The Great Train Christmas Adventure

25 Dec:

When last I left off, we had attempted to fall asleep with two very noisy children in our sleeper compartment.  I was all comfy because they provided a pillow, a sheet, and a blanket for us.  I kept on my sweatshirt because it had all my valuables in it, so I was quite warm.  The kids weren't THAT BAD at first because I just figured they'd quiet down eventually and fall asleep because it was dark and still and somehow the stillness would get to them.  They must not pay attention to their surroundings that much. 

No, wait, the compartment wasn't still.  It was still for a while before we stopped and I figured it was just a stop along the way.  Ryan asked how we would know which stop is ours, and the train staff person said that ours was the 9:00am stop.  So I set my alarm for 8:00am so we would be awake and ready to get off at the right place.  I stuck in a pair of earplugs and fell asleep.  For the record, I could still hear the children through the earplugs, but it was a lot quieter than without them.  I don't know which was worse though, the children's singing or their mother constantly saying "Be quiet!  Other people are trying to sleep!"  She even threatened to beat them but I didn't hear anything that sounded like beating throughout the night.  Perhaps they would have shut up if they were hit?  That is a very cruel remark.  I'm sorry.

So I got some pretty decent sleep, what with earplugs and all.  Ryan didn't want any because I think he wanted to listen to what was going on outside our room.  I slept through most of the night and woke up when Ryan got up to check something out, because by this time it was nearly 6am and the train hadn't moved since midnight.  Not a good sign at all.

As it turns out, our engine broke somewhere around midnight and we weren't moving because we were waiting for a new engine to come all the way from Berlin, which was 8 hours away at midnight.  At around 7am, Ryan set out to see if we could find some food, and this is where he met a German girl who spoke proficient English and was able to translate German for us.  Hooray!  He, her, and a few others followed a member of staff to a small room that had food, but most of it was already eaten.  But there were a bunch of water bottles so Ryan grabbed a bunch.  The staff was also handing out packaged butter croissants to everyone, so Ryan got two of those for us.  We set them aside to be eaten later because we weren't sure when we would get moving again. 

Ryan was more upset than I was that our Berlin plans were thwarted by the train.  He really wanted to go to Berlin, and I didn't mind Christmas on the train.  It kept me moving and moving makes me less homesick and I didn't want to spend Christmas in tears.  Besides, my phone died so it wasn't like we could call Mom and Dad from the train to complain to them about the problem.  Which means we didn't get a chance to talk with everyone from home about our Christmas Adventure. 

The train finally resumed its path at around 10am.  When this happened, we were like "I guess there's nothing for us to do, really."  So we sat down to listen to some more Harry Potter.  The old woman and her grandson on the bottom two bunks disappeared to find the grandfather so Ryan and I moved our stuff down there and sat down to listen.  It wasn't comfortable at all because we couldn't sit up straight.  We had to lean forward to avoid touching the bunk above us.  Besides, the bunk above us came up to Ryan's neck when he was sitting down, so it wasn't like he had a lot of room in the first place.  So there we are, trying to listen to our book, when the smaller of the two boys came and started tapping Ryan on the head.  His mother tried telling him to stop, but we all know that wasn't going to happen.  Even Ryan turned around and said "Cut it out" but the kid still kept on poking.  I almost wanted to get into the kid's face and seethe something fierce at him, but I wasn't quite that angry at him.  I was surprisingly chill throughout the whole ordeal, to be honest.  I didn't feel worked up about anything.  But the kid and the sitting arrangements were enough for Ryan to suggest that we move to a compartment.  So we did.

We found the German girl Ryan met sitting with a Chinese girl in a compartment of their own.  We asked if we could join them.  Ryan had another motive though, because he thought the girl was cute.  And I guess she is cute.  Go Ryan.  Anyway, we could join them.  So we got our stuff and brought it back.  For the first while or so, it was like there was a wall in the compartment.  Ryan and I listened to more Harry Potter and the two others were talking amongst themselves.  I forget what got us talking as a group, but we did finally get to talking as a group.

We didn't get everyone's names until much later in the day, but I'll tell them to you know to avoid confusion.  Ryan's German crush is Mirijam (the 'j' is pronounced like an 'h'), the Chinese Girl is Natalie, and eventually Natalie had a friend that joined us named Michelle.  And it was the five of us, hanging out and complaining about the lack of food and information and how it's ridiculous how we're spending Christmas day on a train when Christmas is so important to Germans.  So the staff would want to get home and they're probably overworked and overtired.  Mirijam translated the German announcements into English for us so we could understand what was going on, but more often than not the conductor repeated the announcements in English as well.

Mirijam is a German actress who was in Paris because she was called to be in a movie joint-produced by Bollywood and France.  The scandal here is that one of the producers or someone told Mirijam that she might have to sleep with somebody if she wanted the role.  She told that someone to send the contract agreement to her agency, and she told her agency that she wasn't a common whore and that she wasn't going to sleep with anyone to get a bigger role.  And if that's how she was going to make a name for herself internationally, then she'll just stick with German things until she can get a role cleanly.  Good for her and her morals.  I hope she gets this Bollywood role.

Natalie is originally from China and studying French in a city in western France.  She's only here for the semester and going to Berlin to visit a friend with another friend.  Michelle didn't talk much, but she's also studying in France for a short time before returning to China.  Natalie said that she had a friend studying at UW-Madison, and Ryan and I got excited for a couple seconds.  She didn't say who her friend was, so I guess there isn't much hope in tracking this person down.  Still kinda cool that we finally met someone who knows someone else in Madison. 

Despite the suckiness of the adventure, it was a grand ole time.  Mirijam eventually left to find more food since all she had was the butter croissant and that was no where near enough to fill her up.  She had earlier said that she doesn't eat pork because she doesn't like it and she doesn't eat gluten because she's slightly allergic.  So when she came back from food, she said that she talked with a staff and they gave her a pork sausage and a sandwich with ham and cheese.  Not only that, but she had to eat it in a secret compartment so that no one else could see that she had food.  She was in a tizzy about that, described the ordeal like she was "eating like a thief".  I would have to agree, but Ryan and I had Christmas cookies, so we were alright for a while.  We shared the Christmas mix though.  By the time we busted that out, it would have been completely mean not to share. 

We didn't get much information during the train ride either.  In the beginning, there were announcements that told passengers for Hamburg and Munich to transfer trains at Hannover station, but there was nothing for passengers going to Berlin.  So we figured we stayed on this train, but then one announcement said that there wasn't any information for passengers traveling to Berlin.  The five of us were going to the same station, so we were all sticking together.  Eventually, towards four in the afternoon, we got the notice that we were to transfer trains at a small town outside Hannover to catch a train to Hannover to catch another train to Berlin.  Ridiculous, right?  We all thought so. 

The next two trains were nice trains, though.  We mostly hung around the food cars because we were so hungry.  Since we were only on the first train for only about thirty minutes, no one really got anything except Ryan and I who split a toasted baguette sandwich just to hold us over.  The five of us took up a table  in the food car and played Hangman in my journal since it was about time we busted out the word games. 

The second train was really, really nice.  We boarded and walked down until we were almost in First Class to find a seat.  We didn't sit together at first in the food car.  Ryan and I shared a table with two other guys, one of whom was in the same boat (or train) as us and the other kept ordering beers for himself.  Dude had about three within an hour and didn't even look tipsy.  You go, dude.  He was also really muscular so he probably had a really high tolerance.  Anyway, the four of us were at a table, Natalie and Michelle were behind us, and Mirijam sat by herself for a bit.  Ryan ordered meat balls, I ordered a sandwich platter (I didn't realize it was a sandwich platter at the time otherwise I would have gotten the meatballs too).  Once we were finished and paid for, Ryan went to join Mirijam and they chatted for a bit.  I attempted to journal on the train but it only made my head hurt.  So I took some ibuprofen and rested my head against the table until we were in Berlin.

My head didn't feel good until we got off the train and I could move around in a big space.  Mirijam led us to the information desk where we could ask for our money back for the ride.  Ryan and I got someone who didn't speak much English, but she understood our problem and pulled out a form for us to fill out.  The form was in German so we decided to use Google Translate to help us fill it out.  Mirijam and the others got the same form.  We probably would have filled it out together except Natalie and Michelle met up with their friend and Mirijam wanted to get home to her daughter.  So we split.

Natalie and Michelle left first without really saying good-bye.  Or maybe they did and we didn't hear them?  We tried to say good-bye but they didn't hear us.  Anyway, they sort of disappeared once they met up with their friend.  Mirijam was nice enough to show us how to use the metro system in Berlin.  We took that halfway to our hostel because that's what the woman at the desk told us to do.  I gave Ryan the map of Berlin because he seemed to get a better sense of his surroundings in Germany than I did.  Mirijam came with us part of the way, but we parted when she was going north and we were going south.  Keep in touch, good luck on the movie career, and have a good life! 

So there were Ryan and I, alone in a strange city (again) with nothing but a map and street signs on the corners to guide our way.  We walked along one way for a block before asking a pair of women where Tempelhofer Ufer was.  Go ahead, say that.  Tempelhofer Ufer.  Now say it with a German accent.  Isn't that really fun to say?  Anyway, we were on the right track and we just had to keep following this road and take a right eventually and then we had to take another right and we'll be on our street.  So onward and upwards we went.

