Shanah Tovah!

Happy New Year! We celebrated Rosh Hashanah tonight with a yummy dinner cooked by Dalila, complete with round challah, apples, honey, and good friends. It was so nice to have a real meal cooked in her huge Goldsmith's kitchen. Goldsmith's is another London university that Penn kids can go to - it's a little farther south of the city (like a 45 min bus ride from us at UCL) but has its own neighborhood charm going on. Think Market Street between 40th and 43rd, without the liquor stores and with better architecture.

Saturday was another day at Portobello Road, and this time we had traditional bangers (sausage) and mash at S & M Cafe, under the overpass on Portobello. We discovered even more vintage clothing and shoes and bags and jewelry - it really is an amazing market. Saturday night we walked down to the hopping Leicester Square and had expensive ice cream at an outdoor cafe. It was worth it for the people watching, and we figured we enjoyed the ice cream way more than going to a pub and having 1.5 pints of beer, right?

Sami and me on the top of the double decker bus on the way back from Portobello. A tip: DON'T take the bus on Saturday going down Oxford Street. It took forever and a day.

This is from Friday but I forgot to put it up. This is me straddling the Prime Meridian! Weird angle so my legs look odd... but you get the idea.

A model of an Evergreen brand cargo ship at the National Maritime Museum. Thought of Evergreen Trucking ;)

Sunday we relaxed in Regent's Park and played cards, of course. The park was packed with people reading and playing frisbee and canoodling on the grass - we are so lucky to have it right near our campus! I wish the weather would stay like this forever - low 60s and sunny during the day, and around 48-50 at night. It really is perfect, and so easy to dress comfortably for the weather. I've even been good about jogging every other day or so. The British kids on our hall make fun of us for jogging which is SO weird. It's called exercise! They're like, why don't you just go to the pub or something? (Just try to say that in a British accent - it's so much better). They don't understand why we actually want to work out. We have become pretty friendly with a few kids on the hall, and are learning some more British lingo. Freshmen are freshers, gash is a really bad derogatory word for the female genitalia that you should never say, wanker is still wanker (and awesome), "give me a shot" means like, "hit me up on the celly yo" or something... and then the usual ones like holiday for vacation, lift for elevator, takeaway for takeout. And the 1st floor is the Ground Floor here, and our 2nd floor is their 1st floor, and so on. When I think of more I'll impart my wisdom, but that's all I can remember for now.

Today was the first day of class, too - how could I forget! Brandon and I went to the Bartlett office an hour before our first requested class was supposed to start, because for the past week we had received NO emails from the office telling us which classes we got into, or where the class would be held. Honestly, what is the administrator doing if it's not that? We went and she was like, oh, yes, I was going to email you later today. That would help a TON... Anyway she told us where the classes were and we were on our way.

Our first class was Urban Form and Formation. It's an elective for the Urban Planning/Architectural Studies kids here (the way it works in the UK is less liberal arts and way more specialized - you take almost every class in your department from your first year on, and you really only take electives within your own department. very different - i like the way we do it at home much better!) and there were about 25 people in the class. The professor was this younger Irish guy who was very nervous and had shaky hands the whole time. He had longish hair and a beard and reminded me of someone from the Harry Potter movie -- like a really friendly Professor Snape, maybe? Anyway, he was super nice and excited about the class, especially this one book that the whole course is based on. There are four assignments for the class, spaced through the semester, and it's pretty much impossible not to get an A (I think), seeing as an A here is anywhere from 70% to 100%. We'll see what I'm saying come finals. The class should be interesting - a lot about public space and, duh, urban form... similar to what you'd see in an URBS class at Penn about the built environment/public space.

