"...Inadvertently" - An Italian Opera: A Tale of 4 EAPers, Act 1
29 December 2007
to start, let's just say that this epic tale is going to take a while to execute in order to not leave out any juicy//funny//ridiculous//humiliating moments from this trip.
but for now, I've got papers and exams to cloud my mind for the next few days. so hold tight! I know everyoneee's just dying for the Rome entry, all 2 people who read this...don't lose your blob [please tell me someone got that reference, or else I'll just sound like a freak].
to satiate your appetite, I give you one photo over which you shall ponder internally.
ready...BREAK! HIATUS!
00:15
"you're in Paris! you're in love...turn around! - A Parisian Christmas, Ho Style 11-15 December 07
Jessica and Diana at the Louvre with an amazing Parisian sunset. even still, the camera didn't capture the color as accurately as my little heart had hoped. but this'll suffice.
me, Christine, and Jess on our Leeds shopping adventure in the Victoria Quarter arcade. uhhhh pretty. how pretty? we saw someone taking wedding photos in there that's how pretty.
this is one of the photos Jess and I sent to our parents on the trip. my dad decided he liked it so much he was going to print them out and put them in our Christmas cards AKA....the one they sent me. I love my dad.
---
so, it was definitely a surreal experience seeing Jessica in the Charles De Gaulles airport. I know that we see each other on skype all the time, but it was great to actually see her in the flesh. I think I would've been more emotional had it not been for skype. so it was definitely joyful, but not crying-joyful [though I'll admit, I did feel some tears forming but never fully appeared..I've gotta keep my cool somehow, you know]. we managed to make our way to the hotel in the 5th arrondissement in tact and completely pooped. we also discovered that our hotel room only had a sink and a biday...the toilet was on the other side of the elevator and the showers were nonexistent in the type of room we booked. roughing it! so, it's a good thing that grabbed my dry shampoo or else we'd have to "wash" our hair in the sink. after we settled in, we decided it'd be est to take about a 4 or 5 hour nap to recoup. funny though, Jess had major jetlag//time differences to deal with, so it's no wonder that she was passed out on the best for 5 hours. amazingly enough, I had neither to deal with but I slept right along with her. if anyone who reads this knows me at all, they know that that's not surprising at all, considering how much I flippin' love sleeping. once we woke up, we went on a hunt for some food, but not wanting to stray too far at night and tired, we opted for the local McDo since it was close and predictable and cheap.
after falling into a sweet, sweet coma that night, we woke up the next day to a brilliantly sunny yet freezing [AKA...colder-than-Leeds freezing] day. we went on a search for some brekkie and eventually found a little patisserie on Port Royale and took our croissants and pains au chocolat to a small cafe a block or two down to get a cafe latte. the latte was good, albeit a bit overpriced for my wallet. that day [Wednesday], Noelle and I had arranged to meet at our hotel's lobby to catch up on our crazy EAP experiences and get some lunch. luckily, we connected without a hitch. she took us through the Quartier Latin, the mostly student quarter, to this AMAZING kebab joint about a block away from the Seine. they put chips [British chips, not American chips] and made it fresh in front of us. surprisingly, and very un-Parisian, it was €4 for the whole shebang! for Paris, a €4 filling meal is like GOLD. after, we promenaded to Notre Dame to meet Diana thanks to Noelle's cell phone...a close relative of my Blue Beauty. so the 4 of us proceeded to conquer Paris and all of its expensive aspects. what was great about being in Paris with JEss at the time that I was, was the fact that we could enjoy ourselves, catch up, and see some more of Paris that we didn't see before without having to really worry about how to get around or where to go since we were with our friends who a) spoke the language better than we could and b) who knew their weay around and knew where to go. things are so much less stressful that way.