Took maybe fifteen to thirty minutes to get to the hostel.  It was really nice.  A nice staircase leading up to all the levels, the reception was nice and clean and featured a bar with hopping music.  There were computers in a separate lounge room off the hallway for us to use for free.  We also got a complementary hot drink and the guy checking us in sat down with us with a map of the city and we were free to ask any questions about the city.  So he pointed out the major tourist spots and recommended a nice Christmas Market for us to visit, circled a few museums for us to see if we had the time.  We asked which areas to avoid, and he said that there weren't any really bad neighborhoods like that unless you go really far east in the city, but central Berlin is quite safe.  I really liked this meet and greet because it was personal and the staff was friendly and spoke awesome English and they were just willing to help out and had a lot of knowledge to share.  It was awesome.

We went to bed shortly after using the computers to update our Facebooks and send an email to Mom and Dad about our day.  Oh what a day. 

Merry Christmas.

Christmas Eve

24 Dec:

That morning, I didn't eat cereal for breakfast because I was more interested in croissants and baguettes.  Delicious things, them are.  We checked out afterward (Ryan paid, yay!) and we were able to put our luggage in the luggage room for the rest of the day until we had to leave. 

Stopped at a pharmacy before everything so I could buy some lip balm.  While there, we mimed if the pharmacist had an ankle brace for Ryan's foot.  She didn't speak much English but I spoke a little French and we managed to get by just like that.  She was really friendly too.  Measured Ryan's ankle to check his size and gave us two options for him to try on.  We chose one I paid for it.  The brace helped Ryan's ankle, but it still hurt the majority of the day.

First stop was the Eiffel Tower to get some pictures it during the day and to go on top of it.  Except it was closed this time too because it was snowing.  This time, there was a woman at an information desk that told us it was closed because of the weather.  A sign also pointed out that the Eiffel Tower closes at 11pm, which means that it was closed for the same reasons the previous night when we came by it then.  I was fairly upset by this piece of news because I was looking forward to going on top of the Eiffel Tower and seeing Paris from way up high.  Also, I wanted to go on top of the Eiffel Tower.  My eyes watered and I let them water because I know I'm terrible at keeping in my crying.  So we went back to our previous spot the previous night and took some pictures of it in the daytime.  I'm pretty sure we have more pictures of it than we can manage.

Wandered into a small Christmas Market under the Eiffel Tower at this time.  It was a cute market especially for tourists like us.  We bought crepes and wandered about for a bit.  There was some ice skating and a small area for children to play in.  We also debated on getting a hot dog or a hamburger or something, but it was too much money to spend on just a small little thing to eat.  7EUR for a hot dog was much too much.  So we continued walking and I looked for stands that sold mulled wine for under 3EUR.  Saw a few, but Ryan didn't want any from France.

Afterwards we went to the l'arc triomphe at the end of the Champs Elysses.  This was important for Ryan because the Tour de France rides around the Champs Elysses in the grand finale or something.  The arc is in the middle of a 12-lane roundabout that has aboslutely no structure to it whatsoever.  According to our tour guide, there is an accident every 30 minutes.  It's very scary.  How to get to the center circle that features the arc?  There is an underground pass to walk trhough.  You can guy tickets to go on top of the arc, but we weren't interested in going up.  It was cold and snowy and we had no desire to go up.  We got the free lookaround on the ground instead. 

The arc was pretty and featured statues and a Memorial for the Immortal Soldier, which commemorates the nameless soldiers who died during WWII.  We took pictures, we shivered in the wind, and then we decided to walk down the Champes Elysses because it was lined with shops and tourists and maybe we'll find some lunch on the way.

Lunch was a small cafe on the Champs that was really nice.  It was quaint and busy for Christmas Eve, I thought.  We split a sandwich and drank some water from the water bottle and just sat and relaxed.  When Ryan went to the bathroom, I noticed the Christmas songs on the radio and I started to think of home and the Christmas we're missing back there.  Started to tear up again and Ryan came back and asked what's wrong but I couldn't really speak so I wiped them away and said I was fine.  We walked down the Champs Elysses after and moving helped me a lot.

We saw really fancy cars of really expensive companies.  Even walked into a few stores.  Expensive car shopping is nothing like car shopping in the US.  You don't really get to test drive anything, you just walk around the store and say "I'd like to buy this car, please."  Or maybe that's completely incorrect and expensive car shopping is everything like the car shopping I know.  We saw awesome cars anyway.  There was also a two-level Disney store that we had to walk in.  It was covered with Toy Story memoriabilia, some Tinker Bell fairies, a little Princess and the Frog, a few Cars, but a lot of Toy Story 3.  A lot.  But we went in because I wanted to walk in.  We also walked into Louis Vuitton because I was like "Oh look!"  I also suggested Ryan buy something for mom from there.  So we walked in and everything was really really expensive.  You also didn't touch anything to look at it because everything was on display.  Ryan attempted to look for something cheap enough to buy, but it just didn't exist.  At least not in that store. 

At the end of the avenue, there was a Christmas Market.  I wanted to stop for some mulled wine, but Ryan didn't want any.  I did stop, however, for a chocolate-covered apple with sprinkles.  Of course.  We walked along the Market until it came to a giant square with more anarchist roads.  By this time, we were figuring we'd have enough time to eat and get to the train station, but we weren't that hungry just yet so we went to the hotel area thinking we can find something there.

Found a small restuarant where we each had a burger and fries.  The burgers weren't cooked all the way.  I only ate half of mine and munched on fries but Ryan didn't like the flavor of the fries.  I didn't think there was anything unusual with them. There was an energetic little girl running around and having fun.  She was cute and kept looking at the dessert display next to us.  When we finished our meals, our waitress came and said she was done with her shift so we're going to have to pay her manager, but we said we can pay now since we're done anyway.  When in restaurants, people usually stay behind and hang out over a cup of tea or coffee or a dessert.  But we were full and wanted to get on the move.  I was feeling homesick there too and told Ryan and he said it was alright, he was feeling the same way too.  We both sort of knew it wasn't to my extent, though. 

Once again, I felt better once we were walking.  We made it to the hotel but we still had an hour or two before we wanted to be at the train station.  So we chilled in the hotel foyer for a bit.  I called Mom and Dad from my mobile and of course they were awesome like they always are.  They said they miss me too but I'm over here making new memories and having the sort of holiday I would have never gotten at home.  Besides, we'll do our Christmas traditions when I get back.  I should know the tree isn't coming down anytime soon.  Heck, it's usually taken down in February, isn't it?  And I have Ryan with me so I should be grateful for that.  Also, if I wanted to change my flight to the States for an earlier one, then no one is going to hold that against me.  I can always do that if I want to. 

Then Ryan got the phone to ask about his ankle which was bugging him all day too.  Mom and Dad figure it was just sprained and that he should keep it elevated as much as he could.  They also started to talk about our time in Paris and about halfway through the conversation my phone ran out of credit to use.  So I sent a quick email to mom saying what happened and that we'll try to Skype from Berlin if the hostel has it. 

Walked to the train station after that.  I wanted to go into a supermarket to pick up some food for the train ride, but Ryan didn't really want any food.  (In restrospect, this was a silly idea, but we can't predict the future.)  We got some apples anyway and went to the train station.

Ryan didn't seem to realize that the Eurostar is different than other train services in Europe.  In Italy, there was no security and we got our tickets checked by a machine next to the train platform.  Same as France.  Our tickets were already checked so we didn't have to use the machine by the train platform, but we didn't have to be two hours ahead of schedule.  So we sta in a cafe to keep warm and listened to more Harry Potter.  Our train came by around 7:45/8:00p and we boarded as soon as we could.  We found a compartment for our stuff and sat there for a while.

A black woman and her two kids came by for all of two seconds and we hoped they wouldn't be with us because the kids were really loud.  They went away, thankfully, to be replaced by an old man and his young grandson.  I fell in love with this family.  The old man wore tweed and his handbag was black and very very old like him.  His grandson kept saying "Pourquoi?" which is "Why" in French and he answered in a slow and withered voice.  His wife was just as old and looked just as travel worn but in a different way.  She held herself like she came from money, and her fur coat further proved this fact.  She also looked as if she took this journey before and she was ready to do it again.  She was the one who wanted the sleeper and disappeared to find it.  When she did, she took the young grandson and carted him off.  The old grandfather followed them and we had the compartment to ourselves.

This was really nice.  Really nice.  We thought about laying down on the couches and sleeping there thinking that would be really excellent before an English guy came and told us we were in the wrong compartment.  We were given a couchette, which were beds to sleep on.  And we were like "Okay, sweet?"  The guy went on further to say he didn't like couchettes anyway.

You'll hear about the screaming kids later since this was about bedtime.  Oh the screaming kids.

Louvre, Ankles, Eiffel Tower Attempt 1

Our hotel gave us a really nice map of the city.  We used that instead of the ones we had yesterday because, truth be told, they kind of sucked.

Woke up without alarms and felt refreshed as daisies in spring.  Then we ate our free breakfast at the hotel which consisted of breads, two types of cereal, coffee and tea, yougurt, and croissants.  Oh the croissants.  Ryan fell in love with the croissants.  I fell in love with the baguettes.  I love baguettes.

Attempted to take the Metro to Notre Dame, but we couldn't figure out how to open the doors when the train was at our station so we got off a station later.  Bummer.  But it was more of the city we got to see.  Really, more of the city, because I thought we were on the right side of the river so I led us the wrong way down the river.  So we had to turn around and walk the other way for two metro stops.  Or was it three?  We probably realized we were going the wrong way when we came upon the next bridge and saw that it wasn't the bridge we expected to see.  Whoops.

