Have a Nice Trip See You Next Fall

Looking Back....

2009-09-13T18:07:00.007+01:00

I was just looking at my ical and thought how funny it was to see the difference between my MCAD and Brighton schedules....
Brighton schedule basically = footie matches
Mcad schedule basically = lack of life due to work

REUNITED AND IT FEELS SO GOOD

2009-06-26T13:51:00.006+01:00

I am back in AMERICA!!!!!!!!!
I never cried (and only came close once) while in England. But the second I was going through passport control and the good ol' guy with the Chicago accent told me "Welcome home" I got all teary eyed. And then the second I walk into the arrivals thing I JUST LOST IT. LOST IT COMPLETELY. My family got this adorable little kid standing near them to say "WELCOME BACK TO CHICAGO, JULIE!" which really confused me because I thought "Why don't I recognize this kid?" but then I figured out what was going on, said thank you, and started SOBBING LIKE A CHILD. Happy happy and sad sad tears! I just kept crying and all I could say was "I missed America!" hahahahahahahahahhahahaahahaha. But it was so weird because I was just so happy and proud to be back in America that while I was sobbing, I had a HUGE SMILE ON MY FACE. Try to imagine how creepy that is. Or don't.

Um not sure what's gonna happen to this blog now. Maybe a few more posts and then it's over. We shall see!

:''''''''''(

2009-06-25T00:43:00.000+01:00

Had a fun and happy but oh-so-sad night in Brighton last night. Jenny and I went out to the pub and met with Ally, Ant, Alex, and Tom for one last bit of fun. Then the four of us (- Ant and Alex) headed over to a different pub up the street to meet Rob and some friends. But on the way there the best thing in the world happened, we decided to stop in a few different news agents and buy a ton of candy that I haven't tried yet. YUM WHAT A BRILLIANT IDEA! Such fun, I'm really going to miss Brighton and everyone in it! I'm not ready to say goodbyeeeeeeeeeeee boohoo.

Today finished up at Topman and said super depressing goodbyes to Ramzy and Jenny, both of whom I MISS ALREADY! (I can't wait to go home and pig out on cheeseburgers in your honor, guys!). And when I got home Frankie was waiting to take me to her favorite special pub. We walked passed Kate Moss' house and there were 4 paparazzi outside, crazy! Anyway, we met Ihab there later and this pub was amazing, it was the poshest pub I've ever been in and I had the most amazing meal and it was just so nice of Frankie!

I'M NOT READY TO SAY GOODBYE!
I DON'T WANT MY ENGLAND ADVENTURE TO END TOMORROW/TODAY TECHNICALLY I GUESS!
But I guess that just means it's the beginning of my SUMMER '09 AMERICA TIME adventure, right?!?! YEAH!

The Last Supper HAHAHA I'M ONLY JOKING

2009-06-22T22:59:00.005+01:00

No it really was my last Sunday in England and Jenny and I spent it out and about having an amazing time in London going from markets to galleries and all over the place. At the end of the day we headed back to Frankie's where we along with Frankie and Ihab had a picnic outside her flat with amazing food and just a fun time as usual.

Ihab told me today that he thought I was going to write about how he snuck chilis in the salad (he said he didn't want the chili to be lonely in the fridge.), so there you go, I thought they were tomatoes and just about died when I ate them.

Miradouros

2009-06-12T21:34:00.003+01:00

I forgot to mention one crazy coincidence from the Lisbon trip. When Alex and I were at the airport going back to England we ran into a friend who had stayed in our hostel room in Barcelona with us for two nights!!! How crazy is that? He is from Brazil studying in Spain and happened to be in Lisbon and at the airport the same time as two Americans also in Lisbon at the same time! It was so nice to see him again out of nowhere, quite an awesome coincidence!

Lisbon Love

2009-06-11T21:21:00.044+01:00

Sorry this has taken me so long, I've been super busy working on very exciting things at my work placement, but anyway here goes:

Once when I was talking to my friend Marin (who I love and who is hilarious), we were discussing Portugal and she said this: "oh well what is there to do except get tan n be gay?" (referencing Cristiano Ronaldo).
Let me say that as much as I love to make fun of Ronaldo, there is sooo much more than that! PORTUGAL IS ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE and if I spoke more than a few phrases of portuguese I would seriously seriously consider moving there in the near future. Seriously. I'd start somewhere by getting a job at the wonderful hostel I stayed at and then move into a little apartment in the Barrio Alto and spend my nights out on the street grilling food and listnening to music with my new Portuguese friends. It needs to happen. SERIOUSLY.

Alex and I got in to Portugal late last Thursday night and by the time we found our hostel (which was spectacular on so many levels) it was about 10:30 pm and we chatted with some nice people staying there and then settled in and eventually went to sleep.
The next morning we started exploring the city in the pouring rain. Even though the weather was awful, it didn't stop us appreciating the beauty or fun of the city! We walked around and found ourselves at the top of the giant Elevador da Bica which has a lovely view. Right next to it is the Convento do Carmo which is an old church/convent that fell in during an earthquake hundreds of years ago. It is just stunning to look inside, it's really like nothing else I've ever seen and is quite beautiful! From there we wandered and went to some beautiful miradouros/viewpoints. Then we walked all around the Barrio Alto which is just the coolest place everrrr and I love it. And we had the worlds yummiest mini steak-like thing there. After that we headed to the Belém district and went to a huge old cathedral and cloisters and stuff and then headed to the contemporary art museum which was suchhhhh a great space but it wasn't utilized to it's full potential i think. After all that, HEAVEN. We went to Cafe de Pasteis de Belem and OH MY GOD I swear I just about died when I ate one of their pastry thingies. I can't een begin to describe how good they are other than the fact that on our last day in Portugal in just a few hours Alex and I bought 10 more of the things from various cafes around Lisbon.

We made it back to Barrio Alto pretty late and decided to explore a little bit of the night life there. IT IS PERFECT. The steep narrow old beautiful streets are lit up with Christmas lights and colorful banners of triangle flags are strung up cross crossing over your head and music (most of the time live music!) comes from a different source around every corner. People stand out in the middle of the street and talk and drink and grill fish and play catch and football. It is such a vibrant and friendly and carefree atmosphere, I love it!

The following day at the suggestion of one of the nicest guys ever who worked at the hostel, we took the famous (i guess?) tram 28 and went to the Alfama area. Absolutely gorgeous. The weather in the beginning was also awful and rainy but it got much better as the day passed. We saw some incredible views of the city and also saw a lot of churches. We kept getting lost and wandered the streets a lot but it was sooo pretty and nice and fun. Eventually we found the "Thieves' Market" which is just what I always imagined a dream market would be like. Like the brighton sunday market but times 10,000 and mostly on the ground and not tables and stalls. I got the cutest dress in the world for 5 euros and also a big cool old portrait photograph of a portuguese soldier guy for 4 euros. Score! After that we visited some other church and cloister and museum of tiles/azulejos that was unintentionally hilarious because of al these weird fable stories in it. Then we ate more pasteis de nata and walked up to the castle which is gorgeousssssssssss as expected and had more views of the city, hooray!

Later that night we made it back to the hostel where we had dinner with Ana who works there and is one of the absolute nicest friendliest and most genuine people I've met while traveling. It was so nice and fun! Then around 10:30 Alex and I headed out to this miradouro we had been to the day before because there was a small festival with free concerts going on that night! We went and it was SO MUCH FUN! I can't even describe how great it was, but I have two short videos of it so maybe those will help. After that we walked back and strolled Barrio Alto again because we are in love with it and then walked a block or two over to our hostel.

Next day we went to the new design museum and saw some amazing exhibits that were pretty thought provoking! Thennnnnn we basically spent the rest of the day walking around the downtown area and eating more pastries. Our flight was supposed to be at 9 pm butttttt we ended up getting back to brighton at 3:30 am. And I woke up the next morning at 6 am to hit the road for my internship. FUN! Nooooo but it was 1,000,000,000% worth it. I LOVE YOU PORTUGAL, YOU ARE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE I'VE BEEN (besides Ireland maybe but that is different!), AND I CAN'T WAIT TO RETURN!!!!!

Plenty more pictures of the pretty place here.
And some short little videos (that I want you to watch because I think they give you a taste of how incredibly cool it is there) here.

Mmmmmmmmm...

2009-06-05T22:13:00.005+01:00

In Lisbon and I think I tasted heaven today. Yummy!

Stratford Upon Avon

2009-05-31T13:25:00.005+01:00

I have realized that when I do things I need to blog about them right away because when I put it off I totally loose the motivation and interest in writing about them.

But anyway on Wednesday, very very bright and early Jenny and I set off on a nice long train ride to Stratford Upon Avon, which is not only Shakespeare's birthplace, but Jenny lived there for a year when she was 7 so that was her main motivation for going back and I figured "why not come along on the journey? It'll be fun!" and it was!!!

Our first day there we not only saw Julius Caesar in the Royal Shakespeare Company theater but we knocked on the door and met the lovely family who leased Jenny's family their house when she lived there. So kind of them to let us in and talk to us and show us around the house, it was adorable! Later that night after we saw the play we met up with Andy, the son of the people who own the house and he took us out for drinks at a nearby pub called the Dirty Duck. It was a blast! I love how friendly people are in England!

The next day we ate a scrumptious b&b breakfast and then spent the day sightseeing more around Stratford and wandering around and having more delicious tea. We even got to go out to the country a little bit and sat in the sun and had a grande old time. Later we wandered Stratford more and sat by the river and had fun watching the hilarious combinations of people row past in their boats. Then we met back up with Andy again before saying goodbye and catching the train back to Brighton late Thursday night. The trip was soooo much fun! I'm definitely not properly expressing how fun it was in this post. The whole weekend we just kept bursting into giggle fits. We still talk about it and burst into giggle fits, haha!

Read about it on Jenny's blog here. And see more of my photos here.

Arundel

2009-05-24T22:35:00.007+01:00

Saturday Jenny and I went to Arundel on a day trip. The city was super cute and the castle was veryyyy impressive! It was a great trip but I am lazy and don't feel like writing much so here are some pictures. I really liked the library-esque room, which I am stealing a photo of from flickr to show you:

If you want to see more pictures, they are here.

Laughing Laughing Laughing

2009-05-23T20:37:00.010+01:00

Today Jenny and I went on a fun little day trip to Arundel. But more on that later, there are much more important things to focus on. Such as the two PURE GEMS OF COMEDIC GOLD that we encountered today.

First, feast your eyes on this amazingly tacky thing we found in one of the gardens of Arundel Castle:

Too good, I tell you!

And second, the best for last. When we saw this we stopped dead in our tracks and burst into absolute hysterics:

Um.... southern railway, as much as I love you, who on earth do you think you're kidding? Trying to say that this:

is somehow "the new" this:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA NICE TRY!

My Kind of Town

2009-05-15T15:39:00.000+01:00

It's not exactly that I'm homesick, I just really really really love Chicago. A lot.

I do actually do stuff here sometimes

2009-05-14T21:15:00.003+01:00

So um I guess for maybe the first time ever I'm going to actually write something about what I'm actually doing here in regards to school work (extension studies doesn't count cause that's different....).

