Paris Pictures!

I know, I know. I totally forgot to upload my pictures from Paris! Apologies, apologies (although I’m sure anyone who is friends with me on Facebook is not at all disappointed – all my pictures from the last two weeks are up there. But for those reading this who did not get to see on Facebook, here are some highlights from Paris:

Me, Melissa, and Laura outside Notre Dame

A view from inside Notre Dame

And another!

Me and the Pantheon

My creepiest photo from inside the Catacombs

Me outside the Louvre – amazing museum!!!

I got to see the Mona Lisa in person – I loved it!

One of my favorite parts of the Louvre – Napoleon’s apartments

A walk in a park in Paris – just past the Louvre

NEED I SAY MORE??

Why Wales? Entry #5 London Love

One of my friends here was planning on going to London for the weekend to meet up with a friend that she hasn’t seen in 13 years. Since she was planning on going anyway, she decided to invite some others and make a mini-vacation out of it.

I went to London last year with some friends while one friend was studying abroad there. For some reason I forgot how amazing London is. Of course when people asked if I wanted to go, I accepted the offer- but I wasn’t nearly as excited as I should have been. I figured I would be seeing the same things, and doing the same stuff, but with three different people- the entire experience was unlike my previous London adventure. It was an experience that ultimately bonded us four travelers and created everlasting friendships amongst the four of us.

We got to London on Friday evening and had dinner at The Shakespeare Pub. It was just the three of us (me, Maggie, and Christine) until our other friend Justine met us there.

When Justine arrived, we had to figure out how to get to our hostel… bus, tube, taxi… how to get tickets…

We finally decided on a taxi, just because we were so tired. We took it to Hyde Park, and checked into the Hyde Park Hostel. This hostel was rather sketchy, but that made the experience more rich and lively. We were lucky enough to get a room just for the four of us. This was nice because we were able to relax in the room whenever neccesary.
Justine didn’t eat yet, so we found this waffle house near our hostel… This waffle house had the most amazing waffles ever, and was perhaps the highlight of our trip. We would travel back to London just for the waffles!

After Waffle-mania, we headed to experience the London night life. We ended up going to this cool London club, and after leaving decided to walk back to our hostel. Although it was freezing, this walk back gave us a unique view of the beautiful city, because London was so quiet. It is interesting to see a city that is so busy all day long, so silent. We walked home past Buckingham Palace, and saw many sights in the late late hours of the night.

Since we really only had one day in London, we needed to plan accordingly. I didn’t really put much say in, since I have seen and expirienced London’s magic previously. We headed to the Natural History Museum, which was an amazing museum. As an education major, I really enjoyed this museum. It was so hands on and interactive. It was filled with sayings and quotations which brought the facts all together. I would love to take my class here on a field trip… perhaps it’s just a bit too far.

We only saw one aspect of the museum (the Earth, volcanoes, etc), since our stomachs were growling. Believe it or not, there were not many places to eat around the museum, so we went to Kings Cross, and prior to finding food- we went to platform 9 3/4. We found a great little cafe to eat at, and had yet another plate of fish and chips (I can’t get enough!).

After that, we decided not to go back to the museum, but to head to see Big Ben. Big Ben is beautiful. We took un obseen amount of photos, and proceded to adventure into the city.

Somewhere along the way we hit Buckingham Palace. We also rode the London eye, and enjoyed the 4D expirience.
Our stomachs were growling yet again, so we searched, and searched for dinner. We almost ate at the Sherlock Holmes pub, but it was too pricey/crowded. We ended up at Garfunkle’s- to enjoy a lovely burger and chips.

Then, the best part of the night! We decided not to go out again, we went back to the WAFFLE HOUSE… we got waffles to go. We also went to the store around the corner, and bought cans of whipped cream, and large amounts of junk food. We felt sick afterwards, but it was sooo good! Poor Christine dropped her chocolate covered waffle all over the floor. (I wouln’t eat anything that fell on the hostel floor, but she tried to pick at it, haha)

Next morning, we got ready, and went to see Peter Pan. There is a statue of Peter Pan, which was put there by JM Barrie, the author of Peter Pan. The statue was erected in the middle of the night, to seem as if Peter arrived by magic for the children. This was in the newspaper following the statue being erected.

“There is a surprise in store for the children who go to Kensington Gardens to feed the ducks in the Serpentine this morning. Down by the little bay on the south-western side of the tail of the Serpentine they will find a May-day gift by Mr J.M. Barrie, a figure of Peter Pan blowing his pipe on the stump of a tree, with fairies and mice and squirrels all around. It is the work of Sir George Frampton, and the bronze figure of the boy who would never grow up is delightfully conceived.”

