Salzburg

Right now I'm in Vienna, though tomorrow I take a night train to Venice, so I suppose this was my last full day in the German-speaking countries. I can now recognize some amount of German, even if this is limited to things like "exit", "price", and various things having to do with trains. Pretty much the only thing I've consistently been able to actually say is "thank you very much", though.

To catch up from my last post, for some of my last few hours in Munich, Maddy and I went to the Augustiner-Brau brewery for dinner, and we sat in the beer garden, and I had one of those huge liter mugs of (very good) beer. Well, Munich is well-known for its beer and beer gardens -- of course I couldn't leave without properly experiencing that! :p We just sat there for a few hours and talked, which was a nice relaxing way to end what had been a fairly intense day.

On Monday she went back to Hamburg and I left for Salzburg, which I guess is even closer to the border of Germany than Reno is to California. But anyway, I checked into my hostel there, and went to watch The Sound of Music, which I guess they were showing once or twice a day there. XD I did manage to watch that movie most of the way through all three days I was there, but I think I'm gonna be at saturation point for The Sound of Music for awhile after that and the tour I did.

I went for a walk around the city in the afternoon, but by that point I was rather tired and just wanted to spend most of the day relaxing in the hostel, so I did. Of course, that's when my power cord decided to die, so there went the reliability of my favorite relaxation method. Once of my roommates was kind enough to let me charge my computer on her cord, so I could still use it in Salzburg, but once I got to Vienna I had to use the hostel's computers because my computer's dead now. Bother. This means that I can't charge my iPod, can't charge my Nintendo DS, and can't transfer pictures from my camera to my computer. Thankfully, I haven't used my iPod since I last charged it, so hopefully it'll be fine for the plane rides home, and I still have over 300 pictures left before the memory card on my camera is full, but I'm going to have to be careful with all three things now.

For my second day in Salzburg I wanted to do the Sound of Music tour, and there was a deal going on with doing that and a tour of the salt mines close by, so I decided to do that. I would have rather done the Eagle's Nest or Bavarian Lakes tours, but they didn't have the deal with the Sound of Music tour. And it ended up being just as well, because the salt mine tour took me almost to the Eagle's Nest, so I could still have a rather amazing view of the Bavarian Alps, and I saw three different lakes with the Sound of Music tour, so I was very pleased with my choice.

For the salt mine we ended up actually going back into Germany. We were only a few minutes out of Salzburg when the tour guide pointed out where the old border post was, which I guess is gone now because of the EU. He dropped the salt mines group off at the mine, and we had to get dressed up in miner's coveralls; I got someone to take a picture of me in mine. We went into the mines, which were fairly cool. Whenever we had to get to a lower level we took a miner's slide, which I enjoyed, and at one point we took a barge across a small lake and they did light shows across the water. The mine is still a working mine, but they've really figured out how to appeal to tourists, I guess.

After the salt mines the bus picked us up again and we went to go pick up the people at the Eagle's Nest and stopped at the parking lot below it for about ten minutes, which is where I got some amazing pictures of the Bavarian Alps. Then we went for lunch in Brechtresgaden, a small, picturesque town, and then went back to Salzburg just in time for the Sound of Music tour in the afternoon.

One of the first things our tour guide there mentioned was that there was actually a bar (of sorts) on board the bus. Then he asked us a trivia question, saying that the first person who got the answer right would get a free beer, soft drink, or bottle of water. And of course I only mention this because I was the one who won. The question was what was the name of the mountain Maria is on in the beginning of the movie, when she only mentions the name once, also in the beginning. I haven't actually seen the very beginning of the movie in a long time, but I knew the answer because it was the main big mountain in Salzburg and my salt mines tour guide told us the name, so I only had to remember from the morning, not from the movie.

It was a pretty cool tour. We stopped by the lake that was supposed to be near the von Trapp villa, except that apparently the lake and the house where it was filmed are not in the same location, so filming scenes that involved both the back of the house and the lake must have been fun. We saw the gazebo, where our tour guide told us that people aren't allowed inside it anymore after an 82-year-old woman broke her hip trying to dance like Liesl and Rolf did. We also headed out of town to Mondsee, which is where the cathedral where Maria and Captain von Trapp got married is, and on our way there is where we passed all the lakes. We had some free time in Mondsee, so I saw the cathedral and then went down by the lake and stuck my feet in for a while. That was so nice, because my feet are starting to form blisters, even though I've only been wearing my most comfortable shoes.

