one short day...in the watery city!

My Easter Break started off in a somewhat unorthodox manner…I had decided way back at the beginning of the semester to go to Venice and ended up going there alone last Thursday for the day before taking a night train to Rome that evening.  Needless to say, being the worrywart I am and having the travel record I’ve racked up over this semester, I was more than a little apprehensive about traveling alone.  Add to that the fact that I had booked a 6:30 am flight out of Stansted Airport (an hour at least out of London) and you’re looking at a very sleepless Wednesday night…

I left the flats around 2am, caught a bus to Victoria Station, and the madness started right away.  Nobody could tell me where to catch the National Express bus to Stansted, and I mean NO ONE.  Not the station officials, not the policemen roving the street, not the National Express bus drivers themselves (who were utterly unhelpful and rude, boo)…I ended up wandering around the Victoria area at 2:45am completely lost, flipping out, until I finally found the bus stop…across the street and down a block.  BOO, Victoria Station.  You’re now 2 for 2 in screwing me over.

Got to Stansted, then to Venice, uneventfully…caught a bus to the central train station, bought my night rail ticket right away, and wiped out on the very first bridge I tried to cross.  Leave it to the most uncoordinated girl in the universe to embarrass herself by falling down on a pedestrian bridge in Venice…gah!  After I dusted myself off I decided that the day needed to start off on a better foot…with gelato.  At this point it was about 11:30 so it was the perfect time for a sugar cone of fragola (strawberry) gelato and some people watching right on the train station’s main piazza.  It was so crowded, so sunny, so warm and beautiful that everybody was out…what a wonderful start to a day!

After I finished the first of many Easter weekend gelatos, I bought myself a Venice map, which turned out to be utterly useless, and set off for the Rialto Bridge and Piazza di San Marco…St. Mark’s Square.  Venice, built on water, was not designed to be navigated on foot, not even by the most intrepid map reader…which I am not.  I was lost within about ten minutes, but luckily the gelato sugar-high had me thinking that it was a great adventure and not a great reason to panic.  Instead I wound through picturesque, narrow streets with pastel buildings and wrought-iron balconies, crossed side canals on beautiful little bridges, listened to the sound of seagulls and gondoliers and enjoyed the sunshine.  I

I totally fell in love with Venice while I wandered around…every new turn in a street was a new and picturesque church, piazza, or canal, and before I knew it I must have stumbled into the shopping district…suddenly every narrow street housed a market or was lined with shop windows.  Authentic Venetian masks…cashmere-lined leather gloves…handmade lace…Murano glass…it was so much fun to window-shop and look at everything…and I confess, I may have been really really tempted to make a purchase…but I held out, thankfully!

Finally I emerged from central Venice’s labyrinth of super-confusing streets and found myself staring head-on at the Rialto Bridge and the Grand Canal.  What a gorgeous sight!  Open air restaurants lined both sides of the canal, there were dozens of gondoliers and vaporettos (water taxis) filling the canal, and hundreds of people out and about.  I headed toward the peak of the Rialto and joined the cluster of tourists snapping the stereotypical Venice picture…well, like twenty stereotypical Venice pictures.  No shame here.  Eventually I got a little too claustrophobic to enjoy the view though and headed onto St. Mark’s. 

Again…I got lost about two seconds after I left the main canals.  Oops.  It took me about half an hour to find St. Mark’s where it would have taken about five minutes had I known where I was going.  By this point, it was about 2:00pm as well, so I was a bit stressed thinking I was under a “time crunch.”  Haha, the concept of a time crunch is so anti-Italian it makes me laugh now!  Anyway, St. Mark’s was finally found, and I spent another half-hour sitting there watching people, feeding the birds (so cliché, so tourist, so much FUN anyway) and trying to get somebody to successfully take my picture with the Basilica of St. Mark’s. 

Funny story about Venetians and tourists in Venice: when you ask for a picture in front of a huge historical monument, they don’t seem to understand that you want the monument IN the picture with you.  So now I have some lovely pictures of me against a nondescript background in St. Mark’s Square.  Oh well! 

St. Mark’s on the inside is very, very beautiful and very, very ornate, but also looked like it could use a very, very thorough cleaning.  I really enjoyed taking my time going through the basilica, which apparently contains over 4.1 km of fresco and mosaic work…the whole interior was absolutely breaktaking.  It took me ages to get through because it was completely mobbed with tourists, was enormous, and also required a lot of attention to detail…so I took my time.  It was a really gorgeous church, but couldn’t replace my favorite, Sainte-Chappelle, from Paris.  Headed back outside to pouring rain and took a vaporetto back to the train station to lock my bag in a locker before heading to Murano, the island.

