Are you getting somewhere?/Or did you get lost in AMSTERDAM!!!!

Anyone recognize that song? It's Guster and has been stuck in my head all weekend...

FRIDAY: 4 countries in one day!

So Friday morning I woke up at 5:15 to get to Waterloo station by 7:15, but I didn't leave early enough. I got really flustered going to Waterloo Station and got on the wrong tube, but luckily I made it to the group on time! There were about 40 of us and several people I recognized from CAPA but didn't know personally.

We all got on a coach and drove to Dover, where we got on a board ferry to Calais, France. The ferry was really cool... it was such a big boat that we actually drove our bus onto the bottom deck (along with a lot of other cars). A group from the tour wandered up to the 9th floor (yes it had 9 floors!) of the ferry and found a deck. I don't think we were actually supposed to be up there, as the deck was roped off, but oh well. From there, we could see the white cliffs of Dover, which are huge and beautiful! It was at this point that I first tried to use my camera, but alas, it didn't work. It kept telling to turn it back on and off again, but I couldn't. Unfortunately this meant that I got absolutely zero photos from the entire trip... so this post is going to be really long, so I can remember everything.

Anyway, on the ferry I exchanged about 30 pounds for Euros (though in the end I spent about twice that) and watched the water from a window seat inside. Once we got to Calais, we went through no customs or border patrol whatsoever, which I was a little surprised by. From Calais we drove the coach to Amsterdam, stopping by a roadside chocolate shop on the way, where I bought some amazing Belgian orange slices dipped in dark chocolate.

Finally, around 7 p.m., we got to the hotel in Amsterdam and I met my roommate, Alyssa. After putting down our bags and settling into our rooms, we left for a quick tour of the area of Amsterdam around Central Station (the closest tube station to our hotel). It was around 8:30 p.m. when the tour was over, and I was starving, so Alyssa, her friend Elizabeth, and Lena, a girl I know from CAPA, wandered around looking for a restaurant. While we were wandering, we accidentally found ourselves in the red light district! It was pretty crazy to see all the prostitutes in windows literally surrounded by red lights. Luckily we didn't get offered drugs before we got out of there (I read in a guidebook that happens a lot, and the drugs are often rat poison or something ineffective). Anyway, we ended up at this great Asian fusion restaurant. I got a sampling of different kinds of sushi for about 6 Euro, which I thought was pretty good, and a Heineken... it IS Amsterdam after all! After dinner, we took the tube back to the hotel, since it had been an extremelyyyy long day.

SATURDAY: Edam, Volendam, Museums, Etc...

On Saturday morning, all of us got back on the coach and drove to Edam, which took about 30 minutes. Both Edam and Volendam are small towns also in the Netherlands, and our tour guide said he wanted to take us there to give us a feel of life outside the big city. Edam is known for its cheese, so I wandered into several little shops and tried free samples (but was too cheap to actually buy any...) Both towns are cute because they have canals, brick roads instead of paved, and tiny streets with different-colored houses. Also, Edam has the largest 3-room church in Europe. For some reason it has a Jewish star on the front even though it's I believe Catholic... On the way back from Volendam, we went into an amazing cheese shop and factory. A lady dressed in traditional clothing (clogs, hat, etc.) gave us a rundown on how the cheese is made. Then, we got to sample at least 15 different kinds of cheese, including the factory's herb-filled specialty.

After leaving Volendam, our coach driver dropped us off in downtown Amsterdam. I met a girl named Sarah and we went site-seeing together. The main thing I wanted to see was the Anne Frank museum, which is built around the annex where the Franks and others hid during the Holocaust. It was incredible to see original telegrams, shopping lists, and even Anne's famous red diary. We also walked around in the actual rooms where they stayed. The pictures of movie stars and advertisements that Anne pasted in the walls of her room are still there, which was really cool.

After the Anne Frank museum, we went to the Van Gogh museum, which was on the other side of town. We got there at 5:00 and only had an hour until closing, but we were still able to see all the Van Gogh paintings, including "Skull with burning cigarette," "Wheatfield with crows," "The potato-eaters," and "Blossoming almond tree." We also saw one in the "Sunflowers" series.

Then Sarah and I headed into Leidseplein, which we soon discovered is not actually pronounced "Led Zeppelin..." oops. We didn't really stay in the main square but did wander around the area and went to the Bulldog, a fun chain bar & coffee shop. Around 7:30 p.m., we found a really cute Italian restaurant where I ordered some delicious pesto pasta for dinner (amazingly only 5 Euros! haha sorry I like sharing my great deals). I also got a martini, which was random as I've never had one and am still not really sure what it is. It tasted okay. Sarah got a huge banana split and a local beer, also huge. After that we sort of wandered down random streets and met some crazy people. Around midnight we started looking for a ride home, and were lucky enough to find a tram to Central Station! They're supposed to stop running at midnight so we were cutting it close.