The tour was over when we got back to Salzburg, and I went to the Mirabel gardens for a picnic dinner of stuff I bought at the local supermarket. The Mirabel gardens are very pretty, and also where they filmed most of the scenes for the Do-Re-Mi song, so I got lots of pictures of places I recognized from that.

I'm getting pretty tired now, so I'll finish up Salzburg and talk about Vienna either tomorrow or in Venice.

Dachau

So, probably the most important thing to mention right now is that one of the most annoying things that could have happened to me, computer-wise, just did. Yesterday my power cord stopped working, which means that whenever I use my computer, my battery will run down. Right now a kind roommate is letting me use her power cord, but I can't count on that everywhere. This means I save my battery for when I really need it and only use my hostel's computers. I haven't exactly been spending all my time on the internet lately, but this means even less than usual, so I will probably be even less punctual (than usual :p) when answering email and updating this blog.

Anyway. Sunday was my last full day in Germany, and I spent a lot of it at Dachau. I'm...not really sure what to say about it. My tour guide asked us on the way there to think about why we were going -- why, when we could have done so many other things in Munich, we decided to go to the site of a former concentration camp. There were rather a lot of different answers for me. I've seen so many Holocaust exhibits and memorials since coming to Europe that I wanted to see one of those camps with my own eyes. They're so important to Germany's history that it felt wrong to leave Germany without seeing one when I had the opportunity. The tour guide said we could have gone to a beer garden or something more cheerful, but I felt that I couldn't just see the happy things and ignore the horrible. There was even a bit of feeling about how I'm mostly German, even though we've been American since before the National Socialists came to power, and it feels sort of like a part of my history, even though my only German connection is really in my ancestry. I don't know if I can explain better than that, but in any case, I really felt like I had to go to Dachau.

But I still don't know what to say about it. I was there, but I wasn't THERE. I could see the "work will set you free" sign on the gate, but not know the despair of the people working in the camp and not being set free at all, except in death, until finally the war was over. I could see the outline of the "no smoking" sign in the administration building, put there as a taunt to the prisoners who were not allowed cigarettes, and the shelves in the barracks for inmates not allowed to have possessions to put on those shelves, but I can't even imagine what they felt and what they went through. I have no personal framework for that. And of course I'm glad that I have no personal framework for imagining, much less understanding, but I could only feel the dimmest reverberating echo of their anguish as a visitor sixty years later, and it still only seems slightly more real to me. I saw it, and was horrified, and incredulous that this could have existed at all, but I could not be there as they were there. I do not regret that, and yet I do. I don't know.

I saw the gate, and the roll call square, and the administration building, and the barracks. The bunker built only for torture. The watchtowers and the fence. The road to the crematorium, and the plaque bearing the words "think about how we died here". And I saw the vibrantly green grass and the trees with branches thick with leaves, and wow was that incongruous, except that the Nazis used that to their advantage, because in the beginning the world could not believe the horrors happening there.

I'm just about done with my time on this computer, which is just as well. Let this post stand on its own. I'll talk about the rest of Munich and Salzburg in my next post.

Auf Wiedersehen, Deutschland!

I'm in Munich now.  My computer is having difficulty with the hostel's wireless again, so I'm writing this now and will post it when I get the chance.

It's hard to believe I'm most of the way through my trip to Germany.  I have tomorrow here in Munich, and then I leave for Austria on Monday.  Wow.  Anyway.

Day two of Berlin was spent partly doing things and partly trying to get places.  Though it was not so much that I got lost as that I underestimated how long it would take me to get places.  The first thing I did was go to Schloss Charlottenburg (Charlottenburg Palace, named after the first queen of Prussia, Sophie Charlotte), which is at the end of what would have been a very pretty drive had it not been raining and muddy and full of puddles.  I explored the palace for a few hours, which I think is actually the first stately home I've been to in Europe.  Well, I've been to castles, but most of them have been in some sort of ruin.  Charlottenburg did get bombed during WWII, but they've recreated the rooms that had been destroyed.