Genius that I am, I locked my camera in that locker as well, so I have no photos of Murano, the island famous for its artisan glass.  In my handy Venice guidebook it said that no visit to Venice was complete without a trip out to see glassblowers in action and “peruse the assortment of authentic Murano glass,” so I took the water bus across the harbor-type area to the island around 4pm.  It was absolutely indescribable…every shop was full of gorgeous, colorful glass.  Ornaments, frames, clocks, stained-glass window decorations, chandeliers, sculptures…I was blown away. 

Unfortunately, the actual glassblowing tour was way too expensive and took way too long for me to actually take it, but in my wandering around (lost, of course) I stumbled on a smaller factory that was letting tourists in for free to take a look.  I jumped ALL over it.  It smelled really weird, but it was so completely insanely cool to see how it all happened.  The glassblower we watched was making a yellow vase swirled through with red and white, and watching it take shape was one of the prettiest, most impressive displays of craftsmanship I’ve ever seen. After the “tour” was over, I headed to the adjoining shop and bought a few souvenirs…and gifts…then rushed back to the water bus stop to catch the late bus back to the train station.  Thank GOD I left when I did…I caught the last water bus back, and I still shudder to think what a catastrophe it would have been to be stranded on the outer island with a train to catch back in the main part! 

About 8:30 I arrived back at the train station and settled in for the three-hour wait for the Trenitalia night train to Rome.  By now, I was not only completely wiped out and really feeling the effect of a sleepless night before Venice, but I was getting really sick of spending so much time by myself.  Traveling is such a social activity that it was really weird and sort of un-fun to spend a whole day on my own…nobody to share my excitement with or to keep me from spazzing when I got lost for the fourth or fifth time, haha!  I spent those three tired, cold, sort of lonely hours in the Trenitalia waiting room and eventually got on my night train…where another story starts.  This blog is getting way too long though so that’ll be saved for another day!  Arrivederci and much love!

catch up part 2: All Work and All Play...

...is what my life in London seems to be all about!

First, BBDO stories, because BBDO=the best workplace and internship ever and I love it like nobody's business.  Then, lots and lots of gushing about one of my new favorite places to shop: Primark!

I know I kind of stopped giving the general rundown of how everyday life at BBDO has been going, but that hasn't been because it got boring, it's been because life has been so nuts.  This week I spent a lot of time working with Tom Krailing on Mars accounts again...always interesting.  Yesterday I cross-checked advice notes for what agencies should bill with what they did bill, then started bonus-payment calculations review. This was done based on Mars agencies' individual evaluations of the BBDO agencies who they deal directly with...each agency receives an aggregate score and the bonus is assigned accordingly.  It was a fun morning reading over each agency's reviews...and I caught a few significant errors so Tom kept calling me a genius.  It was nice :) even though catching basic math errors hardly qualifies me as a genius.  Still, I wasn't going to argue!

The other noteworthy comment on BBDO is the camaraderie that has developed between both the interns (Kayla, Kaitlin, Katie and me) and between Kaitlin and I with Steph.  I love coming to work because Steph (and the others in the office, but Steph especially because we work most closely with him) is so much fun to work with.  He's only 25 and has a wickedly funny sense of humor, and makes our cubicle the office hotspot for stopping by to chat.  Yesterday Kaitlin and I were having our lunch out in the café and he was sort of lingering by the food bar looking ove, it was so transparent he was hoping for an invite...so we asked him to join us and had the most ridiculously fun lunch break :)  Sometimes it's easy to forget that he's so close in age to us since he is technically one of our bosses, but the whole office environment is just great.  I hope someday I can work somewhere as fun again...this has been the best first office experience ever!

Now...Primark.  Aaaah Primark.  American readers are all familiar with Forever21, of course, as the biggest discount/trendy clothing retailer in the States.  Primark is the English equivalent to Forever21 only cheaper, better quality, and way more varied.  Kaitlin, Tess (a new London Program friend) and I went on Monday night after work...it's right on Oxford Street, near Baker Street!  It was absolutely insane in there...super crowded, fitting-room lines that stretched half the length of the store (which stretched almost half a block) and just general mayhem.  To be honest, not my kind of shopping experience...but I sipped the Primark kool-aid and went to town.  I ended up leaving with two pairs of flats, five pairs of tights (I needed them REALLY badly), a few shirts, a sweater, and a bag...all for under 30 pounds.  Yup.  Primark is dangerous.  Dangerously good deals, dangerously cute merchandise...I need to just stay away.