Jess and I really wanted to see a ballet at the Paris Opera if we could, but of course all of the tickets were gone like hot cakes, or bagels [if you ask Heidi Klum to compare how quickly they were gone]. it would've been perfect to see the Paris opera Ballet doing the Nutcracker, but I suppose there's always next time. I think it's pretty much imposible to see one city in its entirety in one normal holiday visit. there's always something else to see, so we always say "it's just another reason to come back in the future" when we miss something or forget to do something. so, seeing Paris Opera Ballet wil definitely be on my list of things to do next time I'm in Paris [AKA....maybe with Cooper?!?!].
the next day we woke up to another sunny-freezing day in Paris to meet Diana at the Musee d'Orsay to do some chefs d-oeuvres viewing of my favorite art movement, Impressionism. we breezed past the high Impressionists [Monets, Manets, Renoirs, Degas], Barbizan painters [Corots, Courbets, Turners...one of the earlier movements that inspired Impressionism], and Post-Impressionists [Toulouse-Lautrecs, Seurats, Gauguins, and Van Goghs]. there was also a few rooms of some awesome examples of Art Deco//Art Nouveau era furniture design and windows on display. after, we headed over to Rue Rivoli to do some Christmas shopping for ourselves. Jess and I both loved this one gray wool skirt Promod, but neither of us could muster up the money to buy it or the energy to actually try it on for fear of liking it too much. but then we went to Printemps [the ginormous department store second only to Galeries Lafayette] and bought 4, that's right 4, Longchamp bags. granted, one was for Aunt Jan [from Mom], one for Mom [for herself], one for Jess, and unfortunately one for myself, completely on a whim. I had absolutely no intentions on spending €62 on a purse on this trip, but we were in the store and trying to decide on colors and all for the other bags...and the bags are just sooo pretty! and there's so many colors! and I'm a girl! so one thing led to another yadda yadda yadda [I yadda-yadda shop] I walked out of there with a gray//silver Longchamp that I figured I'll just use for the next 10 years to pay it off. that's right, it's a long term investment. for dinner that night, Diana tok us to a good Senegalese restaurant that she had been to before and we finally ate a proper, sit-down meal. in that arrondissement was this great little tea house that Jess had been to when she was abroad called Mariage Frères and bought a gift set that included their trademark tea, trademark storage tin, and some sort of ambiguous jelly stuff that we never quite figured out what it was.
the next day Diana had to teach so Jess and I were on our own in the big city. unfortunately, we got too late of a start cuz we wanted to catch some of the early morning sunlight = good pictures but missed it. it's a sore subject...I don't like to talk about it let's change the subject. besides missing our golden opportunity for some quality kodak moments, Jess and I had a pleasant time strolling through Paris during Christmas and seeing all the shops decorated to the nines and to see the Champs Elysées all lit up. that's when Jess and I got in a little tiff. looking back on it, though, is pretty funny. just think...Jess and I are in Paris, it's Christmas [how romantic] walking along the Champs Elysées, but walking 5 feet apart because we can't walk next to each other. that's what's great about us, we get each other so much that we can look back and laugh at our own ridiculousness. in conclusion, I love my sister. :)
the next day was our fun little trek back to Leeds via London. here's some background info:
item #1: Ren ended up not being able to come back to Leeds with Jess and I because she wasn't feeling well. she wrote me saying she felt terrible, but it was best for everyone, health = important! seeing Ho = ehhh not so much...it can wait another few months, I'm still the same boring Ho. she's going to NEW ZEALAND! that's crazy and I'm jealous!
item #2: easyJet decided that our flight into London Luton was going ot be delayed for a whole 4 hour due to short crew on the flight before from Milan. arrrrgh. if only Jess and I knew that before we left the hotel to be early at the airport. I like to call them non-so-easy-Jet now.
so yeah, Jess and I spent some quality time bonding together sitting in the CDG airport trying to firgure out what the hell to do with ourselves cuz we were already early early because we actually did something right and got there on time//early. eventually we did make it to London Luton, then coached from Luton into the city center [AKA we didn't have time to see that couture exhibit at the V&A Museum...sigh] killed more time in the Subway at the Victoria Coach Station [I swear, that day we did about 4 hours of travelling and about 10 hours waiting]. we took our las leg to Leeds on the NatExp coach and got a cheap [£3!] cab back to St. Ann's that was thankfully empty of flatmates. just after we got in and gave Jess the grand tour of the flat, Christine had gotten her cab to temporarily live at St. Ann's for the next few days. it was so cute, she arrived bearing gifts! she brought some foodstuffs from her flat, and a box of candy canes [festive!] and a homemade sign made of Post-Its and Sharpie that said "Welcome Back, Ho's!" it made me so happy, and I think she was happy to see friends again cuz Leeds is a real ghost town with all the students gone.