Charlottenburg is also apparently known for its gardens.  I did spend some time there, but it was raining, and I would have gotten more pictures, but my camera was about full up.  So after I was done at Charlottenburg, I went back to my hostel to dump pictures from my camera to my computer.  By then it was mid-afternoon, so I decided to take one of those bus city sightseeing tours, so that I could decide what I most wanted to see the next day and to see something of what I did not have time to go see ordinarily.

I enjoyed the bus tour.  Outside the Jewish Museum is the most random statue ever, of Superman plummeting towards the ground...and his head getting splattered.  I went back later to take a picture of it, because that was a big-time eyebrow-raise.  Also, somewhere along the river Spree is this stretch of Wall that's left over, that people have painted on, and now it's the longest open-air art gallery in Europe.

On Wednesday I went to the Reichstag, their parliament building.  In the middle of it there's this dome where you can climb to the top and have a great panorama of the city, and it's free to the public, so I decided to do that.  It was quite a long queue, though, and the guy behind me was wearing a shirt making a Nazi joke.  I didn't say anything, but I was inwardly raising an eyebrow and thinking, wow, that's in such good taste.  Seriously, wearing a shirt making a Nazi joke in Berlin?  To the parliament building?  Probably the only worse place to wear such a shirt would be Poland.  At least once we got into the building the guards made him cover it up.  And it was a nice view of the city, but it would have been nicer had the sky not been so cloudy.

After the Reichstag I had a bratwurst for lunch on Alexanderplatz, then went to Checkpoint Charlie.

I found myself...surprisingly emotional.  I mean, I was barely two when the Wall opened, so it's not like that had such personal relevence.  But I don't think I ever really appreciated how important the World Wars and their aftermath were until I got to Europe.  The World Wars are such a part of the national consciousness of both Britain and Germany, and I knew a lot of objective facts about them, but being here really brings it home, I guess.

The Brandenburg Gate, which I saw my first day in Berlin?  Big-time national symbol?  Was in the middle of the border no-man's-land when the Wall was up.  This hugely important symbol was shut away where no one could get to it.  I walked through it like it was nothing, but thirty years ago I couldn't have done that.  It's amazing to be there and really realize that.

Checkpoint Charlie had so many details of people's escape attempts from the GDR, and along the Tiergarten were crosses with the names of people who died trying to cross the Wall.  I saw so much, and found myself feeling so much as well.

Anyway.  After Checkpoint Charlie I went for a boat tour along the Spree, which I enjoyed.  It was very scenic, and had lots of information.  Apparently Berlin has more water and bridges than Amsterdam, Venice, and Paris combined.  I never would have guessed.

That was basically it for Berlin, and that evening I took the train to Hamburg.  The first thing I learned about taking trains in Europe is that while I don't technically need seat reservations with a Eurail pass for most of my trips, they are a good thing to have.  At least then I will be able to go to my seat and not need to find a non-reserved one, with my bag blocking the aisle and many people (including train staff) not speaking English.  And plain seat reservations, as opposed to tickets, do not cost very much (around five euro or so, from what I've seen), so I think that will make things easier.

I did get into Hamburg fine, and met Maddy at the station.  It was almost ten at that point and I was getting tired, so we just went back to her place, talked to her landlady for a bit, figured out what we wanted to do the next day, and went to bed.

I only had one day in Hamburg, but it was enough, even though apparently Hamburg is the second biggest city in Germany.  We went to the archeology museum, which was interesting, though only in German, so I mostly just looked at cool things and knew nothing about them.  We stopped by the planetarium because I thought a shop in a German planetarium would be a nice place to get something for Linda, but they had a measley shop, so we left soon.  Then we had lunch and went to the ethnography museum.

Museums in Germany have given me a new appreciation for London museums, because most of London's are free.  I miss that.  It was a big incentive to actually go to them.  But since I've been getting burned out on museums, having to actually pay for them is an excuse not to go. :p  Of course, I have been to the ones I've been most interested in, but I definitely miss the free ones in London.

After the ethnography museum, we went to the lakes, where I ended up taking a two-hour-or-so nap in the sun.  I don't seem to have burned, but though it was nice, I don't want to make a habit of that.  And I definitely need to get some sunscreen before I go to Nice, and preferably before I go to Venice.

