Last night, after my Internet time ran out and I had thought over how much more mellow of a day it had been, I decided that I wanted to go find Sherlock Holmes' house. It was about 7pm and the house was about a 45 minute walk; I was concerned that, if I left in the morning like I was planning too, I wouldn't have enough time to see it and Sherlock Holmes was a pretty big deal for me. So I took off.
It was a very pretty evening. It stayed very bright, despite how late it was getting. The rain came down in very light drizzles, like the kind they have set up over vegetables in the supermarket. It felt fantastic to go on a walk without my bag on me. The backpack doesn't weigh very much at all -- at the airport, it officially came in at 6kg -- but it was still a noticeable difference. Also, the rest I'd gotten since I'd stopped walking earlier really did me good. I took off with a much brighter perspective and a springier step.
The evening walk, I think, was my favorite walk so far. Everyone was bustling about, most beneath umbrellas and the rest of us hugging against the walls of building for shelter, stopping beneath the covered bus waits when the rain picked up, hurrying along in the drizzle when it let down again. Lights came on around the monuments, casting everything in a mystical orange glow and giving the streets an entirely different feel. With the sound of rain sloshing against tires and dripping from the tree leaves, the huge city felt completely at peace.
I made it to Holmes' museum and stared around contemplatively, wondering what inspiration his maker had drawn on in this neck of London. I wondered if he'd seen criminal activity in the scurrying crowds of the night streets where I only saw calm hurry to get somewhere dry. To get the the museum, I passed through some very nice neighborhoods as well as by a few embassies -- nothing to suggest the dark plots, kidnappings, or murders of Holmes' stories.
When I started heading back, the time was just passed 8pm and I was struck with a sudden worry about how late it was in the evening, especially given the long walk back to my hostel. With my hood up and my hands in my pockets, I started storming back the way I'd come, determined to reach my room before 9.
At one intersection, a pair of men stood beside me. I didn't pay them any attention until one of them started forward -- only to be immediately stopped by his friend, just as a bus came rushing by. It was a close save. The bus passed and us waiting pedestrians started across the street. The man who stood closest to me suddenly stuck his hand out, offering me a cracker from the bag he'd been eating from.
With a shrug, I grabbed one and the three of us started talking. Their names were Michael and Gordon. Gordon spoke so quietly and with such a very, very heavy accent that I barely understood a word he said. Michael was very lively and quick -- he reminded me of the black man from Ocean's 11, the guy who set the explosives! As we walked, they commented on my accent, saying it sounded Colombian of all things! And then we started talking about shoes, and what my shoes said about me in particular. It was a really me-centric conversation, and extremely complimentary. When they heard I planned on leaving London without having seen the British Royal Museum, they both urged me to change my plans.
We walked together for a good time before our ways split. We talked about what our jobs were and since I didn't have a job, they did most of the talking. Michael was an actor; Gordon worked in the Fair Trade department of the government, breaking up monopolies and analyzing mergers. When our ways did split, them taking a right and me continuing onward, it was another sad farewell to end such a quick friendship. Michael gave the rest of the biscuits at a fare-thee-well present, and off we all separated.
It wasn't very much, but that quick and good conversation did a lot of restoration for my spirits and for my outlook on London. As I went to bed later, I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do. I came to the decision to stay one more day to explore the museums.
And that's what I did all day today. After booking the bed for another night and grabbing some breakfast, I took off first thing in the morning, arriving at the British Royal Museum first. It was just as amazing as Michael and Gordon had said. I wandered through it for almost four hours without realizing the time. After that, I headed to the Tate Modern Museum of Art to see some Picassos and Rembrandts. The art museum wasn't nearly as interesting; aside from a handful of artwork that appealed to me, most of the rest of it was weird "modern" art that either made no sense to me or else gave me the shudders. There were some children asking their parents why such and such was considered art, and I laughed at the terrible, shoddy answers they got. "Because it's in an art gallery," one mother told her daughter, "that's why."
Afterwards, I walked across Tower Bridge, which before I'd only seen from a far distance. It was next to the Tower of London, a miniature castle on the northeast side of the Thames. From there, I hiked back to my hostel, grabbing a sandwich for dinner on the way.
I've got to do a load of wash in the sink and then I'll probably just relax in the lounge for the rest of the evening. I'm fully satisfied now with my trip of London. I'm even fairly familiar with the streets now. London has maps posted regularly, such that you wouldn't need a map of your own for short distances. I am ready to move on, though.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
London pt 2
Today started out very late. I didn't wake up until nearly noon, probably because of the way I've pushed my body so much with so little rest. I said bye to Nigel and hopped back into London, then spent a few hours wandering again. I got to my hostel, the Generator, at just about 4. Down the street in the St Pancreas station with trains to Brussels, where I'll be heading in the morning.
I'm a little torn now because I really want to meet people, but it seems like most of the people I run into just want to party. Nigel yesterday was reminiscing on all the crazy stuff he did when he traveled; John from Edinburgh was the same way, a pint half empty in his hand as he ordered a second. I don't want to do any of that. I literally want to tour the cities, get to bed at a decent hour, get up early to go back to seeing the sights, etc. I don't care about the nightlife. I don't care about the clubs. It makes me feel a little plain, but it's just not fun for me, especially when it means I'll miss half the next day recovering. Ah well.
I miss home. Today was the first day I didn't have to wear a jacket outside as I wandered about, and I miss home. I miss Lucas something very drastically. I was texting him and he sounded very sad. Every time I see a couple stop to kiss in the streets or hold hands as they walk together, I miss him.
While I was walking around to find my hostel, I ran into a man who was awkwardly holding a map and he tried to ask me for directions. I pulled out my own worn map and confessed I had no better of an idea. Turns out he's from Michigan, here with a group of fellow art major students doing a tour of the arty historic sights in Europe, London being his last stop before heading back to the states. We walked together for about a half hour before our ways parted and he left me his name to become Facebook friends. It was a strange and random occurrence, but it pulled me out of a homesick slump, which was what I needed.
Today, looking back on it all, seems to be a little boring! I mean, aside from the being in London and walking past monuments part. I had a lot more to write about the past few days. It seems my body is not pleased with the rate I've been going and I should slow down a little. We'll see.
I'm a little torn now because I really want to meet people, but it seems like most of the people I run into just want to party. Nigel yesterday was reminiscing on all the crazy stuff he did when he traveled; John from Edinburgh was the same way, a pint half empty in his hand as he ordered a second. I don't want to do any of that. I literally want to tour the cities, get to bed at a decent hour, get up early to go back to seeing the sights, etc. I don't care about the nightlife. I don't care about the clubs. It makes me feel a little plain, but it's just not fun for me, especially when it means I'll miss half the next day recovering. Ah well.
I miss home. Today was the first day I didn't have to wear a jacket outside as I wandered about, and I miss home. I miss Lucas something very drastically. I was texting him and he sounded very sad. Every time I see a couple stop to kiss in the streets or hold hands as they walk together, I miss him.
While I was walking around to find my hostel, I ran into a man who was awkwardly holding a map and he tried to ask me for directions. I pulled out my own worn map and confessed I had no better of an idea. Turns out he's from Michigan, here with a group of fellow art major students doing a tour of the arty historic sights in Europe, London being his last stop before heading back to the states. We walked together for about a half hour before our ways parted and he left me his name to become Facebook friends. It was a strange and random occurrence, but it pulled me out of a homesick slump, which was what I needed.
Today, looking back on it all, seems to be a little boring! I mean, aside from the being in London and walking past monuments part. I had a lot more to write about the past few days. It seems my body is not pleased with the rate I've been going and I should slow down a little. We'll see.
London, pt 1
I really don't know how long I'm going to stay in this city. After being in smaller towns, London just feels too massive and rude right now. I only got here this morning and I'm going to give it another go, but I might just leave early.
The bus here was a nightmare. Quite literally: I had a storm of terrible dreams as we drive down from Edinburgh. It left at 10:30pm and arrived at 7:30am this morning. The seats wouldn't lean back and their cushioning had long gone flat, the driver didn't turn off the lights for the first hour, and then randomly turned them back on at 3am, plus it was freezing cold and the driver didn't turn the heat on until we were practically in London. I got a window seat to myself, but the glass was too cold to lean against. The entire night was me, shaking awake violently to find yet another muscle in my body aching from sitting too long in the wrong position, shifting to find some other position to fall asleep in, and then drifting back to sleep to repeat.
When the bus stopped at the Victoria Coach Station, I stumbled out of it like a drunk and for the first few hundred yards I walked around in a daze, trying to rub the sleep from my eyes, my legs screaming at me from the way I'd slept on them, and the world in general just not making any sense. My guesthouse was going to be in the southeastern part of the city, off the Berrylands exit of the underground. My host for the night had told me where to go, but not what time, and I ended up arriving at my guesthouse hours and hours early, having spent about an hour on the subway for no reason and only turning around and going back to London, but that all actually helped a lot and by the time I arrived in the city center for the second time I felt much more like a human being. My legs were still very upset at me, but I think that's also partly because of all the hiking I've forced them to do with little warning.