After viewing the statue, Maggie left us to go back to Cardiff, as Christine, Justine and I kept exploring.Along one street we found all artwork for sale. We strolled down the street admiring the amazing talent. We all discussed our wishes for the money to buy all of this artwork and fill our homes with it. We then grabbed a bite to eat, and headed to the British Museum.

After the British Museum, it was time to say goodbye to Justine. She was off to reunite with her  friend she hasn’t seen for 13 years! This was the sole purpose for going to London. Christine and I ventured off to enjoy some crepes at a creperie, and then did some shopping/wandering.

We got our bus back to Cardiff at around 6:30, and got back home in time for the superbowl! I, thankfully opted out. I must say I was happy to be in the UK for the superbowl, where it didn’t really matter if you watched it or not.

Bonjour! Je voudrais…

Hello! Apologies on slacking with my posts, I’ve just been incredibly busy! When we last left off, I was leaving for Paris. My flight took off last Thursday (18 February) at around 7pm. However, that day (and the night before) was way more stressful than just hopping on a plane:

That week was my reading week, which basically meant that there were no classes so that we could catch up on reading/work for our classes. But of course for me, that means travel time! Also, the following week my first papers were due in all of my classes. Obviously, I wasn’t about to write my papers in Paris, so that week up until Thursday was spent writing papers. And since I am the world’s biggest procrastinator (despite the fact that these papers were done 4 days before they were due), I spent the night before finishing up my last paper, and spent the morning of the 18th printing two copies of each of my three papers, handing them all in, and doing some last minute packing. It was definitely a game of beat the clock for me.

For Paris, it was me, Tara, Melissa, Laura, Aminta, Josh and James, but Tara, Melissa, and Laura got a flight on the 17th, and me, Aminta, Josh, and James were going Thursday night. The four of us grabbed food (McDonalds UGH) before heading off on the tube to the airport. It’s quite a process getting to Luton: take the tube to King’s Cross, get a train from King’s Cross to Luton, and then a shuttle from there to the airport. Okay, it seemed a lot more complicated when it was happening, but altogether I feel like it took about an hour and a half and we were all stressed about time, even though we gave ourselves more than enough time.

Fact: Security at Luton (and Charles de Gaulle on our return flight) is MUCH less intense than at JFK, or anywhere in the US for that matter. Sure, we still had to take our shoes off, but I don’t feel like that much attention was paid to what’s in our bags. For example, my friend was able to bring her razor and a big thing of shampoo on the plane with her. Also, in America our little 8 oz bottles have to be in their own individual bags, but here they can all be put together. Funny story: As if the day wasn’t stressful enough, in my hasty attempt to get myself out the door that afternoon, I threw my shampoos at the bottom of my bag and therefore had to stop on the line and dig through my bag for them, completely messing up all of my stuff. AND I had to buy ziploc baggies for £1 (total rip-off) at security.

The flight felt like it took about 5 seconds. We literally took off and then landed! Once we landed, it was the moment of truth. We had to figure out how to get to our hostel, which was apparently simple to get to. We just needed to buy a ticket. And none of us spoke/read French, which naturally made the journey even more difficult. We found a ticket place, and by our silence, the woman gathered we spoke English. She was really nice about it though, gave us all maps and told us where to go. We had to take the metro from the airport and then transfer to another line, and then it’s just one stop. Well, when we got on that metro, we realized (thankfully only one stop in) that we were going the wrong way! We got off, went two stops in the RIGHT direction, and then had to find the actual place. Let me tell you, we were staying in the armpit of Paris – of course, at only €16 a night per person, what else should I expect? But trying to find our way in a dangerous-looking part of a foreign city at 11pm was not my favorite part of the trip. Apparently we took the wrong exit out of the metro station – the other exit would’ve been 2 minutes from the place – so we actually arrived at the hostel at midnight. According to the website, check in started at 12am, so our plan was to wait til midnight to check in (we ended up not having to wait), but the guy charged us for an extra night because he said check-in began at 9am. LAME! But again, it was only an extra €16, and we were all too tired to be mad about it. We found our friends in the 13-bed room. Not the nicest room – one bathroom for potentially 13 people (there were only 7 of us most of the time), and no windows, and the bedroom door didn’t lock. I figured that’s what we were getting, and we were really only using the hostel for a place to sleep anyway, so we all dealt with the gross conditions.