Maddy and I took the night train from Hamburg to Munich, which was not as bad as I'd been dreading.  I remember I couldn't really sleep at all on the flight to London, and I only reserved a reclining seat on the train because that was cheaper.  I managed to sleep fairly well on it, though.  Enough so that even though I woke up at 5:30 this morning and it's 8:30 at night, I'm still showing no signs of crashing.  It was quite cold, though.  What I think I'm going to do is get a beach towel before my next night train (Vienna to Venice).  A beach towel can do triple duty as beach towel (for Nice), regular towel (because I've been renting from hostels), and blanket.  Now I just need to find where to get one.  I might try to get to a department store tomorrow.

We got into Munich at about eight this morning, dropped some stuff off at the hostel, then wandered to Marienplatz, Munich's central area.  Marienplatz has this building that looks like it's an old church or small castle, but is actually the town hall, and was only built in 1908, just built to evoke that sense of actual age.  From there we walked up to the Munich Residence, which is where the rulers of Bavaria lived until 1918.  That was pretty cool, though extremely big and I got a bit lost more than once.

We went for lunch at the Viktualienmarkt, aka the food market.  Very impressive place, rather reminiscent of a Renaissance Faire.  It has that same press of people, many of them drinking and carrying beer around, with so many different stalls selling both food and crafts, and just a general faire-type feel.  I had German beer in Munich and thoroughly enjoyed it, both because it was as good as I'd expected, and just for the experience of drinking German beer in Munich.  I may not be able to be here for Oktoberfest, but at least I have that.

After lunch we checked into our hostel.  Hostels like this are a lesson in booking far enough in advance, because all I could find for both nights was a 40-bed dorm.  That's not that bad, but the bathroom doesn't have very good showers (just a row of stalls with curtains covering them), so while I think it's doable, it's definitely not ideal.  It also does not have a very comfortable lounge area in the lobby, very few power outlets, and is currently having internet issues.  Sigh.

This afternoon we took a three-hour walking tour of Munich.  I mostly enjoyed it, and learned a lot, but at the moment don't want to talk a lot about it because my feet and legs are still hurting. XD  Maybe next time I post I'll have a bit more detail, because it really was very interesting.

Munich is currently going crazy because of football.  There were so many people on the street today, singing and drinking and preparing themselves for the match going on right now, which is apparently the final for some big European cup and Munich is one of the teams (Milan is the other).  So though the hostel people called someone to do something about the internet, they don't think he'll come because he's probably busy watching the game.

Tomorrow we're going to Dachau.  This is not really something to be excited about, but I am glad I'm doing it.  I wouldn't feel right about leaving Germany without having seen a concentration camp.  I expect tomorrow to be a fairly depressing day, though, and not just because it's my last day in Germany.

Guten Tag!

Hello from Berlin! My computer is being temperamental about the wireless in my hostel, so I'm using one of the hostel's computers, with its freaky German keyboard. Y and Z are switched around, I have no idea where the at symbol is, and I have to press the shift key to get to an apostrophe. It's even weirder than the British keyboard, which I thought disconcerting enough.

The semester is now over. I finished and turned in my last paper and we had our end-of-term tea party. I had my last dinner with my host mum, and my last day out in London, where I finally saw the Changing of the Guard (though not from a very good spot, as I'm guessing most of the action took place behind the gates of Buckingham Palace, and I wasn't close enough), and ate my lunch in a park near the Victoria Embankment, took some more people to the Doctor Who shop and small museum, then finished my paper and wandered around a bit before seeing Legally Blonde, my last show in London. It was a lot of fun, especially seeing how things get adapted from movie to musical. I very much enjoyed it.

Saturday was when I left for Cardiff with some friends, fellow Doctor Who fans. Getting to Paddington, however, was a public transportation fiasco. The bus that goes right past my homestay either came too early (meaning more than five minutes early, which I really don't think buses should do) or just didn't come at all, so instead of taking ten minutes to get to the station from which trains run frequently, I had to walk twenty minutes to get to the station from which they do not run as frequently. One was leaving just as I was walking up, so I had to wait ten minutes for the next one. Then when I got on that, there was a defective train at the next station, so we had to wait for that to leave. When I got to Baker Street, the next line I'd intended to take wasn't going to Paddington at the moment, so I had to take the longer route. I left the house at 7:15 for an 8:45 train in what should have been plenty of time because Paddington is fairly close, but I ended up getting to the station just as the train left. Then I had to buy a new ticket all together, because the one I had was for that particular train only. At least my friends waited for me and we got to Cardiff together.