I did a whirlwind tour through the city for the rest of the day, getting into the churches for free because it was a Sunday. I only stayed in St Paul's cathedral for a bit; I stayed in Westminister Abbey for the entire sermon, mostly staring up at the huge statue of Shakespeare, the bust of Blake, the slabs for Tennyson, the Brontes, Jane Austen, and so much more. Isaac Newton's memorial is spectacular, but we weren't allowed to take any pictures of the inside, unfortunately. To me, while the church was spectacular, it looked something like a hoarder's basement, stuffed full of historic relics that they just can't let go of!
I walked to Buckingham Palace, saw some of the guards at the Guards Memorial, saw a monument for Abe Lincoln and another for John Smith. I listened to Big Ben toll, walked across Westminister, The Millenium, Blackfriar's, and the London bridge during all my touring. There were awesomely comfortable sun chairs laying out on the parks for anyone to sit on. Jost of the public places, though, charge you something like $0.50 to use the toilet! And wifi is not so common. I'm used to how most of the stores and restaurants in Denver have free wifi, like Fridays, all McDonalds, all Starbucks, etc. Here, it's a rarer thing to see advertised in the windows and it's frustrating!
So I wandered all through the city all day, from about 10am until 5pm, when I heard to my guesthouse to meet up with my host. Hs name was Nigel and he's something else. He's studying to become an oil rig engineer, the type of job where your signing bonus is something like a million dollars. We stayed up late talking politics, travel, and future plans before turning on YouTube and watching old Nirvana videos until about 1am, when I pretty much passed out.
The bus here was a nightmare. Quite literally: I had a storm of terrible dreams as we drive down from Edinburgh. It left at 10:30pm and arrived at 7:30am this morning. The seats wouldn't lean back and their cushioning had long gone flat, the driver didn't turn off the lights for the first hour, and then randomly turned them back on at 3am, plus it was freezing cold and the driver didn't turn the heat on until we were practically in London. I got a window seat to myself, but the glass was too cold to lean against. The entire night was me, shaking awake violently to find yet another muscle in my body aching from sitting too long in the wrong position, shifting to find some other position to fall asleep in, and then drifting back to sleep to repeat.
When the bus stopped at the Victoria Coach Station, I stumbled out of it like a drunk and for the first few hundred yards I walked around in a daze, trying to rub the sleep from my eyes, my legs screaming at me from the way I'd slept on them, and the world in general just not making any sense. My guesthouse was going to be in the southeastern part of the city, off the Berrylands exit of the underground. My host for the night had told me where to go, but not what time, and I ended up arriving at my guesthouse hours and hours early, having spent about an hour on the subway for no reason and only turning around and going back to London, but that all actually helped a lot and by the time I arrived in the city center for the second time I felt much more like a human being. My legs were still very upset at me, but I think that's also partly because of all the hiking I've forced them to do with little warning.
I did a whirlwind tour through the city for the rest of the day, getting into the churches for free because it was a Sunday. I only stayed in St Paul's cathedral for a bit; I stayed in Westminister Abbey for the entire sermon, mostly staring up at the huge statue of Shakespeare, the bust of Blake, the slabs for Tennyson, the Brontes, Jane Austen, and so much more. Isaac Newton's memorial is spectacular, but we weren't allowed to take any pictures of the inside, unfortunately. To me, while the church was spectacular, it looked something like a hoarder's basement, stuffed full of historic relics that they just can't let go of!
I walked to Buckingham Palace, saw some of the guards at the Guards Memorial, saw a monument for Abe Lincoln and another for John Smith. I listened to Big Ben toll, walked across Westminister, The Millenium, Blackfriar's, and the London bridge during all my touring. There were awesomely comfortable sun chairs laying out on the parks for anyone to sit on. Jost of the public places, though, charge you something like $0.50 to use the toilet! And wifi is not so common. I'm used to how most of the stores and restaurants in Denver have free wifi, like Fridays, all McDonalds, all Starbucks, etc. Here, it's a rarer thing to see advertised in the windows and it's frustrating!
So I wandered all through the city all day, from about 10am until 5pm, when I heard to my guesthouse to meet up with my host. Hs name was Nigel and he's something else. He's studying to become an oil rig engineer, the type of job where your signing bonus is something like a million dollars. We stayed up late talking politics, travel, and future plans before turning on YouTube and watching old Nirvana videos until about 1am, when I pretty much passed out.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Edinburgh
I learned, just before I left, that I'd been pronouncing the name of this city wrong the whole time I've been here! It's something like "Edinburg-brah" and I hear it's a bug grind on the local population when we pronounce it incorrectly.
Go figure.
This morning I was the first person awake in my hostel dorm. It had 13 other girls peacefully sleeping away, but the first of the Scottish light crept in through the window right about 4:30am and jerked me awake, making me think for sure that I'd slept in til noon. I went back to sleep until 7, then got and packed my bags. Breakfast was a quick thing, and afterwards I went back to touring the streets of Glasgow. Those streets were surprising busy for being so early in the morning. I stumbled across one of the universities they have in the area and was really surprised at how dirty and non-cool it looked. It was more like an older, dirty office building than how I imagine a university to look.
I walked to the top of the city hill and then back down. Scottish streets are no easy business. I was huffing like a smoker by the time I got to the bus station for my hour-long bus to Edinburgh.
Edinburgh was absolutely gorgeous. I get the feeling I'm going to use this phrase repeatedly over the next few months. The bus ride was a showcase of straight-from-the-artwork rolling green hills, peaceful sheep farms, and flowers everywhere. As we approached the city limits, we passed by some of the strangest house designs I've ever seen: directly whee one house ends, another begins, to the point where the fence to one person's backyard cements into the far wall of his neighbor's home close living indeed! The bus dropped me off in city center. Again, like Glasgow, the middle of the city was alive with people walking about.
It has a historically old feel to it, like buildings are these old peaceful giants who have sat down for a long rest whilst the populace is fury of ants creating a hill between the giants' toes. I didn't feel like someone was watching me, but I felt like immense history was sleeping in all the bricks in all the buildings around me. I took so many pictures of monuments and I'm sure none of them will mean anything to me in the end, but for today they were breathtaking.
The first place I went to was Edinburgh castle. Or rather, I tried to go the the castle. I ended up hiking up the hill behind it for the better part of two hours, recklessly ignoring all the signs declaring that there was no entrance to the castle from that side. In the end, the signs won and I rather disdainfully stepped off the dirt path and hiked up the street to the real entrance to the castle. For my reward, I got to see William Wallace in all his face paint glory on the way! I stayed up there for a good bit, enjoying the view, before the rain forced me to seek shelter.
The weather! The weather there was something insane! It literally went from bright, brilliantly sunny one minute to storm cloud downpour the next, and the bizarre thing is that two minutes later the good weather returned. It cycled through that good-rainy-windy-good weather cycle my entire day. The rain forced me into the National Library of Scotland, but I left once it slacked enough for me to walk around outside. Then it picked up again and I stepped inside the National Museum of Scotland, where I stayed for two hours, getting drawn in by the exhibit about modern Scots.
At about 2pm, I headed back out, headlining towards the University of Edinburgh. It didn't disappoint like Glasgow's did, but a good bit of it is being excavated right now so I didn't stay long. I hopped across the street to a pub advertising free wifi and there had my first real conversation of the day.
His name was John...something, and he's a 50-something year old London man who moved to this city about 10 years ago and now fully identifies himself as a Scot, to the point of scoffing at the rest of the English. We talked for a good bit and he directed me to walk up Arthur's Seat, a large hill to the east of the city. We also made plans to meet again and watch the game together with a friend of his, as tonight there was some very important football match to be played.
I left the pub and headed towards the Palace of Holyrood, behind which was Arthur's Seat. It's an enormous hill, twice as high to the top as you imagine when you start walking up from the bottom. Along the way, I ran into an Aussie who is my age, Tim, and we hiked the hill together. I was huffing and puffing so terribly by the time we got to the top that I could hardly even breath, but the view was phenomenal! Again, I took so many pictures that, in a few months, will probably look like nothing special but today! We took turns taking each other's pictures -- but when it was his turn, and he was standing close to the edge of the mountain, the wind suddenly picked up like a devil! I couldn't hold the camera still enough to take a picture and he was literally almost blown off the mountain top by a great big gust. He'd taken off his wind breaker when we got to the top, that's how nice the weather had been just moments before, and the wind lifted it, carrying it tint to the edge! He chased after it and barely managed to nip it out of the air before the wind dragged it over. The wind was so terrible that we had to crouch over and I grabbed a handful of turf to keep me steady. One it died down a little, we ducked out of there, heading to the bottom as quick as possible.
