Heidelberg pictures.

Well, I promised you pictures, so here they are. I figured I'd post them before leaving. If you want to see something I omitted, by all means let me know. I'll put them up when I get back.

The main shopping strip, a large pedestrian walkway.

Heidelberg Castle from the downtown area.

The view of Heidelberg from the castle.

Alexa, Sara and me!

Us with the mosque in the background.

Oh, absinthe.

A short break.

Hello everyone. Sorry to disappoint you all, because I know how much you look forward to reading about my misadventures every day, but I will not be blogging until at least Thursday. The reason for this is I will be out of London, out of England, and into Wales for an entire six nights and seven days. Spring break is here!

Nicki and I will be taking an extremely geeky literary tour of South Wales, first stopping at Swansea where Dylan Thomas lived (yes, he is the main reason we are going). The next two nights we'll be in the capital, Cardiff. And oddly enough, we'll be in Cardiff on St. David's Day; St. David is the patron saint of Wales, and I guess this holiday is a really big deal. There's going to be a parade and everything. People wear black and gold and decorate themselves with daffodils. But seriously, what are the odds that we are going to be in the capital city of Wales during one of the country's biggest national holidays during which they have a parade that goes by not too far from where we're staying? We found this out yesterday, by the way.

Next stop: Abergavenny. We'll be staying here for three nights, but taking day trips. The first one will be Tintern Abbey. Yes, that Tintern Abbey. If you don't know what I'm talking about you should probably look up this guy, his name is Wordsworth. Anyway, after that we'll try to get to Brecon Beacons national park, but if that doesn't end up happening there are three castles in Abergavenny so that could be cool. And our final full day in Wales, we will be going to Hay-on-Wye, the "second-hand book capital of the world" according to several sources I've found. This will be AWESOME. One is in a castle!!!

So farewell for the week, I promise I'll do my best to catch you all up once I get back. But I might not remember everything, or I might just choose to omit some things. You saw how long my post was for Germany, and I was only there for two full days! Wish me luck.

You know me and numbers...

Today at my work placement I had a great task to do... if I were the Count from Sesame Street.

I had to photocopy a bunch of children's stories and poems from really old books, and then do a rough word count of every story. They were really long stories. It was pretty bad; when I was walking down the street for my break, I realized that I had been counting my steps from the door. Around number 80.

Also, I read a manuscript today, and I don't know what is sadder or more depressing: a) that he put all the lyrics for a song from Ernest Goes to Camp in it, or b) that as I was reading it, I thought, "Hey! This is a song from Ernest Goes to Camp!"

*hits head on table repeatedly*

Don't you think Germans are the friendliest people?

Okay, first I must say the title to this post is a parody of a line in a movie. And I will give special recognition to anyone who can tell me a) the movie and b) the real line. (Hint: put an emphasis on "friendliest.")

Now that that's done, I must finally tell you about my wonderful trip to Heidelberg, Germany.

On Thursday last week, my friends Alexa, Sara and I took off for Heidelberg. We left school around 4:45 and got there nine hours later. Because, you see, we had to first take the tube to the train station at Liverpool Street, then take a train to Stansted Airport, take a plane to Frankfurt Hahn Airport after waiting for about an hour and a half, wait two hours for a bus to take us to Heidelberg, and then actually take the two-hour long bus ride. Anyway, now it's three in the morning (we lost an hour because of the time difference), and Alexa's cousin (also named Alexa) picked us up where the bus dropped us off.

So here we are in Heidelberg, with Alexa as our hostess. We get to her house, which was lovely, and she immediately offered us some freshly baked foccacia bread. We at first said no, then she asked if we wanted some water. We were pretty thirsty, so we accepted this offer and went upstairs to put our things in the rooms we would be staying in. I got my own room (what a nice change). After we came back down, we see two glass bottles of seltzer water set up with four glasses; a little more than we were expecting, but we weren't complaining. So we sat down and poured some water, when Alexa came out of the kitchen with the pan of foccacia bread and asked if we were sure if we didn't want some. At this point we were kind of like, sure, what the hell, so she brought out plates and served us this very delicious bread that her Italian husband had made earlier that day. And then she offered us some wine. Which we kindly refused.

The next morning, we got up around 9:30 to start our day. We went downstairs to a gigantic breakfast feast, made by Alexa's Italian husband Guiseppe, of bread and jam, cherry tomatoes, cold cut meats (the salami was delicious), granola with warm milk (we think they made the granola themselves), fresh-squeezed grapefruit (or orange, I couldn't tell) juice, and then Guiseppe made us eggs with ham and various vegetables mixed in. So we were pretty happy. Then we realized we didn't know how to get to Heidelberg Castle, Alexa wasn't home, and Guiseppe didn't really speak English. Luckily Alexa called and she gave us directions--we were to take the tram.

We walked to the tram station, and then around the lot trying to find a place to buy tickets. We finally realized there was a machine we had to figure out in order to get tickets, which we were trying to do for maybe 5 or 10 minutes before a very nice English-speaking German man asked if we needed help. He told us the cheapest way was to buy a day pass for up to five people, costing us only 8.50 euros. He also told us when we had to get off the tram when the time came.