So that's London catch-up for the time being...time to go keep living life now!

a delightful day in Londontown

Hi all...more Paris to follow but I've got a life going on regardless of how up-to-date my spring break posts are, and yesterday is definitely post-worthy!

Coleen, Charlie, Kate and I set off around 11:30 to go visit Notting Hill, setting of the Julia Roberts movie of the same name but, more importantly, home of the "world-famous" Portobello Road Market!  It claims to be the largest antiques market in the world, and after yesterday, I believe it.  We got off the Tube and were immediately swept into an unbelievably large and diverse throng of people headed the same direction...young, hipster London girls with the kind of style I always wish I had, old men and women out together, young families with children in tow...it was just this enormous crush of humanity.  Claustrophobic, yes, but really fun to see.  The people-watching alone would have made this market day an experience to remember.

As you may recall, I was not particularly enamored with my first market visit, to Petticoat Lane...junky, weird people, and all-around dissatisfying.  That said, Portobello Road was fantastic!  We started off walking down a row of pastel-painted houses with colorful doors that reminded me of Cinque Terre (ahhh I want to go back!!).  At the beginning of the market, Coleen, Kate and I were drawn into a little vintage jewelry stand where everything was 5 pounds.   I was looking at an opal ring and Kate was considering the brooches when the saleswoman freaked out on Charlie and told him to "go and find another playground."  She repeatedly insisted that he leave, and as his loyal women, we of course left with him.  Nobody yells at our man like that and gets our business ;)

After that the market was just one REALLY REALLY long street full of wonderful surprises.  Portobello Road doesn't sell only antiques...there are long stretches devoted to jewelry artists, art, clothing, fresh food, food vendors, toys...just everything you could imagine.  It was super fun.  We poked around an antique maps-and-prints shop for a while, looked at tons of jewelry, and had a great time.  After a lunch stop at an Italian pizzeria that served pizza by the meter (yes, for real, by the METER), we paid a visit to The Travel Bookshop, of "Notting Hill" (the movie) fame.  So cute and charming, although I must say my favorite bookstore in the world is still Shakespeare and Company :)

Purchases for the day: Coleen got an antique bracelet that was absolutely beautiful and I got a pendant-watch, which was just too novel and pretty to pass up.  We then caught the Tube and headed home, where I stopped in Tesco and ran into the one-and-only Kayla Coggins and Anne Spont!  They were planning a baking night and I jumped right on that.  It was so much fun!  We made chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with homemade buttercream frosting.  Oh, hello, decadence.  Best part?  We dyed the frosting pink and decorated with absolutely adorable novelty sprinkles, sugar flowers, and glittery dust.  It was so pretty when we were done that I hardly wanted to eat them!  (We did, though.)  Big shout-out to Bobby, who knows all the words to an enormous plethora of songs as well as the integral plot points of "Rent."  Nobody puts Bobby in the corner.

After a fun night of baking to the sweet sounds of middle-school power jams, I headed home to call it another early night.  I'm always so tired at night here...maybe that's why the nasty hard bed doesn't feel quite as awful anymore.  Paris soon, I promise...but London is still too fun to ignore!

David, Duomos and Domers

Originally written on Mar 7 2010

I’m sitting in the Pisa airport right now absolutely relishing the fact that we are an hour and a half early for our flight.  Even though we got a little lost on the drive back to the airport, we still arrived with plenty of time to ‘prendo una macchiato,’ walk through duty-free shops (my favorite) and catch a quick cat nap at the gate.  Mmm, what a contrast to our frantic sprint through Stansted only last Thursday!

Tuscany has absolutely flown by…I can’t believe that in only an hour we’ll be on a flight to Barcelona, the next leg of our adventure!  Saturday night the boys cooked us some delicious spaghetti carbonara while they let the ladies shower…what keepers.  Dinner was heavenly (duh) and after we finished up Enrica’s daughter Claudia and her boyfriend Lucca came over for some vino and conversation!  About five to seven years older than us, they spoke English about as well as we spoke Italian, so there was a lot of hybrid mixing of the languages, asking Peter and Lucca to translate words as we scribbled all over sheets of paper and napkins.  Lots of laughter and two bottles of Lucchesi (Lucca region) wine later, we had two wonderful new Italian friends! 

