And In closing…

Sorry for the delay on this folks…I was trying to add the pictures to it…I have officially failed…check back soon for the pictures of the funny things towards the end and enjoy!

******

In a long overdue post I will bring to a close this incredibly intense semester. The last week of London is still a bit of a blur..make that a total blur.

I did a ton the last week but two things really stick out as needing to be documented. On thursday (T minus one week till America) my dear girl Nina and I decided to check out Harrods. Can we say…the most magical place in the whole wide world? It was decorated for Christmas in a Wizard of OZ theme…very sweet. and creepy. But mostly cool. Lots of emerald city colors and gold shiny things not to mention the hard core ruby red slippers designed by same bad ass designers. For those of you who have never been and I highly reccommend should you ever find yourselves in dreary old london without a toppin to spare…toppin?…whatever. Anyway. The bottom floor is all food related…they have a huge deli/market/grocery store/candy store/everything else edible and delicious. Our original plan was to grab something there but when we asked where we could sit down and eat, a rather nice butcher informed us we had to go outside. Outside? We said. As is…outside the store? To which he replied yes…and i’m pretty such that was followed by a …bloody americans but I can’t be sure… Anywho he then informed us that we could eat at one of the TWENTY EIGHT…thats right…twenty eight restaurants INSIDE of the store. There isn’t 28 restaurants in my entire town. Consider my mind blown. They have everything from Sushi to Mo’s Diner to a Chocolate bar..nom nom nom. We settled on the Harrods restaurant and lunched (for absurd prices) on tomato soup, tea and the best scone i’ve ever tasted. *whimper* Then, as budding magazine journalists and mature adults, we made a be line for toy world! Giant teddy bears and a ridiculous doll house held our attention the longest. We then headed upstairs and explored the magical world of shoes I’ll never be able to afford, dresses whose prices hurt my eyes and china that was just exquisite. There was also a section called  Something Gifts…like fancy gifts or rich gifts or useless crap that rich people give each other…whatevers.. I guess you could say we lost track of time…We spent 5 hours in the store and didn’t even see it all. Five hours. That is intense…We finally stumbled out into the sunshine (and by sunshine I mean grey, blustery cold) and shopped a little more before heading back to our respective apartments.

The other day that stands out a little is our last sat night. Katie Mae, myself and our friend Amelia headed out to Jack Horners…which was of course packed when I had a sudden craving for well…since it was legal there..margaritas! And some mexican. When we got there we were told it was going to be 45 min. No big deal we could get our drinks and hang out in the…oh …whats that? The bars so crowded there isn’t room to swing a dead cat? No worries. We’ll just drink these frosty cold margaritas in the 30 degree weather outside. Cowgirl up, as I always say. As we were sitting there enjoying our drinks and shooting the shit…so to speak…we were suddenly distracted by a rather large group of santas wandering past us. It wasn’t (oddly enough) the fact that ther were people dressed as santa that caught our attention. Just stay with me…it gets weirder. There was, afterall, the 12 pubs of christmas pub crawl going on and santa attire was mandatory. It was the fact that these santas were circled around a santa and an elf chanting “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!” That was, until, they noticed the two telephone booths. The next thing we heard? “ALL THE SANTAS IN THE TELEPHONE BOOTH!”

For those of you who are shocked by graphic photos of grown men shoving themselves into telephone booths while dressed as santa and his elves…please scroll past the next few pictures. They are disturbing indeed.

I believe the grand total in each was 8. And those booths are freakin’ tiny! As dad would say, “On a normal day…that might seem a bit odd” But not to us and not to london. We had an amazing dinner that lasted four hours as we chatted about everything from politics to religion to the weather. No topic is taboo.

After sat. was just a rush of finals stressing and finals taking. My last final (crime and punishment) and end of semester was celebrated with some amazing friends in a local pub called The Swan. Our last night out (joined by our friend john who had a layover in London on his way home from a semester in India) we celebrated two birthdays and the end to an amazing semester before heading back to pack our lives into two suitcases and pray we were under the 50 pound weight.

Hannah was the first to leave and KT mae and I took some last rounds of London before heading off to catch our 4pm plane from heathrow to home.. I had made the mistake of saying…what a beautiful day to be leaving london while admiring the blue skies (I’m being serious) and fluffy white clouds and moderate temperatures on our drive to the airport. Once there, in a fantastic London Send off. A freak and short blizzard caused a few delays and pushed our flight back a few min. Then I heard an announcement.

“Can passengers Bassler, Katie and Panetta, Kasey please report to the main desk?”

…No. We’re getting on this DAMN plane come hell or high water. Nothing was stopping me at this point. I was however sure that they were going to inform us that something was wrong with the tickets and we’d have to take the next flight. Well over my dead body was I not getting on that plane.

Mid-mental rant I realized they were just telling KT and I we had no back of seat entertainment because we had some weird experimental seats. Whatever. Heart rate returned to normal .

Until..we boarded the plane and the pilot said sorry folks short 20 min delay which in british talk apparently means…one hour delay. Finally we took off and after watching several movies and chatting with Nina (who was randomly and quite luckily seated next to us) we finally were informed of a newark approach and…as you may have guessed, a 20 min delay..read..an hour delay. We finally landed got through passport control and to baggage where my bags were as you may have guessed…the last ones off the plane. Sweet. Keep in mind it is now about 3am in my head. Then finally sweet sweet customs. I had lost KT somewhere but..she was on her own. This was  business time! In my defense i did try to wait for her but kept getting yelled at and didn’t want to get thrown out of the country. Anywho, I walked down a long ramp and into a big hug from mom and dad.

In my mind America breathed a sigh of relief and uttered a classy, “Well butter my  butt and call me a biscuit. Look whose Home!”

*cue closing credits*

And in closing…for real….

Wow. I cannot believe that the semester is over and soon I will be returning to the wintery tundra of Syracuse. This semester was amazing, terrifying, spectacular, stressful, mind blowing, insane and any other extreme adjective you can think of. I’m a magazine major so if I keep going we could be here for days. First of all thanks to all of you who read my blog…I know the blogs got insanely long for a while but it has been really fun to share my experiences with you all. And thank you to everyone who took the time to share with me the fact that enjoyed reading it. There is nothing quite as amazing as realizing someone actually likes your writing!

So, I learned a lot this semester…even some things that I didn’t know I didn’t know…stay with me. I learned how to not panic in a medical crisis, how to find a flat, how to book a flight, navigate and airport, hell…navigate a country…where you don’t speak the language and a ton more things! It’s been an amazing experience of ups and downs and not at all what I expected. It is definitely an experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything and unfortunently I’ve officially been bitten by the travel bug…hello wanderlust. Once again. Thank you for all your support! Hope you enjoyed it.

Stay tuned to the blog…it may get updated into a thesis project so we shall see…

Signing off for the last time…

Ciao bellas…

Kc

Catching you up.

So, it was an interesting thursday of last week. I got up and went to class and had some fish and chips with KT and Kristin before heading back to Faraday for some serious reading time. School is fun.

I met up with Megan and Nina (my mag girls and partners in crime) outside the camden  markets to grab some delicicous food at this place called Silks and Spice which was Thai and various other Asian-type foods. It was amazing to catch up and chill with some friends after a long week of school.  We talked about everything that girls talk about and it was nice to just unwind. Also had amazing sweet and sour chicken something something and my first Dim Sum …delicious. What have I been doing with the past 20 year of my life. The world may never know. The girl talk was amazing I have to say. We chilled out for about an hour and a half and then headed to The Roundhouse Theatre to see La Clique.