We walked around the downtown pedestrian shopping area for a while (it was pretty deserted because it was around noon on Thursday), and then we tried to find our way to the castle. We once again were offered help, this time by a very nice English-speaking old German lady. We found our way to the place where we took this thing up to the very top of the hill where the castle was. Unfortunately, we didn't realize we had to get off at the second stop, not the third and last stop. So here we are, at the top of some mountain, trying to figure out how to walk down to the castle. Yet another nice German man helped us out. We walked down this empty road, singing songs from "The Sound of Music" (don't ask), making our way to the castle. We took a lot of really great pictures; we had a great view of the entire city from up where we were, and the castle was really cool.

Later that day we went shopping around the cute little downtown area, where I bought a necklace that was labeled "ketten," whatever that means. I should probably look it up. We also went into a lot of really cool used bookstores and a record store, just a bunch of neat little shops around this area. We didn't buy any books, however, as most of them were in German. We also got lunch while we were there, probably the most delicious goulash soup ever and for drinks we got radlers, which were beers mixed with Sprite. So good. In any case, this was a terrible idea in hindsight. I'll explain later.

We went to Alexa and Guiseppe's shop, a little clothing store in some kind of mini-mall, where we met them. Alexa then took us to her mother's house, where we met Felicitas, a very cute, very old German woman who doesn't speak much English, but that didn't seem to stop her from having a grand old conversation with the three of us while Alexa made her dinner. We also ate Christmas cookies. Yes, at the end of February.

Once we got home, we hung around for a bit, looking at Alexa and Guiseppe's wedding pictures from 13 years ago (Alexa the younger was 8 at the time--so adorable). In the meantime, Guiseppe is getting dinner ready. Oh, cruel fate that had us eat anything at all earlier that day.

We were sitting at the table, munching on chips and olives with almonds in the center, and drinking the most bitter orange drink in the world (called compari--we kind of dreaded having to drink it, but we couldn't really refuse), when dinner was ready to be served. At this point, none of us are really hungry as we had just eaten a bunch of chips, olives and downed the compari. Yet once again, we couldn't really refuse. It was a wonderful dinner, with the first course being a bowl of pasta with creamy tomato sauce and cheese. We ate that all right, delicious. But that's not where it ended. After that was done, he comes out of the kitchen with chicken and roasted potatoes. At this point we're a little stuffed, but what could we do? We accepted the portions he gave us (not small) and ate all of it. Plus we had some salad, not to mention the dessert of fruit and cookies, and a constantly filled wine glass. Lucky for me it was red wine, which I don't particularly like. I pretty much felt like I had to throw up, there was so much food inside of me. But it didn't end there, either. Alexa then brought out her homemade lemon liquor, which she mixes herself--it was basically lemonade, but with 95 proof alcohol mixed in. She gave us each a shot, and then a second. Even with the massive amount of food in me, I could still feel it. After we refused a third shot, she said, "Well, there's always tomorrow." And boy, was there ever.

The next day was a bit more relaxed. Alexa treated us to a day in the gardens near Heidelberg, which are apparently some of the best gardens in Europe or something. I forget what the brochure said. But it was lovely, there was a mosque that had been built in 1492, some temples, statues, and a bunch of fountains that weren't working. Because it's February. We also saw a bunch of dead plants with no leaves or flowers, because it's February. It was sad, but the place was still pretty regardless. Then she treated us to soup and cake.

We got back to the main drag, where Alexa dropped us off as she had to be in the store until closing at six. We had a while yet until then, about an hour and a half, so we just kind of shopped around some more. I got a few gifts and that was really about it. Oh yeah, and we bought a tiny bottle of absinthe.

That night we were once again assaulted with another enormous feast. We started out once again with pasta, sprinkled with little bits of seafood here and there, and some baked artichoke things that were fantastic. And then came the main courses. Yes, plural. This time of what Guiseppe called "fish" but what I would call "all types of creatures of the deep." In the pan were whole calamari (we could make out the squids' heads), little octupi, shrimp and probably some other swimmers that I'm forgetting about. Also, there was eggplant parmagiana. Luckily for us we hadn't eaten a lot that day (for this exact reason) so we were able to eat more without fear of regurgitation. And we also had a constantly filled wine glass, but this time it was white wine, so I drank a bit more. Three glasses, to be exact.

Then came the lemon liquor. Oh, wonder of wonders. This was such a terrible idea. We each had probably four shots at least (it was so good, and Alexa kept offering it to us!). I had also had some kind of Italian liquor to help with my upset stomach (are you surprised I had a tummy ache?). So we were pretty happy that night, to say the least. And don't forget the little treat we had waiting for us upstairs.

Yes, we still had the absinthe waiting. It wasn't a lot, far from it; we probably shared a shot and a half between the three of us. And was it delicious; it tasted exactly like licorice, and is probably the only hard liquor that I can drink without making a face afterwards. Fortunately for us there was no more, as we probably would have seen the "green fairies" Nicki asked me about later.