It's getting to the end of the year and the 3rd years (seniors) are putting up their degree shows (senior shows) and each 3rd year is assigned a second year (junior.... me) to help them and basically be their personal assistant/do whatever they want, whenever they want to help them get their show ready. So I've been super busy helping my lovely 3rd year, Pat, get ready for her degree show by binding book upon book by hand. It's been great cause I'm learning so many new techniques and it just feels really good to actually spend time in Brighton working for hours upon hours. Feels a little like Mcad, awwwww. But it makes me REALLY thankful for the perfect binder we have in the service bureau... F'realz.

Apart from that, I'm really having fun because I am working on this new project and I've been inspired by the Kanye - Welcome to Heartbreak video and the Chairlift - Evident Utensil video to learn how to data-mosh. And it's SO FRUSTRATING sometimes but it's really rewarding to teach yourself how to do something. Andddd it's appropriate to the idea I have for this project, so hoooooray!

Here are two ugly dumb experiments I tried. They mean nothing and they look like poop but I MADE THEM and I'm proud of myself. And to all my family out there reading this and watching the videos: Yes, they are supposed to look like that. Your computer isn't really crashing.

Pretty Pretty Panorama

2009-05-09T17:10:00.020+01:00

Ben showed me how to make panoramas in photoshop, soooooooo now I've become addicted. Here are some pretty ones from my travels! Click to make them bigger.

Lakes and mountains district around Salzburg, Austria.

The blue lagoon on Comino, a super small island off Malta.

Another of the blue lagoon on Comino, a super small island off Malta.

Gozo, one of the other islands of Malta.

At the bottom of a mountain in Ballyvaughan, Ireland.

Brighton Pier yesterday on a windy windy day.

View from the top of this fountain thing at the Parc de la Ciutadella in Barcelona.

View from the top of the Gaudi Casa Milla apartments.

View from the Parc Montjuic of Barcelona's ports at night.

View from the Parc Montjuic of Barcelona at dusk.

Chocolate, Waffles, and a Beetle on a Needle: Belgium

2009-05-07T00:54:00.025+01:00

Another TL;DR TOO LONG DIDN'T READ for you all. No, this is probably my last real travel excursion here so I'm gonna write about it... so there!

So a few days ago I got back from Belgium, yay! It was nice and fun and it just felt really good and relaxing to have a mini-reunion with Mary Ellen (one of my BEST BUDZ on the planet for those of you who might not know that)!

So Friday afternoon I took the Eurostar on a nice little two-hour train ride from London to Brussels and when I got off the train Meo and my Belgian friend Filip were there waiting for meeeee, HOW NICE! So right away we got to walking and talking and exploring around Brussels a tiny bit before heading back to Leuven where Meo studies. Once we were there we ate at this cuteeeeeeeeeeeee little restaurant that has fun little christmas lights and even has blankets on the back of each person's chair incase they get cold outside. TOTES PRESH. Anyway after that they gave me a little tour of Leuven where we saw the absolutely stunning city hall building, the beetle on a needle sculpture (google search "beetle on a needle leuven", it'll make your life 10,000 times better), some funny statues, and other general charmingness. It was interesting to hear about the city from an actual Belgian, we learned some funny things like how cobblestones are called "children's heads" in Flemish, apparently! Hah!
Then we went to the ode-markt or something like that and after that had gelato because how can you not? Anddd then we said goodbye to Filip for the day and me and meo went back to her student house which is innnnnnnnnnnnnnncredible! Once we got there I met a bunch of her absolutely wonderful friends and housemates and stayed up for quite a long time talking and having fun!

The next morning Me, Mary Ellen, and her friend Zach went to the market and got some dried fruit and yummy stuff and then wandered into the mini flea market. After that me and meo walked to the Begijnhof which is like this weird but pretty little village for single ladiezzzz who want to be single but not nuns I guess?! ok. After that we met Filip again who so kindly took us to Brussels and showed us all around, we saw the Atomium, Mannekin Pis (as well as a pissing girl and a pissing dog... Belgium is weird), and a ton of other things! Brussels is a pretty little place to walk around.

After spending most of the day in Brussels, Filip suggested we go to this little village called Mechelen to see this light art show. So we did! The three of us went there and once we got there we needed to wait a tiny bit for it to get dark for the sculpture things to start. Anddd Mary Ellen and I were pretty desperate to try this fancy hot chocolate so we did that and it was amazing! By then it was dark and we walked throughout the city/village finding the art pieces scattered around. It was SO COOL. One of them was the craziest thing ever ever ever. Basically it's this hugeeeeeee box made of LED lights that change colors. And you go in it. I know it doesn't sound like anything special but it was UNREAL. At one point the three of us were standing in it with these two older people and the lights turned to this crazy green color and literally I can't even begin to explain the effect it had! Meo and I looked at each other and screamed! And we didnt scream because we heard each other screaming or because we felt like being stupid and screaming, but literally that was the only way to react to it! It turned your whole vision green..... the only way i can think to explain it is in dumb graphic design terms but it was like someone duo toned my whole life and everything was only green. Meo's face was all green. IT WAS INTENSE AND KINDA SCARY, OK!? After that one we saw lots of other cool ones, and one really scary one that we literally stood and stared at for a good 10 minutes just going "oh my god what is it doing now?! I'm scared!" hahahhahahhahahahahahha it was so fun! As we were finishing up finding all the art things, we passed this free concert that a brother of Filip's friend was playing in. It was in a giant movable circus tent type thing with mirrors and a disco ball and magical circus looking stuff everywhere, it was absolutely incredible! The band was really fun and kind of gypsy style so being in a tent in the middle of belgium watching them was pretty awesome.

After that Filip drove us back to Leuven, and once we got back even though meo and I were literally falling asleep in the car and couldn't keep our eyes open, we decided to go out with her friends from the house. So we spent the night out in Leuven having a great time! Andddd time really flies when you're having fun because we left the last place and it was light outside.... 6 am! Then we decided to get frites so there were the 5 of us left at the end of the night sitting eating frites in the broad daylight talking to some man who thinks America sucks. Interesting. Then we walked home at 7 am and had some interesting experiences along the way before going back to the house and crashing right into sleepy time.

The next/same day we were pretty exhausted so we basically just took it easy. In the afternoon Me, Meo, and super nice friend Abbey went to this really fun amazing park by their house that had so many crazy things to play on. Did we care that there were Belgian kids and parents in the park playing? Kinda. Did we let it sop us? HELL NO! So we spent some time running on spinny things and climbing up stuff before heading back to the house and later that night we went for kebabs and then sat around and talked and then watched tv (I miss tvvvvvvv) and it was nice to just sit around and be normal.

The next day Meo and I went to Antwerp! It was cold but it was still lovely! We did some shopping and smoothie consuming and wandered around a lot. We walked to the square and saw some crazy cool church and the city hall and the wacky doodle statue of the giant who cuts people's hands off and that was all good fun. Then we walked along the river port and eventually wound up in this really incredible church that had this thing outside that neither of us knew what it was.... it was like this little garden but.... unexplainable. Kinda with sculptures and stuff... but it was SO COOL. Then we went inside the church and that was really lovely too! And then we both had to go to the bathroom so we asked one of the guys who worked there where the bathrooms were and he told us to follow him and he took us through the church into this area that i'm pretty sure we werent really supposed to go in but it was so cool and he was giving us lots of little info about the church and antwerp and stuff so that was cool. Oh but he was kind of a little bit of a crazy religious guy who is scared of people of other religions so that was awkward. But other than that he was a jolly old man! After that we continued our Antwerp adventure and bought candy and waffles and all that good stuff. I guess all the sugar in Antwerp made us a little hyper or something becuase the whole train ride home we were being the way we typically are together but extra like if all our friends were there. We made up tons of new words (tipsywinks and queek being new favorites) and FREAKED OUT over something that is really ridiculously hilarious to us and our friends but to the rest of the world would be weird so I won't talk about it but basically it set us up for a night of weird fun. When we finally made it home at the end of the night we decided to make a thank you card for Filip for showing us around and for some reason we basically spent four hours being really stupid and making really dumb funny jokes about the weird pictures we found in the magazine we were collaging from. Fun times.

The last day we accidentally woke up late and rushed over to the really beautiful botanic gardens in Leuven. After seeing that we headed back to the center and went to this crazy event thrown by the economics department at KU Leuven and got tonsssss of free stuff like ice cream and cheese and fries and anything you could ever wanttttt, it was cooooool! Then Meo had to go to class so I took some time to go shopping, bought two jars of the most heavenly substance on earth, Speculoos (it's like spreadable teddy grahams..... one of my jars is almost completely gone already) and did some shopping. After that I met meo again and we got more free stuff at that thing before meeting Filip to say goodbye and going to the olde-markt place again. Then basically around 7 pm I got on the train and was on my way back to England andddddddddddddd due to some minor complications I finally got back to Brighton around 2:30 am, hhahahaha!

Now I am back in Brighton, taking a break from frantically trying to finish my homework for tomorrow, feeling sick and like i'm going to die, anddd hanging out with friends from mcad, how fun! The last few days here have been pretty eventful too. Oh, Brighton.

Anyway Belgium is cool, yay! More pictures HERE.

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HAHAHAHA OH MY GOD. I have to add that if you click and make the first picture big it is SO FUNNY because it looks like I photoshopped this weird cartoon guy into the picture "where's Waldo"-style. But it's really there. And I don't know why but to me it is just about the funniest thing on earth.

Ace of Cakes

2009-04-25T02:02:00.004+01:00

There were real fireworks in my cake! Thanks, Choccy Woccy Doo Dah and Jenny! And thanks to everyone who came out and made my 21st so fun :)

Thanks, Ally!

2009-04-23T16:30:00.008+01:00

Yesterday Ally took Jenny and I on a wonderful day trip through something like 6 or 7 different counties in England!

First we drove to Tylney Hall in Hook, which was just absolutely incredible! It's a huge old fancy hotel that is on lovely grounds and feels like a movie set because it's just so picturesque. It feels like the kind of place that if you were filthy rich and getting married, this is where you would dream of having your reception or something. Anyway, we strolled around the gardens and explored the water garden as well before we decided to feel really posh and order coffees at their terrace. It was such a beautiful day and we enjoyed feeling really fancy and sipping our drinks in the sunshine.

After that we headed to Henley upon Thames but before going there we passed through Reading and met Ally's friend for lunch. Then we wandered around Henley, a cute little town on the river filled with little boats and things. And after that we went and visited Ally's house and had a lovely dinner with her and her parents. It was such a nice treat and a great way to spend a spring day in England! Thanks for such a fun day, Ally!

Baffling Bavaria

2009-04-18T12:09:00.009+01:00

I always leave Germany feeling very very confused (to say the least.... if you know about the last time). I try so hard to like you, Germany, I really do. But all you can do is hate me. Whyyyyyyyy?

This time in Germany was certainly much much better than my last time but I still feel a little let down. And I know that I didn't really give Munich the chance it deserved (I wasn't there long enough [only 2 full days properly in the city]) so I want to go back and really have a good time there like I want to do for Berlin. But I think I will wait a very long time before returning to Germany to give it those second chances. Looooooooooong time.

