the golden days

I only have three weeks left in Europe.  Cue sad face.  

I'm very excited to go home.  Don't get me wrong, there are so many things I love and miss about America, and so many things I have come to dislike about London (cost of living, homicidal drivers, constant rain, to name a few).  But those things I dislike about London pale in comparison to the magic of being young and living in Europe and having absolutely not a care in the world beyond finishing a super-easy paper or finding a cheap flight to the next weekend destination.  I'm going to be so sad to leave London, as excited as I am to see my family and friends.  Looking back on this semester, I realize just how lucky I've been to have this experience, and have it the way I have had it...interning, making some amazing new friends (both in the program and among Europeans!), using my French, visiting my best friends all over Europe, seeing the world on a shoestring budget and loving it anyway.  

I've drunk cheap wine, dined on the most innovatively cheap meals possible, and cut costs wherever I can, and it has been so worth it.  I've seen amazing plays and musicals.  I've visited museums I'd only read about in books and seen innumerable works of art, artifacts, and relics.  I've pub-hopped, clubbed and socialized in bars like a real grown-up.  I've mastered public transportation and traveling alone.  I've heard Mass in some of the most famous churches in Christendom.  I've learned to budget and watch money more effectively than ever.  I've gained work experience I couldn't possibly have gotten in the States that will look amazing on a résumé.  I've created memories and stories that will last a lifetime.  

I know I'm getting really sentimental but I just spent 20 minutes on the phone with my mom (who turns 50 today! Happy birthday Mom!) talking about life in general and it made me realize just how fortunate I've been.  I have the best family.  I have the best friends.  I have the best life.  I only hope everything continues to be as golden and wonderful as it has thus far.  

Anecdotes from an amazing week:

1. On Monday at BBDO I put together the budget for a 100-person worldwide company conference in Madrid this July...and my supervisor told me it was "phenomenal." On Tuesday Steph and I worked together all day to totally redesign the system for expense claims and automate it.  Again, we got a great review on our work, and being able to speak up about why we'd done what we'd done made me feel like a huge contributor to a project that will actually have long-term impacts for the company.  I love my job!!

2. On Tuesday night we saw an absolutely amazing play called "London Assurance" at the National Theatre for my London Theatre class, with two of the best comic actors in the UK, Simon Russell Beale and Fiona Shaw (who played Aunt Petunia in the Harry Potter movies).  It was absolutely beyond critique...perfect acting, a beautiful set, great costume design, a plot that kept you riveted and laughing the whole way through.  Our professor called it "a show of glee incarnate" and I agree 100%.  One of the best plays I've ever seen.  I smiled the entire rest of the night!

3. On Wednesday I received flowers at the London Centre from somebody special :) and they were gorgeous and made me happy.  I also discovered Monmouth Coffee Company, the "best coffee in London," and found out that the reputation is true.  Best cappuccino I've ever had...and second-best croissant (the first best being in Paris, of course).  If you are ever going to find yourself in London, ESPECIALLY if you are in the London Program, go to Monmouth Coffee Co.  It's right on the way to class from K-M and it's to-die-for.

4. "Glee" is back and I love it.  Peter, Colin and I watched it Wednesday night and it was so great.  So so great.  :)

5. Today after London Theatre class, a bunch of girls went to Bea's of Bloomsbury for tea and cupcakes.  Red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  And black-vanilla tea.  Oh my goodness, my taste buds died and went to heaven.  I also made a new friend, Laura, who will live right down the hall from me next year.  I'm so excited now for a year that sounds like it will be full of amazing ladies and lots of good times.  

I just feel happy all the way through right now.  I can't wait to see how much I can get out of these next three weeks...hopefully everything continues to be as great as it's been so far.  Sending lots of love radiating out around the world...because happiness like this should be contagious :)

ECIII: Buona Pasqua!

Okay now I'm caught up through to Easter Sunday, when I arose at the buttcrack of dawn (6:30am!) to get ready to go to Easter Mass at the Vatican, presided over by my new favorite guy ever, Il Papa...The Pope!  :)  We set out around 7:30 to stop for espresso and croissants at a little café across from our hostel, then joined the hordes of people waiting to get into St. Peter's Square.  Think airport security, only more religious...

