Barcelona, Spain

I can't say I particularly enjoyed my two years of Spanish language classes in high school. Maybe that's why I was only mildly excited to spend the weekend in Barcelona, Spain. A few friends convinced me to go and since flight tickets were pretty cheap, I went! And I surprised myself by loving it! Barcelona was a such a relaxing place to be because we were not running everywhere to see "the important sights" because there just are not a ton of significant places to see there. Instead, we could relax and walk along the famous Las Ramblas street, sit on the beach and watch the waves crash in, or eat far to much gelato ice cream. :) I was also able to go to the Picasso museum there. It was really neat to see Picasso's early work and a lot of the ceramics he did later in life. I'm glad I made the trip to Barcelona! It is a place I would one day love to return to.

This last picture is just a random one that Kelly and I took with a Spanish couple. Yep.

Thanksgiving UK Style

Happy late Thanksgiving friends and family! I hope you had a grand day eating turkey and sitting around a table full of family. Though the Brits do not celebrate Thanksgiving, our program directors were not going to ignore the fact that the 54 Americans living in Vandon House still did. Each of us took a part of the process to get lunch on the table. I was involved in the cooking on Thanksgiving morning. And yes, I wore an apron that said "Burt's Butchers" on it. In total, over 80 people attended the lunch which included students, visiting families, and a few of our professors even came. It was really fun to look down the long table and and see everyone chatting and eating and laughing. Not quite Thanksgiving at home, but it was the best alternative I could have hoped for!

A ticket to ride...to Liverpool!

I went up to north England yesterday to see the birthplace of The Beatles! After a long train ride through darkness and then the early morning light we arrived in Liverpool. The town itself was plain and grey in color. It had almost an industrial or coal mining feel. Anyway, we went to The Beatles' Story museum that went through the fab four's lives from beginning to now. The museum was very well done and it was interesting to hear about how it all started. One of my favorite room was the John Lennon memorial room that was completely white with a white baby grand piano, white curtains, white carpet- everything white. His song "Imagine" was playing and it was so relaxing and beautiful. I also loved the room that was a block of televisions all playing the same scene of screaming and crying teenage girls who had got a glimpse of The Beatles.

Another Liverpool highlight was going to see The Cavern Club where The Beatles played almost 300 times during their start. It was about 2 in the afternoon when we went down the stairs into The Cavern, but a rock band was on stage playing and the place was packed with people! It was a nice little taste of what it would have been like with The Beatles on stage. We also ventured out of the city center to find Penny Lane, a school the boys went to, John Lennon's house and Strawberry Fields. All in all, it was great to be a Liverpool "day tripper!"

Pretending to climb over the fence into Stawberry Fields

Classes

I had someone ask if I ever went to class. I suppose this is a good question because my blog posts may have led you to believe that I'm not really STUDYING abroad. So, here is my response and update on the 12 credits I am taking here in London.

British Experience: Talk about what we think of London, ask questions, discuss travel, ect. We also get London assignments which are usually specific museums or parts of the city we must go to and journal about. Our assignment for this class is to always be journaling!

Contemporary Britain: Learn about British life by studying everything from the Royal Family to Britishness to Government to the media. It's interesting to compare Brits to Americans.
(The previous two are classes that everyone in the program is required to take together.)

Calligraphy: I love this class! It's a joy to go to each Tuesday morning and just sit and write beautiful letters for a couple of hours. My professor is wonderful and knows her stuff because she is a professional calligrapher. I also find this class interesting because I am the youngest person in the room by about 30 years. :)


Art in London: This is another class I have with my peers here in Vandon House. We meet each week at a different art gallery in London. It's a great way to visit the galleries! And almost like having a free tour guide each week with our professor showing us around and pointing out the artist's intentions or a different view of a piece.

Drawing: I have this class at London Metropolitan University, so I feel very small when I go there. It's a good class though with lots of interesting students. I realize how much I love drawing whenever I go!

So, that's what I do here when I'm not playing. :) But above all, I think the greatest learning experience is being away from home and trying to understand the culture here. I'm also learning a lot about traveling and flexibility.

Movie Premire

I went to a movie premire a couple of weeks ago for the new movie Lions for Lambs. I've never actually heard of this movie but, oh well, Tom Cruise would be there so I went. We got there early to get a good place and actually got very close to the man himself! I have to give credit to my friend Lenae for taking the above picture of Tom. He is much shorter in person than he seems in movies. It was a fun night and pretty neat to see such a famous face!