La Clique was byfar the biggest surprise for me show wise this semester. As Linda (our SU guide) said, “you probably have to be a bit pissed to fully enjoy it” thats pissed british (drunk) not american (mad). I had no idea what to expect but it was amazing and really different. It really fit the feel of Camden…definitely a show that belongs there. Anyway, the roundhouse (appropriately named) is a big round theatre with a small round stage maybe maybe 7 foot in diameter in the center. It was part comedy, part raunchy variety show. It was also a first for me for many reasons. First time I have had the opportunity to sing “We are the champions…no time for losers cause we are the champions of the world!” in a crowd full of people out of their seats waving their arms about in the air. There was also a VERY attractive man performing on chains hanging from the ceiling. Think acrobats twirling from ribbons hanging from the ceiling thats what it was basically. The most surprising act by far was a woman who came out dressed in a very professional suit with a skirt. She pulled out a red piece of cloth and made it disappear and pulled it out of her suit jacket. Which she then took off. Then she pulled the cloth out of her skirt. Which she also took off. Next was the bra. Finally..when we thought she was done…she pulled it out of her panties…and…took them off….at this point I looked over to see how Nina was reacting. Then i reached over and closed her mouth as her jaw had basically hit the ground. I had more or less the same reaction. We just were not expecting that! The naked woman the pulled the cloth from her…well…i’ll leave that to your imagination. This is a PG blog. For the kids.

Anyway…so the show was fantastic and really funny. Exactly what I needed a show where I got to laugh and wolf-whistle and holler…not that I did I’m just saying the opportunity was there. It was a good stress reliever. After the show was over we all hopped on the tube together and after looking into the next car saw one of our favorite SU people in the car. Poor Charine. We made faces at her and then waited until she was no longer paying attention to us for all 7 of us to crowd around the window facing her. Basically, when she looked up she just saw a window with all of our heads crammed into the frame. Hilarious. THe people on the car def. were rolling there eyes thinking silly americans but we had fun. We all headed to the Christ-makah party at prearranged housing for some legal drinking and holiday cheer.

Friday was pretty tame. KT, Nina and I spent our entire day working on a powerpoint for GRA 345 about the representation of femininity in magazines. I got cosmo. Woo! That night we headed way out into zone 2 to meet up with Dom for the last time (sad) and have a few drinks with him. For the first time, I was ignored for like 10 min by a bartender. Not cool.

Saturday and Sunday were both work days but we made sure to have Kristin over to watch The Holiday as promised!

It has been an exhausting few days of late nights. I’ve been at Faraday till about 9:30 three nights in a row (cept for when they kicked us out at 9 on Sunday) and its made for some cranky Kc. I’m headed to Harrods tomorrow with Nina however so that should be fun.

In other good news, I got the assitant editor position for an on-campus mag for next semester. I am now the official assistant Bitch editor. Not kidding…the name of the opinions section is Bitch. Perfect for me or what?

Cheers.

Kc

Just a Quick Update

Hello Blog readers,

Just a quick update about my life mostly for my later memories but I have to share that I went on possibly the worst trip I’ve been on since being here (this includes passing out in Ireland remember!). It started out innocently enough…go to the Cadbury Factory…harmless right? WRONG. So terribly wrong. We had to get on the bus at 8:30am with Stormin’ Norman our 80 year old tour guide from SU. A two and half hour bus ride to Cadbury while trying to sleep despite a VERY loud Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (The J.D.) version and we arrived at the factory sleepy and cold. We were told to leave our jackets on the bus…then we had to wait outside..thanks. Then we went inside. I should have taken my chances with the hypothermia. So. Many. Children. Everywhere. Evil. Anyway, basically its like a crappier version of the Hershey Tour…also more boring. Terrible. Definitely skip it unless you like expensive and boring crowd events. We had about 5 min to grab sandwiches before being herded back onto the bus for a canal boat ride. The canal boat ride almost saved the day because basically we ignored the tour guide and got to chat with our friends for the hour which is always fun. Then we were dragged back ont the bus to stop at yet another cathedral with ruins. This would have been fine but it closed at 5pm and we got there at 4:45pm. Problem? Not for us apparently. I got off the bus..used the bathroom and got back on. I’m done with churches. It was then about a 3 hour bus ride back to the drop off point. So displeased. It has been the first trip that I was completely disgruntled about.

Then Monday night my friend Nina invited Hannah and myself to go with her to the Advent Processional at St.Pauls my favorite cathedral. It was a beautiful ceremony although they were a bit more fire and brimstone than the catholics tend to be (I know. its crazy) and the choir music was simply incredible. All in Latin but beautiful. They had the children’s choir and the adult choir and all the church people in their finery.

Then last night I was able to snag a ticket to see Avenue Q which was hilarious and amazing. Heres a little clip from a show they did. This isn’t the theatre I saw it in but this is the opening song..

I can’t believe I’m only here for two more weeks. It really has flown by it seems but at the same time when I look back over the past couple months it seems like a lifetime since I said goodbye to my friends and family and flew off towards adventure. I was talking about this with a friend the other day over a good pub lunch. How we both had sort of forced ourselves to come here completely unsure about what we would be encountering this semester. It has been an incredible experience and one that I wouldn’t have given up for anything. More thoughts towards this probably in my final post.

Cheers,

Kc

15 Days Till Home.

Check Seeing the Queen off my life list…

I must apologize for my lack of posts lately. I was up to like three a week at one point but now I’m getting lazy with less than three weeks left!

I’m going to start with most recent happenings and work my way backwards through the week because my parents came to visit (!!!) and we had an amazing time and I need to spend time doing that!

Anyway, so, as you yanks know, yesterday was Thanksgiving but alas as I heard one of our british professors remark…we here in Britain have nothing to be thankful for. So, I had class on Thanksgiving…not only did I have class but I had a 12 page paper to turn in. Happy Thanksgiving! So to celebrate, KT and our friend Kristen went to get some free pumpkin pie from SU where they pitied the poor souls who had class on whats normally a national holiday. Then we headed over to The Swan where i had traditional English pie (think chicken pie) and some mash for the holiday season. For Thanksgiving dinner…i had vegetable soup in a pub called Shakespeares head. Interesting. From there, I went to see the Nutcracker at the Royal Opera House. It was truly incredible. I really loved it and I’m not a ballet person at all. It was perfect for a holiday away from home and def. put me in a better mood. The costumes were amazing, the dancing was unbelievable and the music is well..the music from the nutcracker. So amazing. Then I came home and video chatted with my  family including: one mom, one dad, two siblings, one aunt, one cousin, two grandparents and one poodle. It was almost like i was there. God Bless Technology.

Today, I celebrated Thanksgiving with a traditional meal with some friends who had invited me to help them consume their food. As usual, I got there late…but about 5 min before eating time…they will never know if that was on purpose or not. In my defense, I WOULD have been ontime if not for some chatting back home and stupid tube traffic. I was standing on their stoop when Dave called me to make sure I wasn’t dead. Happy thanksgiving. They had an amaazzing amount of food and random parts of some peoples families were around. It was a great way to celebrate I think. Great friends, great food, legally drinking …you know how it is. We had the typical conversations about where Britain could REALLY be considered a part of Europe and how dolphins are really the bullies of the sea and how free willy beats flipper hands down (Lies). So, the usual. It was amazing and it made me feel a little less sad that I had missed dinner with my own family.

Okay, now we’re going to take things back a little to the 16th of November when my parents (yay!) arrived in London. I ran (literally) over to their hotel on monday night around eleven when they finally got in to hang out and then head back to my place to sleep. They went off to the British Museum in the morning and then met up with me outside of Faraday–where I informed them that I needed to work on aforementioned 12 page paper–and sent them off to check out the little italian church. When we reconnected finally I took them to my favorite pub, The Jack Horner, which is on a corner. Clever. They got their first traditional english pies and wine…I got a burger and a beer. Which dad made me order myself because he said it was emasculating to make him order a “Halfpint of organic honeydew beer”…whatever. I brought them back to see my flat and then took them to the Thames river and the Tate Modern. We were done in…just over an hour which I think shows our lack of appreciation of modern art. I mean, we were watching an artistic movie…and suddenly a naked guy appeared. Dad squeaks out…A BUTT!…and I dissolve into giggles and have to leave. Amused. The thing we did like was the table and chairs that were three times the size they were supposed to be. Like took up a whole room…mom said she felt like loki walking under the table.