so the next 3 days Christine, Jess, and I hung around, watched movies and cooked REAL MEALS for dinner! it was fantastic. maybe I just needed Jess to come visit me to get me cooking again. it's not like it's hard, I'm just so reluctant to buy all those ingredients at double to price and all that mumbojumbo. even though we didn't do much that was special, it was awesome just to hang around and do nothing great in particular, so long as I was with Jess. the second day in Leeds we took her on the "grand" tour into town and showed her some of the university and the usual walk into town to do some shopping. we took her all over to the stores, but we had to show her what Leeds culture us like. when we got to H+M, I was having some major retail conflict because there was this one really well-proportioned coat that was ON SALE for £25 instead of £50! problem is, I had just bought this really cute party dress from Zara that fit really well etc for £29. the rest of the day went well. I just bought the long cardigan that I had been wanting for a long time from the Scarlet P for £8. the next day I ended up returning the dress and getting the coat in this suble black, blue, and brown plaid pattern. I figured that if I didn't get it, I would just end up talking about it and completely regretting not getting it. and I can totally us it up in Davis. and this way, I will have stuck to my word about only buying that Top Shop dress [the only "expensive" party dress that I'm buying this year].
Tuesday was an intense day, it mainly consisted of me running back and forth between downtoan and St. Ann's...I think that by the end of the night, I had taken the bus 7 times. so, at 3pm when I finally had to say bye to Jess at the train station, I got a little verclemt. although, we were pretty rushed so we couldn't just stand and wallow and wait for the train to come. but I think that that's almost better or else I probably would've cried. luckily I found out later that I had handed her off to Achim without a hitch. I didn't even have time to it and wistfully miss her and wallow in my sorrows at seeing her leave because Christine and I immediately had to get ready to go to ROME via Liverpool! in conclusion, I was SOOOOO happy to get to see Jess even without the parents. it felt good to spread out their trips so that there isn't going to be too long of breaks between seeing them. all in all, très bien. :)
00:14
“Wait...Who’s from California?” – A Hilaaarious Misunderstanding
27 November 2007
27 November 2007
10 December 2007
true story. Rachel, Christine, and I, sort of on a musical whim, decided to go to a Rooney gig in Birmingham on a Tuesday night. Reasons why we decided to go:
1. it’s Rooney and they’re flippin’ awesome!
2. The ticket was only 8 pounds.
3. They’re from California and that’s flippin’ awesome!
4. We didn’t have to pay for train fare cuz of Christine’s GNER train vouchers.
5. We hadn’t been to Birmingham yet.
Useful information to know:
1. Christine and I are in love with the fictional character, Michael Moscovitz from The Princess Diaries series. Robert Schwartzman, lead singer, was MM in the Princess Diaries movie. So put 2 and 2 together and you get 4, also known as Robert Schwartzman is Michael Moscovitz.
2. I had messaged Rooney as a joke a couple weeks ago asking if they could just, you know, make a quick pit stop on their UK tour in Leeds cuz there are a bunch of Californian students studying here who’d like to see some other Californians. Ned, the drummer, replied suggesting we take a field trip to one of their other shows IE London, Bristol, Birmingham. So we did.
3. According to the all-knowing www.LoveCalculator.com, Robert Schwartzman and I have a 99% shot at true love. Love Calculator doesn’t lie. Naturally, I had to make it to Birmingham to get a glimpse of my 99% true love.
So we train it out to Birmingham [locally pronounced Bir-ming-um] and meet up with our friend Frankie who’s from the area and came down to see the Kaiser Chiefs in a venue down the street [jealous much!]. she was lovely enough to give us the whirlwind tour of the city IE the High Street and Selfridges’ AMAZING food department and bull made out of jelly beans. That’s right, jellybeans. Incidentally, Christine told the bull’s security guard that she’s like to purchase the bull, only to be told that they don’t have enough gift wrap for it. What’s the world coming to…
As we wait in line for Rooney, we encountered a drunkard roaming up and down the queue trying to sell the Big Issue. Basically, all you need to know is that he slowly lunged towards Christine at which point we all grab her and the meeting culminated with the sentence, “I swear I don’t have fleas”. By then, we were pretty, pretty sure he was fibbing. We finally got inside and ending up hanging out near those girls who knew we were from California since we bonded over the encounter with the drunkard. The opener musician was a pretty good acoustic solo act whose name I can’t remember…my apologies. The other opener was a local band [Rooney held a contest for local bands to try out to be openers at each gig] called the Days. They were pretty good also, sort of a typical sound, but solid nonetheless.