Yesterday we got up really early, about 7:15, to get ready to go to Florence for the day.  Peter drove us in our lovely Fiat, which we have named Figaro or “Figgy” for short, to Lucca; we caught a 1.5 hour train to Firenze that dropped us right in the heart of the city.  Being the good Catholic schoolchildren we are, Mass was first on our order of priorities, and churches are one thing Firenze is not short on!  We went to 10:30 Mass at the stunning-beautiful-breathtaking-indescribable Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, colloquially known as Il Duomo.  From the outside it’s like spumoni, all green, red and white marble with statues and intricate carving, so I was surprised by the relative austerity and simplicity of the interior…

…until we got under the famous Duomo, constructed by Brunelleschi.  Suffice it to say I was breathless for all of Mass and left the Duomo with a crick in my neck that lasted for hours.

Lunch was next on our agenda and we absolutely dominated some amazing Italian pizza…I had “salsicci e carducci,” or sausage-and-onion.  Delicious...

Yesterday was the Italian Festival of Women so Coleen, Kate and I got free admission to L’Accademia de Bell’Arti, which is home to Michelangelo’s famous statue of David.  We saw some beautiful Renaissance-era religious iconography and then turned into a long hall filled with unfinished Michelangelo sculptures…it was insane to see his works-in-progress and realize just what it takes to create a sculpture of that magnitude.  Best of all was the sight of The David at the end of the hallway in the center of a light-filled atrium.  Words can’t describe.  The veins in his hand, the knuckles on his toes and fingers, the hollows of his neck and planes of his musculature…it is the most stunning thing I’ve ever seen in my life.  I’m pretty sure we spent about twenty minutes just looking, and I came back twice more in the course of our time at the museum.  It’s easily the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. 

After L’accademia, we shopped the famous Florentine market scene and, between the five of us, left with: a Venetian carnival mask (Kate), an Italian silk tie (Charlie), two Italian soccer scarves (Peter), a watercolor print of the Florentine cityscape (me) and major postcard-age (Coleen).  We strolled down to the Ponte Vecchio in the sunshine, shopping a bit along the way at the artisan craftsmen’s shops.  Ponte Vecchio was beautiful but everything was WAY out of our price range…still, fun to look. 

By this time, we were all pretty tired and getting crabby, but I was determined to get to the top of the Piazzale di Michelangelo to see the view of the Florentine skyline that everybody I’ve talked to has raved about.  Sadly, the rest of my group wasn’t too crazy about the idea of walking a mile to climb a huge hill and freeze our butts off looking at a view…but I’m thankful to say they humored me, albeit crankily, and we headed out to la Piazzale.  It was a miserable climb…cold but hot, uneven stairs, etc, but the views along the way and the gelato we bought at the top more than made up for it.  And then there was the benefit of the view…

After enjoying the gelato and view (and meeting some Notre Dame connections through a SMC transfer student!), we headed back down the Piazzale and walked back to the train station.  Tired, cold and ready for a break, we settled in for the two-hour train ride home and completely passed out…then drove around for a while looking for a restaurant until we stumbled upon Il Gattino Bianca, or “The Little White Cat,” where we enjoyed a completely authentic, traditional three-course Italian meal.  Oh, Dio mio, words can’t describe, which is the theme of this trip…it was delicious.  Highlights were Charlie eating boar meat, Peter’s filleta with truffle oil, and the amazing stuffed calamari Kate and I had…not to mention the to-die-for tiramisu we shared for dessert! 

Then it was laundry time, where the misadventures of Team Tuscalonis (our team name, so bad-ass, right?!) to continue…the washing machine was broken and spewed water all over the bathroom, so Kate, Coleen and I did the laundry by hand.  I have such a deeper appreciation for the travails of pioneers. J  After some chianti and conversation, we collapsed into bed before getting up at 5:30am to say “Arrivederci” to Tuscany!

More updates to come from Barcelona!

I guess this is what falling in love feels like.