Our second class was a bit bigger, with about 35 people. It's a 3rd year requirement class, so very different tone than the other. It's called Urban and Environmental Politics. The teacher is this middle-aged Asian woman with okay English that you definitely have to get used to listening to. She took about 15 minutes figuring out the powerpoint projector after being 10 minutes late to class... then proceeded to explain every single detail of our two assessments for the course. Literally, she read exactly what was on our handout! So weird. She seems to like class participation, though, so that should make things entertaining. We had to split up into groups for the first assignment (not due until December 8th, but apparently she thought we should form groups TODAY), and we read an article about the Heathrow expansion controversy in our groups. We were assigned one side of the argument (residents, business, gov't, environ groups, etc.) and had to come up with some ideas/tenents of the argument. I was writing them down for our group and of course when it came time to present, I was the one who had to go up to talk about it. Little did I know, I was getting myself into a 30 minute panel/role playing debate thing in front of the whole class with five other people! It actually turned out to be fine and for some reason I wasn't the slightest bit nervous about it. I and two other guys were the clear actors of the group and basically entertained the class (or at least I thought so) with our sleazy arguments and sweet-talking. Then the prof switched our roles and we jumped right into our new arguments. It was pretty funny and much better than listening to her lecture... at least I didn't feel like I was falling asleep. Anyway, what an interesting way to start the first class! And now everyone knows me, haha.

Starting class is nice - I feel like I'm settling in much more to a routine of being in SCHOOL and don't feel weird for not going out at night! More class tomorrow - field trip for Art History! Sorry there aren't more pictures... I think there is a picture of our Rosh Hashanah feast somewhere that I will have to put up.

A Tale of Four Cities, Part 3

Prahahahahaha (Sept 11-14)

Our extremely early arrival in Prague led to some loitering outside our hostel before the reception was open - but once we got inside we were greeted with free internet (8 fast brand new computers), a huge breakfast for about $6, and showers! The hostel was really nice - lots of way too friendly people once again, but a lot bigger than the one in Budapest. There were 6 levels (of course we were on the top floor - but there was an elevator) and our room was amazing! Apparently they don't usually rent that out to people but they "knew we were couples" (what??) and so there were two mattresses in the main part of our room and then a big double bed with two twin mattresses in a smaller bedroom off of that. Sami and I took the bedroom, obviously. We had a kitchen, too, but we didn't really use it. The best part was our roof deck! A ladder from our room went up onto the roof of the hostel -- a huge area just for us! The view was beautiful and you could see everything from up there.

Kitchen/boys' part of the room. In the back was Sami and my room, with a little balcony off of it.

The roof deck! Or terrace as we liked to call it.

View from our roof -- Prague Castle is in the distance

The first day we got a ton of sightseeing done - we saw most of the Old Town, Old Town Square, the Astronomer's Clock (it's this big weird clock in Old Town Square that is supposed to do some cool things every hour when it rings... the first time we missed it by seconds so we went BACK to see it later. totally not worth it.), and the Jewish Ghetto. We had kilbasa in the square from a stand - they were so delicious but I have no idea what was in them. Don't want to know.

We were deciding what to do and saw a man beginning a tour of the Jewish Ghetto in Old Town Square, and figured it was worth it to have someone lead us around. He was pretty entertaining and kept talking about "my people" and "my country" - the Czech people. He tried to give some interesting history lessons but his mannerisms and accent were more interesting than his stories. A lot of it was a basic overview of Jews in Eastern Europe... what the ghetto was... Jewish traditions... the Holocaust - stuff we knew quite well. Maybe Michael learned something, I don't know. Anyway, we got to see the famous old Synagogues in the Ghetto, and also the Jewish Cemetery. It was the only cemetery that Prague Jews were allowed to be buried in for centuries, so they just kept putting more layers of dirt and tombstones in the cemetery, piling them on. It was pretty spooky.

Middle of Old Town Square - by far the most touristy place we had been.

Jewish cemetery

Our tourguide, Roman

Kilbasa!

After our history lesson we went to - yes, you guessed it - a park! Letna Park was north of Old Town Prague, and had an amazing view of the city. At the edge of the park, overlooking the city, is a giant red metronome. It sits where there was once a giant statue of Stalin and several men backing him up. We saw photos of it and it really was quite imposing. Breshnev ordered the statue to be dynamited soon after Stalin left power. Now there is just this odd concrete area with a huge metronome, keeping time for Prague. Sort of symbolic and spooky? And definitely a great view.