Once inside the square, Phil, Mike, Courtney and I proceeded to our seats, obtained courtesy of Notre Dame (our group had a block of tickets, yeeeah!).  Almost as soon as we sat down it started obnoxiously on-and-off raining, drizzling, misting...call it what you will, but I left London to get away from it, not to sit through four hours of Mass and blessings in it.  We soon figured out that all our umbrellas open at once in a row just meant we all got dripped on by each other...so Phil and I pioneered a very innovative system where his umbrella covered our heads and mine covered his knees...Mike and Courtney shared on my other side, and we all stayed moderately dry for the Mass.

Again, Mass felt more like a giant circus than a holy service, especially with crazy Asians with golf umbrellas standing on their chairs to snap pictures of the Pope.  (I was guilty of mucho photo-taking too, but I didn't stand on my chair to do it.  So there, Asia.)  The square was absolutely filled with people, which was a really fantastic sight.  Poetically, the rain stopped just in time for Communion, and it was a mad rush to get the Eucharist...I ended up being one of the last people in our group who did before they ran out.  That's right, the Vatican ran out of Communion.  So much for planning ahead?...

After Mass, the Pope did the "Urbis et Orbis," blessing the crowd in about 30 different languages and proclaiming that Christ has risen.  It was a beautiful thing to witness, even though I couldn't understand his English at all in the crowd...everybody got really excited when they heard their language called, and Benedict was pretty impressive on his fancy balcony.  All in all, my Easter Sunday experience made me glad to be Catholic, and was just overall really humbling/staggering/mindblowing.  I felt so lucky to be there...celebrating the holiday that our religion is founded upon, in the center of that religion, under the eye of the leader of that religion.  So amazing. :)

After Mass, some of the lovely Rome band girls offered to make Easter Brunch at their apartment, so we headed back there to dry off, warm up and have an Easter feast!  The food was simple, delicious and filling, the company was wonderful, and the time to catch up was much appreciated.  As weird as it was to spend an Easter away from my family, spending it with my band family was the next best thing, as cheesy as that sounds.  Mike also taught us a really fun Italian card game called "scuppa."  I kicked ass.  

After brunch and a bit of cleanup, the Fabulous Foursome (Phil, Mike, Courtney and myself) headed to the Coliseum for a damp afternoon of gladiator-style fun!  Pictures really don't do the sheer size of the Coliseum justice...mostly because you can't get the whole Coliseum IN a picture.  It was really cool.  I nerded out pretty hardcore over the exhibits of gladiatorial armor and weaponry with the guys, then we went out into the main amphitheater where we walked around a lot, took A LOT of touristy pictures, and may or may not have staged an epic gladiator battle, where Mike redeemed himself after his loss in the Circus Maximus.  Then we also may or may not have climbed all over ruined statue pedestals.  The Coliseum, in short, was a really good time had by all.  :)

Post-Coliseum, we got Courtney's hostel situation sorted out and moved her into mine...because any hostel, no matter the price, is better than a sketchy night sleeping in an airport.  Then we started having epic dinner adventures, trying to find a place to go that was a: open on Easter evening, b: reasonably priced, and c: not a total tourist trap.  We succeeded on all counts, finally stumbling onto a cute little restaurant near the Campio di Fiori, a big bar district.  Dinner was awesome because:

1. it was really, really good.  I had seafood ravioli in pink sauce that was a revelation and the menfolk had really great lamb.

2. the wine was really, really good.  

3. the waiter was really, really drunk. No, not kidding.  Like really drunk.  He poured the wine so haphazardly that I was afraid it would spill...and he DID spill our after-dinner grappa.  And he kept hitting on Courtney.  Hilariously so.

4. Grappa.  Oh wow.  He recommended the strongest version of this super-distilled after-dinner wine, calling it "grappa for the men...and power women," indicating me.  Great.  Now I'm a power-woman, and can drink like a man.  Baha.  Anyway, it was about as pleasant as drinking straight rubbing alcohol...not to mention you're supposed to get about a shot's worth and he gave us entire champagne flutes full.  We lingered over our grappa for a VERY long time...and my sniffly, stuffy nose was completely cleared by the end of my drink.  Bahaha.  Such fun.

After a thoroughly excellent dinner full of laughter, drunkenness (on others' parts) and catching up, I had just been reaffirmed in the belief that I have the best friends in the world, and that I miss all my campus friends like nobody's business.  Can't wait to see all of you this Senior Week.  :D  We were very full and very tired at this point so we wandered through Campio di Fiori for a little while then headed home, agreeing to rendezvous for our last day together at a decent hour of the morning...more sleep, MMM.  