At last Rooney came on and played a good mix of old and new and a few covers here and there. While Rachel fended for herself at the front of the crowd to get some sweet photos and videos amongst all the Giant People who decided to go to the gig and stand right at the very front, Christine and I took advantage of our benches by the wall and stood on them to get eye-to-eye with the band. At about halfway through their set, Robert decided to point out to the crowd their flag, which happens to be the California flag with the Rooney emblem at the bottom. The following interaction went like this:
Robert: “hey guys. Uh…check out our flag, isn’t it great?”
[some murmurs, mostly silence]
Me: “CALIFORNIAAAAA!”
[laughter, tangible confusion]
Robert: “..what?”
Me: “CALIFORNIAAAA!”
Robert: “Oh. Uh…I don’t know that song. [Phantom Planet’s California which duhh I know is his brother’s band’s song] You’ll just have to sing it and keep it in here [gestures to his head] and in here [gestures to his chest, heart, whatever].
The girls we met in line: “NO! they’re FROM California!”
Robert: “Wait, who is?”
The girls we met in line: “Them!” [points to Christine and I on our benches under the spotlights]
Robert: “Oh, awesome. What are you guys doing here?”
[most likely a rhetorical question, so we just smiled and gaped at the fact that Christine and I just “talked” to Michael Moscovitz]
some dude in the audience: “they’re lying.”
Robert: “well, [points to us] this one’s for you girls.”
[Christine and I look at each other with a look of what-the-hell-just-happened on our faces]
after that little ditty, Rooney proceeded to play a cover of the Beach Boys’s California Girls. Dedicated to us. AWESOME.
After the gig, I attempted to steal a promo poster from the wall but too many other people had the same idea, blasted. So instead I took a Carina Round poster. ☺
Then, after a failed attempt at waiting outside to hopefully meet Rooney face to face and apologize for the California misunderstanding, the 3 of us went to meet Frankie to take the train back to Shropshire [AKA the Shire, Frankie’s hometown!] to spend the night. Not only was she such a sweetie for letting us crash at her super-awesome farmhouse, she saved us 10 quid for the train fare. So the next morning, she provided croissants and orange juice to our absolute delight and the 4 of us road-tripped back up to Leeds! It was bloody FANTASTIC.
Final thoughts:
I’m still in love with Michael Moscovitz//Robert Schwartzman
I love Rooney even more after seeing them live
I can’t listen to California Girls anymore without a giddy smile
09:52
Get your Ceilidh On! An Edinburgh Thanksgiving
25 November 2007
25 November 2007
so I’ve currently got 2 papers to write for the end-of-term, which is nearly upon us! But I wanted to write about Thanksgiving before I dive into my work.
Let’s just start off by saying that it’s quite a difficult task to explain to the British what Thanksgiving is about. Considering, you know, it’s kind of an awkward history between the two nations. So in the past week, all of us EAPers have managed to diplomatically describe the significance of Thanksgiving without saying “yeah, we hated you guys and kicked you out and so we eat a lot of food with the Native Americans celebrating our victory” outright.
Thanksgiving festivities really started on Friday night, when Christine hosted Fajita Friday at St. Marks. Let’s just say that it made me really long for some Wahoo’s, Chipotle, and/or Las Golondrinas, but for what resources we did have at the market, I’d like to thing we did pretty, pretty, prettttty well. After our gastronomic delights, we immediately revelled in the joy that is my Princess Diaries DVD faster than you can say “chick flick” and pined over Michael Moscovitz. To this day, he just might be my #1 literary crush and I’m not afraid to admit it! I challenge all other characters of literature to surpass him. Do it. Just do it. Pop the trunk, do it.