And then, just like that, the wind died, the sun came out, the weather became gorgeous again. Since that hike had only taken an hour, and since I had about 2 1/2 hours before the game, I suggested taking a hike up the hill besides the first one, to a higher spot. I was going to go with or without him, and he trailed along. This hill was even higher, I was huffing even worse, and at times the wind would come and try to pick us off the mountainside. But in the end, we had an unparalleled view of the city and even caught sight of a rainbow.
We reached the bottom about 2 hours after we'd initially started hiking up, but it felt like a lifetime later. Tim and I parted ways, me telling him which pub I'd be at if he wanted company later on since he, too, was traveling alone. He never showed up, though, which is the way life goes.
As for John, he and I met up again and grabbed some food while we waited for his friend to arrive as well. This friend thought very little of the place we were at, and so we took off and arrived at an outdoors beer garden where a massive screen was broadcasting the event and an even more massive crowd had gathered, cheering so loudly we heard them clear at the other end of the road. It was Manchester United vs Barcelona and (spoiler) Barcelona won 3-1. By the time the game ended, I had a little over 30 minutes to get to the bus station and catch my overnight ride to London, so we regretfully parted ways. He gave me his email address, urging me to return in the fall before my return flight home to catch the Edinburg Festival, promising me and my sister a couch to sleep on in the middle of downtown if we did. He also promised to get in touch with some Austrian friends to ask them to put me up, should I find myself in that part of the continent.
So here I am, on the bus to London. It's 11pm local time and we should be arrived at 7:30. I've got arrangements to stay in the south east side of London for the first night at least, at a place about 20 minutes outside the city, far enough away to not be bothered by the noise. I'm not sure anymore how long I'll stay there. I find myself really enjoying the smaller town feel and I might head to Brussels by the 1st. Who knows. It'll all depend on how I find the place.
Go figure.
This morning I was the first person awake in my hostel dorm. It had 13 other girls peacefully sleeping away, but the first of the Scottish light crept in through the window right about 4:30am and jerked me awake, making me think for sure that I'd slept in til noon. I went back to sleep until 7, then got and packed my bags. Breakfast was a quick thing, and afterwards I went back to touring the streets of Glasgow. Those streets were surprising busy for being so early in the morning. I stumbled across one of the universities they have in the area and was really surprised at how dirty and non-cool it looked. It was more like an older, dirty office building than how I imagine a university to look.
I walked to the top of the city hill and then back down. Scottish streets are no easy business. I was huffing like a smoker by the time I got to the bus station for my hour-long bus to Edinburgh.
Edinburgh was absolutely gorgeous. I get the feeling I'm going to use this phrase repeatedly over the next few months. The bus ride was a showcase of straight-from-the-artwork rolling green hills, peaceful sheep farms, and flowers everywhere. As we approached the city limits, we passed by some of the strangest house designs I've ever seen: directly whee one house ends, another begins, to the point where the fence to one person's backyard cements into the far wall of his neighbor's home close living indeed! The bus dropped me off in city center. Again, like Glasgow, the middle of the city was alive with people walking about.
It has a historically old feel to it, like buildings are these old peaceful giants who have sat down for a long rest whilst the populace is fury of ants creating a hill between the giants' toes. I didn't feel like someone was watching me, but I felt like immense history was sleeping in all the bricks in all the buildings around me. I took so many pictures of monuments and I'm sure none of them will mean anything to me in the end, but for today they were breathtaking.
The first place I went to was Edinburgh castle. Or rather, I tried to go the the castle. I ended up hiking up the hill behind it for the better part of two hours, recklessly ignoring all the signs declaring that there was no entrance to the castle from that side. In the end, the signs won and I rather disdainfully stepped off the dirt path and hiked up the street to the real entrance to the castle. For my reward, I got to see William Wallace in all his face paint glory on the way! I stayed up there for a good bit, enjoying the view, before the rain forced me to seek shelter.
The weather! The weather there was something insane! It literally went from bright, brilliantly sunny one minute to storm cloud downpour the next, and the bizarre thing is that two minutes later the good weather returned. It cycled through that good-rainy-windy-good weather cycle my entire day. The rain forced me into the National Library of Scotland, but I left once it slacked enough for me to walk around outside. Then it picked up again and I stepped inside the National Museum of Scotland, where I stayed for two hours, getting drawn in by the exhibit about modern Scots.
At about 2pm, I headed back out, headlining towards the University of Edinburgh. It didn't disappoint like Glasgow's did, but a good bit of it is being excavated right now so I didn't stay long. I hopped across the street to a pub advertising free wifi and there had my first real conversation of the day.
His name was John...something, and he's a 50-something year old London man who moved to this city about 10 years ago and now fully identifies himself as a Scot, to the point of scoffing at the rest of the English. We talked for a good bit and he directed me to walk up Arthur's Seat, a large hill to the east of the city. We also made plans to meet again and watch the game together with a friend of his, as tonight there was some very important football match to be played.
I left the pub and headed towards the Palace of Holyrood, behind which was Arthur's Seat. It's an enormous hill, twice as high to the top as you imagine when you start walking up from the bottom. Along the way, I ran into an Aussie who is my age, Tim, and we hiked the hill together. I was huffing and puffing so terribly by the time we got to the top that I could hardly even breath, but the view was phenomenal! Again, I took so many pictures that, in a few months, will probably look like nothing special but today! We took turns taking each other's pictures -- but when it was his turn, and he was standing close to the edge of the mountain, the wind suddenly picked up like a devil! I couldn't hold the camera still enough to take a picture and he was literally almost blown off the mountain top by a great big gust. He'd taken off his wind breaker when we got to the top, that's how nice the weather had been just moments before, and the wind lifted it, carrying it tint to the edge! He chased after it and barely managed to nip it out of the air before the wind dragged it over. The wind was so terrible that we had to crouch over and I grabbed a handful of turf to keep me steady. One it died down a little, we ducked out of there, heading to the bottom as quick as possible.
And then, just like that, the wind died, the sun came out, the weather became gorgeous again. Since that hike had only taken an hour, and since I had about 2 1/2 hours before the game, I suggested taking a hike up the hill besides the first one, to a higher spot. I was going to go with or without him, and he trailed along. This hill was even higher, I was huffing even worse, and at times the wind would come and try to pick us off the mountainside. But in the end, we had an unparalleled view of the city and even caught sight of a rainbow.
We reached the bottom about 2 hours after we'd initially started hiking up, but it felt like a lifetime later. Tim and I parted ways, me telling him which pub I'd be at if he wanted company later on since he, too, was traveling alone. He never showed up, though, which is the way life goes.
As for John, he and I met up again and grabbed some food while we waited for his friend to arrive as well. This friend thought very little of the place we were at, and so we took off and arrived at an outdoors beer garden where a massive screen was broadcasting the event and an even more massive crowd had gathered, cheering so loudly we heard them clear at the other end of the road. It was Manchester United vs Barcelona and (spoiler) Barcelona won 3-1. By the time the game ended, I had a little over 30 minutes to get to the bus station and catch my overnight ride to London, so we regretfully parted ways. He gave me his email address, urging me to return in the fall before my return flight home to catch the Edinburg Festival, promising me and my sister a couch to sleep on in the middle of downtown if we did. He also promised to get in touch with some Austrian friends to ask them to put me up, should I find myself in that part of the continent.
So here I am, on the bus to London. It's 11pm local time and we should be arrived at 7:30. I've got arrangements to stay in the south east side of London for the first night at least, at a place about 20 minutes outside the city, far enough away to not be bothered by the noise. I'm not sure anymore how long I'll stay there. I find myself really enjoying the smaller town feel and I might head to Brussels by the 1st. Who knows. It'll all depend on how I find the place.
Glasgow
My flight from Manchester to Glasgow was delayed 3 hours! Some sort of technical difficulty required to flight to go minus three passengers and they took forever to finally get three volunteers instead of just randomly kicking people off. The flight itself lasted maybe 45 minutes, so to be delayed for 3 hours... I almost could have drove the distance in the same amount of time!
Glasgow, though, is insanely fun! It was rainy, a drizzly on/off again type of rain, so that every time I stopped to buy an umbrella I could look out the window and see it trickle to a stop, and then when I walked outside without having bought one, the rain picked up again! There was some sort of mischievous being playing with me this afternoon, that's for sure!
I walked the city for a few hours, amazed by the hustle and bustle of the place. Imagine 16th Street Mall at it's busiest time, then make it twice as long and twice as wide. That's one of the many outdoor squares I found today. The people are like a tidal wave, too, when it comes to waiting at the street for cars. They'll all press up right to the corner, and if one car is too slow or (heavens forbid!) stops to let one pedestrian cross, it's like the torrent is unleashed and a crowd of thousands flood to the other side! It happened so often, I was actually surprised that cars would even consider stopping because it would turn into an automatic 10-minute wait.
It felt like an English town. There were huge two-story buses everywhere, people talking with their Sottish accents so bad I couldn't make a word out, ridiculously linked out boys with chains everywhere and girls with pink Mohawks. It's just a really fun city to walk around in! The rain was cool but not cold, which is another great benefit! I can't wait for the weather to be sunny again and warm/hot.