Sami and I doing the silly Titanic pose from where the metronome is

Andy, Sami, and Michael by the metronome

We napped in the park, and then walked to a biergarten and played cards. There were tons of people in this park - businessmen, teenagers skateboarding, mothers and strollers, and even a weird stoner next to us - literally smoking a joint at the picnic table beside us in broad daylight! Crazy.

That night we took it easy and had pizza (yay for normal food) at a place near our hostel. We sat up on our roof for a few hours and had a nice night talking and playing games. Andy, Michael, and I even attempted to sleep up there for the first part of the night - but the freezing cold night air and the hard wood deck wasn't the greatest so we had to give in.

Friday we did more sightseeing but nothing intense, as usual. We went to Prague Castle and walked around the grounds for free. It is a HUGE building that the President is supposed to live in, but this one doesn't because apparently he is very modest. It is gorgeous, though, and has a really interesting mix of architecture - lots of things added on over the years for sure. The window from which the famous Defenestration of Prague occured is there too - see the photo below! Mrs. Wyrsch would be proud. There is also a huge cathedral on the inner courtyard of the castle which was really pretty. It wasn't one of the gaudy gold kinds that all seems the same - it was more stone and grand - unlike most of what I've seen before.

In the cool subway station - reminds me of those dot candies on the long sheets of white paper. Anyone?

Window of the Defenestration of Prague

Imitating the statue outside Prague Castle...
We were quite the spectacle

For lunch we had some more traditional sausages at a very traditional pub near the castle - we were definitely the only Americans. The beer was delicious and cheap, and they kept track of your order by tallying everything up on a piece of white paper that they left on the table. Weird. We walked through Petrin Hill area (a huge hill/forest south of the Castle) and went to another beergarden and played cards. Noticing a pattern yet? We went to this kids' attraction, the "Hall of Mirrors" which was really just a room with some messed up glass. Honestly, Mac's Photobooth is more exciting. But we managed to take some goofy pictures and pretend we were five for 20 minutes, so that was nice.

Hall of Mirrors

That night we had another non-Czech dinner (can't take too much sausage, seriously) and went to this cool wine cellar called U Sudu in Nove Mesto (new town) afterwards. It was like a labyrinth -- room after room, winding around, up and down stairs, with different music and decor in each one. It was really smoky but we felt pretty authentic so it was okay.

At the labyrinth

For our last full day in Prague, I allowed everyone to sleep in (so nice of me, right?) because we didn't have too much sightseeing left to do. We went to the Museum of Communism which was great! Learning about the history of the places we visited made it so much more interesting - especially when the history takes place in the last century. It is so much more alive and relevant that way. I bought a great poster with some words in Czech that I have no idea what they say. Oh well, it's decorating my room right now and I like it. We walked across the famous and romantic Charles Bridge - lots of people selling jewelry and art. There are statues lining the bridge, some with interesting stories. Michael and I managed to lose Andy and Sami after turning around for 5 seconds... the first time anyone really got lost on the whole trip. It was okay within ten minutes though - and the grudges only lasted for 15 minutes or so :) Our last stop was this very modern building that looked like it was falling over into itself. It was the only modern thing like it in Prague, so it really stood out. I have no idea who the architect is or what it is called, but I'm sure I could look it up. I know that people in Prague don't like it because it's a bit of an eyesore, but it's very intersting how different is from the rest of the buildings there.

Entrance to the Charles Bridge

View of the Charles Bridge and much of Prague from somewhere...?

Weird building... can't remember the name of it.

The last night in Prague we finally decided to experience the crazy Prague nightlife! We decided we deserved a good meal in a good restaurant so we went to a delicious French/Czech restaurant listed in our guidebook. We had a drink at a little Czech bar (by the way, they serve only one kind of beer at almost every place we went -- In istanbul, it was Efes everywhere, in Budapest, just one type at every bar, and here, the same. you just order beer.) with graffiti written in chalk all over the walls. We made our way to a crazy club that was like a jillion stories high with all different types of music and bars and cocktails... and lots and lots of Eurotrash. We were SO glad we were with the boys. There were so many guys there in tight white t-shirts and tight tight jeans, and they all looked the same. They ALL looked gay. It's totally true - the European exception, I like to call it. Anyway, we had a good time dancing and being silly and not talking to or making eye contact with anyone else. We met some Brits on the way home waiting for the tram, which got us pretty excited about heading to London. They knew their US geography as well as we did, and they also were obsessed with Scrubs and One Tree Hill. Weird series to pick, don't you think? We slept on the roof one more time and saw the sun rise over Prague castle. It was beautiful!