But we got to Notre Dame and took pictures in the back garden for a few minutes.  It's free to get in so that's what we did after looking at it from the square out front.  It was really pretty.  Such a pretty church.  Cathedral.  Such a pretty cathedral.  Sorry, churches are tiny.  Cathedrals are HUGE, like this one.  Anyway, it was gorgeous and Ryan took more pictures than I did because I've seen cathedrals before in other parts of Europe.  We spent maybe an hour there just looking around.  I got a souvenir medallion thing for Sarah and bought a packet of postcards from the gift shop because you couldn't buy them individually. 

After that, we went to the Louvre.  For the record, the Louvre is not just HUGE, it's GIANORMOUS!  The Louvre is located in the old palace before one of the Kind Louies moved the royal family to Versailles.  It's been filled with ancient artifacts the world over since Napoleon's days, I believe.  I think he was the one who put his spoils of conquest in the Louvre and that's how it started as a museum.  Since then, it's been holding spoils of the world both ancient and recent.  Mostly art, though.  We saw a lot of sculptures and paintings and I discovered the difference between French paintings and German paintings are the way faces are drawn and the use of colors.  German paintings tend to have more dark colors where French paintings are really light and colorful.  Of course, we got to see the Mona Lisa and her famous smile.  Not up close and personal, though.  She has this barricade around her to prevent people from getting too close and she has a glass covering so no one can easily steal her. Then there was the mass amount of people surrounding her that was another prevention of closeness with the good Lisa.  But we got pictures with each other anyway.  Ryan took a picture of me attempting to mimic her smile, but I just look bored.

I have a theory on the Mona Lisa.  People always ask who she is and what's with her smile?  It's so mysterious.  Back in high school, when I drew more than I do now, I used to draw people just for the sake of it.  I sort of used it as a practice to get proportions and shapes right.  Sometimes I would finish the pictures and color it in and everything.  More often than not, though, it would go unfinished into the bowels of my sketchbook.  And that's what I think the Mona Lisa is.  Leo Da Vinci just wanted to paint a picture of just some random person that doesn't exist because he wanted to get all the proportions right and play with color and shading and other painter techniques.  But that's my theory.  Dispute it as you will.

We walked on and took pictures of our favorite pieces.  While in sculptures, we copied the poses of the ones we liked for pictures.  I find that a fun pasttime -- mimicking statues.  Gives you a fun reason to take a picture with something boring. 

Somewhere along the way, Ryan's ankle started to hurt him.  As in, really hurt him.  He wasn't limping, but he kept complaining about it and we often sat down just to rest and he could massage his foot.  What was going on, neither of us knew.  Maybe he tripped.  Maybe he stepped on something wrong.  Neither of us know what really happened, just that he somehow hurt his ankle and it affected us the rest of the day.  For a bit, though.  We still walked nearly everywhere.

Stopped in a cafe in the Louvre to get something to eat.  Anything worthy enough to be considered a meal was too pricey for us, especially me who has seen sandwiches of that size for a lot less in my day.  Instead, we munched on Ben and Jerry's ice cream and I got a mini baguette roll thing when I was finished.  They looked so good!  And they were less than one Euro!  I just had to get one. 

We stayed in the Louvre until it closed.  We mostly saw paintings, but there were a few sculptures and some Greek/Roman mythology. When we walked outside, it was already quite dark out. 

The pyramid marking the Grand Entrance of the Louvre was the winning idea in a contest some years back.  The winner was a Chines American who proposed "I'm going to make an invisible pyramid!  And you don't be able to see it because it'll be invisible."  (It sounded ridiculous while on the tour too.)  Anyway, during the construction of this "invisible pyramid", the glass kept breaking.  So they had to reinforce it with steel and made the invisible pyramid a lot more visible than intended.  Whoops.

The plan then was to head over to the Eiffel Tower and go up on top to see all the pretty Parisian lights.  Both of us were willing to pay the 13EUR for the elevator ride to the top because neither one wanted to walk up stairs.  Besides, Ryan's foot hurt a lot.  We ended up walking to the tower because we thought it was closer than the map said it was.  Such lies.  The map lied to us!  It took us forever to get there!  We took enough pictures of the Eiffel Tower to fill the Louvre with them!  I swear.

All pillars of the tower were cloes when we got there.  At first, we thought it was because it was late at night.  But it turns out it was because it was snowing and they close the observation deck or something when the weather is bad.  (We learned this the next day when we came back again, but more on that later).  This was a bummer.  But we stuck around and dodged the sketchy figurine sellers so we could get some more pictures from the park and catch a video of the tower glittering.

DID YOU KNOW?
The Eiffel Tower sparkles for five minutes every hour on the hour as soon as it's dark.  It's very pretty.

While attempting to catch video of it, Ryan's camera ran out of battery power.  The batteries he had brought over from the States were too old or something.  They were faulty nonetheless and he was very upset he didn't get an HD quality video.  We figured we'd find a place that sells batteries somewhere, but our priority by this time was food so that's what we set off to get.

I wanted to find someplace away from Tourist Town for the cheaper prices and more authentic meal, but Ryan kept complaining about hunger and his foot so we stopped short of what I wanted and compromised at a small restaurant a block or two away from Avenue de Champs.  The prices weren't bad, I guess.  When compared to American dollars, the prices were atrocious, but when compared to other parts of Paris, they were all right.  I had a lovely 3-cheese penne dish and Ryan had his lasangne.  We asked where we could get batteries, our waiter called over someone with better English than him, and we managed to hear about a store that would sell batteries we could get.  This new waiter thought we wanted batteries from the restuarant at first.  We knew they wouldn't sell batteries, but we got our point across nonetheless.  So once we finished eating, we headed off in that direction.

We thought the store the waiter mentioned was a small pharmacy.  I suppose our basis of thought was along the lines of "Wal-Greens/Boots is a pharmacy that sells batteries.  Let's look in here."  No go for that one.  Then we discovered Avenue de Champs and a giant electronics store in the basement of a shopping center.  I think I walked in to see what it was like and Ryan followed, and we found good ol' Energizer in the camera department.  We got the big pack (just to make sure) and quickly left to return to the Eiffel Tower.  Ryan was getting that glitter video and nothing was going to stop him -- not even a foot.

We dodged some more wandering street vendors, peacefully ignored the soldiers with guns (What do they have machine guns for?  To fight off the enemy?  Who's the enemey?  THE ENEMY!), and even helped a few couples take pictures of them with the tower in the background.  Then Ryan got his video.  With that, we figured out a route back to the hotel via metro and went to bed soon after.  We didn't watch any TV that night, I don't think.  We were both tired and we had to get up earlier because we had to check out and figure out when to get to the train station and such.  So once we were ready to sleep, we slept.

Ryan and KT go to Paris

Been a while, hasn't it?  I will attempt to post as much about my days in Paris and Berlin as much as I can in the coming days, but I have a visiting brother and a paper to write and those things are mostly likely going to take precedence.  But do not worry, I wrote down all these days in a journal as they happened for reference for this sort of bloggy thing. 

22 Dec:

Ryan and I woke up at 2am so we can leave at 3am so we can get to St. Pancras International Station by 4am so we could make our 5am Eurostar train.  Follow that track.  Anyway, I had been worried about the Eurostar thing because that was another company affected by this Big Freeze/Giant Snowfall hoo-ha.  We checked online the previous day and the three trains after us were canceled, but ours was still running normally and there shouldn't be any issues.  Good news.  I wanted to leave earlier than Ryan wanted to, but he was sleep deprived from traveling so I had to let him sleep some more. 

We ended up not taking a bus directly to King's Croxx/St. Pancras because that was taking too long for my tastes, so we got off around Holborn station and walked the rest of the way.  When we got to St. Pancras, there was already a giant queue for the Paris trains.  According to a security guard in the area, we just had to wait for now.  The Eurostar staff weren't there yet and they'll sort through everything as soon as they do.

We got talking with a French woman returning to France for the holidays.  She said she had a text saying that she'll have priority boarding on the Eurostar because she had a pre-reserved ticket with them, then assured us that we had the same thing even though we didn't recieve a text for it (we didn't sign up).  We got to complaining about England's lack of snow control and how, where we are from, snow is nothing, really.  It's apparently nothing in France too because they get more snow than England.  And Germany is awesome with snow control, according to this woman.  We told her about our overnight train to Berlin, and she assured us that we should be fine with that.

Finally, the staff was around.  We went into the building and followed the crowd before finding the staff calling for tickets.  We showed ours and were let through the first checkpoint.  We got checked in, went through security, and got our seats on the train.  The train was late in leaving, but not everyone could maneuver through that crowd like we could (we kind of went around, actually).

We listened to some of the Harry Potter 7 audiobook when the train got started, but I turned it off by chapter three because I was completely gone.  Slept the rest of the way to France and completely missed the chunnel.  There was nothing to see anyway, I guess.  But it was still cool that I actually took the chunnel!  Life goal complete.  So then I watched some French scenery pass by and slept some more.  It was a good rest.  Apparently, Ryan didn't sleep as well as I did on the train over.

Once in Paris, we decided to try to find our hotel so we could check in or at least see if we can drop off our backpacks.  Ryan had to readjust himself for an unfamiliar way to write street signs but I was used to this sort of thing.  France wasn't so different than Italy, which wasn't so different from London.  Ryan has, pretty much, never seen anything like this before, so I was listed as the navigator for the day. 

We couldn't check into the hotel just yet, but we could use the luggage room.  So we dropped off our bags, stuff our valuables in inside pockets, and set out in the wild world of Paris. 