I had a lot of fun though, I swear!

Day 1 was mostly spent traveling. I got in to Berlin pretty late and eventually found my hostel and checked in. As I was making my bed and locking up my things one of my room mates came in, Kok Liang, originally from Malaysia studying in France. He was super nice and interesting to talk to, although I was a little sad to hear that he disliked Munich and found that there was nothing to do there. As we were talking a new roommate came in, Rodolfo from Brazil now working in the Netherlands. Also super nice and interesting. We decided that once Kok Liang's two friends came back we would all go out to dinner, so once they did, the three of us and Young Chang and Daniel all went out to the Augustiner Brauhaus restaurant on the way to Marienplatz. We ate some surprisingly delicious typical Bavarian food (free pretzels yeah!!!!!) and had a great time. I was really relieved/comforted to hear that all five of us have similar struggles as people living abroad in foreign countries. It felt really good to relate and commiserate about things and to know it's not just me! After dinner Rodolfo, Kok Liang and I wandered around the city at night and walked down Maximillianstrasse which is super posh and high-end. After that we returned to the hostel and went to the bar at the hostel and continued hanging out and having a good time. A nice introduction to Munich!

Day 2 I woke up and met a new roommate, Sarah, from Boston studying in Bilbao, Spain. We went to breakfast together where we met Alexandra, originally from Paris, now living in London. We all hit it off and decided to go on a tour of the city together. We ended up deciding on a free bike tour that departs from Marienplatz. The three of us walked over to the square early and sat down to people watch and we were actually just in time for the glockenspiel! It was really cute! Right as that ended we hopped over to the fish fountain where the bike tour group was gathering. There was a pretty big group, about 35 of us and 1 tour guide (from America!) He gave us a little history of Munich and then lead us over to get us our bikes. It was pretty entertaining seeing 35 people test ride bikes in a small little area off the main square. The bikes were the kind where you have to pedal backwards to break, it was hard readjusting to that. On the tour we stopped at a bunch of interesting places and learned about the history of Munich and it's buildings and stuff. About halfway through the tour we entered the English garden which is apparently the biggest park in the world? Like a few times the size of Central park? It was gorgeous and full of curious little places. We stopped by the nude sunbathing section which was PACKED and full of characters. Then we stopped at the Chinese Tower Beer Garden in the middle. Sarah, Alexandra and I decided to split two of the obscenely/heavenly large pretzels, and it turns out they were so big we couldn't even finish them off, although we came close! It was really hot out though and there wasn't much shelter from the sun, but there was an Oompa band playing so it was all fine and dandy! After that we went to go see the river surfers. Yes, surfing in Munich. There is a standing wave in the river that flows through the park and surfers flock to it! It's super entertaining. After that we continued our ride and at one point, RICK STEVES RODE PAST US AND WAVED!!!!!!!! Ok so I was too busy trying not to kill myself or someone else on my bike to notice, but our cool tour guide dude told us after! Apparently Rick went on the tour last year and loved it, haha! After that we headed back to the hostel for a little bit of much needed rest, and Alexandra switched into our room because her roommates were a little inconsiderate. So we were resting when Rodolfo returned from the BMW museum and as Sarah and Alexandra were napping he showed me pictures from his trip so far and it was nice to see how someone else was enjoying the city. Once everyone was recharged, all four of us went out to dinner together at Weisses Brauhaus. Sarah and I split wienerschnitzel and steak which were both once again absolutely mouthwatering. After that there was no way I couldn't say no to dessert, so I had this spectacular thing that was sliced pancakes with apple slices and raisins covered in cinnamon and icing and with fresh apple sauce on the side. Heaven? Maybe! It was soooooooo gooooooood and there was soooo much of it! Deeeeeeeeelicious! After dinner we wandered around some more before heading back to the hostel and eventually going to sleep.

Day 3 Sarah and I headed out to catch an early train to Fussen to see Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles. After the 2 hour train ride we got there and got our tickets (you can't enter the castles without participating in a tour.). We climbed up to the Hohenschwangau castle and met a nice older man and his daughter who was also studying abroad in England. After chatting with them we went and it was time for our tour. That castle was interesting and pretty but not as impressive as the next one. Once we left Hohenschwangau, we climbed back down the path and got ourselves some bratwurst to charge us up for the 40 minute climb up to Neuschwanstein. It was a tough climb but it was nice! The castle was pretty but unfortunately not nearly as fantastical as in the photos you see but the time of year has a lot to do with that as the trees weren't green yet. However, the inside of the castle is absolutely STUNNING. I would have loved to have spent hours in there but unfortunately you have to go on a tour and the tour isn't very informative and it only lasts about 45 minutes and barely shows you much of the castle, maybe like 6 rooms! I was pretty disappointed :( On the way back down we got some yummy doughnut like things and looked at the touristy stores before heading back to Munich where we met back up with Alexandra for dinner. This time we traveled in the opposite direction of Marienplatz and went to Augustiner Steuben which felt even more authentic than the other two! Actually as soon as we walked in, on the only-for-drinking side a man theatrically drunkenly fell to the floor (he was fine)... Oh, Bavaria! We sat down to order some food and I got the German version of mac and cheese which is wayyy better and has cooler noodles for lack of a batter way to describe them. doughier, I guess. I also got potato pancakes with applesauce. Scrumptious indeed, probably one of my favorite meals although they were seriously all spectacular. After that we were desperate to go to Hofbrau Haus, I was particularly excited because it's my dad's favorite place everrr and I really wanted to experience it and tell him about how I like it. But by the time we got there it was closed! BOOOOOO! So I never made it there, sadly :(

The next morning Sarah, Alexandra and I had breakfast together before Alexandra headed out to catch her train back to London. Sarah and I then headed over to the Alter Peter Church where we climbed an exhausting 306 steps to the top for a lovely view of Munich. After soaking in the sights we got back down and I said goodbye to Sarah as she left for the airport to continue on to Barcelona. Right after I said bye in Marienplatz, this young guy came up to me and started talking really fast in German. Once he realized I didn't speak German he switched to English and asked me to let him ask me a quick interview question for this magazine, Neon. He and his friend were so nice and also they caught me off guard (exhausted and sweaty from the climb, hadn't really brushed my hair, wearing clothes that i've been traveling in for a good two and a half weeks...) so I agreed. They asked me "What is overrated?" and I thought and though and thought and couldn't think of anything. Eventually macaroni and cheese popped in to my head and i thought about it for a second and i was so desperate for an answer that i just blurted it out. And then i though 'ughhhh what a dumb answer'. It totally sounds like the answer you read of someone TRYING BUT FAILING to sound funny. So now I look like the idiotic egotistical American girl. Yeah cause next they took like a mini-photoshoot of me.... ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhugggguhguhgug. Funny but embarrassing but entertaining. Oh and then of course after it all I thought of some good answers to the question but it was obviously too late. I don't know what to think of it all! Now I just need to find someone who can get the magazine when it comes out and send it to me, haha!
Anyway after that fiasco I was on my own for the first time, and I headed over to the hauptbanhof and caught a train to Salzburg, Austria. Once I got there I walked over to Mirabell Garden and enjoyed the flowers and fountains in the sunshine before heading across the street to get on the "Sound of Music" Tour. I don't care if you are reading that and laughing at me, whoever you are, I had a good time and that's all that matters to me! It was really fun and it was an opportunity to see more than just Salzburg as it took us to the lakes and mountains region. The tour guide was absolutely hilarious and entertaining and knew so much about the history of the place and the movie and tons of other little tidbits as well (and he is from Florida!). I sat next to an absolutely fascinating man originally from Lebanon but working in Germany after studying there for something like 6 years. He was such a nice and funny guy and told me lots about German culture and history and random stuff. Later on the tour we stopped in a mini town for an hour and we just got to walk around and explore. I ended up spending the entire time with another fascinating person, a lady who had grown up in Chicago, went to college in NY, and just 2 years ago moved to Budapest with her husband and had a baby there and just absolutely loves the place. It was really interesting to talk to her about living abroad and the culture in Hungary and all kinds of things. Really lovely.
Once the tour ended we were back in Salzburg where I wandered the city for quite some time before going to the Modern Art Museum which had some nice exhibits. After that I wandered around and got really lost and confused but eventually found my back to the train station. And that is when things started going down hill. I got on the wrong type of train back to Munich and ended up having to buy a different ticket on board for 33 euros cause mine was for a different type of train. Whoops. Then I got back to the hostel pretty late and did some stuff before going to bed. However, everyone who had been in my room the previous nights had left, all of them, and they were all so wonderful! So when i went to bed that night I think there was one new person in one of the beds across from mine, and then the other ones were empty but had sheets on them so i knew there would be new people in those beds, too. Wellllllll there certainly were. I tried to sleep as i was dead tired, and i was half asleep around 2am when i heard someone come in, TURN ON ALL THE LIGHTS, and laugh (probably cause they saw me sleeping... jerk!) Then he left. Then maybe at 2:30 he brought his friends back and once again turned on all the lights even though there were CLEARLY people sleeping. And they laughed and spoke in German and laughedddddd and were loud and rude and obnoxious. But I just pulled the covers over my head and pretended to be asleep. Then they left. Then at 3:00-3:30 ish they came back, turning all the lights on again and being drunk and loud and rowdy and rude and obnoxious but i just stayed huddled under my covers. Well then I heard one pull up one of the chairs by my bed and sit down and talk obnoxiously loud. And then like 5 minutes later he just RIPS THE COVERS OFF FROM OVER MY HEAD!!!!!!!!!! I WAS FURIOUS TO SAY THE LEAST!!!!!!! And he just starts laughing with all his friends, THAT ASSHOLE! So I look at him and say "I'm trying to sleep" and he laughs and says "oh." and I say "you're being incredibly rude, am I going to have to switch rooms?" and he said "you can switch rooms if you want" And i say "Ok then i will. I'll be back" and he goes "i no speak good english" WHEN HE OBVIOUSLY DOES! Anyway so little old me heads downstairs in my pajamas at 3:30 am to the "24-hour reception desk", only to find that there is absolutely no one there. And I waited downstairs all alone for a FULL HOUR until at 4:30 am this guy waltzes in and seats himself back behind the desk where he belongs. Luckily he was really nice and helpful and immediately switched me to an all girls dorm room and came back up to my room with me to help me get my stuff cause I sure as hell didn't feel comfortable being back in a room alone with them. And he talked to them in German and then told me later they apologized..... suuuuuuuuuuure. So anyway that is when I decided that Germany really really hates me.