In da club

Michael and Sami drinking our yummy Rum/Lime/Sugar/Ice drink... what could be bad?

Weird fog thing on one of the levels. Not sure what's going on here but it is funnyyyy.

We made our way to the train successfully, and said goodbye to Praha. We managed to get some more souveniers here, and probably took the most pictures here than anywhere else. Prague was definitely a lot of fun and there was a lot to see, but it was by far the most touristy place we went. There were Americans everywhere - nice because everyone spoke English, but very different from Budapest and worlds different from Istanbul. We didn't really get a feel for the residents of Prague itself and the Czech people, because the city seemed to be filled with tourists only. Not really bothersome - just very different.

Day Tripper

Yesterday we all went on one of those touristy buses from London to Windsor Castle, Bath, and Stonehenge. Windsor Castle was very cool, although I definitely remember going there before! It's where the Queen lives (but of course she was on holiday so no possible sightings). Our tourguide gave us a little history lesson about the Castle and William the Conquerer, and talked about the Battle of Hastings. I had a solid memory of 1066 for the year, thanks to Ms. Massie's 6th grade history class...

Windsor Castle (and our sweet audio guides)

The town of Bath was the next stop -- very cute little town in the country with beautiful scenery that would be perfect for a weekend trip. We didn't get to see much, though - just the old Roman baths. The tourguide told us that when the Romans conquered England, they couldn't take the food and weather and they went to Bath for a little detox each year, with spas, exercising, massages, and good food. Unfortunately we only got to see the remains - no swimming pools or saunas like in Turkey or Hungary!

Roman Baths

Last was Stonehenge! It's so funny - it's on the side of a highway in the middle of nowhere, with all of these sheep around the outside. It's roped off so you can't go inside the area, but it looks really cool! I got plenty of photos (I've always wanted a photo of me at Stonehenge) so that's good of course. I don't know which version of the story I believe about why the stones are the way they are, but the general calendar idea sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Sami and Brandon being the stones...

Sami and me with the classic Stonehenge photo

Today I did some more touristy things -- no class yet so why not? We took a ferry to Greenwich and straddled the Prime Meridian! We were in the East and Western hemispheres at the same time. They had an interesting museum about time and astronomy with all sorts of old telescopes, and I relearned about latitude and longitude. There was also the National Maritime Museum - tons of models of huge cruises and boats. Everything was free so that was really nice, and it was a beautiful day today.

We also went to the Fresher's Fayre (Freshers is Freshmen here) -- it's like the NSO student activities fair with all of the clubs trying to get you to sign up. They have SO many here - I think way more than Penn and way weirder clubs! Plus the whole drinking age thing is weird because there are a lot of things that clearly revolve around drinking (the Irish Club, for example). Come to think of it, I haven't mentioned the whole open container idea yet. It's crazy! It's very bizarre when you see/do it for the first time, and feels very wrong, but it's totally legal.

I'm ready for classes to start - it's a little weird not having a routine (or anything to do, for that matter) yet. I got into the history class I wanted -- Britain and the Wider World (18something - 1992), and also the London Architecture class. The Bartlett is sooo disorganized and we still don't have our classes for that. And they start Monday! Oy.

Portobello Road again tomorrow (obvy) and maybe some Bangers and Mash at S&M cafe?

A Tale of Four Cities, Part 2

Budie Budie Budie Budie rockin everywhere… and don’t forget Pesht (September 8-11)

Our flight landed early in the morning in Budapest, and we could already feel the difference. Many more people spoke English and were somewhat helpful when it came to navigating the public transportation. Budapest is divided into Buda (the older part, more historic sights) and Pest (pronounced Pesht, where we stayed and where most of the restaurants and fun things to do were). The buildings are beautiful – everything was grand and large, and most were the same height – around 4 or 5 stories. The architecture was really similar throughout, and was completely modern compared to Istanbul. Most of the streets were wide, symmetrical, and had lots of outdoor cafes and restaurants.