10 Morals of my Easter Sunday:

1. Always be prepared for the elements.  That umbrella saved my LIFE.

2. If you want to be Pope, you better be fluent in a bunch of languages, and able to pretend to know a bunch more.

3. Asian tourists.  Grrrrr.

4. Grappa is better used as cold medicine than as alcohol drunk for pleasure.

5. Gladiator fights and statue pictures are ALWAYS a good idea.

6. Brunch is an under-appreciated meal.

7. Drunk waiters are better than sober waiters.

8. ND can get whatever it wants.

9. The Coliseum is really really big.  Huge, in fact.

10. I have the best friends ever.

ECII: Uscita lato…destro?

Saturday in Rome dawned bright and beautiful…I have never been so excited about nice weather before in my whole entire life!  (That’s a lie.  I’m always excited about nice weather.)  Still, this was particularly novel after months of London fog, rain and cloud-cover.  Sun! 

Since we had toured the Vatican Museums on Friday, Phil, Mike, Courtney and I were all able to sleep in a bit more than the rest of the ND “pilgrims,” who had an 8am entry time for the Vatican Museum tour.  GROSS!  Instead, we met up at 10am at Cipro, Mike’s Metro stop, to adventure to the top of the cupola (dome) of St. Peter’s!

That's right.  We were going up there.  Yup.

We got there, and the line was massive…wrapped all the way around St. Peter’s Square.  So we did what every self-respecting American college-student/tourist would do…cut in line. Very subtly, very neatly and not drawing any attention to ourselves.  Still, some stinky tour guide took it upon herself to harangue us for cutting the line…after we’d been in line about 10 minutes.  Needless to say I was NOT going to the back of the queue, so I firmly explained that we had been in line just as long as she had…and that she had just missed seeing us because we were on the other side of the (very wide) queue from her.  She shut up and left us alone…haha.  I was proud of myself for sticking to my guns, even if we were sort of kind of maybe in the wrong. 

Anyway, we waited an hour and a half in all to begin the climb up the Cupola.  It was a fun wait in which we talked a lot, caught up, got squished a whole bunch against other pushy-shovy tourists, and discovered the Italian Jay Leno.  Much fun.  We finally started the ascent, which actually freaked me out a bit…you are REALLY high up even when you’re only like…halfway up.  We climbed some annoying spiraly ramp stairs, then came out on the roof of the Basilica which was really cool.  Then we went inside the Dome…Cupola…whatever the technical name is…and had a fantastic birds-eye view of the interior of St. Peter’s…

We were SO high up!

Then it was time to climb inside the actual dome itself.  I was a tiny bit freaking.  A lot, actually.  Thanks Mike, for talking to met he whole time…you kept me sane, buddy :)  The weirdest part was when the walls and stairs started to slant to the side following the curve of the dome…it was so bizarre and felt like something kooky out of Alice in Wonderland, haha!  At any rate, we finally got to the top…and oh, my god…was it ever worth it. 

Yours truly with St. Peter's Square and Rome in the background!

We spent a long time atop the Cupola appreciating the beautiful views of the Vatican and Rome spread out underneath us, then started the trek DOWN the cupola…which was actually harder (I fell.  Boo.)…then we toured the actual Basilica.  SO huge.  SO remarkable.  SO incredibly gorgeous.  We saw Michelangelo’s “Pieta,” which was staggeringly beautiful, and the tombs of many popes, and just the general architecture and atmosphere of the church.  I loved it!  After we finished the interior of the Basilica di San Pietro, we went DOWN into the Papal Tombs, which are under the Basilica itself.  I saw John Paul II’s tomb and words can’t describe.  Not to mention the even cooler experience of seeing the entry to St. Peter’s tomb, which is down in the Scavi even further beneath the Basilica.  It was such a trip walking over the rock upon which the Catholic Church is built…aaaagh. 

the interior of St. Peter's...pretty unbelievable, huh?