I'm glad I went to Amsterdam and I had a ton of fun, but I probably won't go back anytime soon. One of the things I like most about the city are all the canals, gorgeous swans, and boats. It was also weird but cool to see stores that actually sell marijuana seeds. However, there are two things I dislike about Amsterdam: one, it's dirty, and two, it's creepy. There are some creepy men in London, but the men in Amsterdam are just plain nasty, and I was not a fan of that. The good news is that coming back from Amsterdam, I felt like I was coming home to London, in a sense.

SUNDAY: Bruges!!!

We left Amsterdam for Bruges at 8:30, which was pretty brutal, but I did sleep on the bus. It took about 3 hours to drive to Bruges, which I was super excited about because I love the movie "In Bruges." We spent about 2 hours in the city. The way our coach driver explained what it's like was by saying that nearly all the buildings were built around the 13th century, so it feels like walking into a time warp. The only tourist attraction we saw was a Madonna and Child sculputre by Michelangelo, which was located in a big church in town. It was cool to see, especially considering like 95% of Michelangelo's work is located in Italy. I wanted to go up to the tower in the main square, but it cost 8 Euros, so I passed and looked at it from the outside. I did, however, buy a Belgian waffle, a local beer, and some more chocolate! The chocolate is going to be a gift, but the waffle & beer were absolutely delicious.

We spent the rest of today in a coach, and I got back home around 10! And now I really do have to go to bed because I have to get up early for work tomorrow...

Cheers! (I would write my sign-off in Dutch, but it is seriously the most confusing language ever. It sounds like German only not, and about half the words in every sentence are the same as the English words. So weird.)

Rebecca

Happy Chinese New Valentine's Day! Wait what?

Since Valentine's Day & the Chinese New Year were both yesterday, Amalia (1 of my Italian housemates) and I decided to celebrate both by going to Chinatown. There were lanterns everywhere and it was beautiful! We shared a very expensive crepe that was worth it because it was The Most Delicious Crepe I've eaten in my entire life. It came with chocolate ice cream, bananas, and chocolate sauce, my 3 favorite food groups... yes, groups.


So, moving on. I've finished three books since I've been here. I love reading on the tube because it makes the time go quickly. It's nice to have that hour or two per day to catch up on reading, particularly if it's for school. Want to hear what I've read so far? Not really? Well I'm going to write about it anyway...

1. "The Secret Agent" by Joseph Conrad
Read for Fiction class. Conrad channels Dickens in that he uses an omniscient narrator, which I liked. But the thing I hate most about Dickens is how he incorporates hoards of rather tangential characters, which Conrad also does in this book. I like the story of the family--Verloc, Winnie and Stevie--and their drama, but I could give a crap about the rest. Seriously, Conrad wastes entire chapters on the rag tag band of anarchists and their intellectual masturbation sessions. Who cares??? 2/5 stars.

2. "The Quiet American" by Graham Greene
Read for Fiction class. I love it. Greene turns a morally ambiguous, sexist British journalist into a very human, nearly lovable man (and does sort of the opposite with Pyle). Greene also manages to meaningfully incorporate themes of love, religion, East vs. West, war, sex, etc. without sounding pretentious. Brilliant. And probably the first book about Vietnam I've read that didn't bore me to tears. 5/5.

3. "The Museum of Dr. Moses" by Joyce Carol Oats
I checked this book out of the Northfields library when I realized I wouldn't have anything to read for a week. I already knew what to expect--dark, disturbing murder stories--and I ate it up! Some stories were almost too open-ended, in particular, "Feral" and "Stripping." My favorites were definitely "Valentine, July Heat Wave," which was very prose-y, and the title story, which was the creepiest of all. 4/5.


Ciao! (Figured I might as well switch it up since, after all, I hang out with Italians more than British people, haha)

Rebecca

Canadians & the Tate Britain

...that pretty much sums up the first half of my weekend.

Last night Sean and I went to a pub in Ealing Broadway, intending to have a pint or two and call it a night early. We met a huge group of British people, and when they found out we were from the U.S., one cried, "I'll get the Canadians!" Long story short, we ended up hanging out with our 2 "American neighbors" until 1 a.m. I don't think I've ever met any Canadians before, but they were fun, and not that different from Americans.

I went to the Tate Britain today. The coolest thing I saw was probably the famous painting of Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais (the one where she's lying in the river surrounded by flowers... anyone?) They also have a lot of crazy modern art, which I always love. Here's a contraband photo of a Bridget Riley I took. Shortly afterward a guard reprimanded me... oops.

As for the second half of my weekend, tonight I'm going out with the Italians; not only the girls, but also Francesco, who used to live in our homestay, and possibly another guy. Not sure where we're going yet but it should be fun.

