I have never been a big fan of when people use their blogs solely as an outlet for venting. HOWEVER, the occasional rant is perfectly justified. Well, this one is long overdue.
I really don't like using an umbrella, and I really really don't like it when other people use umbrellas improperly. Seriously, a bad umbrella incident can put a huge damper on my day.
First off, let me just say that I love how umbrellas look. Sometimes I wish I could just collect all of the cute ones for fun. In fact, Jenny bought an adorable one today! Umbrellas can also be very useful when used at the beach or outdoor-restaurant tables to help shield people from the sun. The obvious use for an umbrella, keeping the rain away, is a wonderful invention, and I have personally used an umbrella on a few occasions to keep my head dry.
Nevertheless, some days, if not most days, I wish that all umbrellas would vanish from the planet.
Here is why I do not like using an umbrella... First, I like to keep two hands free whenever possible. Carrying an umbrella with just a shoulder is pretty much impossible. Having two hands free also means that I am able to keep both hands warm and dry in my pockets. Second, I get fed up pretty quick having to shake off and wrap up an umbrella every time I enter a building. Lastly, since I get really annoyed with people who are inconsiderate with their umbrella usage, I avoid using an umbrella to ensure that I am not being a nuisance to others who share my distaste for them.
I am quite passionate about the fact that there should be a rulebook, if not some type of law, for people who choose to use umbrellas. (Most of this applies to when it is raining) If I were to write said rulebook, here are some of the things that I would include. Perhaps these are more like directions... - Use only as much umbrella as you need. If I had a dime for every time I have seen one person walking down the street with a golf umbrella... - If you are walking the opposite direction of other walkers, lift UP your umbrella high enough so that it does not whack people in the head as you pass by. - If it's raining hard enough for your umbrella to be dripping consistently, be especially aware, if not completely paranoid, that you don't create a waterfall on an innocent bystander. - When you choose to shake off your umbrella, move away from other people. Seriously. - If you choose to share with a friend, ensure that you are holding the umbrella high enough so that you do not crush their head with the inside structure. - If/When you violate one of the previously stated "directions", give a sincere apology to those you may have inconvenienced. And please...change your behavior.
May I remind everyone that I grew up in Oregon, and am no stranger to rain. Before coming to London, my parents strongly urged me to bring an umbrella. I did, in fact, purchase one at good ol' Fred Meyer and brought it with me JUST IN CASE. I think I took it on our first day trip to Stonehenge, and then remembered how much I despise using an umbrella, and it has been sitting in the bottom of my drawer since then. I have other solutions to staying dry.
Today, while walking home from Queensway station, it was raining. This was no downpour, but enough precipitation for me to pop my hood on. WELL. A woman was walking towards me on the sidewalk, with an umbrella big enough for the entire state of Oklahoma. As she passed, she didn't move a single inch to the side, and did not raise her umbrella up one bit. Before I knew what hit me, her large, obnoxious umbrella whacked me in the face. Oh, don't worry, she continued as if nothing had happened.
Got to love the laundry room. I swear it's one of 2 maybe 3 places in the center that I can actually focus. Well, "focus" might not be completely accurate. Sometimes I feel like a 2-year-old watching the clothes in the dryer go round and round and round and round and...yeah.
So right now I'm not totally feeling like writing a summary of the past weeks events, so I think another list will suffice.
Friday: - Back in London - Borough Market (sausage, rocket, and bell pepper sandwich; carrot, orange, and lemon juice; and lemon poppyseed loaf) I love Borough Market. Pretty sure we're going back again tomorrow. I have yet to try the ostrich burgers and I hear that they're pretty fabulous. - Tate Modern museum. I've given my opinion about modern art already...I enjoyed most of it, although there were a few things that were just a little too much for me. - Wuthering Heights (the movie)
Saturday: - First half of the theater walk with Michelle. Along the way we stopped at Somerset House and the National Portrait Gallery. Check and check for my "still need to see" list.
Good morning, London!
Do YOU know the muffin man?
- Covent Garden during the daytime. Two words: BAD street performers...ok 3 words.
That was the coolest thing they did for the whole 10 minutes Michelle and I watched.