Now for my imbecile moment…being the sleep-deprived traveler I was, I elected to give up breakfast for the more important benefit of an extra 20 minutes of sleep.  As we had eaten an early-ish dinner at Mike’s, and as the Cupola/St. Peter’s/Popes’ tombs took a REALLY, REALLY long time, it was approaching 2:30 by the time we even got out of the Vatican.  I was absolutely famished…almost 20 hours without eating is a REALLY poor life choice.  Phil is doing the McDonald’s Challenge (eating Mickey D’s in every country), so we took some lovely public transit (uscita lado…d’estro? is the Italian equivalent of “mind the gap!”) over to the first McDonald’s in Italy, conveniently located near the Spanish Steps, another destination I had to hit.  By the time we had navigated the public transit and absolutely insane lines at McD’s, it was 3:30 and I was getting really hungry, bitchy and insufferable…needless to say, my friends were really happy when I finally had some food in me and was nicer.  :)

After McD’s, we blitzed through the following essential tourist destinations:

1. Spanish Steps: super super crowded, super beautiful, lots of flowers and sun and fountains. 

"Those damn Spanish Steps!" -Grandma Lois 

2. Designer District: I saw a woman wearing the same Valentino ensemble that Valentino was currently displaying in their window.  Then I laughed.

3. Trevi Fountain: We threw our coins in!  One for Roma, two for love.  :)  I hope they both come true!

Fontana di Trevi!  

4. The Pantheon: It’s huge.  And there’s a hole in top.  And it was so crowded we couldn’t even get to the other side.  I still thought it was awesome, though.

The Pantheon!  An architectural miracle!

5. The Circus Maximus: Home to ancient Rome’s foot races and chariot races (I think) and stuff, Mike and Phil had their own spring race.  Phil won, which means Mike gets fed to the lions later.  Kidding…

After all this touristy running around Rome, we booked it to the Roman Forum and Palatine, which is where ancient Roman emperors and politicians lived, played and worshiped.  IT WAS SO COOL.  I was being such a total dork over the awesomeness of the ruins.  One of the emperors, Nero, had a private indoor island, moat and made a 35-foot statue to himself.  The whole imperial house complex was gigantic and made me reconsider my desire to be a French princess at Versailles…or marry into the house of Windsor…maybe I should go back in time and be an empress in the Roman Empire ;) 

Ruins of the Imperial Forum.  Pretty bad-ass!

The big part of the Forum, the old ruined temples, was my favorite.  Mike knew a ton about the ruins and who each temple was dedicated to, and we had a really good time playing in ruins and making generally touristy fools of ourselves. 

The Forum ruins at sunset.  Amazing.

By the time we finished the Forum, we were starving again (surprise, surprise) so Mike took us to Trastevere (what he called “real Rome”) for a great, great 3-hour Italian dinner at Tony’s…yes that is the real name of the restaurant, haha!  I had chicken parmigiana that was seriously the best chicken parm I’ve ever had ever.  Mmmm I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.  After we killed a bottle of the house wine, we also got limoncello on the house…really yum.  I was a fan.  Our waiter recommended a gelato place 30 feet up the road, so we got gelato (another theme of my time in Rome) and walked down to the Tiber Island.

The gang's all here...dinner at Tony's!

 After finishing our gelato on the banks of the Tiber watching the world go by, we headed out to the island itself.  Had some fun exploring the island, accidentally interrupting romantic trysts, and making “Angels and Demons” jokes…the island is the one that Robert Langdon “washed up on” at the end of the book.  I was thinking about my papa bear all weekend :)  We ended up all grabbing some ground on a pretty little hill and just spending an hour talking and talking and talking (and stargazing!  It’s been so long since I’ve seen real stars!)…I can’t even explain how much it felt like coming home to be spending time with some of my favorite people in the world.  We actually talked a ton about all the people back on campus and how much we miss them…so if you’re on campus and you’re reading this, we missed you then and miss you now.  Then we headed back home again, and I passed out in bed sleeping like a BABY.  Early Easter morning awaited us!

Epic catchup part 1: Roma Reunion!

WOW, so I haven’t written for over a week…call it a combination of blogger’s block, extreme exhaustion, and a week that was particularly hectic and stressful for a multitude of reasons.  Suffice it to say you can expect an absolute blitz of bloggy catch-up here, so stay tuned for the next few days before I head off for Austrian adventures!