For dinner we went to this amazing greek place called TAZ. Mom and I loved it…dad had texture problems…but we ended up getting all these different tapas style things like hummos, yogurt and spinich, something with beans, something with artichoke…and you dip the delicious bread in it…awesome? Yes.

Wednesday was pretty awesome. If I do say so myself. I wanted to show my parents Parliament, one of my favorite buildings in London, check previous posts for pictures. But when we came out of the tube we couldn’t get anywhere near it because of the barriers.

**Side story** When we were trying to figure out what was going on. A little boy walked up to a bobby and proceeded to ask him if he had a gun. The bobby replied that no he did not but others did. Cue mystified boy walking away and American tourists laughing. Sorry to interrupt. Carry on. **

Anyway, we heard music and stopped to watch and see what was happening. After about 10 min, i finally asked a cop what was going on as the streets were all closed, there was a ton of people and even more police/bobbies, He replied with magical words: Its the opening day of parliament. For those of you who don’t know this…the Queen opens parliament. She was on her way! So we waited for abotu 45 min in the cold and sometimes rain but we got to see the queen. Am I the best tour guide ever or what? Picture? Yes. Please view.

The Queen!

Shes the one on the right far side. After…seeing the freakin queen…and various members of parliament along with the royal guards and also a horse ambulence etc. we headed over to Westminster Abbey where everyone whose anyone is buried. It was interesting. There are so many things that just don’t quite fit in the abbey like they just said. One more dead body and plunked it in there any ol’ way. I really enjoyed the Oliver Cromwell was buried here for like a minute before the king came back to power dug him up decapitated him and hung him. No big deal. True story. Thats what happens to people who overthrow and kill kings. The interesting thing was his daughter was buried in the church with him. Her grave was left untouched. Also buried there is Chaucer (awesome) and some rando other writers enmasse. That was def. my favorite part. Also basically any kind/queen/lord whoever is there to. Not as cool as St.Pauls in my opinion but still pretty sweet. Then I had stupid class and my parents headed over to Harrods which apparently I need to go check out. We met up for dinner and I took them to see Picadilly Circus and we ate at a place called Adams Ribs where none of us got ribs. Surprised? No. But its kinda like Times Square so I think they enjoyed the pretty lights.

Thursday they set out to see St.Pauls and I was supposed to go to class but luckily…it was canceled and I got to sleep in. Woo! I met up with the parentals at my favorite pub on the Thames called the Founders Arms where we had an amaazzing lunch before heading off to go on the London Eye. Walking alone the Thames is always a blast and they have a ton of awesome street performers…many are a little bit freaky but what are ya gonna do.

Lizard Things

and a police officer wearing a tu tu

Creepy? Or Genius? You decide.

Then we went on the london eye!! Love parent sponsered outtings.

The pods

My mommy is beautiful

Scenes of London/Parliament

I think that last one looks extra london-y like Mary Poppins style

After that we headed towards 10 Downing St. but got distracted by the Churchill Mueseum which was one of the most fantastic museums I’ve ever been in I highly recommend checking it out. Basically it consists of the war tunnels that Churchill hung out in and planned the war when London was being bombed. It was all about the people who lived there and churchill himself. So you get to walk through the tunnel and then theres a huge museum part about churchills life where i learned my favorite quote…”We are all worms. But I do believe I am a glow-worm.” Love it. Then we headed out to Covent Garden for dinner with Hannah and KT which was really fun I think.

Friday was an epic day. We rented a car to drive to Bath and see the Roman Baths. This is fun because dad had to drive a stick shift, on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road. And because I didn’t think about it…he started out in center city London. In this car:

#1 Badass Dad

Look. Hes crushing it with his foot. Itty bitty.

So, after a hair-raising two hour drive.

we finally got to bath.

Btw. I have the #1 dad ever. Though I’ve never seen him quite as flustered as he was driving. I suppose I should have rented the car not from center city london but at heart I’m still alittle girl and daddy can do anything. No big. He did it. And we only went around parliament square twice. Hey kids, theres big ben!…Hey kids, theres big ben…again!

So we went for lunch at the famous Sally Lunns which had incredible buns and tea and soup and eh british sandwiches. Lame sauce.

Then we headed out to the Roman Baths you can google it for more info but basically it was a roman bath/temple/pilgrimage site they discovered under the city of Bath.

Roman Baths

After this we wandered around the city for a while (The Jane Austen Center was closed ) and then headed back home to London. Dad was so traumatized we went directly to the pub for a drink. Love my parents epic amounts!

Saturday I took my parents to Camden Market. Please see earlier post for description of the market so we wandered around for a bit and then grabbed lunch at Jack Horner. Nom nom nom. I went home to work on my paper and mom and dad hit up the british museum. We ended up at the restaurant at their hotel…just us. In the dining room all alone. It was bizarre. We had tried to go to the British Museum Restaurant but it was closed. How rude.

Sunday we went to the Tower Bridge Exhibit to learn all about the bridge. Pretty interesting and plus it was pouring so good timing. For those of you who don’t know what the tower bridge is a. read a book 2. its the one that everyone thinks is the “London” bridge.

 

We're adorable.

Happy 29 years

Then we walked along the Thames for a bit.

My parents then experienced what its like to live in a building filled with college students when your lobby smells like weed 24/7. Win.
We ended up at this amazing restaurant called Gaucho? for dinner with amazing wine and conversation (where i found out I apparently came from a line of bad ass feminists?) The restaurant is decorated entirely in cow-colors and is actually classy..not like..plastic cow heads more like the furniture is covered in cow fur? Its fun. More fun is that its a steak place. Cruel humor.

Then we said a sad goodbye .

Anyway, it was a great week where I got to do touristy things under the guise of being all cool and guide-like.

Cheers,

Kc

 

What DO they wear under their kilts?

 

Last thursday Hannah and I departed with a group of SU students headed to Edinburgh, Scotland about a four and half hour train ride from London. Sorry for the boring first sentence…thats just how it is. Anyway, so who knew that they had internet on trains? Not me. Pleasantly surprised. Also a new favorite form of transportation. I had some editing to do and Hannah and I watched Roman Holiday so it went by pretty quickly. We met our professor for the trip Forbes Morlock. Real name. Anyway, when I met him…he was drinking Stella. We were on our way to being friends.

We arrived in Edinburgh around 11pm and though thoughts of going out seemed like a good idea on the train…once we hit the hotel…exhaustion hit us. So..like the awesome partier we are…we went to bed. Par-tay!

Friday had a 9am start where we headed to check out the heritage center. This is boring except for the fact that the room we were in looked like a miniature version of the library from beauty and the beast. Awesome? yes. I  want one. Please observe.

My future Library

Then, we went to check out the Queens resident castle-y thingy (technical terms only people) through the bars like the commoners we were. Then we headed out to see the Scottish Parliament. Now, the thing about the scots is they are very live off the land and the land is our power. I’m not commenting on this. I’m simply going to show you a picture of their 400 million dollar parliament (budget 40 million) from above. It is supposed to look like a tree that grows out of the land. Once again…not judging simply noting. The base is the concrete part covered in grass towards the right hand bottom side. Not the white thing…thats a geology museum.

Tree Parliament

We headed inside to take a look at the actual chamber where Britain allows Scotland to sorta kinda rule themselves except when it comes to anything important. Its a pretty cool building except for the fact that it feels a little like a bunker at some points and an IKEA store at others. Lots of lights and light colored wood but then cement tunnels. Interesting.