The next morning Christine and I trekked down to the train station at 0-800 hours in the drizzle drazzle to catch the train that pretty much everyone else was on. We arrived in Edinburgh in high spirits, mainly because we flippin’ LOVE Edinburgh. The greatest part was that a) it wasn’t as cold as we were anticipating, b) all the Christmas festivities were in full swing [and apparently Edinburgh REALLY knows how to do Christmas] and c) we were getting a Thanksgiving meal, hellooo [cellooo it’s a bass]. Between the 5 of us [Jessica’s friend in Sunderland, Rachel, joined us!] we managed to find our way back to Budget Backpackers where I think we were all thoroughly disappointed to not be greeted by Jessica and my favorite Scot, Marty, the supposedly 19-year old yehh-grew-up-in-Edinburgh-but-lived-in-New-Zealand-for-the-past-8-years-now-I’m-back staffer. Hmm, perhaps we should go back to Edinburgh in the springtime?? Yes, that would be very good indeed.
Naturally, we needed to get some sustenance so we went to the Grassmarket and settled into Maggie Dickon’s Pub for a couple hours and caught up with some of our good old Sheffield friends. One of the perks of going back to Edinburgh was the 20% discount card Christine impulsively signed up for at Frankenstein’s during Orientation. So we all managed to get our hands on discounted pints and proceeded to dance in our high heels = excruciating pain was in my future. It didn’t help that Edinburgh is a medieval town meaning that their streets are cobbled and hilly. Obviously, people in the Middle Ages didn’t plan for womenswear to evolve into wearing shoes with spikes to make one appear taller.
After, we returned to Backpackers to shoot some pool in the Americana-ridden game room. Picture, if you will, painted murals of Mt. Rushmore, American flags, and what looks to me like a beach scene loosely based on Baywatch.
Next morning, we met a bunch of other EAPers in the lobby for check-out at 10am and wandered around Edinburgh and their Christmas Market until it was time to get changed at the Roxburghe Hotel, which I have to say, was sooo nice! I wasn’t expecting our American Thanksgiving party to be held at such an cute hotel. Points for EAP! Anyhow, at one point when all the girls were getting ready in the bathroom the fire alarm went off, we ignore it for a while, then end up running out of the bathroom to the streets where we see everyone else is waiting, including the whole of the staff on the other side of the street wrapped in space blankets.
MORE ON THIS LATER. I’m off to Paris for 4 days to meet my beloved SISTER!
Au revoir, mes amis.
09:41
you know the drill. it's business time!
04 December 2007
again, apologies for the lull in capitivating blog entries, it's end-of-term!
for some people, end-of-term means "YEAH let's go celebrate "no more work" and partyyyyy".
for others, end-of-term means "BALLS I need to finish all this work asap so that I can go celebrate "no more work" [at least...until January] and partyyyyy".
I'm the second.
so, until Friday//Saturday, wallow in my sorrows with me! woe, c'est moi.
11:06
classic moments: a retelling and a work-in-progress
12 November 2007
so we all go through life encountering new people who don't know your whole story and what you're about. in the process of getting-to-know-you, light chit-chat most likely involves some sort of recount of a good story, or of a one-time-when-I-was- [something years old]-at-[somewhere]-with-[someone] tale of an incredible event or moment of absolute bliss. being 20 years young myself, I don't think I can quite say I've had many moments of absolute bliss, but I can say that this list of moments have come close to absolute contentment while in the UK thus far. given my current state of life, most of these moments have something to do with England and music. I've come to the conclusion that my life really does have a soundtrack. apropos? I'd say so.
Moment #1
Edinburgh. Sept 15.
as Jessica and I sit down to eat our continental breakfast at the Premier Travel Inn during EAP Orienatation, the Beatles' I Feel Fine starts to play from the hotel's speakers. 2nd day in the UK and I already feel welcome.
Moment #2
Leeds. Sept 21.
Christine and I go to a house party of a friend of Louise while some other EAPers go to a club on our first Friday in Leeds. at the house, the basement//downstairs is devoted solely to getting your groove on with the in-house DJ. Christine and I venture down, start dancing, and the DJ spins Soft Cell's Tainted Love. next thing you know, the entire room is singing at the top of their lungs to the song. the awesomeness of the moment is only perfectly punctuated when I learned that the members of Soft Cell met at Leeds Met Uni here!
Moment #3
Leeds. Oct 23.
Wednesdays I usually head into the city center and read [leisurely or seriously]. of course, leisure reading = Meg Cabot's Princess Diaries because a) Mia Thermopolis is my hero, and b) Michael Moscovitz is my fictional crush. as I was reading, what should come on Borders' speakers but Dina Carrol's Someone Like You, the song that plays at the end of Bridget Jones's Diary when Bridget is wrapped up in Mark Darcy's peacoat. siiigh.