Our hostel was not very far from the station (though that's not really saying much, since Cardiff is small enough that we could walk from the north end to the south in just over half an hour), but it was an awesome place. Best hostel I've been in. I'd originally booked us three beds in an eight-bed dorm for twenty pounds a night, but somehow we got a three-bed private room without a difference in price. Really nice place.

From the hostel we walked down to the Doctor Who Museum, near the Millennium Centre and Cardiff Bay. The museum was very cool, having original props and costumes and just some really neat stuff. Then we hung around Roald Dahl Plass for awhile, looked out on the bay, got a lot of pictures. But Cardiff is small and there is really not all that much to do, so we went back to the hostel for dinner, and for watching the newest episode of Doctor Who as it aired. That was pretty awesome, to watch the show in the place where it's filmed.

Our hostel had a pretty nice bar, so we stayed there for a bit, then went to an O'Neill's (chain Irish pub). Around midnight I was feeling tired and wanted to go to bed, but my friends are more into partying and they stayed out later.

Sunday was a pretty lazy day. We slept in (them more than me), then walked around Cardiff on a Doctor Who tour of the places where it was filmed. It was pretty cool to walk around a place and recognize it from the show. Then we went back to the bay and took a boat ride around the bay. Hah. 'Boat ride' sounds so tame. The boat basically sped us around the bay at roughly 85mph, including taking us in tight circles and riding the waves so hard we got jostled. I was not expecting that, but it was very fun.

We went back to the hostel and watched a movie in our room until dark, when we went back to look at the Millennium Centre and Roald Dahl Plass all lit up at night, which was quite cool. But again, not much else to do, so we went back to the hostel for an early night.

Monday we took the train back to London, then I went back to AHA to pick up the stuff I stored there, and we met again at Victoria station for the train to Gatwick, since my friends were going to Amsterdam from there. I got on my flight to Berlin, which was thankfully a very easy flight, and got here and made it through customs (easiest customs ever--they didn't even ask me how long I was going to be here), then caught the train into the city center and made my way to my hostel.

Berlin is smaller than I'd thought, because today I walked across what looks like about half of it. My hostel is near Alexanderplatz, and I walked from here to the Brandenburg Gate and Potsdamer Platz without difficulty. The Brandenburg gate is very cool, and I got some pictures of bits of the Berlin Wall at Potsdamer Platz, and saw the Memorial for Murdered Jews in Europe. Right above the memorial is the Field of Stelae, tall rectungular concrete blocks set out in rows and columns. I walked into them, and they got gradually taller, and I felt like I was walking amongst rows of sarcophagi. Very appropriate, but also very creepy.

Tomorrow I intend to go Schloss Charlottenburg (a palace), the Reichstag (Parliament building), possibly up the TV Tower for a view of the city, and maybe for a boat and/or bus tour around the city. I'll figure out the rest from there.

It's been very interesting being here, alone in a big city when I don't speak the language. Everyone I came across in Oslo spoke English, and I was with someone then, but not everyone speaks English here and I've been having to get around and figure things out completely by myself. I've been fine so far, but it's definitely an experience. At least English is a Germanic language so there are some things I can figure out, Austria also speaks German, and Italy and France are Italic languages which I have some familiarity with. It may take a bit of time, but I can figure things out!

Semester's End

Last day of school today. I just finished my last final. I have one paper I need to write tonight and email to my teacher tomorrow, but otherwise I'm done with this semester. The end-of-term tea party and the paper, and then I'm free...

Anyway, playing catch-up again.

Sarah and I slept in in Olso and didn't leave the hostel until nearly 11, but after spending the night before in the airport, we rather needed the sleep. I had my leftover pizza for lunch, and then we headed back to City Hall and the fjord, because we wanted to take a ferry over to the Norwegian Folk Museum. We were supposed to buy our tickets on the ferry, but we accidentally avoided paying by sitting on the deck outside. We didn't realize until the way back that the guy checking/selling tickets only did it inside, because we sat inside the way back. Except at that point we didn't have enough cash for a ticket, of any denomination (they would have accepted Euros or pounds), we just had credit cards. And the ferry people ran the ferry continuously and couldn't wait for us to go find an ATM, so...we used the ferry for free. We would have been willing to pay, but you know, I can't say I'm sorry we ended up not having to.

