London is great so far... I live in a flat with seven others, and we all seem to get along well from the times I've hung out or gone out with them. There are 4 other girls (2 Brits, another American, and one from France), and the guys are from Israel, Mexico, and India. Beat THAT diversity! My room is a single with my own small bathroom (!), and then we as a flat have a nice-sized kitchen and eating area. I'm 2 minutes or less away from all those other Berg people, so I see everyone often (Lesley just came up behind me, actually).
Hmm, what else? Orientation was very boring. From Sunday Sept 21 (when I arrived) until yesterday, Monday the 29th, I had a whopping total of two meetings to be at, neither of which was too exciting. I had to change a class because one of them conflicted with Shakespeare's London, which I want to take here, so I switched out of a sorta basic stagecraft course into a level 2 course called Drama production 2, because I was told I could focus specifically on stage management in that course. Well, I had my first class today, which was that class, and of course Stage Management is NOT on of the focus areas, so I went for directing instead. Uh, sure, why not? Tomorrow I have meetings for London Theatre and Acting in London, and then on Friday I have my first Shakespeare class (and Jason arrives!!).
Other than being bored, I've done a whole lotta food etc. shopping, seen Ned Kelly (Orlando's newest movie), seen a David Mamet play starring Kenneth Branaugh (Sp?), called Edmond, for a whopping £6, walked around Leicester (pronouned Lester) Square quite a bit, and seen the London premiere of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen from afar (I saw Shane West, as well as where Sean Connery was standing, but there were boards blocking my sight so I didn't actually see him. Suffice it to say, I was stnding maybe 40 feet away from him. It's been a good time... and now I'm sick.
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
Yes, I'm alive!
I know I told many of you I'd e-mail you as soon as I got to London, and here it is, my third day in London and you haven't heard from me yet. Well, I am alive and well, but this is the first chance to get online for free since arriving from Italy..
I have my room phone all set up, but of course I forgot to bring the number with me, and Jason seems to be having problems with it, so I'm not even entirely sure that it works right yet. I've also purchased my new cell phone, which is currently waiting to be set up on the network but should be running by tomorrow, so I'll have TWO phone numbers to give people! It should be noted that for ME the cheapest and easiest way to get messages from anyone will be text messages, and it's probably cheaper for all of you than calling me overseas anyway, so think about that before you leave me a voicemail message ;)
So a mass e-mail will be coming some day soon to a computer near you, and until then I am well and alive and London is pretty great so far. :)
I have my room phone all set up, but of course I forgot to bring the number with me, and Jason seems to be having problems with it, so I'm not even entirely sure that it works right yet. I've also purchased my new cell phone, which is currently waiting to be set up on the network but should be running by tomorrow, so I'll have TWO phone numbers to give people! It should be noted that for ME the cheapest and easiest way to get messages from anyone will be text messages, and it's probably cheaper for all of you than calling me overseas anyway, so think about that before you leave me a voicemail message ;)
So a mass e-mail will be coming some day soon to a computer near you, and until then I am well and alive and London is pretty great so far. :)
Monday, September 15, 2003
Europe Day 2 (September 12) - One Long Day
Off the plane.
Then we needed to head over the Goldsmiths on the tube to hand over a piece of luggage, which was an uneventful but very painful trip for my arms. We dropped off our bags at the International office, where we were of course warned not to get pick-pocketed in Italy, then got backon the tube to head to Stansted airport, which is where our flight to Rome was out of. On the way we got some very overpriced Burger King, but it was worth it to me at least! Then onto the Stansted Express, and then time to kill at the airport. I called home to leave a message for mom to let her know I was alive, and did the same for Jason, although it wasn't a message - he picked up :) The flight to Rome was fine as far as I remember; I fell asleep for a little bit (I needed it!), we lost another hour, and a child cried. A lot.
After the plane ride, trying to get to the hostel was a bit of a fiasco. Off the plane onto a shuttle, which took us to pick up the baggage, and the child continued to cry. Then we need to take a bus, which was not well-marked (we just kinda followed the crowd of English-speaking people) and the ticket machine for which would not accept anything other than Eurocoins, and of course we only had banknotes, having just stopped at the ATM. We discovered by following people again that we could buy tickets at a snack change inside, but they didn't have correct change to give back to us - oh well, we just paid too much. Off the bus to Anagnina station, where we needed to take the metro to Termini station and the ticket machines (surprise!) would not work. These are some very finicky ticket machines, and only will take exact change, which is tough to come by. The security guy eventually just let us all go on without buying tickets. After that it wasn't bad getting to the hostel. Ours (Hotel Romae) is nearby Termini, but still, my arms wanted to fall off,and the feet weren't too happy either.