Moment #4
Dublin. Nov 4.
During our Dublin Blitz weekend, Christine and I wandered around the city while Gaby did some stuff for her classes. we walked through Trinity College and heard a lot of people on the other side of some buildings and went to check it out. turns out a rugby match was going on. we stopped to watch and the action edged closer to our end of the pitch. I realized that I couldn't be in a more perfect Irish moment: gloomy day, rugby match, Trinity College.
Moment #5
Dublin. Nov 4.
Also during our Dublin Blitz, when we were hanging out at the Village club [the one with the midnight karaoke seshes] the DJ started spinning U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday which, naturally, every single person in the club faithfully sung to their hearts content. so Irish.
so that's my tentative list of moments of satisfaction abroad so far. more to come, I'm sure. :)
01:24
"so are you telling me you don't have to tie your shoes??"
time to go big or go home - Dublin Blitz 03 November 07
time to go big or go home - Dublin Blitz 03 November 07
11 November 2007
Thanks to Christine's magical way with words, I now present you with an accurate retelling of our foray across the cold English waters to the land of bottomless pints and blarney stones.
There is a general stereotype of the Irish being heavy drinkers. It is true.
Here is an approximate itinerary of Christine and my time spent in Dublin:
7:50 AM- Wake up late for our bus to the airport.
11:00 AM- Take off from Leeds/Bradford Airport.
11:15 AM- Fall asleep on plane.
11:55 AM- Wake to the sound of trumpet calvaries playing the "off to the races" tune over the loudspeakers, accompanied by the passengers clapping and whistling (no joke-thank you Ryan air low budget airlines). Look out the window and see nothing but green grass and grey skies. Realize I have arrived in Dublin.
12:15 PM- Take bus to Trinity College.
12:20 PM- "See" Trinity College.
12:30 PM- "See" Dublin Castle.
1:00 PM- Find Gaby. Gaby takes us around Dublin to see parks, shops, famous sites (aka Guinness Factory), etc.
5:25 PM- Eat most amazing kebab dinner ever experienced.
6:00 PM- Self-induced food coma...fall asleep on Gaby's couch. Pre-night nap, if you will.
9:30 PM- Wake up, get ready for the night.
10:00 PM- Gaby, Lauren and I meet up with 22 other NYU students for a night out on the town. This is the part where I observe that the Irish do love to drink. I tactfully use my lack of monetary resources to avoid the inevitable alcohol poisoning which the Irish must experience on a nightly basis.
Somewhere between 10:00 and 5:00 AM- We head back to the NYU flat and kick it old school on the roof, listening to tunes and dancing the samba till the break of dawn.
5:15 AM- head back to Gaby's. Resume state of comatose.
SUNDAY
1:30 PM- Arise from comatose. Eat breakfast. Wander throughout Dublin once again.
5:00 PM- Eat delicious homemade MEXICAN food (dream come true) compliments of Gaby.
8:00 PM- Gaby takes us to a venue called Crawdaddy where she has gotten all three of us on the VIP guest list (aka free entry). We see local Dublin bands The Mighty Stef and The Things, who are the supporting acts for the most hilarious show I have ever seen, put on by the Black Lips who are from GEORGIA. By hilarious I mean that if I had to describe these guys in four phrases it would be: cowboy boots, handle-bar mustache, silver teeth, and mushroom/bowl haircut from the '90s. It was stunning...simply stunning. It is also here that we meet up with the club promoter (the one who put us on the guest list), who introduces us to other club promoters who then take us and the bands to a new venue for which they promote.
12:00 AM- Karaoke at one of the club promoter's clubs. It is here that I observe that the Irish are even more spastic dancers than the English.
1:00 AM- More Karaoke
2:30 AM- Still at the Karaoke bar
4:30 AM- Lauren and I realize that we probably won't be sleeping tonight. We are correct.
6:30 AM- Lauren and I catch the bus back to the airport.
9:25 AM- Take off from Dublin Airport
10:30- AM- Land in Leeds and catch the bus home.
1:00 PM- Class.
I am told this is how it is done in Dublin.
hey, when in Rome.
15:12
TP-EVOLUTION ‚ô•