The Folk Museum was pretty cool (and paying for a ticket in was where I used the last of my cash). It was an open-air museum, with Norwegian buildings ranging from several decades old to about eight hundred years, the church. In one of the houses they were making traditional lefse, which is a sort of slightly sweet flatbread. Sarah told me I had to try it, so I did, and it was really good. Sarah also told me that around the end of November/beginning of December, PLU (her school, and also in Tacoma) hosts this kind of fair thing and people come who make traditional lefse, so I think when that comes around I'm going to go to PLU and get some.

Sarah has a Norwegian friend named Even who came to Oslo at two to spend time with her and show us around. He took us to the opera house, which I wouldn't have thought of going to, but it was really interesting. Not a traditional building at all -- it sort of reminds me of the Scottish Parliament, but mostly in the sense that what seems like it should be an old traditional building is instead really interesting modern architecture. The roof of the opera house in Oslo was this long slope, so we just walked up the roof to the top and looked out on the fjord again, which was quite cool.

After that we took a tram to the sculpture park, which was...interesting. It was very pretty scenery, and a beautiful day, but all the statues were of people, and all of them were naked, and not even in sculpture sections of museums have I been surrounded by that many fake naked people. For the most part they did not come across as sexual despite the nudity, but I really don't think I have any way of describing them without it sounding sexual, so I think I'll refrain and just show the pictures I took.

That was really about all we could think of to do for Oslo, so it's a good thing we were only there for two days. The three of us just ended up going back to the main shopping street of Karl Johans Gate and finding a nice spot by one of the fountains to sit around and chat. I ate the last of the food I brought, and then we took the bus back to the airport of Rygge, where we spent the next ten hours.

I got even less sleep on Saturday night than I did Thursday, though we got to the airport in enough time for me to have gotten more. It just took me a long time to get so tired that I could fall asleep even there. Also, around two in the morning this girl and her friend from Turkey came in, and we just started chatting about being students traveling. I enjoyed that, even if it meant even less sleep.

I was up at five, which was not fun, and on the plane not long after six. What was nice, though, was that all the scheduled passangers got on quickly and so we were able to leave early, and get back into London half an hour before scheduled. We were then able to catch an earlier bus back to Baker Street, and therefore I managed to get home by ten, rather than eleven. I started laundry, and then I took a nap.

The election here has finally resolved itself. David Cameron of the Conservatives as new Prime Minister, and Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats as Deputy Prime Minister, with a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, the first coalition in decades. It's too bad I'm about to leave, because this would be fascinating to watch play out first hand -- men of two different parties as PM and Deputy PM! Especially considering they're the right-wing and the further-left-wing parties! I'm going to have to keep up with what's going on when I go home, because this is just too interesting. I got to watch Gordon Brown give his resignation speech live, and go to see the Queen and recommend she ask David Cameron to form a government, and dude this was just so cool.

I got my final papers done in enough time for me to spend two evenings this week seeing shows. Last night I saw Avenue Q, which was awesome. Absolutely hilarious. I think it was pretty obvious who the Americans in the audience were, though, because there were some things we laughed at that most of the people there didn't. In the final song, they started listing things that were "only for now", and I was amused when one of the things they listed was Gordon Brown. This was the first show where that was not applicable, because it was last night that he resigned. Still, I very much enjoyed the show, even if it was in London and not New York. I just hope it's not too prophetic, because this time next year I'll have a BA in English...

My finals are done, now, though, and almost all of my preparations for Europe. I have booked all of my hostels, and have also added up how much all of the hostels will cost me. What's left over in my bank account will be used on food, inner city transport, and seat reservations on trains (I may not have to pay for a ticket, but I still will need reservations for many trains, but plain reservations are a lot cheaper than tickets), and of course souvenirs. I've got one suitcase packed, then tonight I'll pack up a box to send home, probably by sea because that's cheaper and I don't really need it to get there sooner than the three weeks or so it'll probably take. Then I can do the last packing, because on Saturday I leave with friends for Cardiff, and only on Monday will I leave the UK.