Our hostel was very clean and bright – worlds better than Chillout in Istanbul. Everyone spoke great English, but there were a lot of the “hostel” type there – randos who traveled for 5 months and had been living in the same hostel for weeks… bumming around and not really doing much. Weird life, but I’m sure they’ve met some amazing people? It was weird because they kept asking us to hang out, or come to the bar or whatever, but we were a content group of four that didn’t need or want to make any new friends. We would plan out what we’d say before we came back to the hostel in the afternoon – if asked, everyone would just say I was in charge (easier than coming up with a story for everyone to remember), and then I pretended we had plans. Oops.

The first day we had a nice breakfast of Hungarian omelets (actually they were normal omelets but we ate them in Hungary!) and learned how to say “please.” That was the only word we learned the whole time – Hungarian is SO hard to learn! The vowel sounds are ones we don’t even make in English, so that made it kind of difficult. Plus, most people spoke English so we didn’t really need any Hungarian.

Street where we ate breakfast.... the first place we actually sat down in Budapest.
After coming from Istanbul it felt SO different. Cleaner... more English... more normal food.

We did some sightseeing but mostly looked from the outside – the Opera House and Parliament, Roosevelt (yes, our Roosevelt) Terrace and St. Stephen’s Basilica. We climbed up to the top of the basilica for an incredible view of the city. (picture at top of page and the one below too)

In front of Parliament

The weather was great and it was a relaxing day. We had a late lunch and played cards in a park – the game “asshole” became the trip favorite. I always carried the cards with me just in case we found a park – which we managed to do in every city! Our new game in Budapest was to find every statue we could (and there were a TON) and pose like the statue for a picture. We got really into it:

Sami is tickling his armpit in this one

Games in general were a hit on the trip.... from Asshole to Euchre (Andy's new card game), GHOST, Guess Who... guessing what time we'd get back to the hostel or something -- we were always looking for some sort of competition (usually boys vs girls, obviously).

That night we met up with Dalila and Mike for a delicious Hungarian meal. Mike and I were the only ones who thought it was good, though. I had stuffed paprika (basically a big pepper stuffed with meat/spices) with potatoes and a delicious thick red sauce. I loved my meal but Andy was not a fan of his goulash! It wasn't great but I'm glad I tried his just to say I had. The food was very rich so I think that's why people didn't like it. Mike got stuffed cabbage - can't go wrong with that. After dinner we wandered around and found this open-air bar that was awesome. All of the bars in Budapest were like this - you would go in a main door/entrance but the bar would be in a courtyard/terrace type thing, with tons of seating. This one was so cute with wicker couches and sculptures and trees.

Michael and I stupidly tried this Hungarian liquor called Unicum, made out of 12 herbs. It was disgusting and I had to mentally and physically prepare myself for the smallest sip. After 2 sips I realized it wasn't worth it and he finished mine. Trooper.

The next day we walked across the bridge to Pest and went up the funicular --

that led us to the Hungarian National Museum. We hung out in Old Town and looked at some cool old buildings that you see on all of the postcards... couldn't really tell you much about them though. We had lunch in a park (where else?) and kept walking until we got to Magrit Island, a little Island in the middle of the river. It had amazing parks and gardens, and a TON of space to play cards, of course. The water was beautiful and it was great to do some people watching. We took the bus home, making sure we took every kind of public transportation we could in Budapest.

I don't remember where this was but it was somewhere along the water in Buadpest and it's pretty badass.

We had Italian food for dinner (it was definitely refreshing after all of the ethnic food we'd been having) and went to another cool outdoor bar where we played cards at the table! Of course, our luck, all of the people from the hostel were at the SAME BAR! We avoided them because we are very unfriendly, of course.

Our last day we went to the House of Terror Museum where we learned about the Nazi and Communist rules of Hungary... definitely not something you remember from history class in particular. It was a lot of reading but really interesting. We walked up to Hero's Square and the City Park and then went to the public baths! They were beautiful! You can see the outside area below -- it was huge. There were three huge pools with fountains and jets and currents, and then inside the building there was pool upon pool upon hottub upon sauna.... it really was endless. Each had a different temperature and a different kind of light in the sauna. It was packed and we didn't have that much time, unfortunately, but it was so nice to be outside and go swimming! Michael's waterproof camera came in handy here.