Outside the hostel - we couldn't figure out how to get buzzed in. Some guest let us in. Went in, paid, couldn't get our key to our door to work! Got let in by our hostel-mates, who were of course sleeping (at 11:30?) so we had to get situated in the dark being quiet. Into bed, and couln't sleep, because it was only 5:30 pm at home! A looooooong day was over though, and I was now in Rome.
:)
Then we needed to head over the Goldsmiths on the tube to hand over a piece of luggage, which was an uneventful but very painful trip for my arms. We dropped off our bags at the International office, where we were of course warned not to get pick-pocketed in Italy, then got backon the tube to head to Stansted airport, which is where our flight to Rome was out of. On the way we got some very overpriced Burger King, but it was worth it to me at least! Then onto the Stansted Express, and then time to kill at the airport. I called home to leave a message for mom to let her know I was alive, and did the same for Jason, although it wasn't a message - he picked up :) The flight to Rome was fine as far as I remember; I fell asleep for a little bit (I needed it!), we lost another hour, and a child cried. A lot.
After the plane ride, trying to get to the hostel was a bit of a fiasco. Off the plane onto a shuttle, which took us to pick up the baggage, and the child continued to cry. Then we need to take a bus, which was not well-marked (we just kinda followed the crowd of English-speaking people) and the ticket machine for which would not accept anything other than Eurocoins, and of course we only had banknotes, having just stopped at the ATM. We discovered by following people again that we could buy tickets at a snack change inside, but they didn't have correct change to give back to us - oh well, we just paid too much. Off the bus to Anagnina station, where we needed to take the metro to Termini station and the ticket machines (surprise!) would not work. These are some very finicky ticket machines, and only will take exact change, which is tough to come by. The security guy eventually just let us all go on without buying tickets. After that it wasn't bad getting to the hostel. Ours (Hotel Romae) is nearby Termini, but still, my arms wanted to fall off,and the feet weren't too happy either.
Outside the hostel - we couldn't figure out how to get buzzed in. Some guest let us in. Went in, paid, couldn't get our key to our door to work! Got let in by our hostel-mates, who were of course sleeping (at 11:30?) so we had to get situated in the dark being quiet. Into bed, and couln't sleep, because it was only 5:30 pm at home! A looooooong day was over though, and I was now in Rome.
:)
Europe Day 1 (September 11)
Off to Europe!
Tim and I planned to leave arounf 11, as we were sure there would be heavy security for flights on 9/11, so I told him to call me when he left - and of course that was around 12 noon instead ;) We had quite a while before our flight, so we went to get something to eat with our moms, which involved much wandering around trying to find a place to eat that wasn't behind security (so our moms could come). Our first flight was just to Chicago O'Hare (nice back tracking, right?), and then we had about 20 minutes between flights. The plane was kinda dinky to Chicago, and at times felt like a bit of a rollercoaster ride, but oh well. Our next plane - to London (Heathrow Airport) was pretty nice. Each seat had its own monitor, and you could choose which movie you wanted to watch (or there was alsoa choice of some TV programs). I watched The Italian Job (how appropriate!), Tim watched The Transformers, and the other choice was Frida. So yeah, good flight, although I got about an hour of sleep and was real tired when we got in, which was about 3 am back home, but 8 am in London.
Tim and I planned to leave arounf 11, as we were sure there would be heavy security for flights on 9/11, so I told him to call me when he left - and of course that was around 12 noon instead ;) We had quite a while before our flight, so we went to get something to eat with our moms, which involved much wandering around trying to find a place to eat that wasn't behind security (so our moms could come). Our first flight was just to Chicago O'Hare (nice back tracking, right?), and then we had about 20 minutes between flights. The plane was kinda dinky to Chicago, and at times felt like a bit of a rollercoaster ride, but oh well. Our next plane - to London (Heathrow Airport) was pretty nice. Each seat had its own monitor, and you could choose which movie you wanted to watch (or there was alsoa choice of some TV programs). I watched The Italian Job (how appropriate!), Tim watched The Transformers, and the other choice was Frida. So yeah, good flight, although I got about an hour of sleep and was real tired when we got in, which was about 3 am back home, but 8 am in London.