Anyway, this is when my professor was talking about the importance of the architecture of the building. It was built to be transparent to the outside. Lots of windows etc. This is when he was telling us about a conference/dinner he went to when a professor from Newhouse was talking about how cool Newhouse III was because it was built mostly out of glass  and it represents free speech and all that jazz. He remarked how original this idea was. To which Forbes replied, “For fucks sake, they’ve been doing that for 10 years.” Thats right…my professor said For fucks sake…in the middle of parliament. New fav professor? Yes, I think so.

Moving on.

We started walking up the Royal Mile, which is a  mile (go figure) of road in between the Queens residence and Edinburgh Castle making a few stops along the way at grave yards to pick out graves for people like Humes, Robby Burns and economist Tom Smith. This is where we learned about fun things like buying pigs and putting then in the street to eat all the …poo…and stuff…that got thrown onto the street. Here piggy piggy piggy. Treats?

Edinburgh is a really interesting city because it was basically built in two parts: New Town and Old Town. Old town was built around Edinburgh Castle for geographical defense. It’s basically on a giant mountain and the town was just built up around that in a haphazard slapdash sort of way. After they decided that there wasn’t a huge danger of being attacked anymore (also the city stunk and was gross) the rich people moved out to New Town…basically a giant suburb organized into nice squares and georgian mansions. Rich people give the finger to the poor as they hustle away to their mansions. Theres something new and different. Fun story. The two towns are separated at one point by a pub:

The Worlds End.

Thats right. It was right next to the wall that once circled old town and was literally for the people that lived there. The worlds end. We went to this pub later on friday and as one kid commented. Wow…the worlds end was really calm. Needless to say…we left.

ANYWAY.

Edinburgh Castle. Built in some year you don’t care about for defensive purposes. Look at the pretty pictures.

Prreetttyyyyy

Castle

oooooooo

View out of the castle.

So inside the castle they keep their royal jewels and also this stone called the Scone..pronounced scooooon. Not like the food which is basically a stone with two footprints in it. As I said, Scots take their power from the land and the old kings would literally carve their footprints into a stone. Basically, England…being the jerks they are…carved the rock out of the mountain and took it to england. As you do. To further humiliate the Scots they put the stone under the coronation chair. They are very into symbolism here so the kings were literally crowned over the power of scotland. So. A few scottish frat boys…more or less…decided to break into Westminister and steal the stone back. Awesome? Yes. BAMF-y? Def.

Anyway there are also giant cannons on this site. We were warned that we could take pictures with them but were not allowed to stuff our friends inside. Obviously this meant an immidiate change in the afternoons plans.

Then we ran (literally we were late) to a tour of a georgian mansion which was really very cool. With all the furniture and set ups that they would have had.

Amusing anecdote. When we were hustling to the house I turned around to alert Hannah and friend that we had about 5 min to go about 15 min and found myself basically yelling into the faces of 15 scotsman. American diplomacy at its best.

Then we headed to a Bank. Lame sounding but check out the ceiling.

And finished off the day with real tea at The Dome which smelled like christmas and was all decorated with lights and trees. So haapppyyyy. and then I made a silly decision…to go on a ghost tour.

Now it was school sanctioned and Forbes recommened we try it so we could see the vaults basically walled in arches of a bridge that because of leaking problems couldn’t be used as anything so the criminals moved in. Apparently alot of bad stuff went down in these vaults and they are supposed to be quite haunted. Mercat Ghost tour? Never again. As we walked to the vaults our tourguide pointed out some kids dressed all in black skulking around outside a church. He called them emus…we’re pretty sure he meant emos. Amused. Then into the vault we went. There were some crazy stories that the guide was telling us about people on the tour being possessed and seeing ghosts including a friendly cobbler, a crazy creepy “Watcher” who just watched and yelled “GET OUT” at people. The tour guide also yelled GET OUT at us when telling us this story. Which was fun since he had been speaking really quietly and telling us how we were in what the BBC called the most haunted room in Scotland…I almost cried. There was one ghost who was supposed to hate women and kick and scratch at them. Fun? Yes. Anyway…nothing happened big surprise but it was a small dark place with the potential for terrifying things. Because apparently I have convinced myself these things are good “experiences”.

After all this we headed out to dinner and a Scottish Pub called The Royal Mile. This place made me fall in love with Scotland and the people who live here. They are so vibrant and full of life and they love american music! The live band played us some Kings of Leon (We heard the song Sex on Fire about 9 times), some Johnny Cash while we enjoyed our strong bow. This was where …a guy checked me out and then acknowledged me by tipping his hat. Very polite. I like it. We hung out for a while and then headed back in the pouring rain to the hotel.

We headed out again at the crack of dawn (9am) for our bus tour outside of Edinburgh tour day starting at Dunfermline basically the ruins of an old abbey. I’ll show pictures but its really not  super fascinating  so…yeah..

Then we headed out to Burntisland which is a coastal town with a really cool square church with a very cool graveyard.

And then to Elie another seaside village where we stopped for lunch at a pub.

This pub became a historic site for me as it was the first and last time that I tried Haggis, a scottish dish. Bleh. Ground up baby lamb bits cooked in baby lamb stomach. Pass. So icky.

The beach

Heres some windblown pics of me, hannah and our new friend caroline. Don’t judge my fattness..i was wearing like 8 layers.

Caroline, Kasey, Hannah

Then we headed off to our last stop St.Andrews. Apparently a golf mecca. Who knew? Better than that. Who cared. Not me. But here is a picture of the 18th hole. Woo.

Then we headed over to the beach next to the green apparently its the one used in Chariots of Fire.

Christina and the seagulls

Beautiful reflective beach

Me! Windblown sexy hair and all.

Then we headed to the ruins of St. Andrews Cathedral

Cathedral

Sacred gravestone

We finished up at the St.Andrews Castle. Not much to do here but we did check out the siege tunnels that were built to attack the castle from beneath and preserved here. Hi. my names kasey and I’m clausterphobic. I went into the tunnels which at their smallest were about 3 feet high…I did not freak out. This is a minor miracle. I will be stealing a photo from hannah of the tunnel to post at a later date. I was too scared to take a photo. Go team.

Here is a quick photo from the castle looking out towards the water and land.

Then we headed back to Edinburgh and out to dinner at a lovely italian place where we had some problems understanding the waiter and he had no idea what we were talking about. Good times. Great food though. From there we headed out to find a bar..ended up at the scariest pub ever called the black bull pub. One of those pubs you walk into and feel like without your leather gear and a harley..you can’t swing it. Needless to say we peaced pretty fast. We found a bar called the Bank Bar..an old bank converted to a bar…as you might assume with some great live music although the singer prefered to banter with the crowd and only played about 9 songs in the 1.5 hours we were there (hannah sang with him once) before heading to a pub in the Grass Market area. no one could remember what this area was called throughout the weekend..it was called green market grass place green grass market basically any combination of those words. We dragged ourselves back to the hotel and crashed.

Sunday (and you’ll note these are getting less descriptive because you’re probably not reading at this point anyway) was pretty laid back. We went to the Scottish gallery of art and saw some cool paintings some scottish some by people like Rapheal (feel free to think about teenage mutant ninja turtles I’ll wait.) and then to the Scottish Musuem of history. We spent a total of about 20 min in both of these before we were set free. A group of us girls decided to climb to Arthurs Seat. A giant GIANT hilltop with a path to the top which was at what we would discover would be about a 45 degree angle. Dislike. Then we grabbed some pub grub and shopped around till we had to catch the train back to London Pictures to follow of Arthurs Seat:

 

View from A. Seat

SHADOW PICTURE!

So steep.