The next morning I woke up in my nice all girls dorm and met a lovely person named Becca from England and talked to her for a while, then had breakfast with her and a guy form Australia, and they both were very compassionate when i told them about my nightmare night before. Then I headed over to the Viktualien Market or whatever it's called and wandered around the stalls for a while and found there was an oompa band playing and old men cracking whips to the music and it was pretty entertaining. Then I went to some church that starts with an F that's name I can't remember. It was pretty allright inside. After that I headed over to the toy museum and enjoyed their adorable collection. Then I went back to the hostel because I had to check out and then check back in to yet another all girls dorm because the one i was in the night before was booked out for the next night. As I was making my bed I met my new roommates, two super nice girls form Barcelona and another girl, Wendy, from Australia. Wendy and I decided to head over to the Munichen Stadtmuseum together. It was quite a strange museum. The first few floors were dedicated to the history of Munich but it was all in German so we basically just talked about traveling and stuff which was nice! Then we go to the good part of the museum, the floor dedicated to puppets and freak shows and circuses and amusement parks and curiosities of things like that. It was soooooo creepy and cool, especially cause it was kinda dark and empty and creepy in the first place and then certain things would just start moving on their own when you walked by them! there was one that made us both scream! After that we walked around and ate at the Augustiner Brauhaus again where I had wiener sausages and potato salad followed by an apple strudel that was pretty good but not as good as the bit i tried of sarah's at the augustiner steuben. Then we headed back to the hostel where I packed my things and got ready to leave the next day.

The final day I had breakfast with the two girls from Barcelona and then headed out to run some errands and mainly find tea and kinder products. Which I successfully did! I even found NEW (to me) Kinder things in the refrigerator aisle. Let me tell you, I was ecstatic. And so I bought 2 individual fridge things, a 5 pack of fridge things, and a pack each of two limited edition things. Anddddd i ate the 2 individual and 5 pack things right away cause they were going to melt otherwise! hahahah but it was so worth it! Then i packed up some more and headed off to the airport where I finished my book (the brief wondrous life of oscar wao... go read it it was incredible). Then I finally made it to Brighton where I am now and will need about 2 weeks of recovery time, sadly I dont really get any. Oh well!

So Munich just didn't really do anything for me, but I feel like it could if I give it another chance. We'll see.... someday.
More pictures here and here.

Malta Time!

2009-04-12T09:52:00.025+01:00

Jenny and I ventured off to a tiny 19x9 mile island country between Italy and Tunisia for a few days, and it was bright and sunny and warm and lovely!

When we arrived at the airport Monday night Frankie's son Matthew was super nice and picked us up to drive us to our hotel. It was really nice to catch up with him! And then he stopped by a Maltese pastry shop on the way and picked up a ton of delicious typical Maltese things like these cheese-cakes that are pastries filled with ricotta cheese, ones filed with peas, pizzas, and all kinds of yummy stuff. Then before dropping us off at the hotel, he drove us over to his sister Jessica's house where Frankie was staying. It was so nice to finally meet Jessica and Alec, her baby who is the cutest kid on EARTH. So we mad a fun time visiting with everyone before Frankie drove us to our hotel and once we settled in we walked around the area, went into a very bizarre club/bar place, and then left and wandered around some fancy hotels on the seafront.

The next morning we headed over to Valletta, the capital of Malta. Taking the bus was really fun because the busses are super old fashioned and are bright yellow and orange and covered with religious imagery inside like huge pictures of Jesus and all these religious saying and then there will be like weird airbrushed mall like typography... it's pretty sweet! Anyway once we got to Valletta we had no idea what we were doing so we just wandered around in the astonishingly hot sun (I'm talking middle of summer in Chicago it's so hot let's go swimming heat). Stray cats everywhere, beautiful old colorful houses everywhere you look, and no matter where you walked you would look down a side street and see the ocean. Incredible! We went in St. Paul Shipwreck church and saw some craaaaaazy relics, and then we also went in St. John's Cathedeal and it was gorgeous inside. There was also a museum with cool illuminated manuscripts and an enormous Caravaggio painting. After that we explored more and more, ate some yummy food, and then as we were looking at the sea some old man started talking to us and struck up a conversation about how he lived in Buckingham Palace for 7 years and stuff.... anyway, he told us we should go see "The Malta Experience" so we did, it was a little movie about the history of Malta and it was actually really cool to see just beacuse the history of the island is sooooo old and intense and crazy! I had no idea!

The next day Me, Jenny, Frankie, Jessica, and Alec went on a day-long ship ride around Malta, that stopped on Comino (Malta is made of 3 islands: Malta, Gozo, and Comino). It was nice and relaxing in the morning, nice to see all around the island and hear about certain villages from Frankie and Jessica. Once we got to Comino..... I was in heaven. I've always wanted to go somewhere with perfect clear water, AND I GOT IT! It was just unbelievably gorgeous.... I think it's the 2nd most beautiful sight I've seen behind the starry sky in Ireland which is pretty much unbeatable. Jenny and I went on a little mini tour thing on this funny boat where they took us in these little caves around the island which was nice. Once that quick thing was over we went straight to the sandy beach part where everyone was splashing and swimming and enjoying the sun and the water. It was just perfecttttttttttttttttttttt I could have spent ages and ages just sitting there, I wish I had my swimsuit but alas I only got to wade in with my pants rolled up hahaha. Bt it was still so worth it. After Comino we headed back to the boat, finished the tour and got back into Sliema harbor where Jenny and I walked back to our hotel and had some gelato on the way. It's a really nice walk along the sea! About 2 hours later Jessica picked us up and brought us back to her house where Matthew had cooked us all an absolutely incredible traditional Maltese fish dinner! Jessica's husband Manuel was there and it was nice to meet him too! We had pasta with clams and shrimp, and then a fish dish with tomatoes and potatoes, and usually I am not a big fish eater but it was just SO TASTY! Thank you Matthew! We spent the rest of the night visiting and talking about cameras and watching the scores come in for the Chelsea-Liverpool match (....let's not get into that...... Liverpool had better come back with a vengance on Wednesday!) and playing with Alec and relaxing. It was such a wonderful day, I am so lucky to have such amazing family friends!

The next day Jenny and I went to Gozo. It was quite a journey getting there but it was really fun! When we finally got there we had to take more transportation and eventually we got to this little craft-village with tiny little stores of lace makers and pottery and stuff. It was fun! After that we just walked all the way back from that town to the main city, Victoria. It was a long walk but the scenery was just so gorgeous that it was no trouble at all! We had lunch in this cool place that overlooked a man square. After a long day we headed back to the hotel to rest and then later that night said goodbye to Frankie.

On our last day we went to the ancient town in the middle of the island called Mdina. It was soooo cool! The whole city is designed that so every street/corridor/road is only as long as an arrow's flight! It was absolutely gorgeous and completely unique from anywhere else I've ever been. And since it was Good Friday all the churches had crazy exhibits going on because Malta is ridiculously religious. They were really cool to see! We walked around the city looking at stray cats and old doors and people watching for a nice long tim before taking the really long bus followed by bus ride back to Paceville where we walked around and had smoothies and sat at the beach before going to the airport and saying goodbye to the amazing island of Malta! More pictures here.

I'm off to Munich in a quarter of an hour.... all on my own! Terrified? Yes. Excited? Yes! Wish me luck!

The Rain In Spain...

2009-04-11T13:05:00.026+01:00

(this is going to be another long one.... sorry!)

Bright and early (3:30 am) Tuesday morning Alex and I said our sad goodbyes to Mary Ellen and then an hour later also headed off to the train station to get to the airport. Eventually we made it to Barcelona and then to our absolutely wonderful hostel called Mambo Tango. We were warmly welcomed by the owners, Toti and Marina, and shown our beds after meeting a few of the other people staying at the hostel who would all become quick friends in just a few days.

After we unpacked and settled in a little, we were off on a 10 minute walk from our hostel to La Ramblas and the Mercat Boqueria, the famous food market! I was super thrilled to actually get to see the market after hearing so much abuot it and seeing it on tv and stuff, it was so cooooool! I got a delicious strawberry-coconut smoothie thing right away and drank it as we walked around the tons of sellers showing off the fish and skinned lambs heads and fresh fruits and all kinds of crazy foods. After that we walked around the Ramblas in the freezing cold pouring rain which was honestly a little defeating and put a damper on things for a while. But we overcame! We wandered and took in the sights on the unusually empty street before heading back to the hostel to rest a little bit.

Once at the hostel we rested a tiny bit and then headed downstairs into the common room-ish area where we met tons of wonderful people. We also met some girl from Park Ridge and other things that make you realize how weirdly connected things are. Alex and I were talking to one new friend Steve, when we met some other new friends, Maggie and Sarah, also Americans, and Andy from England as well. As the basement got more crowded we met more and more new people, it was great. Steve then suggested we all go out to eat at this place he discovered in his guide book called "Foodball". Haha!! Sounded mildly suspicious to me but who was I to say no, it sounded like a ton of fun! So Me, Alex, Steve, Maggie, Sara, Andy, and other new friend Robin decided to venture back into the pouring rain to find Foodball. After getting to La Ramblas and searcing for a while without luck, we discovered Foodball had been shut down (not enough business...) and so we all headed in to this authentic Catalan place instead. It was a really bizarre and new and fun experience for all of us, I think. All of our food was raw, and it wasn't really what anyone expected but it was pretty good.... Alex literally just got a plate covered in Spanish salami but it was DELICIOUS. After that fun we got some Gelato at some place and went back to the hostel to hang out and watch a movie. Great first night in Barcelona!

Day 2 in Barcelona was also rainy but nice. Alex and I headed over to Parc Guell, the gorgeous nature-y park designed by Gaudi. It was really nice to just wander around it and explore for a few hours. And the sun actually came out at the end! Oh, and there is a kid's elementary school or kindergarten or something literally INSIDE THE PARK! How lucky are they? It was really cute to see the kids playing soccer and having fun in the middle of such an inspiring environment. After the park and getting a very quick lunch, Alex and I took our time and eventually got to the MACBA, the Museum of Contemporary art in Barcelona. Before we got there though we found the world's most amazing bookstore. Well maybe not the world's most amazing but it was really great and we maybe spent something like 2 hours in there haha it was just massive and had an amazing collection of books. Anyway, after that was the museum; the building itself is really impressive and pretty and modern looking, and it's crazy because outside it there is a huge pavement space...courtyard....something, and there are literally about 45 skateboarders there ALL THE TIME! Poor old ladies probably never get to go to the museum becuause they'll probably get run down and killed just trying to get to the door of the place. But heyyy it was cool. The exhbits were nice albeit a little repetitive for my tastes. But it was really cool, Alex and I walked in an installation that you neded to sign a release form to go in because it was a really narrow maze made out of things like wire fences and fish tanks and sheets of clear glass suspended from the ceiling and get this, the floor was made of somethig like 2 tons of crushed broken glass. I was so excited to go in but then once I set foot I was like "oh my goddddd i need to get out of here I'm going to die", soooo I went through that one pretty fast. I think that night was spent watching F.C. Barcelona (whose logo you literally see about 300 times a day in Barcelona, no joke!) and hanging out in the common room meeting more fun people (and fellow Chicagoans!) before calling it a night.