(If I go into incredible detail about the whole trip I’ll be writing for the next 3 days, so I’ll shorten this part)

Friday: We went to Notre Dame first thing in the morning. WHAT A BEAUTIFUL BUILDING! And inside had so many beautiful stained glass windows. The only thing I didn’t like was that they were charging people to light candles; it made it more of a tourist spot/a way to make money than an actual church. But I wasn’t there to pray, I was there to just explore it. We wanted to go to the top, but the line was outrageous and I’m pretty sure it was going to be expensive. After Notre Dame, we headed over to the Pantheon. At the time, we didn’t realize that we could probably have gotten in for free (as students or EU “citizens” under 26), and since Tara has a British passport, she was the only one who went inside; I wasn’t really sure what the Pantheon had inside, so I wasn’t going to spend money on it. The rest of us explored the local area for a bit. Even got to see the Eiffel Tower in the distance! 🙂 After that came the Catacombs. I had heard of catacombs before, but I didn’t realize we were going to be walking past actual skulls and bones of actual dead people from Paris! Creepy! It took about an hour to walk through the whole thing, and when we got out we were in a different part of the city (they’re underground most of Paris). By the late afternoon we were exhausted, so we went back and napped, and then got ready to go out and explore at night. Not as much of a nightlife as I expected; maybe we weren’t looking in the right places.

Saturday: Another early morning, but it was time to explore the Louvre!! Mona Lisa here I come! Most of us were able to get in for free, which was awesome. Unfortunately, since it was a Saturday, Mona Lisa was hard to see. I was able to take a few pictures, but they had a rope that was pretty far from the painting. I heard that on days that aren’t busy they let you go up to it and really stare at it (and test to see if her eyes really do follow you everywhere!). Oh well. But seriously, the Louvre is ENORMOUS! We were there for about 3-4 hours and I only saw about 3/4 of it. Other than the Mona Lisa, I got to see the Code of Hammurabi and Napoleon III’s apartment (how come my apartment doesn’t look like that?!) and a load of famous sculptures like the Winged Victory, Aphrodite, and Psyche and Cupid. Even though we only did one thing really, it was a long day. After the Louvre, we met up and started walking towards the Arc de Triomphe where there was a Paul’s (delicious pastries!). I had a quiche and a macaroon (unlike the macaroons in America).

Sunday: We got a little bit of a later start than usual, but we headed over to Versailles. It took forever to get in: we tried getting in for free but since we don’t have visas except for Tara and Melissa, we had to get on another line, but when we got to the front of that line, we asked the guy about our student IDs and how we’re in the UK for 6 months and can’t we get in for free so he sent us back to the other place, but this time the line was out the door, and when we got to the front of THAT line, Aminta was the only one without her Middlesex ID, so she was going to have to pay. The woman was kind of rude to her, and she got upset, so I went to stay with her instead. I didn’t mind not seeing Versailles; I’d rather not have Aminta – the youngest of all of us – stand outside for an hour or two by herself. In the meantime, we went to find a gift for Josh who was turning 21 the next day. We had our own little adventure – I walked into a glass door and got a free Kinder bar (2 separate occasions). We ended up getting him a bottle of champagne and some Nutella (he loves Nutella; it’s not as weird as it sounds). That night, we headed over to the Eiffel Tower; Josh wanted to celebrate his birthday at midnight at the Eiffel Tower. It’s so beautiful at night. Since it was so late, we were pretty much the only people there – save a handful of guards – and it was so peaceful. While Josh popped his champagne bottle at midnight, the rest of us just sat on a bench right underneath the tower and just looked up in silence for about 20 minutes. It was so serene – favorite moment of the trip by far. It even lights up all pretty at night! 🙂

Monday: Happy Birthday Josh! Because of our late night – we didn’t get back til like 3 because we had to take a cab, which was much cheaper than I thought – we slept in til about 1 that day. We went to Sacré-Cœur and walked all the way to the top to see the sunset. Apparently, it’s known for being full of pick-pockets so we held onto our stuff for dear life, lol. Despite that, from up there, you can pretty much see all of Paris. It was an absolutely breathtaking view. Seriously. After the sunset, we went back because I had left a few things at the room and I felt uncomfortable not having them with me (one being my camera!) and then went back out to go to dinner for Josh’s birthday. Before dinner, we made a pit stop to see Moulin Rouge! We didn’t go in – it’s probably really expensive anyway – but from the outside it looked a lot different than I had imagined. Anyway, for dinner we went to this really cute area in St Michel. It was basically a really long street with dozens of little shops and restaurants that had pretty good deals on 3 course meals. The one we went to was 3 courses for €8! And the food was sooo delicious! I had the onion soup to start, fish with this really amazing sauce for the main course, and Neapolitan ice cream for dessert. Then we stumbled upon this little jazz club with live music. Josh wanted his first legal (in the US) drink, which was actually €12. Ouch. But we had a really great evening, and by Monday night we were ready to go home the next day.