Tonight we had a fun girls' night with the Westminster Chapel gals. Every month they have a girlie night at someone's flat and tonight the Amerians hosted! You Northwestern people, Fern girls especially, will be pleased to know that we taught our British friends to play Nerts (aka Dutch Blitz)! The Brits loved the fast paced card game and were very good for first timers. It was so cute when they got angry or missed a chance to lay a card! Just try to picture someone with an English accent angry over a card game... very amusing. :)

Roma

The last four days of our trip were spent in Roma (Rome). I enjoyed seeing all the history and art in Rome. There were fountains everywhere! And sculptures and beautiful buildings and open plazas. St. Peter's and the Vatican were so cool to see. We even saw the pope while we were standing around outside St. Peter's! It was All Saints day so the Pope opened his window way up high and gave a blessing in different languages. Though he was just a little speck in the window, it was pretty neat to see and hear such a significant person. Another highlight was seeing the Sistine Chapel. Sure, waiting in line for 3 hours was not fun, but being able to stare up at Michelangelo's handiwork was phenomenal. While we were waiting in the line of people that streached for what had to be almost a half mile long, I was struck by the fact that all these people (the Vatican gets thousands of visitors per day) were waiting in line to see art and ultimatly Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling. From an art major perspective: How cool is that?!

Pompeii

Ahhhh, a sunny day walking the streets of the ancient city of Pompeii! A quick trip from our base in Naples brought us to the entrance of the uncovered ruins. Mt. Vesuvius, the volcano that erupted and buried the city in 79 AD, loomed in the horizon as Leah and I explored the city. It is much bigger than I had anticipated! And they are still uncovering parts of the ruins! It was so neat to see how the people of 79 AD would have lived and worked. The city contained just what a city should: houses, temples, government buildings, a bakery, a theater, and much more. Many of the floor mosaics and wall paintings are still intact and surprisingly full of vibrant color. I think my favorite thing was seeing the street stepping stones that I have read about. The stones are placed across the deep streets so citizens could walk across without stepping onto the dirty streets. I really enjoyed our relaxing stroll through Pompeii. Even though the idea of a city being covered in ash and lava is pretty morbid, it is so interesting to see Pompeii now.

Down! Down!

After Greece Leah and I skipped over to Naples, Italy where we met up with Emily for a few days. Though we spent little time in Naples and instead took a ferry to the Island of Capri. It was a gorgeous day and we walked around the little Island, at some ice cream, and had my first taste of amazing Italian pizza (how do they make it so good?!). The highlight of the day was for sure the boat cruise around the island. The waves crashed up around us and misted our faces as we flew across the water. The Mediterranean Sea is very salty and I could taste the salt when I licked my lips.

Then my favorite part of the day took place: The Blue Grotto. If any of you reading this have read The Christy Miller series, you will understand my inspiration for coming to the Blue Grotto in the first place. Our big, 50 person boat came to a halt in front of the island wall and at the base of the wall was a small cave hole. Surrounding our boat were small rowboats, each containing a scruffy man holding ores. One by one, each rowboat came up to our boat and pulled 3 to 4 people into the small hull. Our turn came and the three of us gingerly stepped into the little rowboats, said a prayer and off we went towards the small opening in the island cliff. We were laughing and taking pictures when our boatman yelled, "Down! Down!" and we slammed our backs down to the bottom of the boat. We had to lie down or we wouldn't make it through the small opening. Once through, we sat up and were surrounded by a brilliant, bright blue-- everywhere! The cave was stunning how blue it was. Out boatman even sang to us in Italian as he paddled us around the grotto. What an experience!

It's all Greek to me!

Athens, Greece was the start of our 10 day fall break away from London and into far away lands! Athens was a beautiful city with beautiful, dark skinned Greek people. Have you ever seen the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding?" (and if you haven't, you really should- very funny!) The people in that movie are excellent portrayals of the men and women I met in Greece! They are big and loud and want to explain the history behind everything and insist that Greece is the best place to be! Also, I now fully understand the phrase "It's all Greek to me!" It looks nothing like English and even after staring at a word for a long time and trying to find the same word on a map for example was hopeless. Hopeless!

A few of my favorite things about Greece were:

1) Seeing the Acropolis! I've always wanted to see the Parthenon and I was not dissapointed at all. It's huge and set high on a hill in central Athens. All the ruins were neat to see. It's hard to fathom how old some of the structures were!

2) Our 8th floor hotel room with a huge balcony! Leah and I drug chairs out of our room onto the balcony any chance we got. It was so nice to relax and view the city from above.

3) The weather was amazing-- we were eating chocolate covered cookies and the chocolate was actually MELTING. Beautiful!