The weird thing about this place, though, is that all the shops close at 6. I'd only been wandering the city for about 2 hours when I noticed it, how everything was closed or closing. At first I thought that I'd actually stayed out too late (the Scottish sun can fool you, too, in the summer with how late the light stays out) but then I saw the clock tower that sat up on two running legs and I knew it was still early. I checked into my hostel (Euro Hostel down near the bridges) and for awhile considered hoofing it back north to where the necropolis is; a 10-minute walk later, when my nose had started flooding over and my toes began curling up spitefully, I turned around and resolved to save that sight for the morning. I stopped by a grocery store and picked up pita stuff for tomorrow, chips and juice for tonight, and some cookies to make me feel all better. I know, very healthy!
In the morning, I'm going down to their breakfast and stealing as much food as I can, and then I'll be catching a bus to Edinburgh! I've gotten in contact with a few people to stay with in London for Sunday so I'm pretty relieved about that.
A few important things I did learn today: when the passport customs lady asks you what your doing, saying "I quit my job, grabbed a backpack, and started traveling, I don't know anyone in this country and don't have any solid plans either, I've only got about a hundred euro of cash on me, and I have no way of proving how long I'll be in the country" is not the right thing to say. Even if it's the truth, what they want to hear is: I am staying only a short time, all my accommodations have been previously arranged, I will be out of the country and will definitely not end up as a beggar on your streets.
Also, if the back of the bus squeals like a banshee but no one else seems to care, then it's ok and it's normal. And if a bunch of street punk pre-teens start fighting in the middle of the street, it's not going to be interesting because all the words they'll be shouting will sound like pig Latin to you, even if you know it's still some twisted form of England. And everything in the hostel will squeak VERY loudly, from the elevator, to the room door, to the bathroom door, to your locker, to your bed. And you will make everyone squeak loudly repetitively because you will constantly forget one last thing in your locker just after you finished locking everything up. And there will be at least one other person in the room whose pretending to be sleeping, because you know nothing could live through that ridiculously loud squeal!
Glasgow, though, is insanely fun! It was rainy, a drizzly on/off again type of rain, so that every time I stopped to buy an umbrella I could look out the window and see it trickle to a stop, and then when I walked outside without having bought one, the rain picked up again! There was some sort of mischievous being playing with me this afternoon, that's for sure!
I walked the city for a few hours, amazed by the hustle and bustle of the place. Imagine 16th Street Mall at it's busiest time, then make it twice as long and twice as wide. That's one of the many outdoor squares I found today. The people are like a tidal wave, too, when it comes to waiting at the street for cars. They'll all press up right to the corner, and if one car is too slow or (heavens forbid!) stops to let one pedestrian cross, it's like the torrent is unleashed and a crowd of thousands flood to the other side! It happened so often, I was actually surprised that cars would even consider stopping because it would turn into an automatic 10-minute wait.
It felt like an English town. There were huge two-story buses everywhere, people talking with their Sottish accents so bad I couldn't make a word out, ridiculously linked out boys with chains everywhere and girls with pink Mohawks. It's just a really fun city to walk around in! The rain was cool but not cold, which is another great benefit! I can't wait for the weather to be sunny again and warm/hot.
The weird thing about this place, though, is that all the shops close at 6. I'd only been wandering the city for about 2 hours when I noticed it, how everything was closed or closing. At first I thought that I'd actually stayed out too late (the Scottish sun can fool you, too, in the summer with how late the light stays out) but then I saw the clock tower that sat up on two running legs and I knew it was still early. I checked into my hostel (Euro Hostel down near the bridges) and for awhile considered hoofing it back north to where the necropolis is; a 10-minute walk later, when my nose had started flooding over and my toes began curling up spitefully, I turned around and resolved to save that sight for the morning. I stopped by a grocery store and picked up pita stuff for tomorrow, chips and juice for tonight, and some cookies to make me feel all better. I know, very healthy!
In the morning, I'm going down to their breakfast and stealing as much food as I can, and then I'll be catching a bus to Edinburgh! I've gotten in contact with a few people to stay with in London for Sunday so I'm pretty relieved about that.
A few important things I did learn today: when the passport customs lady asks you what your doing, saying "I quit my job, grabbed a backpack, and started traveling, I don't know anyone in this country and don't have any solid plans either, I've only got about a hundred euro of cash on me, and I have no way of proving how long I'll be in the country" is not the right thing to say. Even if it's the truth, what they want to hear is: I am staying only a short time, all my accommodations have been previously arranged, I will be out of the country and will definitely not end up as a beggar on your streets.
Also, if the back of the bus squeals like a banshee but no one else seems to care, then it's ok and it's normal. And if a bunch of street punk pre-teens start fighting in the middle of the street, it's not going to be interesting because all the words they'll be shouting will sound like pig Latin to you, even if you know it's still some twisted form of England. And everything in the hostel will squeak VERY loudly, from the elevator, to the room door, to the bathroom door, to your locker, to your bed. And you will make everyone squeak loudly repetitively because you will constantly forget one last thing in your locker just after you finished locking everything up. And there will be at least one other person in the room whose pretending to be sleeping, because you know nothing could live through that ridiculously loud squeal!
Friday, May 27, 2011
Iceland = ice blocks
I'm sitting in the Keflavik airport right now outside my gate, waiting for my next flight out of Iceland. I have to admit, I'm a little ready to get out of here. For the past day, my feet have been two blocks of ice! I'm very sorry for the lack of communication, especially on this my first stop, but there was really nothing I could do about it. I'm unsure, even typing this now, when I'll actually be able to post my next update.
It is 2:34am in Colorado right now. Neither my phone nor iPad have been able to connect to anything to tell them they're on the other side of the world, and I've experienced moments these last two days when it seems like my body was missing the very same update. Let's start with the flight out first, though, just to keep things in order.
The last person I talked to was Popi. My flight had been delayed by two hours, which turned out to be a good thing because I had forgotten until the very last minute to call my bank and let them know I'd be abroad for 3 months. I was able to score a window seat but it was right over the left wing, leaving my with a sore neck as I twisted to try and catch sight of something from either window beside me. There was no one in the middle seat and an old lady at the aisle; before takeoff, I introduced myself and discovered she was Siegfried from Sweden, immigrated to the states and Nw Hampshire back in the '60s, returning home on a 5-week visit. We chatted for a bit, I helped her buckle her seat belt. Later on in the flight I wish I had never said hello because as I tried to sleep she tried to keep talking, and talking, and talking!! She even moved into the seat next to me because the chair in front of her was was so far leaned back it made watching the inflight movie uncomfortable for her.
The flight itself was very amazing. I flew via Icelandair; as I walked aboard, the ladies at the doorway passed out bottles of Iceland glacier water. On each headrest, pillow, and napkin were various phrases in Icelandic. The inflight blankets were very warm and I almost stole one. Later, when I was freezing, I could have kicked myself for not! We took off right about midnight, Boston time. As we left the bright orange lights of the city behind, sailing above a ceiling of thick clouds, I was amazed by the view of the stars. There were so many to see and they were so bright that I had to convince myself we weren't just flying besides thousands of other airplanes. I managed to drift off to sleep after some time, when my Swedish friend became engrossed in the movie, and woke up about two hours later to one of the most spectacular sunrises I've ever seen. It looked like a slowly approaching brilliance, like I was in a dark music box that was cracking open and I could almost hear the music of the day-breaking world begin to play all around me.
I finally landed in Keflavik, catching a bus for the 45minute drive into the capital of Reykjavik and arriving at about 9:45am. From there, it was a 15 minute walk to my guest house right in the heart of the city. I was supposed to be staying with a woman named Sabrina, and she welcomed me in with a huge hug. She mentioned something about another boarder who'd arrived earlier and who'd rented a car, an Italian who wanted to know if I wanted to go tour the northern part of the island with him. Since he had left and she wasn't sure when he'd be back, I promised to be back by at least 4pm to meet him. Then I grabbed my bag and started touring Reykjavik.
It was bitterly cold outside but at least it was sunny. I hugged myself as I walked around, hopping from one side to another side of the street to stay in the sunlight. I stopped at the city center to put on my socks, since I'd taken them off while we walked through Boston. I was randomly interviewed by a group of schoolchildren who wanted to know if I worried about the volcano (I didn't). I saw an enormous church that was designed to look like an erupting volcano; I saw a statue of the bones of a Viking ship, sitting by the oceanfront with an ominous air; the city hall contained a 3D topographic model of the island. I stopped for lunch at a deli, grabbing an egg sandwich on flatbread that tasted smokey, like a campfire. By the time I'd walked the entire city, it was only 12:30pm. The city sights are all clustered around a large lake in the middle of the place, and it is not a very large city for being a capital. I've learned that there are about 318,000 people total living inn Iceland, with ~225,000 living in the capital, ~100,000 living in the area immediately around the city, and the remainder scattering in wide handfuls around the island itself.