Tuesday: I woke up very exhausted. We had to check out of the hostel at 9am, which meant that we had to carry around our bags all day until we left for the airport at 4pm. A) It was incredibly painful to walk around with a 10 lb bag on my back all day, and B) I was afraid we were going to stand out as tourists and get pick-pocketed or something. Tara and Laura wanted to go back to the Eiffel Tower to go to the top. Josh, Aminta, James, and I hadn’t seen the Arc de Triomph yet (we didn’t really go to it on Saturday, only saw it in the distance), and Melissa was exhausted so she came along with us too. After we saw the Arc – which took about 5 minutes – we went to relax somewhere. Stumbled upon a McDonalds (our third for the whole trip, UGH!) and went upstairs to just chill out; we were all exhausted and ready to get back to London. We spent a few hours there which I wasn’t too happy about, but at least we got to relax. I got a baguette from a shop next door, and got a hot chocolate from McCafe (mm mm mm). Eventually, we heard from Tara and Laura and met up with them at the Arcade (not an actual arcade, but a shopping center) and looked around in a few stores. Then we went wandering around Paris for a few hours. Accidentally stumbled upon the site of Princess Diana’s murder which was really sad. But on the overpass above where the accident took place, people wrote really sweet messages on the ledge. We also ran into a famous bridge (not sure of the name); the one thing I know about it is that it was featured in the last episode of Sex and the City. Regardless, it was a beautiful bridge, covered in gold with really pretty streetlamps. It was great seeing the last few sights of Paris before heading to the airport. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get any souvenirs before we left, but at that point we were all just ready to go to the airport. We had to wait a while to find out which gate we were going to, but we eventually made it (I was prepared with my liquids in a bag and with easy access to them) and had a safe and quick flight home. It was a little stressful trying to beat the clock again – we had to make the last tube AND we had to get back to Oakwood station in time for the last shuttle bus to campus. But we did it! It was nice getting back to my own room in a big, more-comfortable bed.

And thus concludes Liz’s epic adventure to Paris! Unfortunately, I hafta get back to reading so I don’t have time for pictures. But either tomorrow or Tuesday I’ll come back with pictures. Promise! (Those who are friends with me on Facebook can check out my Paris albums there in the meantime.)

xx

Why wales? Entry #4- Venturing out to Swansea.

Going to Swansea was somewhat spontaneous; we only decided on going the day before. We didn’t consider the weather or the cost… we were ready to see a new city.
Swansea is the second largest city in Wales.. and it was not that big at all. We were there for pretty much the entire day… it was beautiful. It was much smaller and quainter than Cardiff. I didn’t feel like I was in such a giant city anymore, which was nice. We had lunch at a diner that was the filming location for ‘Doctor Who’, which is a well known Welsh TV show. One of the Americans in our group is a fan of the show and wanted to eat there. We were the only people there under 90, but the food was great, and we had a good time.

We also went to the Swansea museum, which was a cute little ‘ma and pa’ museum that had a bunch of random stuff on Welsh history.

Then we finally found the Dylan Thomas museum. I only really knew of Dylan Thomas from his mention in the movie Dangerous Minds (have you seen it?), but it was really interesting to learn about his life. He only lived to be 39, and he was such an influence on many works.
 Swansea was where he was born, and although he lived many years in the US, he seemed to always return back to Wales. It was really interesting and inspiring to view his works, as I also was satified in a new way. This is because through seeing the Dylan Thomas museum, I fianlly felt that I saw something that I could not see anywhere else. I learned of something specifically related to Wales.. which was pretty cool.

My flatmate is actually from Swansea, and was very surprised when I told her we were venturing out there for a day.
She said that as nice as Swansea can be now, it is even nicer in the late Spring and Summer. She said she would take us back and bring us to the nice beaches in Swansea. I can’t wait.
I really can’t wait for it to be nice out though! The weather here is not as bad as we expected, but I still love the warm weather. I can’t wait to be able to leave my room without a jacket!