It kind of stinks. Really.  Ryan says there was a smell that I only vaguely noticed and didn't pay attention to.  There was also random dog poop along the sidewalks.  It disappeared in the tourist areas, but it still existed outside of them.  (Note, our hotel was not in the tourist area.  It was closer to the train stations than the Eiffel Tower).  But we sucked it up because it's Paris and went on our merry way.  First goal of the day: find the New Europe free tour so we can get a better feel for the city and its history.  We wandered in circles around Rue de St. Michel looking for it and finally found it in the Obvious Place Listed on the Map.  But found it at the last second we did.

Our tour guide was from Australia originally and she had a cold.  She said to bear with her because if she seems high, it's because she's taking perscription drugs for her cold.  She also wore like three scarves so her neck protruded past her chin and her lanyard nametag dangled over her shoulders instead of rested around her neck.  Nonetheless, she was really awesome.  She dropped more lame jokes than the tour guide in Edinburgh and would throw in random pop culture references from 90s movies.  My favorite was her reference to Wayne's World ("If you're going to spew . . . spew in this") if only because my brothers and I reference that line all the time.  The tour took as long as it did and it took us to all the places we hoped to visit.  There was a distance view of Notre Dame, we walked around the outside of the Louvre, went through a park and through a giant super-busy square.  We even walked along the River Siene and learned about the World's First Facebook.  That was interesting.  The tour finished up by the Champs Elysse and did not cover the Eiffel Tower.  Why not the Eiffel Tower?  It's too far away from everything else.  You'll hear about that later.

Our tour guide had pointed out the museum where Napoleon is buried so we thought we'd check that out in the dying daytime hours.  While walking there, it started to rain/snow, which we didn't mind at first.  At the museum, we learned that it wasn't something you could just walk in and see, it was a museum and you had to walk through the entire museum to get to Napoleon.  Besides, you had to pay.  So we decided to find someplace to eat and maybe go back to the room.

About this time, we decided that, since we were so tired, we would wake up the next day without an alarm.  So we wanted to return to the hotel room early so we could get to bed early so we could wake up earlier than if we stayed out late.  Except, as we were walking back to the hotel, the snow thing didn't stop.  And it was warm enough that the snow didn't stick right away and melted as soon as it landed, and that was a problem for us because we had jackets.  And they're waterproof jackets, but that doesn't stop them from getting soaked.  Also, our jeans were really wet by the time we were halfway back to the hotel.

We did look for restaurants on the way back, but nothing was as cheap as I wanted it to be.  Ryan didn't complain though, he kind of wanted to go back to the hotel to dry off.  We walked that entire way, and it took about an hour to get back.  That's when we decided to take the metro to get around the city.  There's a limit to how much walking you can do when you're limited in your time.  But we got back to the hotel and checked in and dropped off our stuff in the room.  We asked the woman at reception if there were any good places around the area, and she told of a couple behind the nearby church which were nice.  So we went to one of those.

Our waiter seemed excited to be serving us.  He didn't speak much English, and Ryan didn't understand him as well as I did.  Ryan ordered lasagne and I had a chicken kebab (which was actually on a scewer and not in a pita shell which was my impression of kebabs over here).  The waiter came back and mimed/said that they were out of lasagne, would Ryan like to try this other thing that was really really good?  Ryan didn't know what to say, so I learned what this other thing was (similar to lasagne but with potatoes and meat instead) and told Ryan "They're out of lasagne.  He's suggesting this other dish."  He got that.

The food was good.  I didn't realized I haven't had proper grilled chicken while over here.  I also had a giant amount of fries that Ryan helped me eat.  Both our dishes came with salads and a basket of bread.  We split a giant bottle of water because French restaurants don't do this tap water thing British restuarants do.  Ryan complained about that the entire time.  I just rolled my eyes at him when he did.

Back at the hotel, we dried off our clothes with the funky hair dryer in the bathroom.  Or at least got them mostly dry to completely dry over night.  My jeans were really really wet, so I spent most of the time drying them off.  My hat was also fairly wet so that had a go under there.  And my socks.  Because I didn't pack an extra pair of socks and I wanted to wear a pair while I slept so my feet wouldn't get cold and I'd be more comfortable.  We turned on the TV and watched some French television for a bit. 

Hey Mom, guess what Ryan did?  While I was journaling, he switched the channel to a French documentary about the ocean (or something) and proceeded to fall asleep.  Just like Dad, but in France.

The next thing on was a French movie that, from what I could gather, was about a woman who ran a small foster home for children.  I only think this because in a scene where the children were eating dinner, the children kept exclaiming something about "ma mere" which means "my mother".  So I assume they were calling for their mothers and refused to listen to anyone else but their mothers.  I didn't pay attention long and fell asleep shortly after.  It was barely ten o'clock, perhaps even closer to nine when the TV was off and we were sound asleep in France.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

I just want to wish all my readers a harty MERRY CHRISTMAS from Berlin.  Er, the train to Berlin. . . . you'll read all about that if you have not found out from my mother yet.  Anyway, Merry Christmas and you'll hear all about Paris and Berlin when I get back to London (or start backpacking on my own or when I get the time.  Whichever comes first).

Ryan is Here!!!

Woke up this morning and was soo excited to go to Heathrow!  I left later than I planned because leaving at 9:30am for a 12:15pm arrival with an hour of travel time seemed kind of ridiculous.  But I didn't wait long.

At Lambeth North, ran into Siri, Mariane, and Carina on their way home.  I helped them with their luggage down to the platform and we said goodbye there.  They were taking the southbound train and I was on the northbound.  Mariane said we'll probably see each other around New Year's, and I said yes and my brother too. 

The trip to Heathrow was SO LONG!  I was so excited to get there that it elongated the trip by about half the time.  But I got there and felt kind of weird being the only person without luggage amid a sea of people with luggage.  No one stopped me or anything so I continued to arrivals.  I was an hour early before the scheduled landing, but there was a Costa nearby, so I got some peppermint tea and a pastry and people watched for a while. 

A woman came up to me and said "I didn't know Father Christmas lived in Wisconsin!"  She was referring to my obnoxious Santa hat and said that she was born in Wisconsin.  I said I grew up there.  We swapped city names and weren't familiar with each other's.  She was looking for a friend from Kenya who has a layover in Heathrow and she's there to make sure her flight is still going.  Then we parted.

Police dogs were in training around the arrivals for a while.  There were about three dogs and one trainer.  The trainer had a special bag with the scent the dogs had to sniff out and she would place it next to someone's baggage at their permission I gather.  When the dog went to sniff around, they would find the substance and freeze in the pose that something is in that bag.  Then the trainer would throw a tennis ball and the dog would know they did good.  I like that the tennis ball is the dog's reward instead of a treat.  They get to play around a bit when they work correctly. 

Abby was also at the arrivals section in Heathrow.  She found me while I was playing Snake on my phone.  Snake is an addicting game.  But anyway, she was waiting for her family who were supposed to arrive a few days ago but they were delayed as well.  They were supposed to have arrived earlier in the day and Abby went to find them, but she couldn't find them.  She wandered and sat with me and we talked and waited together.  She was super excited to see her family and I just wanted Ryan to get here.  Abby eventually gave up and left to meet her family at the hotel she was staying at.under their name.  She'll find them eventually.

Then I stood up and waited with the crowd of people by the arrivals doors for a while.  I kept fidgeting and waited and fidgeted and watched the two tiny girls and their frazzled father next to me.  Then I moved and fidgeted some more and when I went to pull out my phone to play another game, Ryan came out.  Yay!  It wasn't a big hugging emotional reunion scene like I thought, but he was finally here and I was happy.

We took the Underground back to my dorm and he was sort of overwhelmed with the different in cultures.  At least the Underground.  He said there was some drama on the plane because a woman wanted to sit next to her teenaged son but Ryan didn't want to switch his seat and the man next to the woman flat out told her "No" and she got angry that he snapped at her.  Drama drama.  Ryan, apparently, slept for only an hour on the flight and his knees came all the way up to the seat in front.  Not a comfy position for about eight hours. 

We dropped off his stuff in my room and I heated up some leftovers for lunch.  I showed him around the dorm and we ate and figured out a plan for tonight.  We still had to check into Ryanair from Berlin to Stansted so we decided to do that right away.  Then we were going to get ready for Paris the next day.  I thought we might want to walk around Oxford Circus/Regent Street/Piccadilly Circus for a bit before we head out.

And so we went and used the Underground again.  Ryan was overwhelmed by Oxford Circus because it is a giant shopping mall without the "mall" attached to it.  But we got to the library, I printed off the boarding passes and the free tour maps (there's a free tour called New Europe and they're awesome).  Ryan wasn't too keen on seeing more stuff, and I was feeling the stress of inadequate pre-packing so I was good with foregoing sightseeing with him.  But we saw Regent Street anyway to avoid Oxford Circus. 

And now we're back in my room.  We're packing at the moment.

Thing of note.  My computer user for Windows 7 refuses to load.  I don't know what the problem is.  I attempted to get AVG to do a virus scan but you need the Adminstrater permission to do that and my guest account, which I'm currently using, is not an Administrater.  So I'm stuck with a guest account which isn't my real account and I'm worried.  It's not like all my files are lost, they're still there.  But the fact that I can't get to my account scares the crap out of me.  But Ryan says, and I agree, that whatever the problem is, I should deal with a professional about it when we get back to the States.  Until then, I'm going to use a guest account which will be annoying but it'll have to do for now.  I'm worried about my computer, but I don't think it's going to get any worse.  Even so, I'm going to keep it off as long a possible. 

Wish us luck at Paris. I'll talk to you later when we get back!

So Much To Do!!

