train accompanied by a man sitting in the front of our car that was not feeling too great and vomiting everywhere, and then another bus to the terminal, 2 of my flatmates (Celina and Leanne,) and I arrived at Luton Airport, got onto the plane and landed 2 hours later in at Galileo International Airport. Pisa is a province in the Italian region of Tuscany, most commonly known for the ever-popular Leaning Tower of Pisa. Once we arrived we took a taxi to our hostel, known as "Ilton Bed and Breakfast." Little did we know that this hostel was situated in some sort of residential apartment complex. We were very skeptical but went up to the front door only to find that there was no sign of a bed and breakfast in the building. We asked a little old woman by a fruit stand if she knew of Ilton Bed and Breakfast. She proceeded to take us into the building next door, into an extremely small elevator, and in front of a door to a completely different bed and breakfast. We nodded and said thank you even though we knew it wasn't the place we needed to get to. She was very nice for taking us there. After banging on the front door to the building, ringing the front doorbell intercoms, and screaming to the open windows, we waited for a good 45 minutes until a resident walked out and we could finally walk in. We proceeded to climb up and down the 6 flights of stairs about 3 different times (with very heavy backpacks and no sleep) to realize that none of the doors said Ilton Bed and Breakfast. We even knocked on some one's door to ask, of course they didn't speak English so that didn't help. Eventually a woman asked if we were looking for Ilton and let us into the bed and breakfast. Now, this bed and breakfast had no sign on the door and the intercom didn't work, so how we were ever supposed to find this place was beyond us. It was a good thing we finally found it.

We quickly dropped off our things and found the nearest bus station, bought a ticket, and hopped on a bus that we hoped was going to the center of town. After getting off and then getting on a different bus we finally got to the Leaning Tower. It like amazing, we kept saying "Wow guys, it's like really leaning!" It really was! It was leaning a whole lot! But it was awesome, and the mountains in the distance made it look so beautiful. We took a bunch of pictures, and walked around a little, shopped for souvenirs, and ate lunch. We all split ravioli, margarita pizza, and gnocchi with pesto sauce, then we had some gelato. We went on to have gelato 3 times in the 28 hours we were in Italy. It was just that good. Having Italian food in Italy was pretty cool. We couldn't get enough of it!
After walking around the area a little more we went back to the hostel, took a well-deserved nap, showered, and got dressed to go out to dinner. We headed back into town to a restaurant that was recommended to us. It was incredible! We shared a capresse salad with really good balsamic vineger, bread with really good olive oil, lasagna, spaghetti, then chocolate souffle, and tiramisu. Amazing, and we even ate outside. It was a long and expensive meal, but really worth it.
The next day we woke up around 7am to pack up and go to see more of the countryside of Tuscany. We ended up not being able to catch the bus out of Pisa, but we decided to take a different route and go to the Marina Di Pisa. All we knew about it was that there was water, so we assumed it would be nice, and thank goodness it was. After not even knowing what stop to get off (the buses don't tell you the stops, nor do they have signs at the stops) we saw water and decided to get off. We walked down what seemed to be an authentically Italian village towards the marina. There happened to be a sailboat race and what seemed like an outdoor clothing sale along the water too. We walked down to the beach, hung out in the sand, took some pictures, walked around, took more pictures, ate more gelato, and then finally walked back to the bus stop to spend 35 minutes sitting on the curb hoping the bus would come so we could make it to the airport on time. We did, and we got home safely. Exhausted, but we made it through the weekend, ate Italian food in Italy, stuck our feet in Italian sand, and took the typical tourist holding-up-the-tower pictures. It was an experience, and I loved it.