Another fun fact on the train ride home hannah and met the youngest pilot in the Royal Air Force. At age 19 he was more badass then i will ever be. Awesome? Yes. Also, yes, i saw a ton of men in kilts which brings me to my next point.

As this is the longest post ever i’m going to give all of you who stuck it out a little treat. The answer to the question that titles this post? Nothing. And rumor has it if you ask they’ll demonstrate for you.

Cheers,

Kc

 

P.S. for my own personal enjoyment when i read this many years from now. Katie got up to take a shower but I needed to jump in so i could do my hair before class. I knocked on the door she was already in her towel. We rock-paper-scissored for the shower. i won. Best roommate that she is graciously accepted and went back into her room. Good times.

 

Oxford and Camden

I’ve waited too long to write this blog and have probably forgotten a lot but…lets be honest…its okay. This way when you go visit Oxford…some of it will be a surprise! How exciting for you.

First we got a tour of the city. It’s really a gorgeous place and is just teaming with stressed out college (university) kids…it felt like home. One of our SU guides had just graduated from Oxford recently and said just being in the city still made him nervous and he is only just starting to appreciate it for its beauty instead of feeling stressed out!

Christ Church Memorial Garden

This is a memorial garden…more on christ church later. Very pretty.

So while getting toured around and learning about the different colleges we heard some interesting stories. Our main tour guide is a graduate of Cambridge and the rivalry that exists between the two schools is intense. But then again, so is the interview process apparently. There is a tale of one student who went in for his interview only to find the professor reading a paper. The professor lowered the paper and simply said, “Surprise me.” The student, in turn, lit the paper on fire and said “Surprise.”

Now, these stories aren’t proven but the process is intense.

and the city beautiful. Meadows with cows included.

Oxford

After our tour. We were left to grab some lunch. So a group of us headed over to a very famous pub called The Eagle and Child. J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis hung out there and hatched some novel deliciousness. They referred to it as the Bird and the Baby because when you’re a badass writer…you can do that. I also had my first english pie here..and open chicken pie? Delish.

We then headed back to meet up with our tour guide for a tour of an actual college.

Wall

This is something sort of cool written on the walls of the college. Rowing is a really big sport here and if your boat “bumps” another boat thereby passing them in the race you get to write it on the wall. Bumps = Good for my yank readers.

Courtyard.

This is the courtyard…totally insanely beautiful.

Every college has three things they brag about apparently: dining hall, chapel, garden.

We saw the dining hall and chapel of this particular church.

Dining Hall Ceiling

They were all really cool looking…this is the ceiling of the dining hall.

One other thing that the colleges do is they’ve memorialized those lost in WWI and WWII on the walls outside their chapels even, interestingly, those members of the college who would have fought on the nazi side have plaques. They were members of the college and that was all that mattered.

After this we headed over to Christ Church because…that is where the dining hall from the Harry Potter films is located. Awesome? Yes.

Harry Potter Dining Hall

I took this shot from this angle so you could pretend you were at Hogwarts. You’re welcome.

The place is also beautiful in itself.

Christ Church

After that we hustled onto the bus and headed home.

Saturday I took an adventure to Camden to meet up with my friend Megan and her friend. The Camden markets are amazing! Every type of food, clothing, knick knack, style, culture you could want, imagine or need is there. For example I had Thai for lunch and a Brazilian Churro (filled with caramel and chocolate and rolled in cinn/sugar) and a tea. Megan had Moroccan for lunch and a banana cake  and coffee. Her friend had a turkish wrap and..succumbed to the pressure of the churro for dessert. There was chinese, japanese, polish, italian, english, and anything else you could possibly want. Needless to say I’ll be returning. This didn’t even go into all the fantastic shopping which I can’t talk about because I’ll buy everything.

We then headed over to The Museum of Everything. Both creepy and free, the space resembled a frat house gone artsy. Its basically a huge gallery for off the beaten path art some of which was incredible some of which was meh, creepy. It was a little bit like a haunted house in a confusing path sort of way with dark nooks and crannies and art made of yarn and all types of mediums. Not much else to say about that really. You’d have to see it to believe it.

I did however see this fun sign on the way to Regents park. I enjoy it. You should too.

 

 

Sparkles. Nuf said.

We ended our day in Regent park…wandering amongst the flowers and just enjoying the day. I say day well spent.

 

 

Regent Park

Cheers,

Kc

 

 

Feed the birds…Toppins..a bag?

This is where I was today:

That’s right…the set of Mary Poppins. Just kidding of course…or am I? *Cue Mysterious Music* …Just kidding. I was of course referring to St. Pauls Cathedral.

 

St.Pauls

And those are the steps they were talking about. I’m just saying. In case you care. Which I know you do.

 

I picked this for my thursday lonesome adventure cause ever since I saw the cathedral at night completely lit up and looking radiant at night its been on my list so I said why not?

I navigated the tube to get there and wandered inside (its 8.50 for the student rate to get in but totally worth every pence) and I started wandering around only to realize that the mid-day mass was going on and since I had skipped my usual trip to the church on thursday I sat down. The thing about going to a mass in a church like St.Pauls is that its a little distracting because of all the people and the incredible design of the church itself but I’m hardcore so I focused…more or less..

The other thing that threw me off was the fact that its an Anglican church and not catholic. I had to sit in the back so I knew what to do!  And when I was done with the Our Father…they kept going..with the kingdom and power and glory are thine now and forever?…But I was done talking…it was awkward…Anyway then I had the dilemma of if I was allowed to to receive communion in an Anglican church. I madea split second decision to do it, so I have received communion in St.Pauls cathedral. Thats pretty cool if you ask me. When I went to receive there was a church person (wearing black robes not sure what they’re called) who was staring me down. I got nervous he was going to ask me for an Anglican I.D. card or something. But when I got close he smiled and said Hey!. So weird. Also, i had a giggle problem when I got up to the priest..vicar?..whatever. Kasey Panetta: Keepin’ It Classy since 1989.

I wandered around the main floor of the church and finally came to what I had been looking for: The American Memorial Chapel. During the Blitzkreig in WWII not even St.Pauls was safe and actually took a hit from a shell that went down to the basement leaving a gaping hole in the cathedral. When it was rebuilt, they made the spot into an american memorial paid for by british people in memorium of all the American lives lost by those stationed in Britain. Pretty intense and beautifully done.

BTW. You can’t take pictures in the church so I’ve stolen this one to show you the alter. Thats how much I love you.

The American Chapel

I then tossed caution to the wind to take the hike up the 257 steps to the whispering gallery. Basically, its a little walkway that runs around the dome of the church and if you sit on one side you can hear people talking 32 meters away on the other side of the dome. This was kinda creepy because mostly you just hear whispers. But while I was sitting I heard one REALLY loud whisper of “SHHHHHHH” *pause* “SHHHHHH”…This is where I was creeped out thinking that this was Jesus calling and I better listen up until it was followed by “Say hello to Jeremy for me!”…Jesus? Probably not. But Hey Jeremy! After I got tired of listening to mostly grown adults whispering secret messages to the other side while their children looked up in slightly humiliated disgust. I hiked up 119 more steps to the Stone Gallery. This runs around the outside of the dome giving 360 degree views of the city through high iron safety bars. So switching back to my own photography…

Stone Gallery

Really high...through bars...

I should note that when I went into the Cathedral it was raining…check out the sky…blue skies…grey skies…Love this city. When I was climbing the stairs I heard someone behind me go..I love London…blue to grey in 2.5. I actually laughed out loud. Thats right I was the creeper laughing by herself.

Thames and The Eye

Rays of light over London

I stopped here to have a cheezit snack. Thanks Aunt T. I was the ultimate American. However now I check off have cheezits on a church off the life list.