Two weekends ago (geez, time flies) as I mentioned, I was in Venice and ROMA for Easter weekend.  To get to Rome, I had to take the night train from Venice…departed at 11:30 pm, arrived at 6:30 am.  I was supposed to have a private 4-person sleeper car with three other women…instead I got stuck in with three drunk, crazy Greek guys who kept trying to get me drunk off Limoncello.  Needless to say, I didn’t exactly sleep much.  Haha.  At the time it wasn’t funny but the further I get from the situation the more humorous it seems :)

I got to Rome absolutely exhausted at 6:30am and took the Metro (I love public transit!) to Ottaviano, my stop.  As I was completely worn out, tired of being alone, and a little frazzled, I went to try to go find my hostel…and couldn’t find it.  I found the building it was in, but it was not listed on the buzzer panel on the left side of the door.  I flipped out and went to sit in the Piazza di Risorgimento, right across the street.  So I spent the next half hour there on a bench under a big statue of a horse, looking at the Vatican (I could see St. Peter’s from my hostel, nbd) and trying to decide if I wanted to burst into tears or not.  I texted everybody I could think of who was in Rome and was like “HELP!  I am tired and alone and lost and I WANT TO GO TO BED!” but at 7am, of course nobody responded.  So I went to find a little café where I had a 1-euro espresso and cried/whined to the proprietor, an awesome old man, for like an hour.  I was all, “Sono solo, sono perduto, sono triste” and he was all, “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” before he finally told me that my hostel was in the building I thought it was in, but the buzzer was on the right side of the door.  I was effusively grateful, found the hostel, grabbed a bed and absolutely CRASHED until noon.  Mmmmmm sleep. 

I can’t even begin to describe the happiness of going to the Basilica of St. John Lateran, which is the real seat of the Pope, and being reunited with Mike and Phil…it was absolutely the best feeling ever, especially after 36 hours of total solitude.  We (along with Courtney) decided we were way too cool for the guided ND tour, complete with hordes of London-Programers and a giant ND flag, so Mike took us on our own guided tour!  We saw St. John Lateran, where the skulls of St. Peter and Paul are, then walked over to the Scala Sancta, or Holy Steps…the stairs that Jesus ascended on the way to be judged and condemned by Pilate.  Most pilgrims go up them on their knees, but as it was Holy Week we walked up the side staircase on foot instead of waiting in the insanely long line.  Then we headed over to another church whose name I am forgetting at the moment, to see the Passion Relics…only it was closed for Mass.  Boo. 

Basilica of St. John Lateran--so beautiful!

Instead of doing that, we took the Metro in the general direction of the Vatican, and got the BEST. GELATO. EVER. at Millennium Gelato, Mike’s favorite place, and decided to try to see the Vatican Museum.  Usually, the line to get in to the museum (which includes the “School of Athens,” “Laocoon and Sons,” my sister’s favorite sculpture ever, and the Sistine Chapel) wraps around two or three sides of the Vatican walls…so it was absolutely amazing that we literally walked up to the door around 3pm and walked right into the museum.  YES win #1 for Team Bandies. 

Coconut and mango gelato at Millennium Gelato.  YUM.

The Vatican Museum was absolutely unbelievable…we’re talking phenomenal ceilings in every room (I think I have a thing for ceilings, judging by the number of pictures of them that I take)…mindblowingly large collections of sculpture just lined up in these amazing rooms…baptismal fonts, Papal rings, chalices, reliquaries and other Catholic equipment…and the artwork.  Aaaaah.  The only thing I disliked is that you literally HAVE to go through a million-and-two different galleries before you can get to the Sistine Chapel…and some of those galleries were really odd, like “Modern Art of the Church” which was NOT my cup of tea.  It was so worth it in the end though. 

The four bandies outside the Vatican Museums.  St. Peter's in the background...

The Sistine Chapel was indescribable.  I know the ceiling gets all the credit, but the walls and the window vaults are similarly incredible.  One side of window vaults tells the story of Moses, and the other tells the Passion, while the wall at the end shows the Final Judgment, with Jesus surrounded by every saint at the time it was painted…utterly mind-blowing.  It was insanely crowded with tourists, and the guards kept yelling “Silence!! NO PHOTOS!” which sort of detracted from the reverent, respectful atmosphere they were trying to create.  Oh, Italians.  :)  I still snuck a few photos….shh, don’t turn me in to the Swiss Guard!

The Sistine Chapel...illegally taken.  Look at that crowd!

After the Vatican Museum, we bought some pasta sauce and noodles at a supermarket and went back to Mike’s apartment to cook up some dinner before Stations of the Cross at the Coliseum that night.  It was great to just catch up with Mike, Phil and Courtney…bandies, I miss you ALL so much.  We then headed over to the Coliseum, obscenely late to meet the giant ND group.  So we didn’t.  :) This quickly became a theme of the weekend!  Instead we took a brief whirlwind walk-past of the Roman Forum and the National Monument on our way over to the Coliseum.