Tuesday, September 9, 2003
Last Journal entry in America (I think)
To those of you who I won't talk to before I leave, here's an FYI of my schedule:
Sept. 11 - depart Philly
Sept. 12 - arrive London Heathrow Airport, go to Goldsmiths and drop off one piece of luggage, depart London Stansted airport and arrive in Rome, Italy
Sept. 13, 14th - explore Rome
Sept. 15th - explore the Amalfi coast
Sept. 16th - travel to Florence, where Tim and I will meet Jen, Danielle, Jess, Adrienne, and Danielle's friend from home for dinner. We'll spend the next day exploring more of Florence, of course!
Sept. 18th - travel to Venice and explore it until the morning of the 21st, when Tim, Danielle and I fly back to London and move into Goldsmiths!
If I don't talk to you before I leave, I'll be sending out an e-mail with all my info (address, cell phone #, how the trip went, etc.) once I get settled into Goldsmiths, so check your e-mail and here to see if I have interesting things to say ;)
One day (soon) I'll fly away...
One more day at home, then I'm off to London (quick stop to drop off a bag!) and Italy. Eeek!
My trip to Muhlenberg last week didn't exactly go as planned. For one thing, I was STILL sick from the week before (the sore throat just wouldn't go away). For another, I woke up on Friday morning with pink eye. Yes, the day I'm going up to school to visit my friends, I happen to get pink eye, which of course is the worst possibe thing to have when you plan on spending time with Lydia! So, I went to the doctor, and he gave me prescriptions for both my eye and for my throat (finally), and then I decided to still go up to school after all after talking to lydia on the phone. Of course, I didn't get here til 5 because of the whole doctor/pharmacy/traffic thing, and for a few minutes at least I thought maybe I shouldn't have bothered coming up. But it ended up being a nice fun night (as some of the new pics I have online show) and I'm glad I went.
So, the next day Jason, Lydia, and Lori came over for dinner, and that was nice as well (although Jason was being VERY odd...hehe). Then I said bye to Lydia and Lori and that makes me sad, and Jason and I spent the rest of the night playing SNES, good times.
Sunday mom and I went to the beach! It was a beautiful day, but very windy, so if you weren't just laying in the sun it was chilly (and later on in the day it was chilly even if that's all you were doing). I caught up on sun and naps and just being at the beach though, and later that night went over Jason's house where we watched a movie and, of course, played PS2. And then I had to say bye to him too :(
Monday was pretty boring, but Danielle left for Europe (!!) and mom and I picked up my dead computer. It looks like I'll be buying a new one come December, minus the stuff that still works. It's nothing special because we had to go for cheap, but it's just as good as my old computer with a few updates and its a Dell Dimension 4600, so it's pretty nice.
Today I got ready all day - yeah. Packing is such a daunting task! Wish me luck.
Monday, September 8, 2003
a link
Updated Pics These latest pics get to be a part of Summer 2003 rather than Junior Year because, well... my summer hasn't exactly ended yet!
Friday, September 5, 2003
Yesterday was 8 months. Time flies!
I can't wait for tomorrow - my last trip to Muhlenberg before leaving next week! The countdown to Europe has begun . Am I ready? Of course not! The past few days I've been doing a few things to get ready... Tim and I have booked our hostels, my credit card is all set up, my computer's at Best Buy (hopefully) being fixed, I started the immense process of cleaning my room... Let me tell you, I had one HUGE bag of garbage, and my room currently looks messier than it did when I started cleaning it! A few things I'm selling on ebay, but most of it went to the trash. I've also been working on a present for a friend, and that's been taking up a lot of time.
And I'm not healthy yet! It's been over a week now, and I STILL have a sore throat. Not a minor one, but one that really bothers me. Today, for instance, I made myself tea. *I* made something *for myself* - *twice*! It didn't really help though.
Tomorrow I hope to get myself an ISIC at the abroad office while I'm up at the Berg, and then, who knows what we'll do, since our original plan of going to Dorney is shot (It's not open tomorrow OR Saturday to the public. Poo on that). Can't think of much else to say right now, so I'll stop boring you ;)
Thursday, September 4, 2003
My new digital camera is working!
I thought I'd make it know that I chnaged my mind - I WILL still be using my Yahoo pictures page to show off my pix to the world. It seems easier than AOL pix program. So, after my visit to Muhley-world tomorrow, I'll put new picture online, and they'll be on my Yahoo pictures page. Capiche?
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