Day 3 was really fun, though still rainy. After breakfast Alex and I joined Maggie and Sarah on a trip to the Barcelona Cathedral which was spectacular! Really ornate inside and filled with gorgeous opulent golden dioramas and altars and stuff. Super cool. Even better was the cloyster outside. It was really lush and green and unexpected. There were white ducks and fish and turtles swimming around, plam trees and orange trees everywhere, old fancy fountains, and more gold leaf and hand painted stuff. When the church closed for siesta the four of us headed right outside to the Gothic marekt filled with tons of antique treasures. I got a pretty little pendant thing for 2 euros and spent way too much time gushing over the old comic books, FC Barca memorabilia, old Spanish crests and pins, and just about everything else you could imagine. After that we headed back to the hostel where we were going to meet two new friends Sean and Jim for lunch, but they were late and didn't show up so me, Alex, Andy, Sarah, and Maggie went out instead and went to a place Sarah saw earlier that had 6 euro paella. DELICIOUS. It was really nice and fun. After that we all walked over to that great big book store and poured over books for a while longer. After that we all walked around more together and then visited El Ingenio, the most wonderul store EVER, filled with circus things and paper mache masks and confetti and just everything that makes you happy. Such a fun place. Then we continued wandering in the rain and walked around Placa Reial and then down La Ramblas to the pier and stuff. Thennn we split and Alex and Sarah and I decided to go stock up on some chocolate and Kinder stuff from the supermarket before heading back to the hostel to meet back up with Maggie and Andy where we spent the rest of the night hanging out and watching Superbad and talking and having a good time before they all continued their journeys and left Barcelona the next morning.

Day 4 WAS SUNNY! Alex and I headed over to the Bullfighting museum bright and early where we admired the super detailed and amazing bullfighting outfit things and looked at the taxidermied earless bull heads on the wall and learned all about the history of Barcelona bullfighting. Fascinating stuff! From there we walked to the Sagrada Familia and of course we stopped in a local bakery on the way and ate some yummy doughnut like thingies. The Sagrada Familia was hugeeeeeee, way bigger than I ever expected, but it was under construction and had about a ten billion hour long line to pay a ton of money to see construction soooo we skipped it and just walked around it from the outside. After that we went back to the Ramblas area and walked down to the pier and walked all along the pier and stuff for a long time. Then we explored a little and found a really nice shopping area and did that for a while before finding el Corte Ingles which had a supermarket inside Filled with those cookies Alex and I are obsessed with with the chocolate and milk and stuff, YUM. After that we headed back to the hostel where we got ready to go on the "nice night walk" that the hostel owner, Toti does for people who want to go on it. The hostel is right by the park Montjuic, a hugeeeee mountain with tons of stuff to do on it. Alex and I along with friends Caroline, Brian, Jim, Tyler, Matt, Anya, and a few other people went to join Toti on the night walk and it was one of the highlights of the trip! We trekked up the mountain guided by Toti who knew the best ways to go and the best sights to see. At one point he told us all to stand side by side in a line, hold hands, walk sideways, and told us that we could only look straight ahead and that if we looked behind us he'd do us in. So we all walked sideways holding hands very confused until he told us all to stop and said "on the count of three, turn around and say "wow!" hahahha. So we all counded to three and did as he said and behind us was just the most incredible and breathtaking view of Barcelona just as the sun was setting! PERFECT. The we kept walking and finding more amazing views and listening to Toti tell us all about Barcelona and answer our questions and he even told us interesting facts like that his grandmother had all her hair cut off because she was heard spaking Catalan on the street. As we climbed further up the mountain we found a cool old castle and all kinds of other fun things. We made it back to the hostel tired and exhausted a few hours later and then Me, Caroline, Matt, Tyler, and Brian went out for the typical 11pm Spanish dinner which was fun!

Day 5 Alex and I went to Passeig de Gracia and Avenue Diagonal to look at all the Gaudi houses and things. We first saw Casa Battlo which was really fantastical and kinda creepy in a cool way. Then we went to Casa Mila/La Pedrera. We got to go in and walk up it and see one of the apartments that was kept as if it was how it would have been back in the early 1900s, which was cool. There was also a mini gaudi museum in it. But the best part was the roof!!!!!! The roof is incredibleeeeeeee!!! We spent way too much time just walking around the maze of the place but it is just TOO COOL!!! It's so fun and crazy and fantastical and gaudy of course! It was great and had really nice views too. Then we went back to El Corte Ingles to buy more cookies heh hehheh. Theeeen we went to the Spanish Arc de Triomf and walked along that nice street until we got to the absolutely gorgeous Park de la Ciutadella. That park is so picture perfect, a huge beautiful fountain, lakes with boats, a giant wolly mammoth statue, tons of green grass and palm trees, people relaxing everywhere, it was great! We spent quite some time there before heading back to the hostel to watch the Barcelona v. Valladolid game and then Real Madrid game with some other new hostel friends. Then Alex and I went out to find food with Caroline at the wee hours of the morning which showed us an entirely new side of Barcelona haha.

Day 6 was our last day. After breakfast we walked along las Ramblas, went to the huge fountain and musum place on Monujuic, went back to La Ramblas and explored and did some more shopping, ate one last heavenly Churros con Chocolate, stumbled upon a Palm Sunday procession on La Ramblas, and just had a nice day before heading back to the hostel to get our luggage. We were leaving at the same time as a few friends so we ended up taking the metro to the train to the airport with them which was a nice little goodbye to Barcelona. Only thing I really regret not having the time to do was visiting Camp Nou where FC Barca plays... you can go on a tour where you get to go in to the dressing rooms and walk through the tunnel into the stadium on the field... ughhh i wish i could have done it. I guess that just means I'll have to do Anfield instead :D hehehe.

Anyway, Barcelona was a great fun trip and I already miss the place and the people a lot. Overall at the hostel we got to know something like 35 different people from 14 different countries. Pretty awesome opportunity, I'd say! Aww and it was nice, one of our friends told Alex and I before he left that we were some of the nicest people he'd met on his whole trip around Europe so far. AWWWW Heartwarming, isn't it? Damnnnnnn I loved staying at that hostel, Barcelona wonldn't have been half as fun without it. HASTA LUEGO, BARCA!

Lots lots lots more pictures here.

The Most Adverb Adjective Few Days Ever!

2009-04-06T09:40:00.008+01:00

Last week Mary Ellen and Alex came to England for a visit! It was so much fun and a wonderful reunion although we missed all our other friends from home :(

Friday Meo and I wandered around London doing some hard core shopping and sight seeing. We also saw the Ukrainian national football team walking along Oxford street, COOL!

Saturday Alex arrived and the three of us spent time wandering around London and eating delicious cakes and foods before heading over to Wembley Stadium to see the friendly match between England and Slovakia. IT WAS A BLAST! The atmosphere was incredible! The singing and chanting pretty much never stopped. Anddd there were something like 85,200 people there. Alex and I had spectacular seats, I wish Mary Ellen were near us though! Oh and England 4 - Slovakia 0. Scores by Heskey, Rooney (x2), and Lampard. NICE! After the game we headed back to Frankie's for some cakes and insanely delicious food, Thanks Frankie and Ihab!

The next day we spent also in London doing more shopping and eating and exploring. And after that we headed back to Brighton for a day of fun! We did more shopping, had cakes with Ally and Alex at Choccy Woccy, ate traditional pub food, and relaxed along the beach. Brighton pier was really fun and the day was gorgeous so we had a great time sitting on the rocky beach and inventing "games" of therowing rocks into the water and then throwing rocks into other rocks to make them bounce in to the water. Being in Europe is making me realize how fun throwing rocks is, seriously.

After an exhaustingly fun day we all ate more delicious foods and walked along Brighton and up the hills to look at the pretty houses before packing. Meo went back to Belgium and Alex and I jetted off to Barcelona. More on that soon!

THANKS ALEX AND MARY ELLEN FOR VISITING ME I HAD THE BEST TIME EVER!

EXCITEMENT!

2009-03-26T15:46:00.007Z

In the next two days, I will be seeing:

These birds:

and these blokes:

Could life get any better?
Probably not.

Good Craic!

2009-03-24T16:15:00.043Z

This is going to be long.... you are warned!

Friday night Jenny and I went to Ireland to visit our MCAD friends studying abroad in Ballyvaughan, Ireland. A small town of just over 200 people on the west coast of Ireland. I HAD SUCH A GREAT TIME! It was a really needed change of pace to be in such a small town just filled with open fields, fresh air, roaming animals, and familiar friendly faces!

We got in to Shannon airport pretty late, about 11:30 at night and Zach and Sean (an incredibly nice grad student at the Burren College of Art) came to pick us up and drive us about an hour to Ballyvaughan. When we got there we went to Orchard house, the house where 11 of the 20-something undergrad students stay. Suchhhh a nice big house! We sat around and caught up with everyone and then Jenny Ben and I went outside in the DARKEST DARK night I have ever experienced! Not only is it pitch black so that you can't see a foot infront of your face, it is completely silent at night except for the occasional cow's moo. It's pretty incredible.

Saturday was a busy fun day, not to mention Jenny's BIRTHDAY! YAY! In the morning Jenny, Ben, and I walked into town and explored a little. We went to the pier and looked at some old boats, petted some horses, and then headed back into town to eat a delicious breakfast at the Tea Junction. After breakfast we headed in the opposite direction to go visit a "Fairy Fort". As we walked, we saw a field of sheep and noticed some adorable baby sheep, so we decided to jump the fence and travel into the field to visit the sheep. Not only did we see some super cute baby sheep, we saw one literally 10 minutes old take his first steps! Eventually we made it to the fairy fort which was pretty magical! It is so green and pretty and just such an unusual hunk of land that it's really mystifying in a great way.

After the fairy fort we were planning on going to an abandoned church but as we were walking there we went through this field of clovers and decided we needed to take a quick break from our walk to search for four-leaf clovers. And what started as a "quick break" turned into about an hour and a half of serious clover searching! We became addicted and were peering over the ground like crazies. TOTALLY WORTH IT THOUGH, cause I found two four leaf clovers, one five leaf, and one six leaf clover! Pretty lucky, eh? Well Jenny found about 8 four leafs and Ben found 20! Definitely a lucky field!

We ended up skipping the church for that day because we didn't have much time. We went back to town, bought some meat, and headed over to Sean and some of the other lovely MFA students' house for a barbecue! By then the sun was out and the weather was beautiful and it was really nice to relax and hang out with everyone from MCAD and Burren! Right next door was an abandoned house with everything left in it so after the bbq we decided to explore that place a little which was pretty interesting.

After that a few of us headed back into town to buy some things form the local grocery store and as we left we met a friendly dog who we eventually named Walter Gropius, founder of the Bow-wow Haus. He was the friendliest dog ever and followed us all the way to the other house called Marie's House where Zach and the other half of the students live. We visited with everyone there and played with Walter for a nice long time which was lovely. Then everyone headed over to O'Loclainn's pub where we celebrated Jenny's 21st and played a lot of Boggle. Fun! After the festivities, Ben, Jenny and I walked back to Orchid house in the super dark which was20% terrifying, 80% awesome. The stars were incredible and so when we got to the house we all sat out in the backyard eating cookies and looking at the stars. I saw 3 shooting stars :D The starry sky was absolutely without a doubt one of the most incredibly beautiful things I have ever seen in my life and probably will ever see.