--originally written on March 6 2010

I am in love with Tuscany.  I never want to leave this place.  It’s so unbelievably beautiful that words can’t describe it and cameras can’t capture it…but being the determined writer/photographer I am, I’ve kept trying to capture it…

We woke up in Pisa early yesterday morning and left our gorgeous bed and breakfast to go take the obligatory tourist pictures by the Leaning Tower…

Once we had done that to our satisfaction we headed back to the airport to get transport to Lucca.  The drive from Pisa to Lucca is super confusing…lots of narrow Italian roads with very little or very unclear signage…but we made it to our tiny town of Massa di Machinaia in just under an hour.  The drive was breathtaking…Lucca is nestled in the foothills of the Italian Alps and along the way we could see the snow-cappped peaks in the distance as we drove through them.  We passed ancient Roman acqueducts, olive gardens (not cheap Americanized Italian restaurants, the real thing), and villas perched so precariously on the edges of cliffs and peaks of hills that they looked like they were all going to fall off.  Churches stood on the corner of every small town street we drove past, and from the switchbacks on the mountain we had to drive through, we could see all of Pisa stretched at the foot, the Leaning Tower sort of tipsily sticking out.  What a drive!  We were in a state of constant awe at its beauty.

At La Casa Di Iva, the house’s caretaker, Enrica, met us and gave us the keys and the grand tour.  The house itself is the most picturesque, crumbly, rustically gorgeous place in the entire world…plunked down on the side of a foothill surrounded by grape arbors, wildflowers and cypress trees, and with the most fantastic views of the Alps.  The one drawback to our abode is that it is FREEZING!  It’s meant to be a summer vacation spot and the heating system hasn’t been updated since around World War II (just guessing)…so we are spending all our time in the house huddled around the radiators or snuggled under blankets.  Still…it’s absolutely fantastic for a home base. 

Our first concern was lunch…thankfully there’s a deli-market right down the road from us, so we walked there and Peter, our Italian-speaking GOD and savior for this leg of the trip, ordered us panini with coppa salami and pecorino cheese that the man makes himself (the salami AND the cheese).  Best. Lunch. Ever.  Every bite was divine.  Ahhhh.  Then Enrica came and took us to see her family’s apiary (bee-keeping farm) and honey factory…that’s her real job.  The bees were all sleeping because it was cold, but we so enjoyed seeing the honey making stuff…and even moreso, getting to taste-test all the different kinds they make!  There were honeys made from acacia (very sweet and light), “millefiori,” or “a thousand flowers,” which tasted the most like honey as we think of it, and “melata,” or chestnut…very rich, dark and almost bitter.  Mmmm.  We all bought small jars to bring with us…they will fit in the airplane’s 100ml rule, yay!

After a completely cut-throat game of Scrabble (which I dominated, as per usual), we headed into Lucca to explore for the afternoon.  After some adventures with a car in narrow, narrow streets of the actual town, we found a garage and parked it, then started to wander.  Lucca is everything I thought a Tuscan town would be…twisty, turny cobbled streets, picturesque, pastel-stuccoed houses, small markets and shops everywhere, fountains and churches throughout.  So beautiful.  We had probably the best afternoon of my life wandering around.  We found a glass-making shop where the family makes all their own Murano-style glass, and we three girls bought tiny, intricate charms to put on necklaces or bracelets.  We found artisan meats and cheeses in delis that we bought to go with our honey for dessert that night (cheese and honey is a Tuscan favorite, apparently), and got giant bottles of Chianti.  We visited a few different gelaterias (not pronounced like “cafeteria”) and tried tiramisu, Nutella, “fragola,” or strawberry, black-cherry amaretto, and sugar-cookie gelatos among us.  We walked along the Renaissance-era stone-and-earth walls that surround the entire city.  We had, in short, the most beautiful and relaxed and generally perfect afternoon of my life. 

Last night we feasted like kings, too!  The very low price of about 30 euro got us fresh-made spinach-and-ricotta ravioli, homemade pesto, insalata with oil and vinegar, bread with honey, cheese and olive oil, and what felt like endless amounts of chianti and local Italian wine.  We ate, drank, and made merry from 6pm when we got home from Lucca until about 10pm, when we were all so tired and content that we decided to go to bed.  Even though it was freezing, I slept like a baby in several sweaters/sweatshirts and three blankets…softest pillow in the world. 

This morning has been slow and lazy…lots of coffee and snuggling up talking about how much we love this place…although we’re off in about 15 minutes to drive to Cinque Terre, supposedly one of the most beautiful places in the world.  Gotta go get ready!  Buona sera, mis amicis!  

this store exists in an alternate universe.