The crush of humanity at the Coliseum was overwhelming…there were SO many people there, waiting to see the Pope and hear Stations.  We jammed in behind some really funny German tourists and settled in to wait for about an hour and a half.  It was so worth it though, as I got to see the Pope!!!

Pope Benedict XVI leading Stations of the Cross 

Benedict XVI in the flesh!  I know it probably sounds sacrilegious but he is utterly adorable in the cutest old-man way.  I just want to hug him, except that’s probably a sin.  He presided over Stations (if that’s what you call it) and the crowd went wild for him.  Stations, overall, felt more like a circus than a reverent pageant, which was kind of odd…but I enjoyed it, especially picking up fragments of the Our Father in Latin and remembering it in French.  Mike also really enhanced the experience for me by translating bits of each station, which were read in Italian. 

After it ended, we all split off to head home…leaving Phil at Largo d’Argentina to catch his tram, Mike, Courtney and I walked to a Metro stop, stopping at the Trevi Fountain along the way!!  It was just as gorgeous as it is in every movie I’ve ever seen it in…although much more crowded.  We skipped tossing coins in for the time being…

Soon I was home, tucked in bed and absolutely zonked out.  It felt soooo good to sleep.  Happily, our Roman adventures had just begun!  

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!

catch up part 1: London Life Lately!

Hi...and oops.  This has taken me way too long to write because work (school and otherwise) still occasionally happens here in London, and this week has been a prime example of that...This update will be a random potpourri of London over the weekend, and then I'll get to that fabled post about Paris...I promise.

As I said on Friday, I had to meet with the internship program director, Cornelius, about BBDO and how things are going there.  He was interested in everything I've been doing, especially in office interaction (one of the major goals of internships in the ND program is to expose students to "real Brits"...yes, they do exist!).  I was extremely positive about the BBDO experience I've had, because it has been, in a word, superlative.  We ended up digressing onto a series of discussions on the London Program in general, which got two thumbs way, way up from me...so weird to think that I only have a little over a month left in this amazing, amazing city!!  :(

After Cornelius and I finished up, I downloaded almost a hundred different piano songs on sheet music blogs and played piano at the London Centre while it poured rain outside, hoping I could wait out the storm (I still hadn't replaced my beloved yellow J.Crew umbrella after spring break!!).  After about an hour and a half of piano time (really, the first time I've played piano extensively since last December...felt AMAZING), the storm had blown over and I set out into a beautiful sunny, rain-washed London.  The sky was absolutely riveting...think black storm clouds and blinding sunlight mixing to turn the whole city into this sparkling wet gorgeously brilliant place.  You couldn't have helped but be happy to be alive.  :)

Of course, I realized that I couldn't hope to get through five more weeks in London without encountering rain, so I stopped at a corner stand in Leicester Square and bought a really cute hot-pink and white striped umbrella...for the low, low price of three quid!  I was excited, even though it's a total piece of crap that will for sure not survive its first real thunderstorm.  Feeling on top of the world, I stopped at Ben and Jerry's for a kiddie scoop of cookie dough ice cream in a sugar cone and practically skipped home, loving the sound of all the different languages (I remember counting at least seven...), traffic and general London hustle-bustle.

Along the way, we always pass the Grey's Inn Gardens, which are surrounded by beautiful red-brick buildings and filled with gravel paths, benches, and absolute fields of daffodils...my absolute favorite.  The problem is, the gardens are fenced off and the gate is usually shut and locked.  Serendipitously though, it was open on Friday and I decided to take a ramble...I ended up off the paths just wandering through daffodils that came up to my knees.  Needless to say, I was absolutely in heaven...I spend 45 minutes there before going home and got my shoes, socks, and jeans soaking wet in the flowers...so worth it!!

Friday night was a letdown.  Think: really drunk college students trying to find a bar pretty far from the flats, without determining if that bar has a 10-pound cover on the weekends due to concerts.  Then think: aforementioned college students discover aforementioned cover, get really upset (irrationally) and instead dive into the first dive bar they find.  Then think: aforementioned dive bar is really gross and skeevy, and aforementioned college students are so weirded out they just go home without ever determining the name of aforementioned dive bar.  That's basically our night in a nutshell.  yupp.

