It's the Most Wonderful Time...

...of the year.  London goes green!  And red!  And all lit up!
About a week ago, celebrities started lighting the annual holiday displays on major public thoroughfares, and alas, my drama class prevented me from seeing Jim Carey light up Oxford Street (in so many ways...).  But I can't fault that class too much, as it provided the basis for the following set.

Sicilian Avenue!  Which is neither an avenue nor Sicilian.  It's a diagonal pedestrian path that makes my walk to the tube station shorter.  And it now has garlands and Christmas lights.

What the English lack in enthusiasm for Thanksgiving, they make up for in Christmas spirit.  Bonus points if you can actually find any "jewellery" (love the Queen's English!) in this display...

The drama-related portion of the night!  This is the National Theatre, one of the single greatest buildings in London, in my humble opinion.  Not only because it's responsible for bringing both WarHorse and The Cat in the Hat to West End threatre, but also because it shows a cultural commitment to the arts.  The only reason London can put on the insane shows that it does is because they have a nationally-funded "testing ground" for new ideas.  Read: the National need not make a profit.  I think I'm becoming a socialist... Anyway, we had a backstage tour at the 3 theatres that make up the National complex...it was quite cool

One of my favorite London bridges (small b).  This is the millennium bridge, or golden jubilee bridge, which I may have mentioned before?  It opened for one day in the new millennium, started swinging from the massive number of people on it, and was closed again for 2 years while it was stabilized.  It is also featured in a dementor scene in one of the Harry Potter movies.

If I need to tell you what any of these structures are, I will go bang my head into a wall.  But I liked the sky.  =D

Panoramic vista at night!  On the left bank you have the financial side of the City--St. Paul's, which is adjacent to the stock exchange (incidentally where I went today), the glass gherkin (pickle-shaped one, of course!), and several of London's tallest structures.  On the right bank you have the OXO tower restaurant, Harvey Nichols, and other commercial bits of London.  And Blackfriars Bridge is the one in the middle. London has always been about making money--the Romans founded it not as a military camp (Leicester, Rochester, and anything ending vaguely in castre), but as a city for trading, Londinium.

Belgium post two!

I suppose this post should contain some warning about statue nudity, but never ye mind...it's only a little boy.

For your viewing pleasure, the Manneken Pis.  Say it out loud.  Yes, that's actually the correct way of saying it.  This little guy is iconic in Brussels tourism, featured on corkscrews, paperweights, and other trinkets.  Evidently local university students come and leave a part of their uniform for him at certain points of the year--note his lovely cap.

The Grand Place at night--essentially the town square of Brussels.  Around this area are side streets full of waffle houses, hot chocolate stands, lace shops, and of courses, chocolate stores!  This is also where we found a place called the Beer Temple, which we ironically visited on a Sunday morning.

A bridge we crossed whilst in Brugge.  The entire city is cut up by a network of canals, and it once had a very important role in the international shipping industry.  However, monastic activity up on a hill ended up forcing silt into the waters, causing them to become too shallow for major transport vehicles.

However, it wasn't too shallow for all vehicles!  We took a small powerboat down the waterways, getting a sense of the size of the city...I swear a good third of it is water!

 

A cathedral in Brugge.  The tower was completed over a period of 3 centuries, showing the dedication of each generation to continue such a financial and laborious burden.

Moules!  We ate our mussels in "natural" sauce--essentially a light fish stock--along with frites with mayonnaise.  Before you cringe, mayo in Europe is thinner than in the U.S. and a lot more flavorful--this one had dill in it and tasted like tartar sauce!

The reason why handmade (bobbin) lace is so expensive.  Belgian lace is internationally renowned,  but if you can't afford the top-notch stuff, this lady recommended getting the Belgian lace that comes out of India.  It's still handmade on quality lace but because it isn't made specifically in Belgium, it's generally about 20% cheaper.  Tape lace is machine-made, and is used in most commercial lace applications we see today.

The important stuff:

1. waffles are fantastic. surprisingly, the beer ain't bad either.

2. no one speaks english.  brussels they do french, but in brugge, i actually did the best with spanish!

3. NATO stands for Not Allowing Threatening Objects, where such objects include ipods, cell phones, and the like.  Once stripped of such dangerous goods (and sadly, our cameras), we got to see a conference room and the dining hall...which had quite excellent, very cheap food!

4. GO TO BRUGGE!  Brussels is neat, but not as culturally interesting. Brugge is still stuck about 300 years in the past and I love it much for it...for instance, only residents are allowed to drive a vehicle within the city limits...hence the large number of pedestrians and horse-drawn carriages.  Yeah.  You read that right.