This entire day, I kept my eye on my brother's flight status.  I did other things, but I was always on the alert when it came to that.  Heathrow's lack of adequate snow and ice maintenance had me on edge the whole day.  What if the flight got canceled again?  What if I had to meet him in Paris?  Would I have been able to get one of the train tickets refunded?  Would he know street signs aren't on top of poles like they are in the States?  Etc etc etc.

This morning, I started writing my film essay.  Finally.  I've been putting that off for a really really long time.  And then I started writing and it flowed like a paper should for a while before my attention deviated as it's wont to do over here.  It doesn't help that this entire time, I keep thinking my stay is one giant vacation.  Maybe I should have gone to libraries sooner because they actually helped me study instead of goof around.  But I goof around quite a bit at home too, but back home I have more work to do.  Oh the cycle.

Anyway, after getting ready and starting my essay, I made leftover pasta, and then I made the pizza Becca gave me before she left London.  I ate two-thirds of that pizza and that's when I moved my cookies across the room so I wouldn't have easy access to them.  

Vanessa stopped by then because she was leaving for Christmas and worried that she wouldn't see me again.  She asked for my American phone number and didn't seem to understand the "My American phone is not international" concept right away.  It took a couple tries, but I said clearly that my American phone doesn't accept calls from outside the US because why would I need it to?  But she should always shoot me an email if she wants to talk and I can call her through the computer.  So I got her number the same time she got my American cell number, but she has my email now too so she can keep in contact that way.  She's always been so nice.  I'm going to miss her a bit.

Left the room around noon for the library.  While there, I printed off my short story and dialogue for creative writing.  I finished off my internship portfolio.  I printed off the hostel confirmation for my Lillehammer hostel, then I checked into Ryanair for my flight to Billund.  With nothing left to do, I resumed my film essay.  Got about halfway done when I couldn't concentrate anymore.  The keyboard I was using wasn't very good either.  I know that's a lame excuse, but it majorly sucked.  The space bar was the most annoying part AND some of the keys were sticky.  I couldn't type fluent thoughts like that.  They would have been constantly interrupted by me retyrping every three words because I didn't push down the O key hard enough.  Or something.  My fingers fly across keyboards, they do not SLAM them.  But I digress.  I saved my work and sent it back to myself back home.  Then I turned in my projects so I only have one left to do.  And I don't really wanna do it, but I gotta.  I wish I didn't, but I just gotta.

Back home, Hanne talked to me on Facebook chat.  She said that she heard about Heathrow, that I shouldn't worry about messing up our plans, and that I should bring something nice because we're spending New Year's Eve at her boyfriend's friend's place.  Now that I think about it, I kind of want a sweater dress because I think they're cute.  So I'm going to go buy one eventually.  Probably in Paris?  Maybe when Ryan is here?  Berlin fashion might be neat.  Too bad we're not going back to Italy.  I really liked a lot of stuff in Italian H&M.  But I digress again.  Hanne also said that Heathrow would give priority to long distance flights, so my brother's flight shouldn't be canceled.  I still kept my eye on the flight status.

Dinner was leftover pizza and some chips from the other day.  I still have a bag of frozen chips in the freezer, so Ryan and I have to eat them before we leave.  Or at least before we leave the country definitely.  Spent dinner watching We're Back: A Dinosaur's Tale because The Land Before Time was nowhere to be found on the internet.  It's a lot shorter than I expected.  What gave me the urge to watch childish dinosaur movies?  Why, video chatting with Jessica, of course!  And naturally two hours of my time was spent with Jessica, and Sarah and I were in constant communication with Facebook chat.  Several minutes after Jessica signed off, Teagan signed on so I had to talk with her considering we've rarely talked this entire semester. 

And then Mom called with news that she got the package I sent at the beginning of December.  Yay!!  It finally came!  And she really liked the earrings I got her (Austrian crystal from the South Bank Christmas Market) and is in love with the Belgian chocolate.  She even shared like I told her to.  Aww.  And she liked the ornaments, so that's good.  Smoky called in the middle of it and Mom was the one who managed to get the group video conference call together.  Go her!  We talked for a while about how Ryan landed in Minneapolis and how Minneapolis was getting snow but they know how to manage it so they should be okay with departures.  Departing is the real worry since we're golden once they're up in the air. 

Then Emanuele came to say good-bye because he's taking a night flight back to Italy.  We hugged, I said it was nice knowing him and maybe we'll see each other again.  He said the same things.  No one cried.  But it was sweet that he came in to say good-bye.  Neither Hattie nor Chris did that.  Nor did Kevin.  I caught Alice as she was leaving, but I think that was just luck.  And Oscar didn't even bother to come to the room.  Well, he might have, but I wasn't there because I was at work.  But he didn't even call or anything.  How rude.  (No heard feelings -- I know you're reading this since you always search my blog for your name.)

Did some more writing, took some pictures for my latest idea, and now it's one in the morning.  I had planned to go to bed earlier, but whatever.  I had also planned to do laundry today.  What's more, I planned to see Tron Legacy this weekend, but that didn't happen now, did it?  We'll see how that goes, though. 

Wish me luck finishing everything!

Shit happens, plans change, we adjust. Way of life.

So this morning, I did some thinking and then I did some working.  The thought involved changing my backpacking plans because they were my plans and I could do whatever the hell I wanted with them.  All it took was a little informing of other parties involved but the person ultimately affected by these change of plans were me and I was okay with doing that.  But first, I had to come to terms with this, so I called my parents at six in the morning WI time.  And they said "It's really your decision.  But that's really sweet of you to do this.  Ryan will really appreciate it."  For some reason during the call, I started crying.  I still couldn't tell you why.

And so I went and I pushed back my flight to Denmark a few days so I can spend those last few days in London with my big brudder.  I immediately informed my friend Hanne in Denmark about this new turn of events and if she didn't get back to me by this evening, then I would call her and see if these new changes will work out.  I also informed Alicia because now she doesn't have to pick up a bunch of stuff from reception when she returns on the 30th. 

And that was done and out of the way.  Talked with Ryan about these changes and he appreciated that.  I also saw the latest purchase of the Howard household, which includes a 50" wide screen TV, Blu-ray player, and surround sound speakers.  I'm excited because now I can go home to a mini-theater and watch all the movies I wasn't able to watch before.  Yay! 
(NOTE TO PARENTS)  I still want DVDs for Christmas.  Please don't give me Blu-Rays --- I can't take those to school.

That said and done, the Internet decided to go wonky to the point where I called home from my mobile.  And that's how I signed off and said good-bye for now. 

Checked with Chris about seeing Tron Legacy, but that was a no-can-do.  He was shopping and still shopping and still had to pack for Christmas and he leaves early in the morning and it's just not going to work out.  I swear to God, if I don't see that movie by the time my brother comes we're going to see it in 3D in Leicester Square.  I'll even pay for half his ticket, but I'm seeing that damn movie this week and nothing's going to stop me!  I'm a woman on a mission and you know what I can do!

Then I attempted to watch some TV on the Internet but it's really hard to watch TV when the Internet is being wonky.  There was a lot of Freecell, an attempt at homework, and a few more efforts to go see Tron Legacy.  You know when you're so bored you KNOW you're not going to do anything?  This is the sort of bored you get when it's August and you sort of want school to start up again because then you can actually do something.  This includes it being August and you don't want school to start because yous still have a small list of things you meant to do in the summer that you didn't get to in June or July, but you still don't do them in August because you're just that bored.  You're so bored, you don't do anything even though you want to do something.  It's that annoying cyclical bored that halts any sort of productivity whatsoever.

Yeah, that was me this entire afternoon.  It was horrible.

But with my Tron Legacy attempts, I managed to talk to Siri.  Her flight, Marianne's flight, and Carina's flight were all canceled, so they rebooked and now they're fine with flying back to Denmark.  But I hung out with them a bit and they said that they would have been like me at Thanksgiving if they didn't get to spend Christmas with their families back home.  Carina said that she would look into buying a car just so she could drive it back to Denmark before Christmas.  Goes to show how much of a big deal the holiday is. 

Anyway, they were all getting together to watch a movie in Carina's room.  Carina's boyfriend was visiting so he was there too, but I'm not sure his English was as good as the girls'.  He spoke Danish every time he spoke, which is my hint that he doesn't speak very good English.  That, or he was fairly rude, but I think it was the English thing.  The girls have always been really polite and Siri's boyfriend was really nice when I met him and they all speak pretty good English.  Plus the girls answered him in Danish.  So yeah.

There was a series of treats for the movie.  I made a small platter of cookies to share that included both types of cookies Mom sent, the last bit of popcorn, and some pretzel M&Ms.  The girls really liked the cookies.  Carina said that the ginger snaps tasted like a Danish Christmas cake.  So they all bid their compliments to you, Mom, because they're still delicious even after pond-jumping.

We watched Collateral which was pretty good but the ending could have been better methinks.  I liked how everything in the movie was interconnected, though.  There weren't any loose ends a meaningless sequel could pick up on or anything.  A nice, tight movie that could have ended better.  

The good news is now I started packing!  Yay!!  Tomorrow I'm going to kick myself to the library to turn in my internship portfolio, print and turn in my creative writing portfolio, and write, print, and turn in my film essay.  It's going to be annoying, but it's gotta be done.  Must remember to buy a sandwich or something when I'm out too because I'm probably going to leave around noon and I'm not going to think about eating until four when I get super hungry.  So yeah, gotta do that.

And that's about it for today.  Plans were made and changed, Internet was wonky, and I managed to spend some last quality time with friends.  All in a good day's work, I believe.

Those Plans I Made? Yeah, Not Happening.