The next day Zach, Ben, Jenny, and I decided to climb the mountain that is pretty much in their extended back yard, haha. As we walked there we met another friendly dog we named One Love after Bob Marley because she had accidental dreads. One Love followed us the entire way to, up, down, and back from the mountain, it was pretty impressive. Climbing the mountain was quite a feat but it was so much fun and I had such a blast doing it! It was really nice to be adventurous and have fun jumping on rocks and stuff. As we climbed we found goat and ram skulls, as well as some animal's pelvic bones. The we got to the top, sat and admired the view, and then threw rocks around which is surprisingly entertaining. The trek down the mountain was just as fun and as we got to the bottom we found 3 donkeys that we tried to befriend, sadly we failed. After that a few of us went to town to eat some delicious milkshakes and crepes, then we went back to Orchid house and watched some movies and took it easy. Then we made a DELICIOUS pizza together and hung out a while more before calling it a night.

Monday morning everyone went to school and Jenny and I met them there a while later. Their school literally has a castle on the campus, about 50 feet from the building. It was open so me Jenny and Ben went in and climbed up all the winding steps and had fun finding all the "murder holes" which are secret little holes in the castle used to fire arrows at intruders on the floors below. We next headed over to the abandoned church which was really beautiful and eerie. It still had the holy water container thing and was kind of crumbling and had vines all over it. After looking around there for a while we went to the fairy fort out back behind it and had fun jumping on tree branches and petting soft moss-covered trees.

We walked back to the school where we had a nice lunch in their cafe place and then we laminated our four leaf clover findings. Oh and it was pretty funny because all the MCAD students and the teacher that came with them, Aaron, decided to take a class picture together and me and Jenny were included in it! First we took a normal one, then one of everyone holding up Aaron, and then everyone in a giant 10-person pyramid with me right on top, ahaha! It collapsed before I could properly get on top but I was pretty darn close, it was hilarious! Later we went back to the house and hung out and packed before heading to the airport and eventually making it back to Brighton around 10 pm.

All in all, a fantastic weekend, I can't wait to go back to Ireland some day and explore more!
A BIG thank you to Ben, Zach, Allegra, Emily, Matt, Kelsey, Kay, Katherine, Aaron Van Dyke, Sean, and every other wonderful person we met in Ireland!

Lots more pictures can be found HERE.

Oh Stevie G, If I could Return the Favor I Would...

2009-03-14T14:56:00.012Z

Liverpool 4 - 1 Man United
DREAMS REALLY DO COME TRUE, KIDS!
CLOSING THE GAP.... ONE STEP CLOSER TO THE TITLE!
I had a spectacular time at the pub where I sat with two nice middle aged men who bought me a pint of pop and talked Liverpool FC, Chicago, and Brighton with me. England is so friendly... Liverpool is so great!!!!!

2009-03-12T09:34:00.017Z

Yesterday was a class trip to London to see the Changing Face Of Letterpress show at the London College of Communications that our letterpress technician, Rose had work in. But since we weren't supposed to meet until 3pm, Jenny and I decided to go get a full day's worth of entertainment in London!

We took a train up to London and went straight to the Natural History Museum. It was great!!!! So many animals! There were some weird ones that I couldn't possibly believe were real unless they were in a museum.... some looked like pokemon, some had the spindliest legs ever and I don't know how they could walk on them... it was great! We also saw tons of dinosaur bones and fossils, as well as a giant huge baby fetus in a dark room that was incredibly frightening...

After the museum, we went to go to LCC to find the gallery show. We eventually got there and saw a few of our classmates and our two teachers there, as well as Rose who's work was amazingggg!!! The show was really nice to see, lots of beautiful work, and it makes me want to get back in the lettepress studio back at Brighton and make stuff! We got a little tour of the gallery show and then looked around before getting a tour of their actual letterpress studio at LCC, which is HUGE! It was niceeeee and big and pretty. Then, since it was an open day (kind of like "experience mcad" days), Jenny and I figured we'd take the opportunity to go exploring around the school. It was really confusing but we had a good time seeing what it would have been like if we applied there instead of Brighton.

By then it was about 5 and we decided that since we spent money on our train tickets up to London we were going to make our trip worth the money and not just go back home. Sooo we decided to see a play/musical! Off we went on the good old tube till we found ourselves in London's west end and theater district. We ended up seeing Sunset Boulevard (the musical) at The Comedy Theater. But after we bought our tickets we had about 2 hours of free time to kill, so what else would we posibly do other than find doughnuts and smoothies for ourselves!?! As we wandered in search of a good smoothie, we passed Fortnum and Mason, an incredible store which I had visited with Sam a few days before. And I just knew that it was something Jenny needed to see and something I needed to see again. So we went in and basically were in heaven the entire time. I treated myself to a giant blood-orange macaroon which I ate on the train ride home. Yummmm. Then we found this nice little place called Cilantro Cafe that had smoothies so we went in and got ourselves smoothies AND A GIANT CHOCOLATE MACAROON which basically made my life complete. Beyond delicious. Then we found a doughnut place and headed back to the theater.

sunset Boulevard was great! I only knew a little bit about the plot because it's my dad's favorite movie but I'd never seen it before so I was so excited to see it and then tell my dadddd yayyyy! The storyline was reallllllly great and the main character is FIERCE AND INSANE AND MENTAL IN SUCH A COMPELLINGLY GREAT WAY! I really enjoyed it. The theater was really nice and tiny and old and beautiful too.

Then at the end of our journey we caught the train and made it back to Brighton by midnight. Another splendid day in London!

My Sister Is Funny

2009-03-10T23:37:00.004Z

Apparently neither of us know how to spell.

Train Time Giggle Fest!

2009-03-02T23:54:00.025Z

These last few days involved Jenny and I welcoming our good old mcad buddies Ben and Zach to England as they decided to stop on by for a visit since they are studying in Ireland at the moment.

Tons of fun ensued, including:
- Going out for Millie's lovely birthday and having a good time before with Rob and Joe at some new bar place.
- The 6 of us going to Digital to meet Millie & friends and having the fun flashing-lights-fog-machine-stay-out-till-3-club experience.
- Day tripping up to London
- SHOPPING. Hello, topman! Hello, Primark. Hello, cheap deals and bargains!
- The best chocolate covered Belgian waffles in the WORLD.
- Big Ben, House of Parliament, London Eye, fancy bridge thing at night
- Sherlock Holmes pub time
- 12:30 am train back to Brighton complete with pokemon and sims talk/giggle fest/laugh-so-hard-I-cried time
- Doughnut factory
- Trip to Brighton Pier
- British tv/Jumangi/ping pong time in the common room
- Delicious Sunday Roast with Rob's welcoming and lovely family
- Sunshine
- Thai food
- Snooper's Paradise
- More time at the Great Eastern with friends talking and having fun

SUCH A GOOD LAST FEW DAYS. Can't wait to go visit Ben & Zach & the rest of the Ireland crew in a few weeks!

LFC 1 - 0 RMCF

2009-02-26T00:11:00.007Z

HIGH SCHOOL MASKICAL

2009-02-24T20:35:00.018Z

Since people seem to be interested in it, I figured I'd post some images from my Community Arts class today. These are from some exercises we have done over the last few weeks.

Also, since our eventual final product will be mask images, we brainstormed on titles for our project and here are some of the more memorable suggestions the kids and us came up with. Too good!

"Masks R Us"
"Masks For Us"
"Masks By Us"
"Masks About Us"
"It's Mask Time!"
"Project Liam" (suggested by Liam)
"Project Me"
"P.P." (Personal Project)
"Mask Attack!"
"Close To The Bone"
"Me, Myself, and Mask"

And my two personal favorites...
"Mask Of Zorro"
"High School Maskical"

PS: Liverpool V. Real tomorrow... DREAM COME TRUE!

Sea Life Center

2009-02-21T21:28:00.008Z

Today I went to the Sea Life Center with a lovely new friend. We saw all kinds of crazy things! And we got to feed sting rays smelly dead fish, pet anemones, go in an under water shark tunnel, get lost in an amazon-themed house of mirrors, and watch this guy feed sharks while telling us all about sea life stuff. F-U-N!

Wild Beasts Win My Heart Forever

2009-02-20T22:33:00.018Z

Went to Audio to see Wild Beasts play. Without a doubt one of the best shows I've seen in AGES, Wild Beasts being one of the best live bands I've seen, and I've seen lots! What a night it was, SO FULL OF WEIRDNESS! Amazingly weird. And the music was just spectacular! I loved it!

First was Le Band Extaordinaire, a band with lots of instruments going on. They were really different... multiple percussion going on, multiple horns/flutes/whatever, guitars, all kinds of fun! They were really entertaining, and good musicians.

Next was Napoleon IIIrd, and let me say: this guy was INSANE. IN SUCH AN AMAZING WAY! He sets up on stage and it's just him and two tape machines, a few synthesizers and pedals and a horn and a bunch of random stuff and his guitar. And he just made the craziest music but it was great! It was soooooooooooooo cool to watch, I wish everyone I know who likes weird music could have seen it! It was like watching him create the music as he went, recording his voice and doubling it over, adding layer upon layer, SO COOL. But yeah I think he may actually be insane. He was one of those people who when they perform their eyes go back in their head...kinda creepy.

Wild Beasts WAS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! And sooooooo perfectly weird! Man oh man they just sealed the deal tonight. They played a ton of new stuff which was really really great, their new album will definitely be incredible! Yeah I just can't even describe how great I thought they were. They were on top of their game, they sounded amazing -- just like on the album but better (and I'm not just saying that, I really mean it)! Ugh, so much fun! The drumming was perfect too. Everything was. I can't wait till they do another tour and I can see them again!

Passion Pit + The Community

2009-02-17T22:33:00.009Z

Tonight I saw a concert at Audio, it was fuuuuuuunnnnn! The first band Bear Hands actually turned out to be my favorite. I mean who isn't a sucker for multiple drummers on stage, maracas, and abnormally good looking bass players? I KNOW I AM!

Passion Pit was good but not as good as I was hoping... but honestly I think a big part of my experience was that the world's most annoying group of people EVER were infront of me so it made the music harder to enjoy :( The band was still great though!

The next band, Hockey, was pretty allright! Their music was fun but honestly I was too distracted by the lead singer looking like a dirty hipster version of Carrot Top to pay too much attention.

In other news, I had my extension study Community Arts Training again this morning and I am continuing to love that class so much! Since the kids didn't have school today due to a midterm break, we met as a class back in Brighton to discuss and figure things out. I feel like everyone was in a really good mood today and we all just had a good time! We worked together to create new project ideas and activities for the kids to do next week. And we have to lead them! It's going to be a lot of fun, I can't wait!

Spain - England Friendly

2009-02-12T20:05:00.006Z

I went to watch the Spain v. England friendly last night at the pub I always go to to watch games. It was especially great since it's next to a college for people learning english so there were tons of Spainiards and other foreign people there for a really good competitive atmosphere.

Nothing like my love of the Spanish NT to make my like of the England NT fade away. Villa's goal was great, Llorente's made me swoon, and Marchena's save pretty much made my heart explode.

Tourist Time!