- Pit stop at Starbucks to revive our legs and read a bit - British Library - Tesco run - dear Tesco, you never fail to make me happy
Sunday: - Gave a talk in church and realized that no matter how hard I try, I always sound monotone when speaking in front of people. I'll have to keep working on that one. - Nap. - CES fireside - mmmm, homework
Monday: - Class day - Group trip to Wigmore Hall for an afternoon concert. Violin and Piano. Bartok and Beethoven - Finished the theater walk and did a little bit of shopping. Came home empty handed. - Interviews at Hyde Park chapel's FHE and had Frog frozen yogurt. The shop is called Frog, the yogurt was plain, with pomegranate seeds. YUM.
Tuesday: - Lazy day; i.e. lots of homework, piano time, nap, etc. - Saw Lion King! Check. Except the box office was messing up people's tickets and the lady took our tickets away, so now I have no souvenir to prove that I saw it. Oh well. I loved that dancing in this production - it's one of those things that made it unique from the other shows that I've already seen.
Wednesday: - Morning run with Christina - fabulous. - Last day trip, except that next week is essentially a week-long day trip. We're going to tour around the northern part of England from Monday-Friday. Everyone is REALLY looking forward to being on the coach together. - First stop: St. Alban Cathedral and Verulamium museum (say it 10 times fast). My favorite thing from the museum was that they had key-rings. But literally it was a ring that was also a key...so basically when you need to unlock whatever it is you need to unlock, the key is right there on your finger. Very clever, Romans, very clever indeed.
- Second stop: Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial for WWII. This was the first time I had seen an American flag in a while, and it was a very pretty sight. The grounds were beautiful, and it's one of those things that you can't help but be affected by when looking around at all of the names and headstones. There were almost 4,000 buried, and another 5,000+ names on a wall of missing persons.
- Third stop: Cambridge University. I think the events at Cambridge require their own bullet points. - King's College Chapel. Beautiful, as expected
Karalyn, Me, Michelle
- Punting on the Cam River. Our guide was nice to look at...as were the bridges and college grounds
The "Sigh Bridge" - modeled after the one in Venice
- Exploring in and out of the cute shops - mostly chocolate shops. Jenny and I split 2 pieces of fudge from Fudge Kitchen. It was so good.
Antiques Shop
- Fitzwilliam Museum. We got there right near closing, so we had to do a quick sweep around the art that we came to see. Although, since we were there right before closing, the museum was SILENT. I don't think I've been somewhere that quiet for a looooong time. We also got to walk up a itty bitty spiral staircase to get to some art that was kind of a balcony around the whole room. Not sure if that's a very good description, but it was kind of cool. - Got asked for money twice...that's always a little awkward, since I want to be a good christian and help people out...but at the same time MOST, if not all, are just out to make a pretty pound. In fact, we saw one guy wandering around who had asked us for bus fare a couple of hours earlier. He didn't appear to be looking for a bus. - Got home and studied
Thursday: - Oh goodness, that was today. - 5-class day, wahoo. - Civ class took a walk through Hyde Park to the Albert memorial...we all wore little headsets so we could listen to Dr. Macfarlane as we walked. As silly as we looked, I think it was a very effective class period. And the daffodils are beginning to POP! - After British Lit, the class went to the Tate Britain to check out a couple of paintings. I forgot to change my shoes, and one of my feet was completely soaked by the time I got to Queensway station. Can you say "squish"? - Went on a run with Christina. My legs are a'gonna be sore tomorrow. - Oh hey, and now I'm doing laundry.
Yes well, life is still great here in London. Everyone is starting to get a little sad at the fact that our days left here are slowly declining. Today I realized that I love having dinner in the servery with 10 or so people at a table. It gets crazy sometimes, especially when you're at the end of the table and no one passes the salad dressing, but it's fun to just be around so many awesome people all of the time. Yeah, I guess that's my sentimental blurp for tonight.
On Monday morning I woke up and was on the tube at 7 a.m. on my way to Paris.
85 hours 5 crepes 5 museums 4 churches 3 pastries 1 eiffel tower and who KNOWS how many croissants, stairs, and laughs later...
...I was on the tube coming back to the London Center. At the risk of sounding completely cliche/bubbly/overthetophitwithraysofSUNSHINE...let me just say that the city of Paris may or may not have entirely stolen my heart in those three and a half days.