This was morning was pretty exciting for me.  I got to wear my brand new awesome Santa hat, it was snowing, and I had plans to see Tron Legacy which promises to be super duper awesome.  Waiting by the bus stop, I realized that the snow is really coming down, but it was still a doable amount of snow.  It wasn't until I was on the bus and riding around Hyde Park that I realized my movie partner is from Virginia and thus not used to said snow.  Sure enough, I had a text that said the weather was too crazy for her and that she was backing out.  Also, apologies.  I sent one back saying that it was fine, wanna catch a later flick?  She can't because a friend is staying over because her flight got canceled.  That sucks.  Are you sure you can't brave the weather?  No, but you can come over for dinner later tonight.  And new plans were made.

I thought about going to the movie alone.  I've been to a movie alone before.  It was to see some silly chick flick and the only reason I was alone was because the friend who was supposed to meet me didn't show up at the theater.  I was stood up by a friend.  Since that incident, however, I have been fairly leery about this friend -- if she won't put in the effort for me, then I won't put in the effort for her.  But that's neither here nor there.  The point is that I would see a movie alone, but a movie in a theater is a different experience than a movie alone in your room.  My How to Be Alone poem/video suggests going to a movie theater alone.  But when I thought about it, I thought about how Tron Legacy has such promise as an awesome, awesome movie.  Surely such geekery had to be shared and not kept to oneself. 

So I got off somewhere around Hyde Park and meandered around.  I attempted to find the first bus to Baker Street where I would then sit in the library and do some work.  On the way, I picked up a kebab because, well, I was hungry and it was lunchtime.  Ate a little bit waiting for a bus that wasn't coming anytime soon.  I knew where one tube stop was, but I was pretty close to Paddington Station, so let's attempt to go there.

Completely overshot Paddington.  I somehow managed to get to Edgeware Street.  On the way, I passed through a small pedestrian tunnel that claimed to lead to Little Venice in London.  Then I found myself in a really residential area.  So residential there were no such things as maps and I had no idea which way was north (although I assumed north was somewhere based on the fact that I think I just came from the south.  Therefore, there was east and west and I went west for some reason.  That's how I found a bigger street and followed that street to Edgeware Street.  I knew I was really lost, legitimately lost, and I wanted to get somewhere so I went to find some buses to take me to Somewhere Else.  Found a map and saw that a Bakerloo line station was nearby.  Bakerloo takes me directly to where I need to go, so off I went . . .

 . . . and found that the Bakerloo line was on strike.  My first thought was "What the #($@#* is this #(@#(??"  Really?  A partial strike?  What kind of people have a partial strike??  On a weekend???  Meanwhile, ever other Tube line was either partially suspended or severely delayed (with the exception of Northern and Victoria, lucky bastards) because of either the weather or maintenance work.  And that kind of ruled out the Tubes for me.  What was next?  Why, buses of course!

Oh buses and slush, what a glorious combination.  I waited for a bus to Baker Street again, but it wasn't coming.  Then I went to find one that would take me to the next place library place: Oxford Circus (which would take me to Polyteknik which is the Regent Street/Wells Street library).  Waited at one stop, but no bus was coming.  By this point, I was sick and tired of buses not coming.  I was impatient, cold, wet, and didn't get to sit down to eat my lunch which, by the way, was kind of spicy which I don't like.  So I wasn't feeling the best at this point in the day.  There were also plans with Becca later tonight that I was thinking about skipping because I wanted to be home in warmth and dry in new clothes.  But I couldn't because I had to finish up the final report for my Internship Toolkit class and I should really rewrite my creative writing short story at least to say that I really wanted to improve it.  And because that bus wasn't coming, I went to a different stop.  Lo and behold, a bus came right away.  Finally, my day was looking up.

At the library, I did finish my organizational report for the internship class.  I did attempt to fill out the skills tracker worksheet.  I did think of a way around the whole reference sheet thing.  I also finished my creative writing rewrite.  I printed half the things I need to print, but the other half went unprinted because when I went to print them, I couldn't find my ID.  I called it a day, but then I remembered that you needed your ID to get out of the building. You also needed your ID to print in the future.  I also need an ID to get into the Harrow campus to turn in my film essay eventually.  I'm kind of academically screwed without my student ID.  I searched everywhere on my being, but I gave up.  So I left the building and went straight to dinner with Becca and her friend. 

Took the tube because I was annoyed with the buses.  Severe delays on the Central line because of a signal failure in the late morning, which was six hours ago, so instead I hopped on Victoria which had good service and switched to the Northern line at Euston station.  Rode that to Old Street where Becca lives, and got lost again.  I overshot the correct street again and I called Becca saying "I'm at this intersection.  Where is Alexander Flemming?"  She actually had to come outside to get me, not because I was that lost, but because I was lost enough that she couldn't give me directions.  So I was that lost.

Becca had a friend staying over named Megan.  Megan had been studying in Edinburgh and was supposed to go home tonight.  Her flight from Edinburgh to London was canceled so she hopped on the first train to London so she could make her flight.  Except during the train ride, her flight was canceled too.  So when I first met her, she was a teary mess in constant communication with her mom and uncle on the computer all three of whom were frantically searching for the earliest flight home for her.  Meanwhile, Becca and I got pizza, garlic bread, and (because I would want some if I were in Megan's shoes), booze.  She appreciated that.

Tonight, I tried pear cider because it was interesting and it had the 'cider' label on it.  It was good stuff.  I really liked that.  If there's one thing I'm going to miss in the States, it will be easy access to cheap alcoholic cider.  Really.  The food was good too.  Nice and greasy and everything you wish pizza could be for a crappy day.  We would have had frozen pizza, but when Becca tried to make one earlier, it got completely burnt and had to be thrown out.  She wasn't going to try again with her second pizza, so to the pizza place around the corner it was.

Megan managed to find a flight that left from Gatwick the next day.  She jumped at the opportunity and she got the seat.  She was considerably happier after that.  We spent a long time talking, a long time.  Becca and Megan were leaving on the same day from the same airport so they decided to split the cab ride to Gatwick.  I left around ten-thirty/eleven because they had to get up early.  But it was nice to be able to sit and hang out with friends like I would back home.  Becca and I both wondered why this didn't happen sooner.  I told her not to be a stranger and keep in contact on Facebook.  If we're ever in each other's areas, we know where to stay for a couple free nights; we know who to go to.  We're welcome at each other's places.  Etc etc etc.  Catch you in the States and we'll see you later.

Interesting thing about Becca: she knows how to bind books.  Like, from scratch, bind books.  She makes the papers and she sews them together and glues them together and glues them to the cardboard cover together.  Handmade books.  Mostly journals because the paper is blank.  But it's awesome craftsmanship and I'm so jealous she knows how to do something that awesome.  I have to look into book binding classes so I can learn how to make my own journals.  Who cares that it doesn't have much of a use, that's an awesome skill to have!

Nothing happened on the ride and walk home.  Except when I got home, about the same time I was wondering when the Project for Awesome live stream was going to happen, I learned through email that my brother's own flight to London was canceled.  They worked on getting a flight as early as they could, but the earliest they could get was on the 21st.  So he's arriving on the 21st at noon and we're leaving the next morning for Paris.  The only thing that's affected by this would be London.  The Delta woman was nice enough to extend Ryan's stay and give him a flight on the 31st of December, which gives him a couple extra days in London, but they will be a couple extra days without me.  I'm looking into hostels and hotels for him, but now that I have so much extra time, it's not high on my priority list.  Besides, the entirety of my plans went to shit today so I'm taking a break from making plans and will deal with this all tomorrow.

Except for one thing.  When I came home, I noticed that Chris across the hall was still hanging around.  He doesn't leave for home until the 5 January, and I once again and knocked with the question of "Why the hell didn't you hang with this guy earlier?  You could have made Christmas plans or something!"  Anyway, he's staying for the holidays and my weekend had opened considerably, so I went and I asked if he wanted to see Tron Legacy tomorrow.  He hasn't heard of the movie, which makes me think I pronounced it funnily enough to be misheard, but he was willing to see a movie.  Has to do Christmas shopping, though, but he'll contact me through Facebook or by knocking on my door.  I could give him my number, but he admitted to wanting to limit his phone use because his previous bill was 150quid from his time spent in Italy.  Whoops.  So at least I still have hope of seeing my movie this weekend.

Things to consider, possibly forgoing Denmark and flying directly into Norway.  More things to consider: possibly scrapping Hanne's plans for New Year's with me.  Which I can say right now is totally mean of me to do because I'm not sure how much effort she's doing in preparations for my arrival.  So if that were to happen, I would have to tell her ASAP.  But this is something I would talk about with certain people first, like Hanne and my parents.  I would also have to look into canceling my flight to Denmark and booking a flight to Norway, which I might as well then go to Tromso anyway since it's one the easiest ways to get there.  But this is something that will require further consideration and thought.  I'll keep you all informed of further developments, and until then, it's currently 3 in the morning and I want to go to bed. 

Last Day at Black Dog

This morning, I was somehow the first person to arrive at the office.  No, I don't have a key to get in.  And neither does Helen who is always first to arrive when I'm not there.  Noortje was off today.  The early Alex was off.  Tom was off.  Leonardo's off.  That left us with people who actually turn up either at 9.30a or later.  The first person was Ana, who didn't have her keys because there was never a need for them.  Next was Phoebe, who never brings her keys either.  Ana called Adriana who said she would be there in three minutes.  We later determined this was 3 minutes Italian time, which is between five to ten minutes for people freezing their butts off outside their office.  Then the other Alex came, and he had keys.  Thank goodness. 