Saturday dawned bright, sunny, warm and...homework-laden.  I've got a big accounting paper due tomorrow night that required quite a bit of researching and background work before it could be written, so I hit the ground running with that and spent hours (literally) reading fascinating (not-so-literally) articles about fair-value accounting and its role in the financial crisis.  Woo!  Then I NEEDED a break so I went for a walk down Farringdon to St. Paul's Cathedral...just a 15-minute walk away for some beautiful architecture and views.  I spent some time there just walking around, enjoying the sunshine, and ruminating on London and life in general.  Then I went home and did more accounting until it was party time!

I mentioned that in Montpellier we met three other American girls: two of them were Laurens who were students at Syracuse and one of them, Lauren L, had already planned to celebrate her 21st at the London Syracuse program.  Once we all connected over Facebook she invited us to join her, so Peter, Kate and I headed to the Syracuse flats near the British Museum for a night of good old-fashioned American fun...beer pong and flip cup followed by a night of clubbing!  We met lots of really cool people from Syracuse, Maryland, Brandeis...and got to reconnect with our fellow Montpellier survivors, which was hilarious.  We entered the party and were instantly famous as "the people who saved the Laurens in Montpellier," which was kinda cool :)  I played a few games of beer pong before getting wiped out by two total hustlers, then enjoyed the rest of the party before skipping out of clubbing to go home and sleep.  Mmm, sleep.

Sunday: Nicolle, Joanie and I decided to try to adventure to find a different church than the one we usually attend.  Unfortunately, we still suck at getting around London even after two and a half months here, and wandered around the area where the church was supposed to be for like twenty minutes before we just gave up and decided we had ultimate-failed but God would love us anyway for trying really hard.  Nicolle headed off to Brick Lane and Joanie and I started home.  We were just casually walking along when all of a sudden I looked up and spotted a familiar tousled head of dark hair and some very familiar man-capris............

I immediately squawked out, "Oh my god...Steph!"  That's right folks, I had just encountered the one and only Stephan Claridge IN THE REAL WORLD.  (Steph=my "handler" and absolute favorite favorite person ever at BBDO, duh.)  He was taken aback at first, I'm sure wondering "who the hell is this crazy girl talking to me" but as soon as he realized it was ME IN THE REAL WORLD we both got really excited and said a lot about "oh my god, it's a small world!" He then pointed out his flats...literally 25 yards from where we were standing...and I promised I wasn't a stalker.  After a few laughs and small talk, we parted ways.  I felt like SUCH A GROWN-UP.  I ran into a work friend in real life, and even cooler, he introduced me to his friend as "his colleague at BBDO."  That's right.  I am officially a COLLEAGUE.  Hahahahaha.  :D

The rest of Sunday was uneventful...some work, some catch-up on cleaning and laundry, and of course Mr. Martin Colianni's 21st birthday celebration!! Homemade chocolate torte by Kayla, profiteroles and cream tarts from Tesco...aaah wait there IS a story left.  And then this epic blog will be done.

I got asked out by the checkout boy at Tesco.  (This is the part where you laugh...)

Tesco is a very ubiquitous, very cheap supermarket and we ND students are pretty well-known at our local Tesco because it is convenient, in our price range, and sells Lambrini, the 1.50 pound wine we all love and drink like water.  I went in around 9 on Sunday night and was the only person in the store so the staff chatted me up a bit while I picked up sundry essentials.  One guy, an Indian teenager who couldn't have been older than 18, was especially friendly, asking about my weekend and being generally helpful.  He went to the register to check me out and when I gave him my card to charge the items, he commented, "Elizabeth, a lovely name...like the Queen!"  I was sort of like, "Yeah, haha, it's nice..." and thought to myself, "Weird, but whatever, sweet."  Then he looked at me and asked, "I get off work at ten, do you fancy having dinner with me?"  I seriously was like... "Whaaaaat?" in my head and spent ten seconds wondering if he was serious, completely dumbfounded and amused by the situation...and then I was very polite and said I had a birthday party to attend and left.  It was just very funny and ironic and amusing, and makes for a funny anecdote that is much better relayed in person.

Okay, now I'm done, because even I am bored of this blog at this point and I just need to stop writing it.  If you finished this whole entire post, you need to go make yourself a cup of tea and have a few Cadbury eggs to celebrate.  :)  Much love and happy Tuesday to all of you!!