2009-02-08T21:34:00.014Z

This has been a great weekend full of fun! Friday involved going to the cutest, oldest, Leaky-Cauldron-but-tinier-est pub with Jenny and Ramzy and then over to Millie's where we had a great time and lots of delicious food with wonderful people!

Saturday was also super fun and we went to go see Ally's friends band, Smokey Bastard play in the pub literally 20 steps away from our dorm. They were great and reminded me of the music my friends from home like a lot, folk-punk-Irish stuff.

Today Jenny and I went on a day trip to Salisbury Cathedral, Stonehenge, and Bath! It was a good long day of exploring!

Salisbury Cathedral was reaaaaaaally big and gorgeous. Our funny man tour guide Gerry told us really interesting info about it. It's the tallest spire in England at 440 feet, and also they had to move the cathedral and usually it takes 500 years (!!!!!) to build one but since they were moving it it only took 38 years (still !!!!!).

Stonehenge was COOL DUDE! Actually I'm not going to lie, I was reallllllly scared kinda because on the way there Gerry told us all that the area of Salisbury where Stonehenge is is INCREDIBLY FULL OF PARANORMAL STUFF! And if you know me at all you know my number one fears are Aliens, ghosts, and angels. SCARY STUFF! He said it's the area with the most U.F.O. sightings in all of the UK, and that there are crop circles there all the time! So what can I say, I was freaked out! But it was absolutely fascinating and I am really glad I got to see it for my self!

Bath. Is. GORGEOUS. The Roman bath houses are incredibly beautiful and old and the colors just look so pretty and nice together. It was really cool because the water is so hot that it steams! You aren't supposed to touch the water buttttttttt Jenny and I couldn't help ourselves and we stuck our fingers in and it was so nice and warm, especially on our cold rainy day! We took the funniest picture ever, and walked around and explored the awesomeness of Bath and the bath houses.

Shaping up to be another good week, but now I have a hugeeeeeee project to work on but I AM PUMPED! It's gonna be great!

Portsmouth Day Trip

2009-02-04T22:11:00.007Z

Jenny and I went to Portsmouth today. However, what no one told us about Portsmouth is that there is nothing to do there!
Oh well, I still had a good time!

SNOW DAY

2009-02-02T19:02:00.004Z

Today was a snow day, all of Brighton's campuses were closed. Honestly not a lot of snow from my perspective but it was a huge deal to everyone here. It was nice to see people who were thrilled about all the snow! These are just a few of the snowmen I found along the pier.

You'll Never Walk Alone

2009-02-01T19:11:00.022Z

Another fun weeknd in Brighton!

Friday was a busy day, critique in the morning, then Jenny and I went out to lunch with Ally to celebrate her handing in her dissertation. Funny cause it ended up being the same restaurant we ate at in Lewes, but I never knew it was the same, I would walk past it and always say how I wanted to go in! Deliciousss. Then Jenny and I had to go finish up out letterpress so we got that out of the way. After that I met back up with Ally and 3 of her wonderful friends and we sat around in the pub and talked for a while which was nice. After that I got a delicious gooey warm chocolate cookie and then killed some time before going out for the night.

Later that night Jenny and I met up with 5 of our wonderful fun friends and classmates at a new pub, the Fishbowl. It was fun fun fun and then around 11 we went to this club called Audio on the sea front where there was this drawing battle thing. Soooo yeah it was cool there were two sets of two large canvasses, one side for two Brighton based artists and the other for two London based artists. So they had 90 minutes to draw on the canvases with big black paint markers before being judged by the audience and two judges. And first of all, 90 minutes is way too long. It's just too long in general, but how awesome would it be if it were like a speed drawing challenge? C'mon, so cool! Sadly I thought the Brighton team kinda paled in comparison to the London team. At the end, the London team ended up winning even though Brighton obviously got the crowd's vote :D Ooh and then a beat boxer came on stage and did some stuff that was really fun and cool!!! We left around 2:30 am, it was so fun!!! It's nice to be doing things that I probably wouldn't typically be doing back home in Minneapolis or Chicago.

Saturday was a fun day too, I did some shopping and got some GREAT DEALS as usual. And then due to lots of phone confusion I missed some fun times but HEY I cleaned my room instead which feels pretty great. Too bad it never lasts...

This morning was quite the adventure! Jenny heard about this thing called "Seedy Sunday" (seedy as in planting seeds, not as in "ew that area of town is so seedy and gross" haha) through her "Edible Campus" extension study class. Seedy sunday is basically a giant gathering of local Farmers from the Brighton and Hove and Lewes area, maybe anywhere in Sussex county, I'm not sure. But everyone gets together to trade seeds, sell seeds and plants, have little gardening demonstrations and talks and lectures and all kinds of things. It's like a forum for learning about all kinds of organic growing and wildlife and fun stuff like that. So it is in Hove and we decided to walk there, according to Jenny's google maps route it should have been about a half hour to an hour walk or something. So we are walking along the sea which is sooo nice and cute although it is snowing and COLD. And we have been walking a longgggg time but we just haven't seen a street that looks like the main street we're supposed to turn on. After like.... a long time we decide to ask some man on the street and he told us we basically walked WAY TOO FAR because we accidentally passed it hahahaha. So we doubled back and basically ended up walking 3 times longer than we needed to. But it was fun and an adventure so I didn't mind one bit!

Once we arrived at the Hove City Council or wherever it was, we had so much fun at Seedy Sunday! I've been looking into "Walking holidays" or basically nice long hikes that I could do in some spare time around the English countryside down here in Brighton or Lewes or Sussex anywhere basically. So we talked to a few people who had good suggestions on places to go to do those, which was great. We also talked to this lady who ha grown this really beautiful place kind of like a large igloo made of willow boughs in this forest preserve area and they hold meditation nights there and all kinds of stuff, it looks BEAUTIFUL so I can't wait for the warm weather so we can go explore over there. We also just had a good time exploring and looking at all kinds of information about healthy eating and local produce and stuff, and then at 2 we went to a panel discussion/question and answer session for the gardeners. I had no idea what anyone was talking about but it was interesting so I had a good time!

After that we walked back to Brighton (much quicker this time, haha!) and I went straight to the pub to watch the Liverpool v. Chelsea game which I have to say was probably the BEST GAME EVER I've seen since the Euros! And better than some of the games in the Euros even. GOOD GOD IT WAS SO GREAT OH MY GOSH. It was probably one of the highlights of my trip so far, I'm not going to lie. The pub was PACKED, luckily mainly with Liverpool fans, and everyone was SO INTO IT! But seriously, the game was AMAZING and I'm not just saying that because I love Liverpool FC and Fernando Torres. It was so filled with drama!!!! Lampard getting the red card and being sent off made hte pub crowd go insane, singing "Cheerioooo, cheeriooooo". I couldn't help but smile even though I have a soft spot for Lampsy (and all of Chelsea really, thanks to my dear friend Marin). Someone I couldn't tell who doing the backwards kick. Liverpool making a billion shots on target. Torres giving someone (Malouda maybe?) a little pat on the cheek and thumbs up all cheekily. JT and Torres fight. Benayoun in the corner and Bonsingwa basically kicking him down BLATANTLY. So many yellow cards! SO MUCH FUN. And then of course all the drama in the last 10 minutes! 0-0 until Torres scored an AMAZING Goal in the like.... 88th minute or something and preceded to do the funniest goal celebration EVER (as pictured in the gif above). THEN, in the 5 minutes of extra time, HE DID IT AGAINNNNNNNNNNNNN AND SCORED a GREAT header and man oh man did the place ERUPT again. People were singing and chanting and screaming and it was SO. MUCH. FUN. Now Liverpool is back up into 2nd in the league and all they have to do it beat Man United and WIN THE LEAGUE, PLEASE.

Ok I have most definitely gone on WAY too long. Sorrrr-ry. Busy week ahead, should be tons of fun!

Fireworks at Lake Michigan

2009-01-29T23:13:00.007Z

This morning I was feeling a little homesick. And what I do when I feel homesick is stare at google street view for hours. And watch the "Homecoming" video on repeat for hours. And stare at MCAD's flickr for hours. Actually even though I was feeling down and homesick and whiney like a dumb baby, I just listened to homecoming a few times and didn't even get to wallow over street view or flickr because I had a very busy day today! OVER IT!

I learned how to letterpress today which I was really looking forward to. And mannnnnnnnnn oh man is it COMPLICATED! I thought it'd be a breeze. Little did I know there is a lot of math involved. It's like a giant confusing puzzle. But it's fun and it's so satisfying to see the results in the end. Jenny, Ramzy, and I spent hours getting our induction and then creating out page and printing and we have to go back in again tomorrow to finish our second color. Good thing it's fun!

Um other than that I worked at school for a few hours finishing a typography project that I'll have to print before critique tomorrow morning. And then I went home and immediately went grocery shopping before the store closed at 9. And it was actually really nice because on my way walking back I ran into a friend who I have only met once before over a week ago and as soon as he saw me he was like "Julieeeee!" and stopped to talk for a minute or two which was lovely and nice! I love it when you find out people remember you when you don't expect them to. So yeah that was fun :)

Ok enough about my boring day.

Community Arts Training Week 2

2009-01-27T19:28:00.002Z

Today was the second day of my extension studies class "Community Arts Training" where we work with 12 year old students from a local school to eventually create a celebratory art piece together. I already love this class so much it's not even funny. Ok well maybe it is a little.

We started class pretty early and we began by us university students showing our work to groups of the high school students (not the same as high school in America obviously... I think they are like 8th graders? Maybe younger? I don't know how things work here still....eh. They say they are grade 8 but I don't think it's the same thing. I'LL NEVER KNOW!). So we each sat at a table and the students came around in little groups of two and three (there are 9 of us--only 7 of us were here today, and only 6 of us stayed the whole time, and 9 or 10 of the young students) and looked at our work and asked us questions and and wrote notes on these little note pads they got.

Ok so back on track, the students are so tiny! Well some of them are bigger and more mature looking but seriously I forgot how tiny grade school kids are! Precious! It was nice to see some of them actually showing genuine interest in art and when they got excited to tell me about similar projects they had done it was really cute! After a short break we regrouped and this time it was our turn to ask the kids questions. We grouped into pairs and went around from group to group of students and talked to them and continued getting to know them which was nice. The first group was these two boys... haha mannn its funny to be around boys that age. Reminds me of kinds i used to know in grade school. As me and my partner asked them questions one of them drew funny pictures of our faces, and continued to ask me a billion random questions about America like "do you like cheeseburgers?" "How many cowboys are there in Chicago" "Is everyone in America fat?" and he kept saying "Howdy, partner". Oh, and they kept asking me to speak with a British accent. Which we all know I love to do buttttttttttt not then, haha. It was pretty funny!

Oh we also looked at the exhibit in the gallery at school together. I spent most of the time doing that with one of my friends and one of the students and it was really fun to ask him what he thought of the work and hear a completely honest kid answer. One piece he totally hated and said "My 4 year older brother could do that!" hah! And then he rated a bunch of work on a scale of 0-10 and it was just really interesting to see what someone who hasn't been all jaded by pretentious art talk 24/7 has to say about it.