Tea was made.  My apple scone with raisins was eaten.  I didn't mind the raisins in the scone, but I minded them in the cake Annabell took out later.  They were just so overpowering.  If raisins were replaced with chocolate chips, that cake would have been amazing!

Spent a large chunk of the morning listing names in alphabetical order for an acknowledgment section.  Some names were repeated and some names were repeated and spelled differently with each repeat.  So I had to look up how they really spelled their name.  Also spent some time talking with Ryan on Gmail chat about the trip.  We wrote up a list of things to do in each city, determined where Ryan can get a document organizer thing like the one I have, and confirmed that Ryan would print out maps of our hotel/hostel location so we can find them when we get to the cities.  It was pretty productive in terms of travel.

Meanwhile, I was texting back and forth with friend Becca from Virginia in regards to seeing Tron Legacy tomorrow.  We determined that we would meet tomorrow at 1p at the Vue Cinemas in Shepherd's Bush to catch the 1:20p performance.  Shouldn't cost anymore than 10 quid with the student discount and perhaps some popcorn.  That'll be nice.  AND, if the first showing is sold out, we can always attempt to make the 3D performance an hour later!  Minus the popcorn, that one shouldn't cost more than 10 quid.  So it's a pretty good deal, methinks.  I'm super excited!

So when I finally finished up, there was no grand send off.  No one took me out to lunch (no one wanted to leave for lunch because it started to snow).  There was cake, but it was leftover from yesterday.  I meant to bring some, but I forgot.  Whoops.  Anyway, my days with Black Dog are done.  And I'm not feeling anything one way or the other.  But it's still a nice thing to have on my resume, methinks. 

Picked up milk and fries coming home today.  Had a sandwich for dinner.  The girl I wanted to win America's Next Top Model won.  Project for Awesome is distracting me from Creative Writing.  I call this a good Friday.

Now all that's left is video chatting my parents so they can see me open my present (the package from yesterday).  I want my popcorn!!  And Christmas cookies! 

But mostly I'm excited for Tron.  That movies looks so awesome!!

Homework Thursday

Woke up on my own this morning.  For some reason, I did not manage to throw the covers all over the place last night and I was decently warm.  I was also wearing long sleeves, which would help in the freezing department.  It was nice waking up warm for once.

Bonked around the room for about two hours after that.  Ate breakfast.  Took a shower.  Got an email that said class was canceled today because the professor was sick.  I joked on the Internet that of course he was "sick" but as far as I know, he really is.  Not that many people would have come to class anyway.  The final project for the class was turned in yesterday.  There is no motivation to come to this final class.  At least for me.  I was still planning on going, but now that class was canceled, I wouldn't have to rush myself in the library.  Which is where I next went. 

But first, a side story.  As I entered the small lobby of International House, Galina looked up and waved.  I saw I finally got the package mom sent, and Galina said that a parcel arrived for me.  I told her I was on my way to the library, can I pick it up when I get back?  Of course I can.  See you later.  And it's not the fact that I had a package, just the fact that she opened the window to tell me "You have mail."  I'm pretty sure she didn't do that before.  But before I started going and asking her questions, I'm pretty sure she didn't know my name.  She's a nice lady, Galina.  I like her.  But I mostly like her because she makes living so convenient, with her being on our side about heating and letting Ryan check me out instead of making things complicated on us.  There is one more thing, but I'll get to that later. 

I turned in my time sheets for the past four weeks then made my way to the Marlyebone 24 hour library.  Not only is this library conveniently close to where I turn in the time sheets, but it's also a place where I feel fairly comfortable going in to do some work.  Yes, I can do that in the Polytechnik on Little Titchfield Street which is closer, but I prefer comfort over convenience.  Besides, I like the bus ride out there.

Spent the entire time working on my internship portfolio that has to be turned in really soon.  That was nice to finish up and get off my chest.  Sent a few emails to the professor while I was at it, but only about two out of five questions were answered.  We'll see if the rest are answered, but based on what other people have said, she doesn't really get back to you in a timely manner.  That's unfortunate.  But she's going to get the portfolio as I have it because she didn't answer my questions on time.  Oh well.

Between library and home, I went shopping for folders with which I will turn in final projects.  Also bought envelopes because some people said to do that so I can get my work back.  While I was at it, I also got lunch at 3p which I didn't eat until 4p/4.30p.  I've been snacking every since.

Coming back from the library, I got a text from Alicia saying that she needed to talk to me.  I said that I would be home in a few minutes, I'm on a bus in Parliament Square.  Is this a bad news talk?  She texted back Not at all.  Nothing to worry about, just something I have to tell you that's better said in person than through text.  So I thought Alright then, I'll see you in a few minutes.

Walked into the lobby and Galina was ready with the package.  Damn my life is good.  After reading the customs label, the only thing I could think of was Popcorn.  Popcorn?  Really?  POPCORN!!!!!

Thank you, Mom.  You are a wonderful human being who will milk this little blurb for all its worth.  (And I won't be there for the worst of it.  mwahaha)

Stopped by Alicia's room before I got to mine.  She gave the package an odd look and I said it was from my mom.  She said that's sweet.  Anyway.  She wanted to say that she won't actually be in the dorm on the 29th since she doesn't get back from holiday until the 30th.  BUT.  She talked with Galina at reception and I can drop off my luggage with them to keep until she gets back.  But she just wanted to say that she worked out that problem and this is the solution.  By the way, you'll have an air mattress when you sleep over that one night.

Oh that's nice.  Hey, air mattress.  Ho hum, would you be willing to lend that out?  My brother is coming this weekend and he leaves the same time I leave for Denmark.  Can we use it?

Oh of course!  Here, let me get it out for you!  And she helped me carry it up to my room because my hands were already full of lunch, my package, and I could have handled an air mattress but Alicia's nice enough to help out with things like that.  Such a nice girl.  She leaves on Friday for home around 4ish but at least I'll see her again!  Yay!

Then I started talking with Sarah and we're still talking now.  It's all Facebook chat and it's probably going to stay Facebook chat because her phone signal sucks and when I can get through my Internet is a really big problem.  Grr.  But Jessica was online so we Skyped for about an hour.  As usual.  I ran by her an idea I had and she was behind it 100% but only if there are cute life morals involved.  I said, alright, I'll see what I can do.  She's totally enamored that I got a handmade, Avatar keychain in Spain.  Her words were something akin to "You cannot escape American pop culture.  mwahahah!" 

And that's where I am now.  I'm waiting for Mom to get online so I can finally open my package and eat some delicious Christmas cookies.  Until then, I'm chilling with the final episodes of America's Next Top Model.  Whoopie!

Things that Made Me Feel Awesome

I was freezing in bed this morning.  And I know I might have been down my usual sleep sack, but I'm still fairly comfortable in my bed without it.  In fact, I have more freedom of the legs without it, which is why I like sleeping without it, but still.  I was freezing!  Sure, I probably messed up the covers again.  I know my fuzzy blanket wasn't even on the bed because I pulled I actually sat up to pull it under the covers with me.  Wouldn't you know, thirty minutes after I do that my alarm goes off.  Good morning.  How do you like your winters?

I shouldn't complain about this.  I know it's -10F back home.  But dammit, people back home actually know how to heat the building properly!  Damn building manager or whatever doesn't want the heat on at night because it's a waste of money.  Really?  Really???  Then get some better insulation because these windows are NOT cut out for insulation!

But enough venting.  Nothing's going to be done about it anyway.  Galina at the front desk is on the side of the students when she says "the heat should be on all the time."  And hey, if I ever want to heat up, I can just go to Oscar's room because his room is miraculously stifling.  Wish I had his room.

Anyway.

Turned in my Linguistics essay today.  The only downfall was that it took about an hour to get all the way to Oxford Street and back for just three seconds in a building.  But I didn't mind.  No one's going to care if I leave and come back from lunch an hour and a half later, just as long as I do come back and I do get my work done.  British work environments are so laid back!  A couple weeks ago, Matt was bragging about how he missed some sort of trivia night at a pub with the guys at his internship.  No joke, his boss, normally a well-reserved and quiet gentleman, was cartwheeling across the pub.  There were pictures.  On top of that, one of his desk buddies called the pub that morning to ask if they had his jacket, which was left behind in a Tesco bag.  That's right, a Tesco bag, like the plastic shopping bags groceries come in?  He wasn't bragging about missing the night, just that it happened with people from work.  Craziness.

As I was researching more contemporary African artists, Libby came by for me to do something.  So I put the research on hold for this new project.  It's a new project.  I hopped on it like a kid who found a new toy.  She gave me a sheet with names and biographies on them.  One of them was fully completed and something I shouldn't really futz with.  And I wasn't positive what I had to do with the rest because I still have some trouble with accents and she sort of mumbled through the whole thing.  So that first time I thought I was just double checking the information in the biographies.  Then I got to work and realized that the biography of the first woman is the same thing as the biography that's finished.  What's more, the biography of the second guy didn't match the name either.  Same thing with the third.  This confuddled me, so I went to tell Libby about it.  She said I was supposed to be researching information and writing the biographies myself -- the text on the paper was just dummy text I can use as reference to how to write the biographies.  Sorry I didn't explain that correctly.

I write biographies for a book!  It's nothing to get my name on the cover, but it's  . . . wait . . .I can totally add that to my resume, can't I?  Doing that NOW.  Just added it to my resume.  Ooohh, I feel happier than I have been!  But yeah.  I wrote biographies that will appear in a book.  We'll see if any changes are made, but still, the starting point was all me.  All the research too.