Belgian Waffles=Best Thing Ever

No, seriously.  I thought they were just a joke, and that the whole world liked eating "Belgian-style waffles."  I'll admit it--I was much mistaken.  Crunchy and sweet on the outside, warm and doughy on the inside, they may be one of the greatest things I have ever eaten.
So, I'm still editing my massive number of landscape-y photos, but Facebook kicked me in the butt and made me work on people pics first, so you're about to get a rare sight: pictures with me IN them.

Me and my friend Chad on a boat tour of Brugge.  Pretty sweet city with lots of canals and basically no English! Photo credit to Michael.

Me and Chad again in a pub in Brussels, just outside the Grand Place.  Note: I am drinking beer in this picture!  It was my first beer in about 12 years, so even though it was a girly raspberry beer, it was an accomplishment.  The peach beer (Lindeman's, if you're interested) was even more delicious. Photo credit to Michael, I think?

Me at the EU parliament.  Photo credit to Chad.

Laura, me, and Karen (these are the 2 girls I went to Rome with).  We're in front of the cube that was part of the World's Fair display.  It was pouring but we braved the rain for this pic.  Photo credit to Amelia, I think.

Anyway, landscape pics will show up eventually...hope you enjoyed!

Falling in Love with London

First off, apologies for the awful title.  But it's true.  The very first week, I wasn't such a fan of the noise and the smoke and the bustle and the impersonal nature of London.  Then I got used to it and had more of a "this is nice, but spring semester will be good" philosophy.  Then, shortly before fall break, I switched to a "heh, this is nice" mentality...which may explain the decrease in blog posts. =D

I wish this photo were timestamped so that you could be impressed with my scholarly dedication.  I'm a bad photo student because I had taken a mere 6 photos this week (and all of a loaf of my rosemary bread), and resolved to get up to shoot the sunrise at our neighborhood park.

Except Britain doesn't have a sunrise.  Or a sun, for that matter.

I crawled out of bed at 6:45 am in order to catch the blessed event at 7:15.  I got to the park at 7, enjoyed the leafy scenery, set up my tripod, and faced east.

But the only sunrise I saw was a bit of reddishness in the sky...it's not even worth posting a photo.

So I continued wandering around the park, settling for photos of pigeons and squirrels (yeahhhh), but still no sunrise.  Blast and damn.  So I resigned myself to my fate and picked out a few urban shots (read: buses in front of apartment buildings) along with these autumnal views, but seriously...no sunrise?

To add insult to injury, someone in the flat below us caused a fuse or something to blow at quarter to 2 in the morning, setting off the electrical alarm in the whole building.  Needless to say, I won't be getting up to photograph tomorrow's sunrise...or lack thereof!

From Pizza to Piazza

 Someone didn't want us to go to Rome.  First I heard about a train strike which was going to affect Dwi's journey, and we were worried.  But trenitalia assured her it would be fine.  Then, thursday night, we get an email from British Airways telling us that our flight has been canceled because Air Traffic Control is on strike and we've been rebooked on one 5 hours later from a different airport.  Well, at least we don't have to get up early?  So we get to the airport, go through security, chill at the Harrod's in the airport for a bit, and then wait to board.  And wait.  And wait.  It was never "officially" delayed, but we boarded 45 minutes late.  Then we sat on the runway for another hour while waiting to take off.  All very frustrating when you're meeting someone on the other end of your journey and aren't allowed to use a cell phone!

 

 My first view of Rome!  These are mountains of some sort but I'm not sure which ones.  Any geography experts should feel free to chime in.

Our cute hotel, from the outside.  It's called Rome Hotel Pinewood, and is a great B&B out by the Cornelia metro station, which is nigh at the end of one of the metro lines (but there are only 2).  Definitely not taken on the day we arrived as it was pitch black by then.  Love navigating in the dark!

Lobby shot!

Another lobby shot!

 

Having arrived at the hotel so late, there wasn't much we could do the first day.  So we caught a bus to Piazza Cavour, walked to Piazza Navona, and then found our way to the Pantheon from there.  Unfortunately it was closed by then, so we just marveled at the outside and ate crepes.  Boo yah.

The view from the bridge (of another bridge!) that connects Piazza Navona and Piazza Cavour.  That's the Tiber river there.

The next day, after our Roman ruins outing, we went on a free tour sponsored by, ironically enough, Rome Free Tours.  The guides are all local college students who work on a tips-only basis, and our guide, Simone, was both informative and, well, nice to look at. Rome is full of basilisks (read: solitary tall columns) and here are three that we passed on our walk.

We also went to the Trevi Fountain for the first time while on the tour...it was a magnificent display of white marble and jets of water.  We vowed to revisit during the daytime, though.

A Rome metro car.  This is why I liked the Paris metro more than most people: the metro in Rome has two lines that overlap at just ONE POINT and it's rather dirty (though cheap).  Paris's metro is slightly cleaner and far more extensive, which I greatly appreciated.  London's metro is head and shoulders above the rest of the world, but is so darn expensive!