Hello all!
Rainy day in London.  I feel like at this point I should be used to it and expect it, really, but it's hard to when the sunny days are so determinedly, downright gorgeously brilliant that I want every day to be like that.  With rain comes a complete lack of desire to go outside so I'm currently having a lazy Sunday morning...toast, tea, and a blog update.  Lovely.

Hmm, weekend.  Friday was low-key as everybody in the world (assuming the world=the Notre Dame London Undergraduate Program) seemed to have a million papers to do.  We spent the morning working, the afternoon watching "Austin Powers," and the evening having ridiculous misadventures on Marylebone High Street, home of The Golden Hind.  Here's the story:

Since we are Catholic college students, we all like to observe the no-meat-on-Fridays-in-Lent rule, but we also all like to eat as we are all starving in London.  Enter my brilliant idea to take a group of 8 to The Golden Hind, the best fish-and-chips place in London, for a Lent dinner.  Turns out we (shockingly, ha) weren't the only people in London who had that idea.  Got there after ages and ages, only to find that it was completely full-to-the-gills (no pun intended).  We stood outside bewildered for a bit until we saw the TAKEOUT MENU, so we ordered lots and lots of hot golden fish and hot golden chips to eat for takeout before realizing it was about 35 degrees outside and we had nowhere to eat said fish and chips.  So we wandered for a bit.  A long bit.  An eternity, really, when you're starving and can smell Golden Hind emanating from your giant takeout bags.  Finally we found a McDonald's (HA) and bought small pops there and parked ourselves determinedly and ate every last bit of our delicious fish and chips.  And enjoyed it!

Then our group split up and I went with Kayla and Felicia to the Everyman Theater on Baker Street to see "Valentine's Day" on a half-price student ticket.  Let me tell you the best thing about English movie theaters: they let you drink alcohol while watching the movies.  We each had a glass of chardonnay (really cheap chardonnay) while watching the film, and it was a downright lovely time.  We had been met by some more lovely ND girls, and after the film ended we all took the tube back to Farringdon.  Then it was City Pride karaoke night, then we went to another music pub called The Slaughtered Lamb (which was totally Jesus-y and odd, although it made me feel less bad about going to a bar on a Lenten Friday) for MOTOWN night.  We danced like fiends for two hours and had a total blast.  Isaac, Martin, Nicolle, Anmol and I ended up staying up super late just talking and playing Hot Seat and having a marvelous, friendly night.

Saturday: Victoria and Albert Museum!  This was another totally inspired idea on my part because this museum was SO fun.  Isaac, Nicolle and I walked from K-M to Kensington, which turned out to be a 3.5 mile, 1.5 hour walk through some amazing parts of London!  We took most of the normal route to the London Centre, then turned off through Piccadilly Circus (the English version of Times Square), cut past Hyde Park and went down Brompton Road, home of SO MANY AMAZING STORES.  We passed Harvey Nichols, Burberry, Dior, Dolce and Gabbana, French Connection, and bestbestbest of all, HARROD'S.  I immediately melted into a little pile of expensive-fancy-store loving goo and uttered some kind of nonsense like "There is a ridiculously happy feeling in my heart's heart" as we realized what we were looking at.  Nicolle and I immediately decided we had to stop in there on the way back!  The museum was just a bit down the road from Harrod's and we were so excited to finally arrive.

It was amazing!  So much of everything, it was truly one of the most diverse museums I've ever seen.  We all ended up splitting up, and I wandered through exhibits on the medieval Church and the Protestant Reformation, an AMAZING series of rooms devoted to Tudor England lifestyles, an exhibition of armor through the ages, a vast exhibit on the evolution of fashion (so cool!), and best of all, a room featuring eight original Raphael "cartoons," or draft-paintings, for tapestries to decorate St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.  It was SO cool.  After two hours, we rendezvoused in the main entry and headed out for a totally different "look but don't you dare touch" experience.

Harrod's is the most ridiculously over-the-top place I've ever been in my life.  Having visited it briefly senior year with the band trip, I knew moderately what to expect, though Nicolle and Isaac didn't.  We beelined straight to the Food Halls to look around and enjoyed smelling international coffee samples, marveling at designer chocolates and candies, and bemoaning the price of $800 chocolate Easter eggs and $40 (small) blocks of cheese.  Then we ventured upstairs to play "guess the price" in the women's designer section, and sat on some $3500 folding lawn chairs (that I could find doppelgangers for at Pottery Barn) in the home-and-garden section.  All Harrod's-ed out and feeling very poor, we caught the #38 bus home to Farringdon Road and cooked some dinner and did some Facebooking and homeworking.  Around 10 we took a break for cribbage and I was in bed by 11:30.  Mmm, sleep.