Goodbye, London

1/18/10

So yesterday was my twentieth birthday. What a better way to celebrate it than in the theatre capital of the world? It was a quiet day, we had tea at the Orangery at Kensington Palace. Tea is quite the affair in London. A proper English tea consists of sandwiches – ours included salmon, ham, and cucumber, all with butter on them – scones with jam and clotted cream – a very soft and extremely rich butter – and, of course, tea – we drank a fine English breakfast tea. We then strolled around Kensington Gardens, a rolling expanse of verdant fields, London’s equivalent to Central Park. It was a warm afternoon, and the park was filled with people reveling in the sunshine. It was great to end the London trip on my twentieth birthday. I had the time of my life over the past few weeks, had more than one realization about my own life, and I definitely plan on coming back soon. Til then, cheers, London!

Last Class

1/16/10

Today, we had a class with Sharonna Sassoon, the actress who played the Royal Skivvy in the panto “Aladdin.” She is the SUNY New Paltz alum I mentioned in my previous post. Her encouraging words motivated me to become a pantomime actor in the future. She spoke about how fun and educational the style of theatre is, and her words made me fall in love with it. I have always loved comedy, theatre, and frivolity, and the way it comes together perfectly in pantomime seems to be the avenue to go down. I am having another moment of epiphany, my second of this trip, ad I want everyone to see this. I am determined to somehow introduce this marvelous style of theatre to the American culture, especially in New Paltz. Look out, New Paltz, here comes Panto!

My First Pantomime

1/14/10

I saw my first English pantomime show today. For those of you who, like me, had no idea what that is, it is a form of English theatre that caters towards younger audiences. It encourages audience response, and breaks every convention of theatre as we know it. The story is that of Aladdin, the poor street urchin that finds a lamp containing a wish-granting genie. The show was nothing short of hilarious. It contained a lot of child-age humor, but had serious adult overtones. To top it all off, a SUNY New Paltz graduate was in the show. Here, in the outer fringe of London theatre, is an actress holding a B.A. in Theatre Arts from SUNY New Paltz. What a small world!

National Gallery

1/13/10

Yesterday was quite an eventful day. We started off with class, discussing the ballet “Swan Lake.” Alex, Tony, Molly, Shari and I then proceeded to the National Gallery, to view some of the priceless collections for Andrea’s assignment. She asked us to find a piece of artwork that greatly impacts us and bring in a memento (postcard, poster, picture, etc) of the artwork to discuss in class. I found myself immediately running to the Van Gogh wing, knowing that I would be impressed by his work. Seeing his “Wheat Field with Cypresses” and “Sunflowers” was impressive, but I was not impacted by them nearly as much as I thought I would be. After the Van Gogh wing, I traipsed through to see the Seurat section of the gallery. I was immediately taken aback by his painting “Bathers at Asnieres”. What a breathtaking image. It depicted the poor class in France bathing along the Seine, looking out to the island of La Grande Jatte, where the rich would spend their weekends. Seurat’s use of pointillism creates an enormously lush atmosphere. Instead of looking at the painting, it’s almost as if you’re looking into the painting. You see beyond the borders of the image and into the world of the individuals. Seurat paints not only sight, but touch, smell, and sound. While I sat there, admiring the work, an art historian began leading a discussion about the painting, drawing people around him. He mentioned a quote that perfectly explains not only art, but also theatre: “The purpose of art is not to imitate nature, but to express it.” It’s not about what we see, but what our brains have the ability to perceive.

Hampton Court Palace

1/12/10

Hampton Court Palace was the summer home of King Henry VIII. Everything about the architecture and decor was incredible, down to the tapestries in the Great Hall.
Overall, the most impressive aspect of the palace was its historical re-enactors. There were five actors, playing Kateryn Parr, Kateryn’s sister, Sir Thomas Seymour, Clark Brooks, and the magisterial King Henry VIII. Their ability to improvise all of their knowledge of the 16th century into an interesting theatrical performance was flawless. One day, I hope to have an opportunity to perform in that aspect of theatre. History and performance are two of my favorite things, and the opportunity to synthesize them into a cohesive union is one I would jump at.

1984

1/9/10

Last night we saw 1984 at the Battersea Arts Center. The play was directly based on the Orwell novel about dystopian life in a totalitarian society. However, it is performed as if it is the members of the “Party” retelling the horrible story of Winston Smith. The play was performed very minimalistically, with the set consisting of six movable black wall sections and a few tables and chairs. Minimalistic theatre is, in my opinion, the best. It provokes the imagination and the brain to think and create, rather than relying on spectacle to illustrate every aspect of the play. Theatre that is most memorable is that which provokes the mind to think. In my mind, theatre is not just to entertain, but to provoke thought.