I returned to the guesthouse feeling completely exhausted by the lack of sleep and fighting the wind during my walking. There were black drapes to pull down at the windows so I pulled them down, curled into bed, and fell asleep. Sabrina woke me up about 30 minutes later to tell me that the Italian had returned, ready to head to the north, and so I was introduced to Ares Lorenzin. I grabbed my bag, hopped in the car, and we took off. For the next two days, Ares and I drove the northwestern part of the island, hiking up mountains and staring at waterfalls.
Iceland is such a gorgeously wild place! The people there absolutely believe in monsters and elves; walking around at some points, I could see why. There were enormous lava fields where in between sheets of black, sponge-looking rocks were the softest moss pits I've ever walked on. Ares spotted a mountain along the road that looked as it were made of gravel; we stopped and tried to hike up it, but after an hour of effort we had only gotten halfway up and had sunk in to our knees at some points: we had taken the car mats with us and tried to slid to the bottom but, well, it didn't work that well. We hiked to the highest waterfall on the island and, along the way, took generous gulps from the cold, pure mountain stream. We drove up to Broganes, at the bottom of the peninsula directly above Reykjavik, and there stopped at a place where the ocean had receded to leave behind a lake of black mud so thick, it looked like quicksand clay. We stayed there for a long time, laughing at the sucking noise rocks made when we threw them in, trying to make a picture with the stones we tossed. It was about 10:30pm at that point, but the sun was still bright enough to make it feel like it was only 4. We talked about books, about ways of communicating, and then we decided to just camp there that night and watch the sun set above this black lake. Unfortunately, about an hour later, we were told we had to pay to camp there, so we drove off to another site near a farm of Icelandic ponies and watched the sun hide behind some distant mountains, finally setting at 11:15pm.
Except it never got dark. It was as if the sun were just hiding out of sight. The sky stayed lit up, the way it is just before sunrise. We put our car seats back and tried to sleep, but I felt like it was continually time to wake up. The temperature dropped and dropped; Ares had lent me a warm windbreaker, but my legs and my toes froze and kept me awake along with the sunlight. We had unzipped a sleeping bag to share between us, but it did nothing keep me warm. I shivered, I tried to burrow my face inside the jacket, I curled my legs up beneath me and tried to rub heat back into my toes -- nothing worked and i was miserable. At some point, though, I managed to drift to sleep. Ares woke me for the sunrise at 3am and I stared zombie-like out the window, watching the sun come back after having never really gone away. I grabbed a scarf, wrapped it over my eyes, and finally drifted back to sleep. I woke again at 6am, the sun being too bright to ignore, and after Ares woke we drove off in search of a hot breakfast only to find that everything was still closed. So we continued north.
The sky, which the day before had been perfectly clear, was now completely overcast. It stayed cold and the wind howled. I shivered constantly. The car did not have hot air and so the windows continually fogged up. We drove for an hour and I told him I was still exhausted, so we pulled over and slept some more. At this point, my body pretty much shut down and I slept soundly for two hours. When I woke up and we continued driving, it was 11am (7am Denver time). We continued the road north, ending up at a town which sounds like Sticks, where there is a ferry to go to the furthest northwest peninsula on the island. We stopped and finally got a warm meal, eating burgers at a fish restaurant. The food instantly made me feel better. Ares wanted to take the ferry but I had begun to worry about getting back to Reykjavik in time to shower and actually sleep in a bed, so we headed south instead, taking a road that followed the ocean around a glacier.
The overcast storm clouds broke open and ice rain began pouring down on us. For the first few stops, I joined Ares in walking around. We walked through more lava fields, up to the top of a lighthouse hill, and through black sand lava beaches. But I was still only wearing sandals and once my feet got cold, I stayed in the car, refusing to budge outside into the icy wind and the icier rain. Ares liked to stop at every interesting thing alongside the road; he liked to stop to see if a place had doughnuts, he liked to stop if he saw a waterfall -- and there were waterfalls every other mile. We were making terribly slow time and finally, around 5pm, I asked him to start heading back. We were still 3-4 hours away from Reykjavik and warm showers. He still wanted to see all the sights but, with the terrible sleep the night before and the terrible weather all day, I was done being a tourist and only wanted to sleep in an actual bed. He started driving south and the ride was a little awkward at first, me feeling a little guilty abut cutting his sightseeing short but also feeling miserably cold, and him being quiet. Eventually, though, we resumed our good conversation.
Ares is a good person with a very nice sense of humor. He has funny pun jokes and a light sense of sarcasm that took me by surprise. For instance, the hike to the highest waterfall was very far, 10km by map; as we drove by it on the way back, he casually asked if I wanted to "take a little hike to the highest waterfall in Iceland, only a very short walk." He came from a town about 3hrs north of Venice, along the board with Austria, and works as a masseuse. He had decided to fly to Iceland only 4 days before, actually flying there 2 days before I got there. He has a love of the water and would have spent hours watching waterfalls if I hadn't been there to keep us moving.
We arrived at the guesthouse at 10:30pm. Sabrina had not been expecting Ares to return and had no room for him so he had to sleep again out in the car. She barely had a place for me to sleep! I curled up under a heavy down blanket and gratefully, warmly went to bed after chatting with Sabrina about DIA of all things for over an hour! My flight out was at 8am and, hearing that had planned on walking to the bus station at 4:45am to catch a bus ride to the airport, Ares volunteered to driving me there instead. He drove up at 5am and we had our last good conversation on the way to the airport. He walked me in, we hugged goodbye, and he insisted that I consider visiting him when I am in Italy. He isn't flying back until Sunday morning, but on Tuesday he has made plans with some friends to fly out to the Netherlands. It might work out that we will meet again there, to tour the flower markets and watch the windmills. Hopefully the weather will not be so rainy!
So I've come away with ice for feet and a good Italian friend. I'm glad to have come to Iceland. I didn't see the great Geysir or the great Galfoss, but I saw many other waterfalls and walked along black beaches, going to places that were much farther into Iceland than I would have imagined, paces normal tourists do not go! And I made a very good friend with a man addicted to sugary doughnuts!
This has taken a good hour to write up. I have now boarded my plane destined for Glasgow. There is a couple beside me, an older couple, and they are speaking in a mixture of English and something else I don't recognize. The plane beside us is Iron Maiden on their final 2011 World Tour. We will be taking off shortly and then, more adventure!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
It is 2:34am in Colorado right now. Neither my phone nor iPad have been able to connect to anything to tell them they're on the other side of the world, and I've experienced moments these last two days when it seems like my body was missing the very same update. Let's start with the flight out first, though, just to keep things in order.
The last person I talked to was Popi. My flight had been delayed by two hours, which turned out to be a good thing because I had forgotten until the very last minute to call my bank and let them know I'd be abroad for 3 months. I was able to score a window seat but it was right over the left wing, leaving my with a sore neck as I twisted to try and catch sight of something from either window beside me. There was no one in the middle seat and an old lady at the aisle; before takeoff, I introduced myself and discovered she was Siegfried from Sweden, immigrated to the states and Nw Hampshire back in the '60s, returning home on a 5-week visit. We chatted for a bit, I helped her buckle her seat belt. Later on in the flight I wish I had never said hello because as I tried to sleep she tried to keep talking, and talking, and talking!! She even moved into the seat next to me because the chair in front of her was was so far leaned back it made watching the inflight movie uncomfortable for her.
The flight itself was very amazing. I flew via Icelandair; as I walked aboard, the ladies at the doorway passed out bottles of Iceland glacier water. On each headrest, pillow, and napkin were various phrases in Icelandic. The inflight blankets were very warm and I almost stole one. Later, when I was freezing, I could have kicked myself for not! We took off right about midnight, Boston time. As we left the bright orange lights of the city behind, sailing above a ceiling of thick clouds, I was amazed by the view of the stars. There were so many to see and they were so bright that I had to convince myself we weren't just flying besides thousands of other airplanes. I managed to drift off to sleep after some time, when my Swedish friend became engrossed in the movie, and woke up about two hours later to one of the most spectacular sunrises I've ever seen. It looked like a slowly approaching brilliance, like I was in a dark music box that was cracking open and I could almost hear the music of the day-breaking world begin to play all around me.
I finally landed in Keflavik, catching a bus for the 45minute drive into the capital of Reykjavik and arriving at about 9:45am. From there, it was a 15 minute walk to my guest house right in the heart of the city. I was supposed to be staying with a woman named Sabrina, and she welcomed me in with a huge hug. She mentioned something about another boarder who'd arrived earlier and who'd rented a car, an Italian who wanted to know if I wanted to go tour the northern part of the island with him. Since he had left and she wasn't sure when he'd be back, I promised to be back by at least 4pm to meet him. Then I grabbed my bag and started touring Reykjavik.