After that I ventured up another 152 steps to the Golden Gallery which I shall refer to as the Inches from an Untimely Death Gallery. The 152 steps are, by the way, open iron spirals like you would find in a lighthouse. When I went to go up the stairs there was a group of 6 little kids (maybe 6 years old) going up with their teacher. My first thought was oh no this is going to take forever. Well, let me tell you something. Those little kids smoked my ass. They ran up those stairs no fear while I was trying to convince myself that I could do it. Again, in amazement of small children. The girl behind me who was about 20 was also gripping the railing like a lifeline so I didn’t feel TOO bad. To get to the final top I had to walk up a stair case so tiny  my shoulders could barely fit…each was brushing  wall. No fat americans allowed.

When I got to the top she was still behind me and I witnessed a meltdown of the teacher with the little kids. Picture this please:

Teach counting the kids: One…two…three…four…five… *pause* one…two…three..four..five…*Panic voice* Wheres the other one!?!

Other teacher: You only had five.

Teach: I HAD SIX! One! TWO! THREE! FOUR! FIVE!

Me: Um..excuse me…

Teach: ONE! TWOTHREEFOURFIVE! WHERE IS THE OTHER ONE?!?!

Me: Um…sir?

Teach: still counting

Me:…She’s behind you.

Teach: What?

Me: Number 6…shes standing behind you.

Teach: *turns around.* Oh thank god.

Nice to know you can trust the teacher to really look before he panics.

Back to Steps away from Untimely death.

This platform was about 1 foot wide with a small iron railing separating me from a really long fall. Really. Long. Fall.

But worth the beautiful view of London.

 

Death.

Please observe the railing and also the fact that when I took this my back was pressed against the wall. Thats how wide it is.

 

Tiny people and millenium bridge

Pretty again.

I was standing and looking out over London when I bumped into the girl who had been climbing the stairs behind me. She basically summed up my feelings with one sentence

Girl: This. Is. Terrifying.

Me: Thats for sure. It ain’t no jersey lighthouse…

Girl: Shutup. You’re from jersey?!

Me: Yeah.

Girl: Me too! Where are you from?

Me: Warren County. You?

Girl: Monmouth.

Turns out she was in London for a week but studying abroad in Brussels. We had a nice little chat. Go Jersey. We’re everywhere!

Then I headed back downstairs. The Death Stairs. and back into the church to check out the crypt.

An interesting thing about the tons of stairs. There is a warning about how it is one way up so if you start you have to keep going so you better not be a fattie or a quitter. When KT and I were in Dublin we were sort of lost and someone came up to help us. He told us it was about a 15 min walk. Then asked us where we were from. When we said the states he said. Oh well it might be a bit difficult for YOU. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Jerk. So take that Dublin Stranger I conquered St.Pauls stairs. In. You. Face. Moving on.

 

 

The Crypt has some really famous people buried there including Florence Nightingale, Arthur The Duke of Wellington, JMW Turner, William Blake and of course the architect of the church Sir Christopher Wren. On top of this it has tons of memorials to soldiers who have died and served the country. It’s actually quite moving in a crypty sort of way.

Also, it is that time of year where they sell poppies to support the british military. I figured that was a worthy cause to donate to.

 

Dedicated to those who have served and fallen...

 

 

Thursday night we headed off to see the Orchestra and sat behind the musicians. It was a little bit weird but worth the 2 pound ticket. It was really amazing but I discovered I have a limited attention span for these things. The first piece was 7 min long. The next? 27 min. 20 min Intermission before the final piece. How long was that one you ask? 60 min. Ouch. That one hurts the team. I did enjoy it alot and it was cool to sit behind the orchestra and literally be sitting on the stage right near my trumpet family but 60 min? Seriously.

Hope you enjoyed that little trip.

Cheers,

Kc

 

Dublin: To hell and back

I flew into London early monday morning knowing it was going to be a tough day. I had to refuel and be ready to fly out super early tuesday morning to Dublin. This trip which had appeared too easy as it was to plan (Expedia gave us a great price for flights and hotels) had already taken a bad turn when we discovered that Katie (who I was going with) couldn’t fly. This led to a flurry of activity on her part as she tried to salvage a way to get there. She ended up taking a combination of trains and boats that took 12 hours each way. Thats kinda how the trip went…

I got up at 2:30 am to catch a Dot2Dot bus to Heathrow. Dot2Dot is this amazing service that operates basically as a shared ride where the car picks you up at your hotel or flat and off you go to the airport and whichever terminal you require. Its pretty sweet. Then I hopped on a BMI plane to Dublin, navigated to a 747 bus to O’Connell Street and finally found the hotel. At this point it was about 9:30am and Katie had been in the hotel lobby since about 7. We tried checking in but no dice. Try back at noon they said. No worries. We went down the street to a little Ireland diner and had some traditional breakfast. I wasn’t feeling too hot and neither was katie. Lack of sleep and food on both our parts was taking its toll. In fact, and this will be more amusing later in this story, I actually said to katie “I feel like I can actually feel my body shutting down.” But we soldiered on and wandered around a bit before our room was ready…then we crashed into bed for about 5 hours. When I woke up I wasn’t feeling so great so I went to the bathroom to splash some water on my face. I went to walk out the door and everything got a little bit spotty. I was just about to say…hey katie? When I passed out apparently. I woke up when I hit the hardwood floor with my spine and then just laid there checking all my appendages to make sure they were in working order and I hadn’t just tripped and fallen. But I couldn’t quite remember the actual fall only waking up looking at the ceiling. Katie in her groggy state thought i as moving furniture and asked if I was okay. The conversation went something like this.

KT: You okay over there?

KC: I think I just passed out.

KT: *pause* What?

KC: I think I just passed out.

KT: *jumps out of bed and runs over* What?!! What do I do?

KC:…I don’t know?

KT: Shit.

KC: yeah.

Naturally we did what any sane 20 year old does in this situation. We called our mommys. Duh. Well actually I contacted some people as SU who called my mom for me. Needless to say our first night in Dublin was not a rocking one as we ordered food from the bar downstairs and watched Eastenders. We think, for those of you who care, it was a combination of sleep deprivation (I had gotten about 4 hours of sleep in two nights and not much in the week before), dehydration, lack of food and being sick. Good. Times.

Anywho, we slept in the next day and then decided the Hop-on Hop Off bus tour we had purchased tickets for already would be okay to do since it involved a lot of sitting. It turned out to be a great way for two sickies to see Dublin and our first stop ended up being the the Irish Museum of Archeology where they had on display some skeletons of Celts they had discovered in a Bog. It was a great museum and after that we headed out to Christ Church which has the biggest crypt in Ireland…or Dublin…don’t remember which one. Anyway this is also where they have a monument to Strongbow..the person..a norman king apparently. Who knew? Love his cider.

Christ Church

the Crypt SO COOL!

The next photo requires a little bit of explanation. Apparently there was a rat in the organ of the church and a cat crawled in there to get it. They both got stuck and mummified in the organ. They are on display in the crypt. I kind of love this country.

The Cat and the Rat

Theres is also a monument in Dublin called the Millenium Spire built to commemorate the year 2000. Course it was built in 2003 but whose counting.

the Spire

The other fun thing is the door colors of the Georgian Mansions that line the streets. They are every color red, green, blue, yellow and our tour guide told us why. Apparently when Queen Victoria died the Dubliners were told to paint their doors black as a sign of respect but being Irish, they don’t like being told what to do, so they painted the doors every color but black. Again…how could you not love these people??

Red door

We then headed off to St. Patrick’s Cathedral which frankly..was less cool than Christ Church but it is such a staple I had to see it.

St. Patricks

After that…we were basically done so we headed back to the hotel to chill for a little bit before dinner. For dinner we ended up at this amazing restaurant/pub/disco called The Church where we both had Guinness beef stew (yummy) while overlooking the original organ still in the church. The confessional is actually a booth at the bar. It was an amazing place to eat and I highly recommend if you are going to dublin!