Attractions I Haven't Seen Yet that I HAVE to do (this list is for me as much as it is for you, dear readers):

• St. Paul's Cathedral
• Westminster Abbey- I've been waiting on those 2 because, unlike most things, they cost money
• Courtauld Gallery- Smaller art gallery highly recommended by Rick Steves
• Covent Garden- Shopping district
• Portobello Road Market
  
• Harry Potter walking tour
• Beatles walking tour
• The Globe- I'm signed up to do a tour & museum with Capa sometime in April
• Geffrye Museum
• Buckingham Palace stuff

Maybes:

• Churchill Museum- Ok I know this is supposed to be a must-see, but honestly it sounds boring...
• Imperial War Museum- Same.
• London Eye- Seems cool but super pricey.
• Madame Tussad's- Same.
• Wallace Collection- I don't know anything about this except that it's free.
• Cartoon Museum- Not free and I probably wouldn't get most of the cartoons, as British humor goes over my head approx. 85% of the time.
  

Ellie Update (yes, I remembered):
1. I would love any suggestions/advice you could give me on these lists if, of course, you have time.
2. I finally got some points, although actually they might be negative points... not sure.

Cheers!
Rebecca

Small world!

So two really crazy coincidences happened this week. One, I bumped into an Earlham student! I saw her in the tube and we ended up talking for a good 15 minutes. I think it's crazy that I can run into people I know in a city this huge.

The second thing was pretty cool too. Last night my friends and I went to a random pub. We didn't know at the time that they had a small back room with a stage, or that a free concert was happening that night. But when we heard the cover band start, we wandered back there to listen. When the second band, Outside Royalty, came on, we realized that they were from America... what tipped me off was when they played a song called "Ohio." After the concert, we went up to the band and asked where they were from (this wasn't difficult as there were only about 20 people in the audience). The lead singer is from Ohio, and the drummer is from the same town in Pennsylvania as my friend Emily! It was great to meet fellow Americans and to familiar accents. And besides that, the concert was really good!! They're even going on tour with the Cranberries... yes, The Cranberries.

Actually that photo is of the cover band, Monkeyfinger... not sure why but I didn't take any pictures of Outside Royalty. It was such a cute venue though! Here's the Outside Royalty fan site:
http://www.outsideroyalty.com/band/

Cheerio!
Rebecca

National Galleries

Yesterday for Pop Culture class, our professor took us on a tour of the National Gallery. I was really excited for that... until I found out that the National Gallery is different from the National Portrait Gallery. The National Gallery is all art, most of which is very, very old, like 16th century. Luckily our professor is a very liberal, eccentric middle-aged man who always wears a forest green velvet suit. With him as our tour guide, the gallery was slightly more exciting, especially because he tends to go on rants about such subjects as pornography and cannabis...

Still, I've really been looking forward to seeing the National Portrait Gallery, so I did that today after my Fiction class. It was pretty cool. My favorite by far was the Twiggy instillation.

Other Cool Stuff I Saw There:
1. The only portrait of Shakespeare he actually sat for
2. A Ben Jonson portrait
3. A very small pencil drawing of Jane Austen
4. A painting of William Blake
5. A lot of Princess Diana and Prince Harry and Prince William
6. Andy Warhol prints of Queen What's-her-face
7. An extremely delicious brownie (well, I ate it, too).

I haven't talked a lot about my internship on here, because I don't want to say something inappropriate and get in trouble. But I'll say a little bit about how it's going. It's going okay. For the most part, I like the other youth workers and have been having fun with them. The young people (YP) are hard to get to know, and they have a range of behavioral issues (everything from cursing at youth workers to run-ins with the police). I'm trying hard to talk to them even when I feel awkward, and to assert my authority when necessary. It's pushing me outside my comfort zone, which is definitely a good thing.

Bye darlings,
Rebecca

I'm happy (here's why)

Wow, it's funny how the smallest things make me the happiest. Today I had to do a 10 minute presentation on leadership for my internships class. I was the 2nd person to present and the professor didn't give us any guidelines, so I was so nervous about it all day. Turned out, the girl who went before me put no thought into her presentation and did a pretty bad job. I didn't do that great either, as I could feel my face getting red and I think I was visibly shaking, but... IT'S OVER!!!!

Things I'm Looking Forward to:
-Tate Modern tomorrow
-Pub with Emily and Sean tomorrow
-National Portrait Gallery with Donnie on Friday
-Amsterdam/Bruges in 3 weeks
-BARCELONA! Donnie and I booked our tickets for spring break yesterday.
-Mom & Dad & Rach coming in March. I talked to Mom & Rach for half an hour each yesterday and I miss them a lot.

Cheerio!
Rebecca