It was bitterly cold outside but at least it was sunny. I hugged myself as I walked around, hopping from one side to another side of the street to stay in the sunlight. I stopped at the city center to put on my socks, since I'd taken them off while we walked through Boston. I was randomly interviewed by a group of schoolchildren who wanted to know if I worried about the volcano (I didn't). I saw an enormous church that was designed to look like an erupting volcano; I saw a statue of the bones of a Viking ship, sitting by the oceanfront with an ominous air; the city hall contained a 3D topographic model of the island. I stopped for lunch at a deli, grabbing an egg sandwich on flatbread that tasted smokey, like a campfire. By the time I'd walked the entire city, it was only 12:30pm. The city sights are all clustered around a large lake in the middle of the place, and it is not a very large city for being a capital. I've learned that there are about 318,000 people total living inn Iceland, with ~225,000 living in the capital, ~100,000 living in the area immediately around the city, and the remainder scattering in wide handfuls around the island itself.
I returned to the guesthouse feeling completely exhausted by the lack of sleep and fighting the wind during my walking. There were black drapes to pull down at the windows so I pulled them down, curled into bed, and fell asleep. Sabrina woke me up about 30 minutes later to tell me that the Italian had returned, ready to head to the north, and so I was introduced to Ares Lorenzin. I grabbed my bag, hopped in the car, and we took off. For the next two days, Ares and I drove the northwestern part of the island, hiking up mountains and staring at waterfalls.
Iceland is such a gorgeously wild place! The people there absolutely believe in monsters and elves; walking around at some points, I could see why. There were enormous lava fields where in between sheets of black, sponge-looking rocks were the softest moss pits I've ever walked on. Ares spotted a mountain along the road that looked as it were made of gravel; we stopped and tried to hike up it, but after an hour of effort we had only gotten halfway up and had sunk in to our knees at some points: we had taken the car mats with us and tried to slid to the bottom but, well, it didn't work that well. We hiked to the highest waterfall on the island and, along the way, took generous gulps from the cold, pure mountain stream. We drove up to Broganes, at the bottom of the peninsula directly above Reykjavik, and there stopped at a place where the ocean had receded to leave behind a lake of black mud so thick, it looked like quicksand clay. We stayed there for a long time, laughing at the sucking noise rocks made when we threw them in, trying to make a picture with the stones we tossed. It was about 10:30pm at that point, but the sun was still bright enough to make it feel like it was only 4. We talked about books, about ways of communicating, and then we decided to just camp there that night and watch the sun set above this black lake. Unfortunately, about an hour later, we were told we had to pay to camp there, so we drove off to another site near a farm of Icelandic ponies and watched the sun hide behind some distant mountains, finally setting at 11:15pm.
Except it never got dark. It was as if the sun were just hiding out of sight. The sky stayed lit up, the way it is just before sunrise. We put our car seats back and tried to sleep, but I felt like it was continually time to wake up. The temperature dropped and dropped; Ares had lent me a warm windbreaker, but my legs and my toes froze and kept me awake along with the sunlight. We had unzipped a sleeping bag to share between us, but it did nothing keep me warm. I shivered, I tried to burrow my face inside the jacket, I curled my legs up beneath me and tried to rub heat back into my toes -- nothing worked and i was miserable. At some point, though, I managed to drift to sleep. Ares woke me for the sunrise at 3am and I stared zombie-like out the window, watching the sun come back after having never really gone away. I grabbed a scarf, wrapped it over my eyes, and finally drifted back to sleep. I woke again at 6am, the sun being too bright to ignore, and after Ares woke we drove off in search of a hot breakfast only to find that everything was still closed. So we continued north.
The sky, which the day before had been perfectly clear, was now completely overcast. It stayed cold and the wind howled. I shivered constantly. The car did not have hot air and so the windows continually fogged up. We drove for an hour and I told him I was still exhausted, so we pulled over and slept some more. At this point, my body pretty much shut down and I slept soundly for two hours. When I woke up and we continued driving, it was 11am (7am Denver time). We continued the road north, ending up at a town which sounds like Sticks, where there is a ferry to go to the furthest northwest peninsula on the island. We stopped and finally got a warm meal, eating burgers at a fish restaurant. The food instantly made me feel better. Ares wanted to take the ferry but I had begun to worry about getting back to Reykjavik in time to shower and actually sleep in a bed, so we headed south instead, taking a road that followed the ocean around a glacier.
The overcast storm clouds broke open and ice rain began pouring down on us. For the first few stops, I joined Ares in walking around. We walked through more lava fields, up to the top of a lighthouse hill, and through black sand lava beaches. But I was still only wearing sandals and once my feet got cold, I stayed in the car, refusing to budge outside into the icy wind and the icier rain. Ares liked to stop at every interesting thing alongside the road; he liked to stop to see if a place had doughnuts, he liked to stop if he saw a waterfall -- and there were waterfalls every other mile. We were making terribly slow time and finally, around 5pm, I asked him to start heading back. We were still 3-4 hours away from Reykjavik and warm showers. He still wanted to see all the sights but, with the terrible sleep the night before and the terrible weather all day, I was done being a tourist and only wanted to sleep in an actual bed. He started driving south and the ride was a little awkward at first, me feeling a little guilty abut cutting his sightseeing short but also feeling miserably cold, and him being quiet. Eventually, though, we resumed our good conversation.
Ares is a good person with a very nice sense of humor. He has funny pun jokes and a light sense of sarcasm that took me by surprise. For instance, the hike to the highest waterfall was very far, 10km by map; as we drove by it on the way back, he casually asked if I wanted to "take a little hike to the highest waterfall in Iceland, only a very short walk." He came from a town about 3hrs north of Venice, along the board with Austria, and works as a masseuse. He had decided to fly to Iceland only 4 days before, actually flying there 2 days before I got there. He has a love of the water and would have spent hours watching waterfalls if I hadn't been there to keep us moving.
We arrived at the guesthouse at 10:30pm. Sabrina had not been expecting Ares to return and had no room for him so he had to sleep again out in the car. She barely had a place for me to sleep! I curled up under a heavy down blanket and gratefully, warmly went to bed after chatting with Sabrina about DIA of all things for over an hour! My flight out was at 8am and, hearing that had planned on walking to the bus station at 4:45am to catch a bus ride to the airport, Ares volunteered to driving me there instead. He drove up at 5am and we had our last good conversation on the way to the airport. He walked me in, we hugged goodbye, and he insisted that I consider visiting him when I am in Italy. He isn't flying back until Sunday morning, but on Tuesday he has made plans with some friends to fly out to the Netherlands. It might work out that we will meet again there, to tour the flower markets and watch the windmills. Hopefully the weather will not be so rainy!
So I've come away with ice for feet and a good Italian friend. I'm glad to have come to Iceland. I didn't see the great Geysir or the great Galfoss, but I saw many other waterfalls and walked along black beaches, going to places that were much farther into Iceland than I would have imagined, paces normal tourists do not go! And I made a very good friend with a man addicted to sugary doughnuts!
This has taken a good hour to write up. I have now boarded my plane destined for Glasgow. There is a couple beside me, an older couple, and they are speaking in a mixture of English and something else I don't recognize. The plane beside us is Iron Maiden on their final 2011 World Tour. We will be taking off shortly and then, more adventure!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
On my way!!!
I'm sitting in the Boston Logan International Airport right now near my gate, hunched over my iPad in a telephone booth. It's the only place I could find to charge my electronics before my flight --
Before my flight!!!
I've got about two hours before my flight is scheduled to take off. It's been delayed an hour, probably because of that volcano that went off last Saturday, which means that getting to the airport at 7pm was pretty early. I've managed to keep occupied the last 2 hours and I've still got enough to keep me busy til then.
I've gotten my first blister :( Jared and I walked around Boston all day. We walked the Freedom Tail. It's some 3 miles and we kept veering off whenever we saw something interesting. The trail was very wild. It went from being the standard crowded-downtown feel to being a very nature-y feel to being a very port-centric feel. At the Paul Revere monument an old man was playing his guitar for tips and it sounded hypnotizing. There was monument to the fallen soldiers of Iraq full of hundreds of unnamed dog-tags. All the guides dressed up in their colonial outfits and spoke in booming voices. The day was hot, semi-cloudy and in the '80s, a perfect day. It was fun and slow and pretty and everything combined to be as hypnotic as that old man with his guitar strumming.
Jared and I ended up in Chinatown for teriyaki chicken and I started confessing my fears for this flight: I'm nervous, I'm scared, I'm excited, I'm hyperventilating, I'm laughing on the inside and trying to keep that laughter from becoming frantic. It's all going to be all right, I really believe that, but I feel like that little kid who knows the monster in the closet is just clothes but just needs the light to come on before she can really accept it. And as soon as I get to Iceland by myself, it'll all be ok.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Before my flight!!!
I've got about two hours before my flight is scheduled to take off. It's been delayed an hour, probably because of that volcano that went off last Saturday, which means that getting to the airport at 7pm was pretty early. I've managed to keep occupied the last 2 hours and I've still got enough to keep me busy til then.