Thursday was Guinness Day! We took the tour bus to the factory. Side note: As a joke the bus driver told us Guinness was closed for a function for the employees. Katie and I were frozen in horror. Well played bus driver. Well played. So we got lunch at the Brewery Bar which was delicious! and then took the tour.

Katie Enjoying Her Guinness

Me Enjoying my half of a half pint

Follow the arrows or perish.

The tour is set up so you follow the arrows. Like a Hershey for adults. Kt and I found this really funny…What other way could you go we said to the arrow on the stairs. All very funny. Until there was no arrow. Not so funny. Touche, Guinness.

Then we’d come across things like this…

Which way?

Which way do we go!?

Thats mean, giving people booze and then confusing directions!

 

Words of Guinness Wisdom

 

 

The tour ends in the Gravity bar..the highest bar in Dublin which has 360 degree view of the city and a complimentary Guinness. Us invalids declined the Guinness and got a coke and fanta instead. That’s right we’re badasses.

view from gravity

We headed back to the hotel on the 123 bus or if your irish the one-to-tree bus cause KT had to catch her train back. We had a great final dinner in the bar and she headed off leaving me all alone in the hotel room for the first time. So I did what any badass would do. I showered with the bathroom door open. I know. I’m a BAMF. No big deal.

This is the part where the trip back sucks. I hit the hay and woke up at 3:30 to catch a bus that was supposed to depart at 430 from about a block away. I didn’t want to wait on the corner for 30 min so i waited in the hotel lobby till 420. Imagine my surprise when I got to the station to discover a sign saying the bus left at 4:15 and 4:45. Fine Dublin. It. Is. On. So I stood in the rain and freezing wind for 30 min (during which time i saw a full grown irishman wearing pink footy pajamas) until I looked down and across the street saw Jesus-in-a-box. Thats right a statue of Jesus in the box. Well, I thought, can’t hurt. And said a little prayer. Imagine my surprise when the bus came 5 min early. Thank you Bus Jesus. I got to the airport and found BMI check in which was the most stupid and counter productive system ever. Instead of having some people (read: old people) check in with agents at the counter and other people (read: young people) check in self service they had everyone doing self service but some people (old people) couldn’t figure out how to use them damn new fangled computers and needed the agents anyway. Therefore you had agents checking everyone in using the self service computers. You see how this is retarded. After fuming online for about 30 min I finally got checked in and headed to security. Holding my backpack, laptop, sweatshirt, jacket, liquids bag, purse, passport and boarding pass (not sure how) I attempted to shove it all in the security thing in a flustered sort of way when A very nice lady said…take your time dear. Thank you airport goddess. I hustled through the metal detector to grab my laptop and waited for my purse…and waited….and waited…finally a member of the Dublin Airport..Association? something that ends up with the initials DAA a giant cocky rent a cop walked up and grabbed my purse. I shall call him moron for the following conversation.

Moron: Whose purse is this?

Me: Mine.

Moron: I need to go through it.

Me (Annoyed at this point): Have at it.

Moron: *shuffles through purse taking random things out*

**Note: in this purse is a card reader for my camera, ipod, cell, various wires, and other random electronic crap so this was not a surprise. What WAS a surprise was what happened after this**

Moron: *pulls out an umbrella* Is this yours?

Me: Yes?

Moron: *shakes 6 inch umbrella out throws it on top of my open purse * Okay.

Me: *jaw hits ground*

I had to force myself to walk away before I said what was on the tip of my tongue. Sorry for the swearing grandmas.

Me in my head: Thank you security god for saving me from the famous umbrella bombs. I’ve heard they’re really fucking popular. You should get an award. Idiot. Why don’t you try stopping some terrorists instead of sick 20 year old girls trying to get home.

But I knew I had to get on the plane so I kept it shut. But let it be noted I officially am annoyed with airport security measures.

On the other side I had to make a decision. Pay 16 pounds for a 15 min trip to  the center of London on a nice quiet express train or pay 3 pounds to take an hour ride on a subway. Naturally as a poor college student the decision was easy. Hello Heathrow Express. I’ll see you in 15 min London. What can I say? I’m my brother’s sister.

It then took me about 2.5 hours to get from plane to my flat and the highlight was a 15 min blissful trip on the Heathrow express. The downside was the 1/2 tube ride from Paddington to my street during rush hour. Its okay though. I got my jersey on and shoved my way through, thank god for that important life training received in the Garden State Public School System. Go team hackettstown!

All in all not a bad trip considering all that happened. Nobody ended up in the hospital or in jail and with KT and KC traveling…thats a minor miracle.

 

Cheers,

Kc

“To be Irish is to know that in the end, the world will break your heart…”

Bippidy Boppity EHHHHH

Milan Part II

First…I must explain the title of this post which my sister and brother might understand the best. Please watch the following family guy excerpt. *dims theatre lights*

This is just about all the Italian we know as a combined group of siblings and intelligent *cough* young people. So naturally, we were forced to go around going bippity boppity!! The entire weekend. Win? Yes. Mixed in were some actual Italian words Grazie (Thank you) Prego (please) No parlo italiano ( I don’t speak Italian) (Note: A blank stare and a ..what? also suffices if you can’t remember how to say I don’t speak italian) and Scuzi (Excuse me). Then we realized we have a wealth of knowledge of italian from our musical experiences. Unfortunately this limits the conversations to things like LOUDER! and softer and falsetto. Now, the problem was that I had no way to swear in italian so I started using random italian while making hand gestures like shaking my fist at cars who. So…picture this if you will…a 20year old american girl shaking her fist at cars and yelling oh yeah? WELL PASTA FAGIOLI! Ha. Win. Also food for thought…imagine someone doing this in English. Walking around shouting CHEESEBURGER! at cars. Or practicing their english (badly) so it sounds something like…My cookie is kasey. My orange dad is water down the elm tree. Moving on.

On Sunday, we decided to get out of the city and take the train to  Lago Di Como or as I referred to it as Lake Perry Como for most of the trip. Cause I’m clever like that. From the town of Como we took a high speed ferry (super cool) to the town of Bellagio which this beautiful tiny town on the lake. Also…George Clooney has a house here so you know it is quality. We spent the day wandering about this gorgeous town and lamenting about why we did not live in this heavenly place (you’ll get it when you see the pictures). The town is mostly shops and water views and hotels and lots of people take motorcycle rides up there. I now have a new life plan…ride my motorcycle around italy. Sorry mom. Anyway, because it is built into the side of the mountain you have to really want to get places! The town is connected by these little streets and corridors that have shops and restaurants tucked into the corners of them and everything is painted in these beautiful yellows and bright colors. We got lunch in this incredible little place (cheese ravioli? yes please) and they sat us..of course…next to two american business idiots who we spent the meal mocking in Panetta Family Tradition. We then just wandered around. It was amazing. We had no where to be nothing to do and no one to please but ourselves. It was sunny and beautiful and you should go! We got some gelato from…the hottest italian boy ever…which was delightful. Banana split with gelato was so amazing. We spent most of the day in Belagio before heading back to Como for some dinner. Try not to be too jealous when you see the pictures.

Tiny little corridor street

Bellagio

Above is where we got gelato

Happy in Italy.

This Picture amuses me...its my model look.

The only picture of the three of us

Misty oooooo

So pretty

Sunset

Truly an amazing day. Definitely a hidden gem of italy. Although as we were wondering…just to show that italians aren’t all quiet there was a parade of mini coopers through the street who all had different horns including one that played la cocaracha and and A–WOOOGA horn…amused? Yes, we were laughing in the street. The other amusing thing was the amount of times we heard the song she-wolf in this town. If you don’t know what i’m talking about please view the video below:

When it started to get dark we headed back to Como and wandered around a little window shopping and exploring. We again figured out the weird seat yourself at a table and we’ll get to you when we get to you approach to food service but then the food comes out ridiculously fast. Then we headed back on a train to the hotel and an early flight back home to London and the U.S.