As it looks like the sun may be trying to come out, I'm going to wrap this post up with one little factoid for you:
In 2001, Harrod's had a pair of 66,000-pound designer shoes encrusted with rubies, diamonds and emeralds on display.  How did they choose to protect these designer beauties?  They imported a king cobra from Egypt, of course, and put it in the case with the shoes.  Because a snake is such an effective and classy protective device.  Why would anybody ever try anything else?  ;)

the weekend update: issue #2, volume I

Hola, amigos and amigettes!  Again, sorry it's been awhile since I've written, but after cranking out ten pages worth of essays in the past 24 hours I didn't feel like writing another word to, for, or about anything or anyone!  We'll start with the weekend rundown:
1. Saturday: Greenwich!
2. Sunday: St. Paul's Cathedral!
3. Sunday NIGHT: Superbowl!

Exclamation points!

Sitting here now drinking some Orange Tango (it's like a fusion of Orangina and Fanta, only better...) and listening to "bare: the musical" :) and I feel so ADD right now!  Today has been very long and I got very little sleep due to the fact that the Superbowl airs starting at nearly midnight when you are a resident of the UK like I am...blech.

1. Greenwich: Charlie, Coleen and I took a wonderful day trip to Greenwich on Saturday!  It was a gorgeous day...very sunny, very temperate, and pretty clear, which was perfect for what we were doing.  We started the day off with coffee, which was absolutely essential after the night of fun we had all had the night prior.  (I am unhealthily addicted to English coffee...the espresso is about twenty-million times stronger than it is in America, and so I've been forced to relegate myself to mochas since the coffee is just SO caffeiney and strong.  Mmmm yum.)  Coleen and I were immediately attracted to the many darling boutiques lining the main street of Greenwich's centre, but Charlie kept us under control...for the morning, anyway.

We headed down to the piers hoping to see the Cutty Sark, a famous old British Naval ship that I know absolutely nothing about, but it was undergoing renovation and we couldn't even catch a glimpse.  Instead, we continued along the piers and ended up wandering through the quads and courtyards of the Royal Naval Academy, which was ridiculously beautiful and stately and had great views right along the Thames. Charlie then led us to the National Maritime Museum, a huge tribute/museum dedicated to the history of Britain on the water!  We saw so many cool things, including Lord Nelson's uniform from when he was killed at the Battle of Trafalgar, the official gilded barges of the Royal Family from hundreds of years ago, and beautiful stained glass from the East India Company's offices back when it was the premier shipping and trading center in Europe.  We spent several hours there and continued on to Greenwich Park, the former home of the palace (which is sadly not there anymore, boo).

After wandering the gorgeous and expansive park grounds enjoying the sun, we hiked up the hill to the Greenwich Observatory, home of 0 Longitude and the Prime Meridian, as well as the biggest telescope ever (or something, I don't really know!).  The views on the way up were SO beautiful!  We could see London's entire financial district, home to some of the world's most powerful companies, and in the distance could see St. Paul's Cathedral and some of the more historic skyline.  I took so many pictures!  We then nerded out over the history of clocks, the astronomy center, and went a little nuts over the Prime Meridian.  It was really cool to think about standing in two hemispheres at once...even though it was really just standing on an arbitrarily-decided line that really demarcates nothing...sigh.

Charlie had his Frisbee so we played some very challenged Frisbee across the Prime Meridian...he is really good, but Coleen and I both had difficult shoes on, and it was muddy, and we can't throw or catch them very well.  Still, dual-hemisphere Frisbee was a life experience I am very glad I had!  WE headed back down to the central town and on the way passed a boutique called Bullfrogs that Coleen and I just could NOT pass up...we went shopping and both totally scored!! I got a super super cute black coat with bow-buttons and Coleen got two dresses!  Charlie was bored stiff but we headed back soon after making our purchases...overall, a very successful day of fun!

Blech, this is going to be a really long blog.  And I have to go put laundry in.  I think I'm going to go throw that in and take a break; Part II will follow soon!