After that we had lunch and then headed over to the Brighton Museum which I visited briefly a few weeks ago. It was really great because we got to go to this special room and sit there and learn about African masks that are up to a century old! And we got to touch them and put them on our heads and stuff, hahah it was great! I love tribal masks (Kate, if you are reading this, I kept thinking of you and our trips to the MIA to look as African masks all day!). Then we got to draw the masks and man some of those kids are better drawers than me. It figures. After that we explored the museum a little more and one of my friends told me about a friend of his who is obsessed with taxidermy and stuff and owns tons of old surgical equipment and uses old scalpels and stuff to butter his toast. Hah! By then it was like 3:00 and we were done. It was such a nice day getting to know my classmates and teacher and the new little kids we are going to be working with! YAY.

London Day Trip January 25, 2009

2009-01-25T23:57:00.000Z

I LOVE LONDON!

What an eventful day Jenny, Ally and I had today! I woke up at 7:15 ish and got to the train station by 9, when we discovered that the direct train to London from Brighton was being worked on so we would have to take a bus to the Three Bridges station that would essentially add about an hour and a half to our trip. Oh and it was all rainyyyyyy and dark which kinda made the day start off on a shaky feeling because of the train and the rain and whatnot. So we eventually make it to London only to discover that the line we need to take on the tube is also down!!!! So we were kind of hoping this wasn't some sort of horrible omen, hah. Luckily it wasn't! :D

Anyway, so we started our day at the V&A museum which is ENORMOUS and amazing and we barely got to spend any time there for how big it is, so I can not wait to go back and spend the entire day there sometime soon. While there though, I did get to see some of my absolute favorite things ever like creepy doughy-faced, rosy-cheeked gold leafed religious babies in paintings, lush Islamic pattern and art, and Eastern European "peasant" textiles. LOVE IT!

After getting a nice taste of a lot of what the V&A had to offer, we went to meet Ally's wonderful brother Nathan at this absolutely scrumptious dim sum restaurant called Ping Pong. Let me tell you I was never really sure about dim sum or what it was really or if it would be good but it was GREAT! We ordered so much food and all of it was just mouthwatering! And I had blackberry lemonade, how much better does it get? Not much. But it was nice to get off our feet and talk and get to know Ally's brother who's got a really interesting life!

After the dim sum we were going to walk to the ginormous Topshop but as we were walking we went passed the store Liberty's where Ally's brother works and so we said we needed to go in and he needed to give us a quick tour. So we did and he did! IT IS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! Apparently it is the building that is the biggest fire hazard in London because it's made out of all wood. Anddddd, that wood came from two old battle ships or something, one of which was called the Liberty. Not only is it gorgeous from the outside but it's honestly like nothing I've ever seen before on the inside. It almost felt museum-esque because it feels really open and old and beautiful and things are displayed so nicely and in little cabinets and it is just incredible! Not to mention the clothes are just amazing, full of big designer stuff, I was drooooooling over all the See by Chloe stuff, it was great!

So then we finally made it to the huge 3 story Topshop and spent some more time drooling over great but expensive clothes. Way cheaper than Liberty's but still once you convert the pound to the dollar everything I wanted was just a little too pricey. I will definitely have to go back and just spend a whole day doing some serious shopping, it will be great!!!!

After Topshop Nathan was nice enough to give the three of us a ride over to the Tate Modern as we were running low on time. The Tate was huge, and honestly felt a little cold and kind of... intimidating at least on the first floor. It wasn't what I was expecting! But it was really lovely and huge and full of nice art! I saw some interesting things but it is another place I just got a taste of and I will have to come back to really see everything!

Next we went to go meet Ally's friend Corine in Camden for dinner before Ally's friend Tim's band was going to play in a pub in Camden. So we took the tube (after taking a slight detour to see the Globe theater and I saw the same pizza express restaurant I ate at with my family 3 years ago, AWWWW! hahah) and arrived in Camden and met Ally's friend who is super nice and fun just like everyone else here so far! We decided to go eat at Wagamamas which is so so tasty! I was really proud of myself because I was able to finish the entire huge plate of food whereas last time I ate there I could barely make a dent! God I love food. Anyway after Wagamama's we said goodbye to Corine and went across the street to Ally's favorite cocktail bar place to meet her friend before his gig. And of course while there I got oddly stared at and then subsequently hit on I guess in such a weird and creepy and uncomfortable way by another drunk creeper to add to the list of many. Anyway so we talked there for a while and then headed over to the pub where the gig was at and spent a little while longer there before realizing that we were all exhausted and if we wanted to make it back to Brighton tonight we'd have to leave at 9:30 ish so we stayed for a while and then headed out. We finally made it back to Brighton at about 11:45 and it was just such a fun day in London, I LOVE THAT CITY, seriously something about it just feels so good to me and I can't wait to be back!

Flatmates and Fun!

2009-01-24T23:57:00.000Z

Well today didn't turn out as planned but that is a very good thing because I had a great day!

I had planned on being all studious and getting the TON of work I have to do so that I could fully enjoy my time in London tomorrow and just generally get stuff done and feel good. Instead I woke up late.

After waking up nice and late I wasted some time and then went grocery shopping and when I came back to the apartment to put my stuff away in the kitchen and my flatmate's boyfriend Neil was in there, and he is so super nice and friendly so I was talking to him for quite a while and then one of my actual faltmates Dom came in and joined us and then a while later my flatmate Mel who is the guy's girlfriend came in and we were having a nice good old time talking and then we decided to go out for a fun night of dinner and a movie and the pub!

So later that night the four of us and Jenny went out to this nice Italian restaurant that I think was called Donatello's or something. I had the most delicious pizza margherita! And they are always so cheap here, yummmm! Oh and Neil was kind enough to pay for a drink for each of us which was really sweet! Seriously everyone in England is SO NICE! We had a great time talking about horror movies and all kinds of stuff. It was really nice to go out with my flatmates because although I've talked to them a few times and stuff I haven't really had the opportunity to actually hag out with them! Yay they are so nice :)

After that we ventured off to the movie theater! And after a lot of confusion and indecisiveness we settled on seeing Underworld 3: Legion of Lycons or some title like that, haha. But we had an hour to kill so we went to a pub and sat around and thought we saw famous people but we didn't really. So in an hour we went to the movie, and let's just day I will never look at that guy from Love Actually the same way again. But hey, it was entertaining and I had a great time.

On the walk home we saw lots of drunk girls getting arrested, a Cristiano Ronaldo look-a-like, paramedics, crazy looking club goers with their butts hanging out, and all kinds of wacky stuff. OH, Brighton!

LONDON TOMORROW!

Europa and Pub Quiz

2009-01-22T21:05:00.001Z

Today for our Professional and Personal development class we had two of the very nice and talented people from Europa come to lecture. Their work was really great and I loved their lecture. But the best part came after! For their "workshop" they decided to do a "Pub Quiz", so they invited anyone who wanted to to join them at a pub at 2:00 where we would take part in this crazy pub quiz thing!

We went to the King and Queen pub (which I love and think is so cozy) as it is right across from school and it's huge! So there were about 18 or so of us there and we split into groups of 4-ish and began the quiz. We were handed a sheet of paper with 20 lines on it, a sheet with 12 logos, and a few blank sheets. The two guys from Europa then read questions for us all to answer, and they were all graphic design based, hahahaa. Nerd time! Ooooh, the best part was that the winning team would get these great posters they made as well as the possibility of a work placement. So there was a HUGE incentive to win!

Anyway, the questions were TOUGH! We had to identify all the logos (my team got 9 our of the 12 i think? Maybe more?) And then we had to do things like draw a perfect circle, draw the most recent penguin book logo, draw the batman symbol, identify arial versus helvetica, put 5 typefaces in order from oldest to most recently created, name who designed the london underground map system, and all kinds of tough stuff! It was a good challenge and my team came in 3rd out of 5 with 24.5 points, although the winners were only ahead by one single point! SO CLOSE YET SO FAR AWAY! Anyway, it was another great day in Brighton!

Lewes Day Trip 01-21-09

2009-01-22T16:41:00.002Z

Yesterday Jenny and I decided to take a day trip to Lewes, a cute little town in East Sussex about 20 minutes by bus from Brighton. It was GREAT!

We took the bus and as soon as we arrived we were on the "High Street" which I think is what they call all main streets/fancy shopping streets here. And as soon as we got out first of all you see the beautiful hilly green grass in the distance which is just beaaaaaaaaautiful! Once we started walking an incredible window display of gorgeous old books caught my eyes and we decided to go into this small 3 room bookstore called the Bow Window Book Shop. We ended up spending almost 2 hours in the tiny little shop, it was FILLED WITH TREASURES! There was a book about noses, all about noses, all about 'em! And a book about abdominal pains. And books abuot chess, and wild english birds, fighter pilots, and everything you could imagine. But they were all old and beautiful which makes them all automatically better. I ended up getting a small book about astronomy filled with beautiful images and star charts as well as an amazing vintage tourist's map of England and Wales from somewhere between 1889-1911. When I was checking out the lady was so sweet, she said that she loved seeing young people and to encourage us to keep up our interest in the books she took two pounds off my total bill! So sweet of her!

Once we left the book shop we started walking around towards the castle. Sadly the castle itself was closed becuase it is being rennovated, but it was still nice to see from the outside. As we walked around there we saw these people on this lawn playing some weird game and there was an older man also watching them so we asked him what they were doing. He started explaining that they were playing lawn bowling and then he started talking to us and telling us all about the history of Lewes and what we needed to see while we were here. He was sooo sweet and then his son joined us and we started walking around a little with them as they told us all about these crazy stories and things in Lewes. Then he called the lawn bowlers over and was like "These girls here are from America, tell them abuot this game!" ahaha so they came over and were super nice to us as well and explained lawn bowling to us. Then after talking a bit more to the nice old man and his son, they took our picture for us and then we went our seperate ways.

So Jenny and I continued walking around exploring and then we found ourselves kind of standing near this building wonderig if we should go in and who should appear in the doorway but the cute old man! So we waved to him and he gave us a thumbs up and motioned for us to come in, so we did. Inside we met his adorableeeeeeeeeeee cute old wife also named Jenny, and they invited us to have tea and coffee with them and their son! So we all had tea together and talked about America and politics and Brighton and Lewes and had a great time! It was so lovely! And they paid for our tea and hot cocoa which was really really nice of them. I love English people!

After that Jenny and I walked around some more, found the river, walked into a few interesting looking stores, and just wandered around exploring. As it got darker we decided to go have some dinner and we ate at the cutest little produce store and restaurant. And of course everyone there was just as nice as ever and one of the guys who worked there struck up a nice conversation with us and we learned that he is a student of economics at Oxford, and when we told him we were graphic designers he wanted to get our contact info because he is "a bit of an entrepreneur" himself, hahaha oh networking! He was nice!

Then we took the bus back to Brighton and walked straight to the nice old movie theater to go see The Wrestler with film club which was a good but depressing and mildly embarrassing movie. And after that we went to the Bath Arm's pub with Ally and her friends and had a great night! FUN TIMES IN ENGLAND!