We said goodbye at Malpensa (the airport) in the traditional italian two cheek kiss and with a ciao they were gone. The flight was uneventful but for the first time when I got to an airport there was no one waiting for me on the other side. You could say I was a little saddened by this…till I remembered I got to take a train ride home. HA! A train. I am four. I was also basically the only one on the plane to go to the non-eu passport line which was super short and sweet.

For my first solo trip I think this went quite well! It was an amazing experience and I will definitely be traveling back to Italy soon!

Tune in for Dublin Stories later tonight,

 

Ciao

Kc

Milan, Dahling!

So, my trip to Milan started with a 3 a.m. wake up on friday (Oct 23) and a cold shower. Sounds like its going to be a great vacation right? My mini-cab driver picked me up at 4:10am and greeted my in typical british fashion, “Alright there, love?” and then proceeded to chat with me for a while. He asked me if I was meeting someone, so I told him I was meeting my siblings in Milan. Milan? He says…but…you only have one bag! Yes? I said. But you’re a girl! You’re going to milan with one bag and you’re a girl!! This amused me. I had–dad will be so proud–fit everything i needed into a backpack for the weekend because I was flying easyjet and to check baggage is an extra 12 pound fee.  Anywho so the cabbie took me to the train station and I took the Gatwick express to Gatwick Airport and then took a plane to Milan! This was my first traveling alone experience and my first traveling abroad experience so I was very excited when it all went smoothly. I had to walk to the plane on the runway. As dave said well…now you can say you walked the runway in Milan! Shannon and David met me at customs and we headed into the city where we had abotu a 30 min search for an ATM before arriving at the marriot where we were staying. Shannon and David crashed from jet lag and those of us who were used to the bad time difference watched some t.v.

After a while we decided to head out to grab some dinner and explore a little. We started off exploring the shopping part of town Gucci and stores like that abound here. Our goal was to find a restaurant called Officina 12 and after a fruitless search (“it’s supposed to be right here by the canal!” Dave said) we were about to call it quits. So we picked a random street and walked down it only to discover Officina 12 was by THIS canal and not the other one. At this point it was around 730 and we were starving but the restaurant was empty. Why? You ask. Well, because in Italy they don’t eat until around 9pm but forget that we’re american and we’re hungry. So, our first course was a gnocchi dish. It. Was. Incredible. We didn’t have a bad or anything short of incredible meal the whole time we were in Italy. I’ve always been a fan of gnocchi but this put it in a whole new world. We had some wine (as we did with nearly every meal) yay for the drinking age being 18! and some gelato Nerro. Then we rolled home (on a very very very long walk through Milan) and fell into bed.

The next day started a little later then planned as we all turned off the alarm and went back to sleep. I had a delicious croissant and then We took our first subway ride to Castello Sforzesco which is an old fortress type castle that houses a ton of museums. We saw everything from ancient egyptian mummies to a room designed by Da Vinci (wood panels of course) to a Michaelangelo Sculpture and a musical instruments museum with a room full of pianos. The only problem with a few of these museums was that well…everything was in italian…I’m not sure i got the full experience! We did however get kicekd out of an exhibit that was apparently closed…there were no signs or anything so I don’t know how we were supposed to know but there was some yelling in italian.

Dave and Shannon at The Castle

Michaelangelos Sculpture

Really Bad English translation talking about "So and So"

Shannon and me

Hazy Photo of the castle

The last photo is a bit hazy…it’s not your computer. It is just a little polluted. According to the guidebook a headache after a day of touring is probably caused by the combination of carbon monoxide and lead. Isn’t that fun?

Moving on.

After the museums we wandered around a park and found a celtic festival which entertained us for about 20 min before we decided we were really hungry and went in search of food. We came across a restaurant but decided not to eat at it only to discover everything else in the area was closed so we ended up back at restaurant #1 only about a half an hour later. The waiter took our order on his little electronic device but then dropped it apparently erasing our order. I had ordered a cheeseburger but when he came back to retake our order i decided to switch it to a club sandwich. This was my first mistake. When I tried to explain to the waiter who spoke no english I thought he understood until the food came out and I got nothing. Apparently…I unordered my own lunch. Damn you italian. I ended up eating half of shannon’s sandwich. Such a good big sister.

We then headed over to the Basilica which is your basic church.

I almost knocked over about 3000 candles for this shot

Basilica

We then headed over to the Duomo di Milano (the cathedral of Milan) this truly incredible church at the heart of the city. Literally the heart…the streets all build out from here.It was started in 1386 but not completed until 1965.  Anyway for 5 euro you can climb to the roof and see these incredible views of the city.

The fun thing about this first picture is if you look in the foreground there is a man trying to give a woman bird seed. This is a popular pick pocket technique in Milan. Apparently if you refuse to take the corn that is offered (we were offered corn like 3 times) sometimes they will shove it in your pocket and you end up paying them to avoid getting divebombed by the pigeons. Also in the area are men selling bracelets who will try to tie one on your wrist and then insist that you pay for it.

Duomo

Roof (this exact angle/shot is the cover for Lonely Planets Italy)

Roof

View of the city of Milan

Dave and Shannon chillin' on the roof of a cathedral. No big deal.

The Roof

Cherubs

We went inside the church as well but honestly..at some point..all churches start to sorta look the same… I did however see one girl told she couldn’t enter the church because her skirt was too short. Interesting

This next one was my favorite building in milan it was so gorgeous. basically it was a shopping center but the archway was so pretty.

Arch

After we finished up here we ended up walking around what is basically the shopping district and looking at the yummy clothes. And speaking of yummy. We also ran into an american fashion shoot.

I <3 Milan

All the models were wearing unbuttoned plaid shirts ? Not sure what the point was but hey…I’m not going to complain. I did almost get hit by a car however at which point my brother muttered something like good grief and I was dragged away to look at some gorgeous wedding gowns.

I’m almost ashamed to tell you the next part of this story. We were looking for a bathroom and spotted a McDonalds (there is at least one on every block here) so we went in to pee for free…a novel idea in incredible expensive milan. But we got stopped by the pee nazi who yelled at us in italian. I still have no idea what he was saying but we assumed it was you have to buy something. However, due to a miscommunication with the guy taking the order…ended up with two full meals. How does this happen? No idea. This mcdonalds was incredibly nice though…it doesn’t make it okay I know.

We took the subway back to the hotel. Discovering free wifi on the way. Wifi was insanely  expensive here and hard to find so we stood on a street corner to check our e-mail and as dave said “Most people pick up prostitutes on the corner. Not us, we pick up wi-fi.”

Once we had chilled for a while we decided to get some food. This is where I learned another lesson about Italy. Eye contact is big with the flirting. We took a taxi to the restaurant and I was staring out the window in a i’m so tired glazed eyes sort of way when a car pulled up next to us and I made eye contact with the passenger who proceeded to turn completely around in his seat to keep the eye contact. Wowza. I said OH NO! Accidental eye contact! and Shannon and proceeded to laugh for the next 10 min. Again, david said something along the lines of good grief.

The restaurant called Flash is famous for its Pizza and rightfully so. We had an amazing pizza with ham, mushroom and artichoke so yummyyyy of course we paired it with some wine and also on the suggestion of the waiter ordered a walnut tortellini which was out of this world incredible. Side story. Before he suggested the pasta  he first tried to get us to order french fries apparently..this is all that americans are known for eating. It was borderline insulting. Come farla dice, No thank you I don’t want any freaking french fries. come farla dice means how do you say…in italian.

 

Part II of Milan will be posted tomorrow hopefully with some Dublin stuff!

 

Ciao

Kc