Heroes' Square

Our time in Budapest ended with a trip to the grocery store for snacks for our overnight train ride (cookies, nutella, bread, pretzels, and champagne... SO nutritious), and we even got to see a guy sitting at a cafe get punched and knocked completely over. Very exciting.

The couchette was great! We payed $10 more per person to have the car to ourselves. It was very tiny, with two benches facing each other. There were six beds (three stacked on each side) but we only unfolded four. We actually were able to get a good amount of sleep, and the door locked so that was good! They didn't wake us up to stamp our passports, but each time the train stopped I woke up from the announcer. It was surprisingly comfortable though, and I slept more on the train than I did on the redeye from Dulles to London.

Sitting on one side of the car.

Sami and Michael were troopers and slept on the top bunks (they had to do some pretty crazy gymnastics to get up there)
And Andy and I were on the bottom. There was not enough space to both stand on the floor and store our luggage, so our bags sat in the little aisle.

Sorry this was so long! Hopefully the photos helped. Two cities down, two to go. Off to Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, and Bath tomorrow on a little daytrip.

URBS -- UCL style.

Not as cool, obviously. (for those of you not in the know, URBS is what the cool kids call Urban Studies at Penn...)

The Bartlett gave us a walking tour of London on the South bank of the Thames this afternoon, winding up at City Hall (a new and really interesting building).

City Hall

The London city planning group (Development Authority, or something like that) gave us a talk on London's city planning for the past 20 years and a lot of what they have in mind (and the mayor, Boris) for the "London Plan." It was interesting but a little hard to follow... British accents kind of make people sound boring sometimes. Afterwards, Brandon and I decided to walk all the way back to Leicester Square where we saw some cheap Chinese food restaurants (SO FAR from City Hall... probably a 2 mile walk), and we scarfed down some good MSG Chinese buffet (only 5 quid! yes, I am going to start to use British words, you'll catch on) before heading back to our dorm. Brandon is the other Bartlett student from Penn and he's doing a History minor like me.

On the Waterloo Bridge with some sweet London highrises inthe background. London has rules like DC, where skyscrapers are only permitted in certain areas, so as not to obstruct the historic views. It was raining so I am wrapped up like a babushka.

Brandon in front of the Tower Bridge. City Hall is to the right.

London Bridge -- not the most exciting bridge but I thought it deserved a photo... right Mom?

The Millennium Bridge - going from a really old and beautiful building on the north, to the Tate Modern Museum on the South. It's just for pedestrians and seems sort of like an eye sore to many, but I like the futuristic look bridging the old part of the city to the Modern Art museum.

The past few days we've been exploring London a little more -- Portobello Road (awesome market only open on Saturdays with vintage clothing, antiques, artwork, jewelry) and Oxford Street (the best clothing and department stores) shopping; Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, and Piccadilly Circus; and trying out every sandwich at Tesco (the cheap grocery store very close to our dorm). I've been having breakfast in my room every morning and Sami and I are getting closer and closer to real cooking. We've met a lot of British kids on our hall, thank God - they've moved in by now. They are all really friendly and we just LOVE the accents (and try to imitate them while they judge whether we're doing a good job...) and they all think Bush is a wanker. Pronounced WANKAH. It's officially our new favorite word and can truly be used on any occasion.

Last night we went to one of the Student Union bars, called Bar Footsie. The drinks were priced like the stock market -- they would go up and down throughout the night depending on how many people bought each type of drink! It was a cool idea - especially when there was a "market crash" and the drinks all dropped to below a pound.

Sami, Mike, and me at Bar Footsie (Mike goes to AU but has been adopted by the Penn crowd - his gf is Dalila from Fword, btw)

Sami and me at The Court -- the Smoke's of UCL

Tomorrow I'm attempting to register for the London Architecture class here - I'm first on the waiting list so hopefully someone won't show up!

There has been a breakthrough and the photos now load much faster! No idea why, but who cares. YAY.

Cheers.