I...don't want to think about it right now. I've been making all these plans for Europe, but trying not to think about the reality of actually being there. I mean, I'm looking forward to it, but it means the end of my big semester abroad. I'll confront the reality later. For now I still want to pretend I don't have to leave in just a few days. Sigh.

Busy Week

This has honestly been my first chance to update since Monday.  Wow, my week has been full.

Saturday was Brighton, which was lovely.  Weather reports warned that it was supposed to rain, and it did...for the first half hour.  After that it was sunny for the rest of the time we were there.

The train ride on the way down might have been the best, and also the geekiest, train ride I've ever had.  It's only an hour to Brighton from London, but my friends and I passed the time playing Shakespeare and Fantasy Twenty Questions.  And for Fantasy Twenty Questions the sources we focused on were Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Narnia, so I kicked serious ass.  On the way home we added Disney to the mix, and I kicked ass at that too.

My Novels teacher lives in Brighton, and she said she'd show us around, so we met her and her excitable Dalmatian puppy (she couldn't get a dog-sitter) at the train station and she gave us a tour.  We followed the May Day Parade for a bit, and then she showed us the Royal Pavilion, the sumptious Indian/Oriental-style palace where George the Prince Regent kept his unofficial wife, apparently.

From there we hit the beach.  It had been raining, but seriously, once we got to the beach, the rain stopped.  It was awesome.  The beach was very rocky and not sandy, so it was not as comfortable to lie on, but we still spent quite a bit of time there.  There was also a carousel on the beach, which four of the five of us decided we had to go on -- we were the only adults there unaccompanied by children. :p  I enjoyed it, though.

We went to lunch at Brighton Pier, and I had fish and chips.  The very first time I've had fish and chips since coming to England, too -- and also the last.  It wasn't...bad, but it didn't have much taste, even when I added vinegar.  But at least I've finally had it, and it was by the seaside, too, so I'm satisfied.

After lunch we went shopping.  Well, I window-shopped.  Some of the others bought stuff, but there was nothing I wanted that would fit me, so I didn't get anything.  We also just walked around and listened to the street performers, but I think the main attractions of Brighton are the beach/seaside and the shopping.  We were done with the shopping, so we went back to the beach for awhile.

We went to a pub for dinner, and I have chicken tikki masala with naan.  It is a mark of how good Indian food is in Britain that I could order it at a pub, of all places, and still have it be very good.  One of the others ordered a whiskey and coke, and we got onto the subject of whiskey, and I somehow managed to be the expert on the subject there.  (Well, maybe it's not too surprising, since I was the only one there over 21.)  This made me want whiskey, so I ordered some, and I actually prefer my whiskey neat rather than mixed with something.  But the others were curious about the taste of plain whiskey, so I let them have small sips.  One made a rather hilarious face, but another actually spat it out.  What a waste of good whiskey! :p

After dinner we went home.  I went to bed, and actually slept very well.  I'd been getting an ear infection, which, after the horrible one of last year, made me very nervous.  I was going to try and see a doctor just in case, but then it just started going away on its own, which was a big relief.

Sunday and Monday I just spent on classes and homework.  Three papers due next week, and three finals.  Gah.  I really prefer having either a final paper or a final exam, not both, especially when the final exam is essay questions.  Oh well, though, since I think I'm pretty well prepared for the tests at least.  I still have two essays to finish.

On Tuesday the entire program went to see Macbeth at the Globe.  The Globe!  Macbeth!  I hadn't been looking forward to standing for three hours, but it wasn't as bad as I'd been anticipating.  I enjoyed the performance.  Some of the others didn't like some of the choices the director made, but I hadn't minded.  I was right in the front, almost in the center, and I just really enjoyed the experience.

Wednesday was spent on classes, figuring out some stuff for Europe (oh, Mom and Dad -- I got the Eurail pass), and writing one of the essays.  I finished the essay Thursday morning, so I didn't really have time for the changing of the guard or the national history museum, so I'm going to try for those next week.  The changing of the guard I especially want to see.  Anyway, I think I've got my exact dates for Europe figured out, for when I'll be in each city and when I'd be better off taking sleeper trains and so on, so that's a relief.  I think on Monday I'll try to make hostel reservations.