Dwi and I spent the better part of one afternoon wandering along the Tiber, because that's what we like to do.

More from our wanderings.  I loved that the green still came through in the reflection!

Loved this painter.  I kind of wanted to buy what he was working on right there--a shot of St. Peter's with the bridge and Tiber in the foreground...it was rather magnificent.

Entirety of the Trevi fountain at night...

And a portion of it during the day!  I threw in one coin just to return because I wasn't sure if the three for marrying an Italian meant one originally from there...I have my Italian already! (Legend goes: 1 coin--will return to Rome; 2 coins--will fall in love with an Italian; 3 coins--will marry an Italian).

Piazza Navona's central fountain.  We met up with a friend who lived on our freshman year floor here...out of the 27 of us, there were 4 who made it here on the same night!

The "ugly boat" of Piazza Spagna.  Simone told us that when the Tiber flooded, an ugly boat ended up in the centre of the piazza, and so they built a fountain to commemorate it.  Go figure.

Random arch in the Villa Borghese park.  We wandered around in this huge park for about an hour and a half, enjoying the fresh air (you think Londoners smoke?  go to Rome!) and meeting all the dogs in the park!

Also in Villa Borghese park.  No sign, though, so no idea what these columns represented...

It's time to play..."what's wrong with this picture?"  If you're wondering why I have a picture of the Globe in the Rome post, check out the flag...we were wandering through, saw this, and were very confused, as we've all been to the semi-real Globe (the original was destroyed by fire) in London.  Evidently the Romans love Shakespeare so much they wanted one of their own.

Really cool (well, warm) sunlight we saw on our way out of the park.  We danced in its magical beams.

We attempted to go to the Boca but we got there just as it was closing, alas, and even when we pleaded in Italian we were turned away.  Supposedly if you put your hand in and tell a lie, the mouth bites you!  See Roman Holiday for details...or just watch it, 'cause Audrey's my girl.

Thus concludes our adventure in Rome! Our last day, Dwi and I had a late flight so we slept in, got breakfast, went to the Vatican markets, went to a grocery store, and then headed back to the hotel to get our luggage and then begin the trek to the airport (walk to metro, take metro to train station, take train to airport, take plane to London).  But Paris is still my favorite! =p

A Customs-Free Country

Survey says...Vatican City!

This is the Vatican gardens, part of the giant walled complex that really does seem to be a small city...not sure about the country bit, though.  We brilliantly decided to go on the free Sunday, which meant that lines were quite long (people were comparing them to Easter) but there was no charge at the end...we got there as it opened and waited just over an hour to get into the Vatican Museums, which isn't too bad!

Before you were allowed to even enter for the security check, there was a clothing check.  As you can see, bathing suits are a bad idea.  After that, you go through a metal detector and your belongings are x-rayed to ensure you have benevolent intentions.

The path to the Sistine Chapel through the Vatican Museums is long, and paved with beautiful ceilings (rather a propos).  However, no photography was allowed inside the Sistine Chapel, and yours truly was actually obedient for once...so imagine this, but higher, more gilded, and more intricate...and then you're about halfway there!

I was amused to find Greek gods also in attendance.  This here is Bacchus, my favorite--he's the god of food, wine, and festival.  Note the grapes and cup of wine.  He's a pretty chill guy.

The old-fashioned Popemobile, and in my opinion, the much cooler one.  We accidentally stumbled upon the carriage house and got to see various editions of papal transport, including a model of the new jet.  Quite cool.

After a good 4 hours, we headed over to St. Peter's Basilica and square.  However, these lines were also quite long (it's evidently another way of getting into the Sistine Chapel), and Dwi had already been through.  I've been through a lot of pretty churches, so we were bad Catholics and stayed outside.

Then we trekked over to Angel's Castle, an ancient marvel.  Thanks to Tom O'Toole for the most excellent recommendation; we never would've found it otherwise!  This used to be the papal fortress and is now a museum to art, weaponry, and other old things.  But the best part of Angel's Castle is the view from the top.

This is part of the way up!  Climbing very old stone spiral staircases is tough work, so we stopped on the middle level for gelato.  Somehow I don't think there was a cafe and bar here in the Middle Ages... This was taken peeking out of a tiny opening in the wall...not much in the way of windows here!

And St. Peter's from the top.  We could see for many miles, and there were handy panoramic diagrams telling you what you were looking at from each side of the roof. We stayed up here for a good 45 minutes, just enjoying the breeze, sunshine, and marvelous view!

Angel's Bridge.  Any good fortress needs a moat, and the Tiber suffices rather nicely.  So this bridge was necessary for the trafficking of people (in a positive way!) and goods in and out of the fortress.  Each end is decorated with angel statues.

Thus mostly ends Day 2 in Rome!  We checked out some of the piazzas that evening, but those'll be in the next post. Ciao ciao!