Belgium...chocolate, chocolate, waffles, and more chocolate

I am SO full right now! I just got back from Brugge, Belgium. Probably one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Seriously, it was a gorgeous place! Today I went on a day trip to Belgium with 2 of my flatmates and one other friend from Clark. We went on a 2 hour bus ride to Dover then an hour and 15 minute ferry ride to Calais, France, then another hour long bus ride to Brugge. The ferry ride was amazing, we passed the Cliffs of Dover and sailed into France while on a giant Ferry with couches, shopping, and a food court. When we finally got into Belguim and got off the bus I couldn't believe it. It was really incredibly beautiful, I'm pretty sure I was speechless. There were little canals everywhere, and boat tours going through them, under bridges, and around the biggest swans I have ever seen. We only had about 3 and a half hours to walk around and explore the city, which wasn't enough time, but very worth the trip. We stopped at a little sandwich place where I had a baguette with salami and egg salad and some chocolate milk, and we ate outside on some benches. I'm so grateful that it was nice weather outside. After we ate we went to a tiny, little chocolate shop and bought some truffles, which were obviously amazing. I'm not surprised Belgium is known for it's chocolate. I also learned that Belgium is known for it's lace, and beer, and obviously waffles. We went to a classy homemade waffle shop to get some classic Belgian waffles. All I have to say was that this was the best thing I have ever decided to spend my money on. I only payed 3 euros, but I probably would have paid what ever the little waffle man asked because that waffle was seriously incredible. I had a waffle with chocolate and caramel drizzled on top, and my roommate had a waffle with whipped cream (which they actually call whipping cream in the UK) and strawberries. So good, really, so good. We spent some more time just walking around and going into little shops (every other shop was a chocolate shop) and taking pictures.
Apparently, there is this myth that in Brussels there once was a big fire in the city, and some little boy peed on the fire and put it out, and there is a statue of this boy in Brussels. So now they have this little boy's statues everywhere in Belgium. I just had to buy one. I also bought a kid's size t-shirt, and some postcards. Then we hopped back on the bus (thanks to Celina who found our way back without a map or any knowledge of the area) and went to a chocolate factory, which happened to be just a huge chocolate store called The Chocolate Factory rather than an actual chocolate factory. This is where we all loaded up on the chocolate. It was quite successful. We ended up getting back to our flat at exactly midnight (we left the flat at 5:30am) so it was quite the long day, but so incredibly worth it to take a 4 hour trip both ways to spend 3 and a half hours in Brugge. It really was amazing, and the coach bus was nice, and the ferry was nice, and Robin our tour guide was nice, and it was just so nice. I'm so glad we went, it was very much worth it, and I certainly want to go back to Belgium some day and spend slightly more time there.

L'Shana Tova from London!

Yesterday was Rosh Hashanah, and being one of only 3 Jews on this International Internship Program I felt it fit to cook a semi-traditional Jewish dinner for the rest of the flat. Dane and I went on a trip to Waitrose (the huge supermarket) and bought almost 50 pounds worth of food to cook. We had some trouble getting chocolate chips to dip strawberries into; when we asked where they were they pointed us to the chip section. When we asked where the marshmallows were they had no idea what we were talking about, first they thought we were talking about melons, then they thought we were asking about a frozen food. We eventually found them, but unfortunately they didn't have just white, so we got white and pink. We had to weed out the pink ones because we were making sweet potato pie, and strawberry flavored marshmallows on top would not taste very good.
So cooking took about 3 hours. We made matzoh ball soup, gefilte fish, salmon, falafal, apples and honey, chicken, noodle kugel, sweet potato pie, and we bought bread that wasn't challah, but sort of looking like challah. We had 13 people and it was really good. It was nice to have a sort of substitute family for the holiday. The people that are on this program are so awesome, they are very welcoming and open to anything. I figure you have to be cool to choose to study abroad in London. I'm really lucky to be here with such great people to share the experience with.
Today I've stayed in my pajamas the entire day because it was "homework day." It has been tough to find time during the week to do homework so all of it was saved for Sunday. It was kind of like to relax and get things done. I also got some laundry done, though I had some trouble with our European washer/dryer and I washed my clothes 4 times because I couldn't figure out how to dry them. It was quite frustrating. All my clothes are hanging on every part of this flat. It's ridiculous.
Tomorrow I have work from 10 to 6, and later tonight one of my flatmates and I are going to Tesco (24 hour convenience store) to pick up some groceries for the week. I will hopefully post soon with some fun and interesting happenings in London!