Thursday I spent on finishing the essay and doing research for another, then class, and then a show.  Sarah and I were going to spend the night in the airport before our flight to Oslo this morning, because trying to get there in the morning would have been such a hassle.  But we had to leave pretty late, because Sarah had to see Midsummer Night's Dream for the Shakespeare class, and I decided that since she had to see a show, I might as well use the time to see one as well.  I did Billy Elliot again, just because I love it.  Wow, do I love it.  I'm definitely going to try and see the movie when I get home.

Yesterday was also election day in Britain (it looks like the Tories got the most seats but there's a hung parliament, which means they only got a plurality, not an outright majority).  Martin had told us that there'd be broadcasting of election results in Trafalgar Square and against Big Ben, so after my show was over I went to Parliament Square, but there was no broadcasting.  I met Sarah there, and we decided to check out Trafalgar Square, but there was likewise no broadcasting.  It made me very sad, because I'd wanted to watch it, and thought it would have been so cool to see it in Trafalgar Square or against Big Ben.

We had to take an hour-long bus ride to get to Stansted Airport, and Sarah made reservations for one in the morning, because she wanted to make sure we had enough time to get to the coach stop.  I understand that, but I wish she'd gone for the midnight time slot, because we found the bus stop by then, and then had nothing to do.  Things close so early in London -- there were no pubs or bars open or anything.  We basically had to wait outside in the cold for an hour, and I was tired by that point, so I was trying to sleep on a hard wood bench, but it wasn't working out too well because I was so cold.

We made it to Stansted by two, but check-in and security weren't open then, so we passed the night on a hard cold floor in the lobby area.  I drowsed for three hours, but that was about it.

I woke up by about five-thirty and we checked in and went through security, but we still had another couple hours to kill before we even found out what gate we were, so I went on my computer, but not on the internet because I would have had to pay.  We finally made it to the airplane and I dozed some more on the flight.  It was thankfully only about two hours.  That was the first time I've flown since coming over here, and I don't like it any more than I ever have.  I'm really not looking forward to the flight home from Paris.

We had to take another hour-long bus to get from the airport in Rygge to Oslo, but we got to our hostel at about one.  I'd brought some food for my lunches for both days (definitely a good idea, now that I've seen how expensive food is here), so I ate lunch and went on the computer for a bit while we waited for check-in to open.  Then we checked in, dropped our bags off in our room, and went out to explore Oslo.

We'd decided on an easy day today, because both of us were exhausted (honestly, I'm surprised I've managed this long).  We wandered around the shopping area nearby, and I got a European plug adaptor.  From there we went up one of the main streets towards the royal palace, seeing sights such as the Domkirk (church), the University of Oslo, the National Theatre, the Hard Rock Cafe Oslo, the parliament building, and just some great pedestrian areas.  We took some pictures of the palace when we got there, but there wasn't really much else we could do, so we stopped in for a drink at the Hard Rock Cafe and then moved on to look at the fjord.

Right by the fjord, at least the part we went to, was an old fortress and castle, so we explored that a bit.  The castle was closed by then, so we didn't go in, but we actually saw rather a lot of the fortress grounds, and got some great pictures, and saw some guards in funny uniforms standing and marching around, so that was cool.

Sarah had brought food for her dinners, but I really only had room in my backpack for lunches, so I went to find dinner.  Wow, things are expensive here.  Much more so than England and even Ireland.  I really hope that the rest of my visit to Europe has prices more similar to England than to Norway, where a medium pizza cost almost thirty dollars and a glass of pepsi almost six.  But the good thing about getting pizza is that I now have leftovers, so I can have leftover pizza for lunch tomorrow, eat the food I'd brought for dinner, and then not have to pay more.

We came back to the hostel after dinner, since both of us are quite tired, though Sarah more than me.  So now I'm online, have finally had time to properly update this thing, and will probably go to bed in a few hours.  It's nine-thirty here, but it's still light out!  Considering how far north we are, I would have figured it would have gotten dark already, but apparently not.

Anyway.  Tomorrow we're going to take a ferry across the fjord to the Norwegian Folk Museum, meet one of Sarah's Norwegian friends who will show us around more, and then go back to the airport in the evening to spend the night there for a six-fifty flight Sunday morning.  Hopefully I'll be able to sleep better at Rygge airport than Stansted.