Let's just start from the beginning, shall we? Upon arriving in Paris, the entire group immediately got on a coach and headed off to Chartres (pronounced just like "shart"...don't worry, I've made plenty of immature jokes about it already). The main attraction there is the cathedral, but we had a little bit of time before entering the cathedral to wander around the small city and practice our French. Just for the record, I'm really, REALLY bad at French. Anyway, after turning a few corners and getting some euros to burn, we ran into a carousel (eyes open wide, smiles get bigger). And OH YES we made spectacles of ourselves while riding it. So fun, and so worth it.
Most everything else in the city was closed at that point in the afternoon, so we wandered up and down a few streets and then headed back to walk around the cathedral. The cathedral was beautiful, and we had the privilege of having Malcom Miller as our guide. Apparently he's slightly famous in the Chartres Cathedral touring world...unfortunately I had never heard of him. Regardless, he was a very informative guide. The main attraction of Chartres (besides good ol' Malcom) is a relic; they have a garment/cloth that is supposedly the item of clothing worn by Mary as she gave birth to Christ. It's been dated to the correct time period, but who knows. Pretty interesting.
West front of the cathedral.
After taking the coach back into Paris, we checked into our hotel. Michelle and I got to be roommates, and I kept telling her over and over again that in the Fall we're going to be REAL roommates, and asking her if she was sure she could handle it. I mean...after this shebangle, wouldn't you be a little concerned? "I love HOTELS" - leaps onto bed and knocks over table.
Later, we headed out for dinner. I don't remember what the restaurant was called, but it was definitely a place with French cuisine. I ordered a smoked salmon salad. YUM, but I'm serious when I say that there was about 2 pounds of raw salmon on that salad and I could not finish it. Others in our group did not quite enjoy the whole uncooked-meat experience.
After dinner, we all headed off to work our magic with the Paris metro system. Destination, Eiffel Tower. This monument completely exceeded my expectations. It's HUGE, and BRIGHT, and TALL, and....AWESOME. We didn't have time to go up it, so we just walked around and took some pictures, followed by chocolate-filled crepes.
Calvin, Jenny, Mary, Me, Laura, Michelle, Cam
OH! Fun story from the Hotel room. Every time Michelle and I turned on the TV, the Hotel's "home channel" automatically comes on with the song "A Paris" playing. Also, if you use the TV as an alarm, the song starts playing. I had the song stuck in my head the entire trip.
TUESDAY.
First stop: Versailles as a group. I'll admit, Versailles was not my favorite, but I think that was mostly due to the fact that tons of people (mainly Americans) are on Spring break this week and the next, so the Palace was packed full of people. It was a little difficult to enjoy it all, but the hall of mirrors was cool, and I absolutely loved the wallpaper. Yes, the wallpaper. I was happy to get out into the sun and walk around the gardens a bit.
Michelle and I ran into a few girls out on the gardens, and we all went to the Musee d'Orsay together. These are some of my favorite artists that I was able to see here:
- Renoir - Degas - Claude Monet - Cezanne - Van Gogh ...and a few others.
We then walked along the Seine and over to the Pantheon so we could check it off of our Classics "list of things to see in Paris". Things like this make me more and more excited for Rome.
Arrin, Michelle, Me, Rachel
We booked it back to the Orsay to meet up with some other friends, and then crashed on the steps outside of the museum since we'd all been walking all day long. A clarinet street performer started playing right in front of us...he wasn't very good.
Tired feet.
After grabbing a pannini for dinner and finally finding our friends, we all went off to get tickets for a river boat cruise. The cruise was so much fun. We sat around the outside of the boat, out of earshot (hopefully) from the people inside...
Next step was hopping over to wait in line to go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower. By this point most of us girls were suffering for a bathroom, and we'd all been on our feet for about twelve hours, but once we stepped onto the elevator and watched Paris get small and smaller below us, it all became so worth it. The view from the top was one of the most spectacular things I've ever seen.
Michelle, Laura, and Me at the top.
View - the Arc de Triumph in the top left corner
Another view.
Crepes and an "oh shoot the metro's closed" taxi ride summed up the evening.
WEDNESDAY
Also known as the best day ever. Started off the day with Notre Dame.