Second happy topic of the day was when I went to give back the receipt and change for my last post office excursion.  The last time I went to the post office, I left at 5p and Adriana said I can return the change and receipt when I next come in.  So I kept it on my dresser back home and didn't really touch it, but I couldn't help but notice that the amount of money in change was the same amount I'm owed for travel in November and December.  So I told this to Adriana, and of course she asked for the invoices that would make my words true, and I said of course you can have the invoices.  But she let me have the money because I guess I'm a trustworthy intern and won't lie to her.  She got the invoices, I got my money, and then she sorted out my time sheet issue (in that she had to fill them out for last week and this week and I got them both today -- not really an issue but something that's nice to get out of the way, you know?)  And that also made my day.

The third thing was probably the quality of music my iPod chose for me on the bus ride back home.  Damn it was good!  I was feeling really awesome on my way back from home.  Nothing could bring my spirit down!  Not even when I went to Oscar and he said he didn't feel like going out to dinner.  He noticed right away that I was in a happy mood, but this was news to me because I just knew I was happy and feeling really good not that it was an unusual thing to feel this happy for me.  But oh well.  I went to eat dinner on my own then I went to visit Oscar for a while.

Apparently, on the previous night, Francie was having some sort of crisis and Oscar was there for her and it ended up as an all-nighter thing and it completely threw off their sleeping schedules.  Which means Oscar's sleeping schedule was thrown out of whack.  So then he was napping or something akin to napping as I was hanging in his room with him.  I didn't stay as long as usual, only an hour or so.  Because he was sleeping and I was doing stuff I could be doing in my own room with snacks and I could feel free to watch videos on blogs and what not.  Also, I wanted to start writing something, but then I opened the document and my mind went blank.  I know I wrote something in my journal on the way to Madrid, so I wanted to get that and see how far I can get with that train of thought.  And my contacts were getting at that "It's time to take us out" stage.  So there were some factors that drove me back to my room.

Now my microphone is going crazy.  For those who don't know, I have this small and awesome laptop microphone that plugs into the side of my computer.  It started freaking out via major feedback which it's never done before.  So just now I opened up the volume options for the entire laptop audio system and turned down the boost for the microphone.  And now it doesn't squeal with feedback anymore.  Go me and my technical wonders!

And I'm just chillin' in my room.  Gonna call my parents soon.  Apparently there was some car trouble the other day involving Ryan's trusted Saab.  Smoky suspects it's the cold, and I'm not there so I can't make a valid judgment, but I wouldn't put it past the cold.  Stupid cold.  Why do you have to be so . . . cold?

Chocolates and Cake

This morning, before I went to class, I went to the library to print off my dialogue for Creative Writing.  Being the last class ever, everyone present had to have their dialogue performed for the entire class.  I was slightly nervous because I haven't really gone back to read through my rough draft of a dialogue.  But I still went to print three copies anyway.  And I was a few minutes late, but I wasn't the only one who came in late.  Besides, Monica the instructor brought chocolate candy for everyone!  Yummy!  And a girl in class brought cake for everyone, not because it was the last class but because it was a prop in her dialogue.  We all know it was an excuse to have sweets in the last class, though.  No one minded.

My dialogue is about a psychic on the Tube who's trying not to read the thoughts of other people.  It wasn't had bad as I thought it was, and I blame my open-mindedness on it to my performers.  How my psychic was portrayed was not the way I imagined her to be, but the tone Kate used really worked, I felt.  So I was pleased.  If I were to fix anything, I would have someone else read stage directions instead of Rae reading both stage directions and the miscellany characters AND the stage directions.  But oh well. 

There is a girl in the classed named Becca with whom I tend to always talk.  We had said that we should meet up after class, but I've been too busy to do anything and she must have too.  But before we left after class, I said we should do something Friday since she leaves on Sunday.  She said we should, but I wonder who's going to make the first move.  Probably me.  Not sure what she's planning on doing this weekend besides pack. 

Went on another adventure today.  I took the Northern Line all the way to Kennington, of which I'm unfamiliar.  My intention was to go there and attempt to find the Tesco I so love to visit when I'm low on food.  The plan was to buy some meat and veggies and pasta sauce to go with the rest of my pasta.  And I bought some of that and then some fruit to munch on since my only munchies include Pringles and leftover Chinese take out.  Might as well be healthy, right?  Also got milk, which is half gone in just one day.  Damn, I miss having a giant supply of milk. 

So I got lost when I exited the station.  I thought I was going the way I wanted to go, but then it turned out I wasn't.  And then I walked through a park because it was a park and it was pretty outside and it was a nice park.  Then I passed an intersection and walked further, then realized that maybe I'm going the wrong way again.  So I actually looked the part of lost and turned around on the same street again and attempted to figure out where I was. Then I saw the 159 emerge from the street with the intersection and I knew where I had to go.

Thought I saw a back way into the parking lot of the giant Tesco I know and love, but I didn't pursue it.  It looked kind of sketchy.  Not a place I wanted to wander even in daylight.  So to the familiar I went.

Got home and attempted to organize my room.  At least I got rid of the pile of old newspapers that accumulated in a corner.  A thing to know about me, I like picking up newspapers on the Tube and taking them home, but I don't like walking all the way to the ground floor to recycle them.  So I put them in a pile in my room and they tend to build up there for a while until I decide to get rid of them.  Also took out my trash and did my laundry.  A day of chores well spent.  The only thing I didn't do was actually organize my desk, and that was because I got distracted with paper writing, reading blogs, and America's Next Top Model (did I mention that guilty pleasure before?  I can't remember.) 

Remember that Avatar keychain I bought?  Yeah, I made it a small paper Ikran (which is really a really colorful paper crane in disguise).  I decided to name the keychain Tarya.  Her paper Ikran is named Ateyo.  Tarya is also known as the Turuk Ateyo, which means Rider of Last Papercut.  I credit Dan in Madison to the name Last Papercut.  I think it's clever.  Why did I do this?  I'll post a link as soon as my idea is finished.  But it is currently just an idea and nothing more. 

For dinner, I decided to make all my veggies so they don't sit in the fridge and go bad or get thrown out at the end of the week.  And holy man that's a lot of vegetables.  One can of bolognese sauce was barely enough to coat them all, so none of the noodles had tomato sauce flavoring unless they were paired with a veggie.  And I didn't even use all my peppers, either!  I think it's the mushrooms.  I used all my mushrooms because I didn't want them sitting in the fridge.  I made so much pasta sauce that it didn't all fit into my tupperware containers.  Since Toby was in the kitchen at the same time I was, I offered her the last serving of the pasta sauce.  She said "If you're offering, I'll take it." and I said "Well, I'm offering, so have it!"  Seriously, I had no place to put the rest of that sauce.

And now I should be set for a few meals until maybe Friday.  Or Saturday.  Depending. 

I am currently crediting the 12 Girls Band to my success with completing my Linguistics essay.  200 more words to go and I told myself not to go to bed until I finish it!  And I will finish it!  200 words is a nice paragraph and a conclusion.  I can do this!!

(lazy) Monday Well Spent

The first thing I did when I got home this morning was take a shower.  It was nice and steamy and hot and everything a shower should be.  Except with flip flops on because I find our shower a bit sketch.

Then I did some putzing around on the computer.  Managed to upload more Italy photos, but that's a slow going because not all the photos want to be uploaded at once.  It's probably just the way I do it, but I'm willing to take the time to do  it.  I don't care.

The day has mostly been putzing around.  Wrote the linguistics paper due Wednesday, and I have yet to review it and tweak it.  Watched some America's Next Top Model because it's a guilty pleasure and I like looking at all the pictures.  And the drama.  I laugh at the drama of all the girls living together.  Me-ow.  Booked the hotel for Paris.  Reviewed travel itineraries.  Determined that my desk, no matter how many times I organize, will always remain a mess.  But organization will continue until I deem it unnecessary. 

Somewhere around for or five, I took my computer, went to bed, and watched Treasure Planet on YouTube as a way to tempt me into napping.  But I was watching a movie, I didn't want to nap!  Fell asleep through some of it until I decided that I was hungry.  But wait, I have no food in the kitchen.  I feel like Chinese take out.  Guess what I ordered?  Alice told me about a site called hungry.co.uk which lets you order delivery from local stores in your area.  Just type in your post code, list whatever you feel like having, and voila!  A list of restaurants close to you that delivers!  Took a while to find a place that would let me go cheap enough.  First place, I had to spend 15quid for free delivery.  But I managed to find a place that had delivery at 10quid minimum, so that's what I did. 

Ordered two spring rolls, sweet and sour pork (classic even here), and egg fried rice.  I thought the spring rolls were small ones and came in one, but no.  They were TWO GIANT ones in a single order.  So I have about one maybe two meals leftover from that take out.  The spring rolls filled me up, though.  Ugh.  They were so good.  Deliciously bad Chinese food, you are delicious.

Called Ryan to tell him about the news in regards to him leaving and the air mattress.  Denise won't lend me hers because she hasn't used it much and just been lending it out and now it doesn't hold air well at all.  We'll work out what we'll be doing.  Also working on a list to send Ryan of things he should bring over for me. 

Tomorrow, I will attend Creative Writing, do laundry, go food shopping, and start packing up my things.  I'm thinking of sending a lot of light stuff home in the mail because it'll be cheap and light and a relief to get some things away.  Not sure WHEN the things will be sent, but they'll be sent eventually.  Gotta get my end organized here.  Will also finish linguistics tomorrow!  w00t w00t!  Can't wait!

And that was my well-spent Lazy Monday.