I've gotten my first blister :( Jared and I walked around Boston all day. We walked the Freedom Tail. It's some 3 miles and we kept veering off whenever we saw something interesting. The trail was very wild. It went from being the standard crowded-downtown feel to being a very nature-y feel to being a very port-centric feel. At the Paul Revere monument an old man was playing his guitar for tips and it sounded hypnotizing. There was monument to the fallen soldiers of Iraq full of hundreds of unnamed dog-tags. All the guides dressed up in their colonial outfits and spoke in booming voices. The day was hot, semi-cloudy and in the '80s, a perfect day. It was fun and slow and pretty and everything combined to be as hypnotic as that old man with his guitar strumming.
Jared and I ended up in Chinatown for teriyaki chicken and I started confessing my fears for this flight: I'm nervous, I'm scared, I'm excited, I'm hyperventilating, I'm laughing on the inside and trying to keep that laughter from becoming frantic. It's all going to be all right, I really believe that, but I feel like that little kid who knows the monster in the closet is just clothes but just needs the light to come on before she can really accept it. And as soon as I get to Iceland by myself, it'll all be ok.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Monday, May 23, 2011
New Hampshire, Day 2
Today was much more of a slow day, with no grand adventures like getting lost in the park. It was wet, cloudy and cold the entire day, leaving me bummed out regardless of our hopes of a warm tomorrow. CU-Boulder released the website that I'll be registering my classes through this morning as well. I spent about an hour in bed on my iPad, testing the site out and making sure I'll be able to connect when July 27th comes and the engineering college opens it's registration doors for a day.
We watched TV, ate cereal, and watched a movie. It was "The Fighter," a boxing movie, and it was actually really, really good! By the time it ended, over half the day had worn away with not even a glimpse of sunshine :\
The only real thing of note is us driving over to UNH. It's about an hour away, giving me plenty of time to listen to the new Jimmy Eat World and frustratingly remember all the music I left off my iPhone for this trip.
UNH is a pretty school. The town is unbelievably tiny, if it's even a town at all and not just an extension of the school. Literally, the school is the only thing there for a few miles. Each of the buildings looks something like an old colonial mansion, all brick with the white trimmings. Trees are everywhere, everything is wet and green and bursting with spring. And since their semester just ended last week, the place was more or less deserted.
I got to meet up with William Wilkinson, an old boyfriend of mine who grew up in NH and moved back when he got out of the navy about a year before I did. Billy-Willy was one of the nicest people I've ever met in the navy and he is still unbelievably good. He's funny and tall and also ridiculously smart. When he reads a book or a manual, he absorbs all knowledge and forever retains the most minute detail. He lives in the college partying house and, as we walked in, he was in the process of repainting the walls to repair the damage a year of partying had done to the place. Since he's also going through as an electrical engineer, he was able to give me a few pointers about how to score cheap/free college books and reiterated how much of a good time even engineering college can be.
I forgot to mention that he was repainting the walls in his old navy uniform ^_^
We stayed there, on the college campus, for almost two hours before heading back and getting to the kitchen table at about 8:30, in time for some steak fillets his mom had grilled up. Conversation consisted of a heated debate over what defined a fruit or a vegetable, sparked by the roasted green peppers on our dinner plates. I got to give Elena a quick call and then got back to watch the Boston Redsocks playing against someone, in between watching the Boston Celtics play against someone, in between watching a Family Guy episode starring Tom Brady and the Patriots. The fan pride here is no joke.
I've been checking up periodically on the Iceland volcano situation. It looks like the airport is back open and the worst of the ash is restricted to the southern east part of the island, away from where I am going to be. The only concern I have is my flight out of Friday to Glasgow. I'd read that most air traffic wouldn't be disturbed...except for flights to northern Britain. If I have get diverted to London instead, it wouldn't be so bad to spend a few more days there or maybe a few more in Brussels. I'd only planned on being in Glasgow and Edinburgh a day each. It'd be disappointing to miss, but workable.
Tomorrow, we plan on going to walk the Freedom Trail before my flight. It's at 9:30pm and I want to be at the airport by 5. Hopefully it's not rainy again, but I'm afraid it will be
PS Boulder is definitely the better school, hands down.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
We watched TV, ate cereal, and watched a movie. It was "The Fighter," a boxing movie, and it was actually really, really good! By the time it ended, over half the day had worn away with not even a glimpse of sunshine :\
The only real thing of note is us driving over to UNH. It's about an hour away, giving me plenty of time to listen to the new Jimmy Eat World and frustratingly remember all the music I left off my iPhone for this trip.
UNH is a pretty school. The town is unbelievably tiny, if it's even a town at all and not just an extension of the school. Literally, the school is the only thing there for a few miles. Each of the buildings looks something like an old colonial mansion, all brick with the white trimmings. Trees are everywhere, everything is wet and green and bursting with spring. And since their semester just ended last week, the place was more or less deserted.
I got to meet up with William Wilkinson, an old boyfriend of mine who grew up in NH and moved back when he got out of the navy about a year before I did. Billy-Willy was one of the nicest people I've ever met in the navy and he is still unbelievably good. He's funny and tall and also ridiculously smart. When he reads a book or a manual, he absorbs all knowledge and forever retains the most minute detail. He lives in the college partying house and, as we walked in, he was in the process of repainting the walls to repair the damage a year of partying had done to the place. Since he's also going through as an electrical engineer, he was able to give me a few pointers about how to score cheap/free college books and reiterated how much of a good time even engineering college can be.
I forgot to mention that he was repainting the walls in his old navy uniform ^_^
We stayed there, on the college campus, for almost two hours before heading back and getting to the kitchen table at about 8:30, in time for some steak fillets his mom had grilled up. Conversation consisted of a heated debate over what defined a fruit or a vegetable, sparked by the roasted green peppers on our dinner plates. I got to give Elena a quick call and then got back to watch the Boston Redsocks playing against someone, in between watching the Boston Celtics play against someone, in between watching a Family Guy episode starring Tom Brady and the Patriots. The fan pride here is no joke.
I've been checking up periodically on the Iceland volcano situation. It looks like the airport is back open and the worst of the ash is restricted to the southern east part of the island, away from where I am going to be. The only concern I have is my flight out of Friday to Glasgow. I'd read that most air traffic wouldn't be disturbed...except for flights to northern Britain. If I have get diverted to London instead, it wouldn't be so bad to spend a few more days there or maybe a few more in Brussels. I'd only planned on being in Glasgow and Edinburgh a day each. It'd be disappointing to miss, but workable.
Tomorrow, we plan on going to walk the Freedom Trail before my flight. It's at 9:30pm and I want to be at the airport by 5. Hopefully it's not rainy again, but I'm afraid it will be
PS Boulder is definitely the better school, hands down.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Sunday, May 22, 2011
New Hampshire
There is a light above the toilet in the bathroom here that I keep hitting my head on. I always half-turn to my right when flush the toilet, and just now marks the fifth time I've bashed my head on this low-hanging fixture.
I'm in Boston right now, spending time with Jared Carson and his family. I'll be here until Tuesday, when my flight out to Iceland takes off at 9:30pm. I've never flown internationally by myself before and I'll have to take a lot of notes to pass on to Andreina. She's more afraid than I'll be, and I want to make sure that all the extra questions I've got now get answered by the time she's all alone, sitting in the airport, counting down the hours until her plane leaves. At least I've flown alone before. I've flown alone and waited for my ride to show up. That's no fun at all.
I flew out of Denver yesterday at 3:20pm, saying goodbye to my home state once more and this time for 3 solid, solitary months. I'd planned on getting a window seat to watch the world slowly vanish beneath the clouds; instead, when I made my way to my seat, I found a trio of old people sitting in the row. The older of the bunch, the dad (who looked like he was approached 90) had mistakenly taken a seat on that side of the airplane instead of on the other. I couldn't very well break up their group, especially to make the old man sit alone across the aisle, so I swapped seats and ended up sitting next to a bossy older woman (but not *old*) and her husband. And instead of staring out the window, I had an aisle seat. I was so tired from the night before with Lucas that I fell asleep before the plane even took off. I woke up briefly as we taxied down the runway, but then I was asleep again for a good hour or so.
My flight landed in Milwaukee and the old man got off before me, taking a significant amount of time to exit the plane. I wandered off the plane myself right about 6:40pm, spotting a departure information board straight ahead of me, almost getting knocked over as bossy lady and her husband ran to catch their connecting flight. Just as I chuckled under my breath about having to worry about connecting flights, I realized that my connecting flight was already boarding, with less than 15 minutes before take-off! Luckily the gates were about 30 seconds apart from each other and I walked up just as they announced my name on the intercom with a warning to board my flight in the next five minutes or forfeit my ticket. This answers Andreina's question about whether 30 minutes is enough time to catch a connecting flight; unless the gates are right next to each other, it definitely is not.