Then walked across the way to Saint Chapelle...known for it's beautiful stained-glass windows.
After Saint Chapelle, ten of us (Laura M, Mary, Jenny, Christina, Laura N, Brittany, Kira, Rachel, Michelle, and me) formed a little group and ended up staying together the entire day. It was great :)
On the way to the Cluny Museum, we passed by the best pastry stand, and I had an almond chocolate pastry. It was so stinking super delicious. The Cluny museum was quaint, and the unicorn tapestries were nice, too. After taking in a little bit more of the sunshine, we headed off to find a market that has a name...but I'm blanking on it right now. It was great just walking around the streets of Paris.
Luxembourg Gardens: Jenny, Michelle, Me, Laura
The market was more of a street, but we found some pretty cute little shops. Best of all, we found the best savory crepes to grace the planet. I kid you not. Egg, cheese, ham, lettuce, tomato. Right after, we walked up to an ice cream shop (I know mom, I talk about food all of the time, but I promise, it really is important). I had pistachio, white chocolate, and hazelnut. We then hung around the market for a little bit longer, just long enough for a couple of people to get pooped on by pigeons. Perfect afternoon. OH WAIT. It gets better.
Eating our crepes on the curb - CJ, Laura, Jenny, Rachel, and Michelle
All ten of us took the metro over near the Louvre and then walked all 2 miles down Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triumph.
little pond outside the Louvre where little kids use sticks to hit the boats around.
Mary, Laura, Rachel, Me, Kira, Brittany
I didn't know that cars could fly in Paris!!
Climbing up the Arc was quite the feat, after all the walking and climbing we had already done that day (goodness, is this really still the same day as Notre Dame?). I loved the view from the top, especially watching the traffic below. The 10 of us just sort of sat down and hung out for a while.
NO SPEEDOS ALLOWED.
The group (commonly known as the "dream team"): Christina, Me, Brittany, Kira, Laura M, Rachel, Michelle, Jenny, Mary, Laura N
From back down on the bottom.
Next stop: the Louvre. I was a little bit intimidated from the outside, which was completely justified knowing how much wonderful art was inside. I got a little overwhelmed at first, but ended up being able to see some pretty awesome things (yes, including the Mona Lisa). Michelle, Rachel, Jenny, and I ended up staying until about closing time, before heading home after a very, very long day. My feet were throbbing as I fell asleep, and I'm surprised I could stand at all the next day.
Taking a break outside
Touching the top of the Pyramid
Charles V apartments inside the Louvre. Can you say ornate?
THURSDAY
Our last day in Paris was spent going to a couple of museums, and then up to the Sacre Coer. The first museum we went to was the Orangerie, which houses the two Water Lily rooms by Monet. Once upon a time I learned about these two rooms and always thought it would be the coolest thing to go see them...well, now I have. Yes, it was as good as I expected. The Orangerie had a few others of my most favorite paintings, including "Two girls at the piano" by Renoir. I literally gasped when I turned around and saw it on one of the walls. SO COOL.
Next stop was the Rodin Musem, the sculptor. Most of the museum is outside, which was an interesting change. I thought some deep thoughts next to "The Thinker", but I was blown away by seeing his marble hand sculptures. Beautiful.
Our last big stop was heading up and out to Sacre Coer Basilica. I had been looking forward to doing this for a while, and am happy to say that it did not disappoint me. The inside of the church was gorgeous, and I loved how open everything was. I've noticed that a lot of cathedrals have tons of tombs and plaques everywhere, and at times I think it takes away from the beauty of the actual structure. After we got out of the basilica, we wandered around the outside, and into a few shops and such. There were tons of people asking to sketch us out on the street, and I had been told that it is a fun thing to do, so once someone offered us a decent price, Rachel, Michelle and I decided to go for it. NONE of them were accurate at all, but we were laughing for about half an hour afterward at the experience. I'm definitely hanging that up in my room. HA.
does it look like me?
Since we had a little bit of time before we had to head back to the train station, the three of us headed back over along the Seine to do some last-minute souvenir shopping from the vendors on the street. I ended up buying a few prints of my favorite scenes. And I love the Seine River. Leaving Paris was sad for me, but when I'm coming home to London, I can't really complain. Paris, thanks for a great week.