I arrived in Boston after a terrible flight where the child behind me wouldn't stop crying and the child in front of me wouldn't shut up. It was so chilly that I was shivering violently as I waited outside for Jared to show up. I called my babe and had a wonderful quick conversation, realizing once again that I'm going to miss him awfully over the next few months and hoping that things will be not-weird when I return. Jared showed up quickly and we were on the road, getting to his house in Nashua NH in about 45 minutes. Both of his parents were still up (this being right about midnight) and we sat at the kitchen table eating McDonalds, watching SNL for a good hour. They are really good people!
I was the one to break up the party and head to bed at 1am -- and his mom confessed to me the next morning that she'd stayed up until 3! I texted my babe and didn't get a response, leaving me slightly blue as I drifted to sleep Today, I meant to wake up at 7:30am just to prove that, as an early sleeper I was also an early riser. I ended up waking up at 9 instead, hearing some weird slamming noises coming from downstairs. I got my teeth brushed and my face washed before I headed down there to finally meet Jared's mentally handicapped brother. There is something wrong with him and he basically has the mental capacity of a 2-3 year old with several body disfigurements. He makes for a very special case.
Jared and I watched "Remember the Titans" a bit, got some coffee, and then headed out to Main Street for some breakfast. We ate at a diner then wandered around for a bit, getting back to his house at about 3pm. About a half hour later, we were in the car again, heading towards Massachusetts to go to an extravagant ice cream stand. It was chilly and overcast outside but the place -- Kimble Farm -- was still packed with people, everyone eating ice cream. We walked around there for a little over an hour, eating our ice cream, and then headed towards a large park called Mines Falls back in New Hampshire.
The place was gorgeous. There were rivers, waterfalls, still waters, beavers, swans, all manner of birds and flowers. The only problem is that, after walking about for about 2 hours, we were lost. By then, it was 7pm and still light out but a fading light with the promise of approaching dark. We took 3 wrong paths, each taking about 20-30 minutes of back peddling to try again. The posted maps were both inaccurate and worn away. I really had to pee. It got darker and darker, and my mind automatically went to horror films and ghost stories. We passed under a bridge at one point where, luckily, lights had been wired in to ward off the dark. If they hadn't been there, I wouldn't have been able to force myself into such pitch blackness! The trail got darker and darker, and then the trail -- the 4th one we were attempting -- split again in two. We chose one, and a little ways down it in split in two again. Again, we chose a way, and a little ways down it split into 3 ways! We, once more, chose a way and magically ended up in the right exit of the park. It was after 9pm and the sun had fully gone down at this point. My legs were tired from walking in the cold for so long and when we stopped to get food, they groaned angrily at me!We ate quickly and got home just at 10pm.
I was tired but called up my babe for a quick 5 minute conversation where it already felt like he'd drifted far away from me. I called Jess next, to get some feeling of connection again, and Allie picked up instead, immediately telling me she loved me with Andreina shouting the same words in the background. I felt much better at that, though I'm still a little bummed at how far away Lucas sounded over the phone. After a quick minute, I went back downstairs where Jared and his parents were, and we sat down there for almost 3 hours, laughing and talking about Donald Trump, alien invasions, and the best actors/actresses we could think of. I've had such a blast with this family, I can't even explain it. It's past 1am now. Tomorrow, I expect we'll go check out where Jared's dad works, as well as his old schools and maybe watch a good movie. Tuesday, we plan on walking the Freedom Trail down in Boston during the morning, being very close to the airport for me to check in later. And then...Iceland! Reykjavik!! Europe!!! Adventure!!! -- May 23, 2011 1:12 AM
I'm in Boston right now, spending time with Jared Carson and his family. I'll be here until Tuesday, when my flight out to Iceland takes off at 9:30pm. I've never flown internationally by myself before and I'll have to take a lot of notes to pass on to Andreina. She's more afraid than I'll be, and I want to make sure that all the extra questions I've got now get answered by the time she's all alone, sitting in the airport, counting down the hours until her plane leaves. At least I've flown alone before. I've flown alone and waited for my ride to show up. That's no fun at all.
I flew out of Denver yesterday at 3:20pm, saying goodbye to my home state once more and this time for 3 solid, solitary months. I'd planned on getting a window seat to watch the world slowly vanish beneath the clouds; instead, when I made my way to my seat, I found a trio of old people sitting in the row. The older of the bunch, the dad (who looked like he was approached 90) had mistakenly taken a seat on that side of the airplane instead of on the other. I couldn't very well break up their group, especially to make the old man sit alone across the aisle, so I swapped seats and ended up sitting next to a bossy older woman (but not *old*) and her husband. And instead of staring out the window, I had an aisle seat. I was so tired from the night before with Lucas that I fell asleep before the plane even took off. I woke up briefly as we taxied down the runway, but then I was asleep again for a good hour or so.
My flight landed in Milwaukee and the old man got off before me, taking a significant amount of time to exit the plane. I wandered off the plane myself right about 6:40pm, spotting a departure information board straight ahead of me, almost getting knocked over as bossy lady and her husband ran to catch their connecting flight. Just as I chuckled under my breath about having to worry about connecting flights, I realized that my connecting flight was already boarding, with less than 15 minutes before take-off! Luckily the gates were about 30 seconds apart from each other and I walked up just as they announced my name on the intercom with a warning to board my flight in the next five minutes or forfeit my ticket. This answers Andreina's question about whether 30 minutes is enough time to catch a connecting flight; unless the gates are right next to each other, it definitely is not.
I arrived in Boston after a terrible flight where the child behind me wouldn't stop crying and the child in front of me wouldn't shut up. It was so chilly that I was shivering violently as I waited outside for Jared to show up. I called my babe and had a wonderful quick conversation, realizing once again that I'm going to miss him awfully over the next few months and hoping that things will be not-weird when I return. Jared showed up quickly and we were on the road, getting to his house in Nashua NH in about 45 minutes. Both of his parents were still up (this being right about midnight) and we sat at the kitchen table eating McDonalds, watching SNL for a good hour. They are really good people!
I was the one to break up the party and head to bed at 1am -- and his mom confessed to me the next morning that she'd stayed up until 3! I texted my babe and didn't get a response, leaving me slightly blue as I drifted to sleep Today, I meant to wake up at 7:30am just to prove that, as an early sleeper I was also an early riser. I ended up waking up at 9 instead, hearing some weird slamming noises coming from downstairs. I got my teeth brushed and my face washed before I headed down there to finally meet Jared's mentally handicapped brother. There is something wrong with him and he basically has the mental capacity of a 2-3 year old with several body disfigurements. He makes for a very special case.
Jared and I watched "Remember the Titans" a bit, got some coffee, and then headed out to Main Street for some breakfast. We ate at a diner then wandered around for a bit, getting back to his house at about 3pm. About a half hour later, we were in the car again, heading towards Massachusetts to go to an extravagant ice cream stand. It was chilly and overcast outside but the place -- Kimble Farm -- was still packed with people, everyone eating ice cream. We walked around there for a little over an hour, eating our ice cream, and then headed towards a large park called Mines Falls back in New Hampshire.
The place was gorgeous. There were rivers, waterfalls, still waters, beavers, swans, all manner of birds and flowers. The only problem is that, after walking about for about 2 hours, we were lost. By then, it was 7pm and still light out but a fading light with the promise of approaching dark. We took 3 wrong paths, each taking about 20-30 minutes of back peddling to try again. The posted maps were both inaccurate and worn away. I really had to pee. It got darker and darker, and my mind automatically went to horror films and ghost stories. We passed under a bridge at one point where, luckily, lights had been wired in to ward off the dark. If they hadn't been there, I wouldn't have been able to force myself into such pitch blackness! The trail got darker and darker, and then the trail -- the 4th one we were attempting -- split again in two. We chose one, and a little ways down it in split in two again. Again, we chose a way, and a little ways down it split into 3 ways! We, once more, chose a way and magically ended up in the right exit of the park. It was after 9pm and the sun had fully gone down at this point. My legs were tired from walking in the cold for so long and when we stopped to get food, they groaned angrily at me!We ate quickly and got home just at 10pm.
I was tired but called up my babe for a quick 5 minute conversation where it already felt like he'd drifted far away from me. I called Jess next, to get some feeling of connection again, and Allie picked up instead, immediately telling me she loved me with Andreina shouting the same words in the background. I felt much better at that, though I'm still a little bummed at how far away Lucas sounded over the phone. After a quick minute, I went back downstairs where Jared and his parents were, and we sat down there for almost 3 hours, laughing and talking about Donald Trump, alien invasions, and the best actors/actresses we could think of. I've had such a blast with this family, I can't even explain it. It's past 1am now. Tomorrow, I expect we'll go check out where Jared's dad works, as well as his old schools and maybe watch a good movie. Tuesday, we plan on walking the Freedom Trail down in Boston during the morning, being very close to the airport for me to check in later. And then...Iceland! Reykjavik!! Europe!!! Adventure!!! -- May 23, 2011 1:12 AM
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
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