And then we had to go to bed, as we were getting up at 6:30 am in order to eat one more giant breakfast and catch our 8:00 bus to the airport. That was a fun morning. At least two of us had indigestion, we were exhausted and thirsty, and once again had to eat. But it was so good, Guiseppe made us breakfast sandwiches of ham and cheese in between toast. And then they drove us to the station, where we got on the bus and headed on our way. And to finish this story quickly, basically what happened was we waited an hour or so for our plane at 11:40, went back to London, found out there were no trains until an hour later, and took a bus into central London instead. Voila, our weekend was complete.

I'll add pictures later, in a separate post. Or you could just look on Facebook.

The greatest play ever.

I saw Othello last night, and I am pretty sure it was the finest acting and the best overall performance I will ever see.

Ewan McGregor played Iago, and he was excellent. And the actor who played Othello (he was married to Kiera Knightley in Love Actually and was in Children of Men) was incredible. Every single actor on stage did a fantastic job; there was no weak link. And not only was the acting incredible, but the set was all stone and there was water all over the floor in the beginning, with a kind of long puddle all along the end like the street was flooded or something. And the music was subtle at first, would gradually build and climax at wonderful times--like when the golden gauzy curtains fell down in the bedroom in the last scene. Incredible. I got goosebumps.

And the final scene was the most moving performance I've ever seen. Simply incredible; it was engrossing, you were so invested in each character (except Iago) that you didn't want it to end the way you knew it would. But they executed it exquisitely.

My favorite part was probably when Desdemona was singing the song "Willow," right before her death scene. It was dream-like; she was echoey, and it was almost surreal, it was so ethereal. Very enchanting and haunting.

It was so wonderful and I wish you could all go see it so you know what I'm talking about.

I wish I lived with guys.

It makes me sad that my flatmates don't like my Irish Lit teacher. I mean, his teaching style is kind of different and he likes to get his say in, but I'd rather not hear them bad-mouth him to me. It makes me uncomfortable because I like him and think he's a really nice guy. It just bothers me. And apparently I make a fool of myself in class, according to one of them, but it may just be me misinterpreting what she was saying and getting really sick and tired of hanging out with the same people all the time. I'm starting to get annoyed at little things that shouldn't bother me; I just can't help it. I wish I lived with guys, then I probably wouldn't have to deal with... whatever it is I'm dealing with. Cattiness? Girly stuff? I don't know. Whatever.

On a side note, they are certainly not prudish in London. I've seen more nudity here on public television and the most random places than I've ever seen before. Nicki and I came across this show called "Virgin School" in which a man learns how to have sex at some whorehouse in Amsterdam, and there was full-on nudity. It was pretty much just like, Whoa, that's a penis. And today as I was walking to the station from school, I saw a postcard that had a breast on it, thought someone drew a face on it, that said "Breast wishes from Britain."

What?

I liked Jurassic Park better.

So guess who I met today? Kevin Spacey. Yah, that's right, THE Kevin Spacey. Though it was only for a moment at the stage door of the show I'd just seen. Whatever, I still got his autograph.

What I'm really sad about is JEFF GOLDBLUM WAS THERE TOO, and I MISSED him. He was in the play too, but he left early! What the hell? I was so looking forward to getting a picture with him, and he just bolts. I was so disappointed.

As for the show itself, it was actually quite disappointing. And Jeff Goldblum is one of the goofiest-looking guys I've ever seen. He's really tall and REALLY lanky. But I still love him. Oh Jeff Goldblum, why did you have to go???

A weekend of unfortunate events.

Let me start out by saying that this was looking to be a sad weekend anyway, since I actually had schoolwork to do, or at least start. But there were a few things I had planned anyway.

Friday was actually a pretty good day, what with it being a day off and all. I could do my work later; I had all weekend. So Caitlin, Kelly and I went to a place called Tea House in Covent Garden, which we eventually found after walking the entire length of the street we were on, and back. It was very clearly labeled, you see. We bought tea, and it was pretty cheap and fantastic, though for whatever reason I was not expecting it to be a tea store, but a tea parlor rather, a place where you could sit down and order a cuppa or something. Whatever, it was still fun. Then we went to Hummus Bros for what I'll just call linner, an event which was recounted in an earlier post. Go read it, you lazy bum.

Saturday was when the trouble began. I was going to go on a walk around Greenwich with Bill, our trusty director, and a bunch of other ICLC students. But then Nicki put me on a guilt trip, saying it's okay that I was backing out of our plans to go to Keats' house, it was fine, I should do what I wanted to do. So of course I was like, it's fine, I'll go to Keats' house with you Nicki. That's just the kind of person I am.

We get up around 11, get ready, and set out for Belsize Park, which took us about 30-45 minutes to get to via the tube. We emerged in an adorable, suburban area of London, the sun was shining, and we were happy and off to see one of our favorite poets' houses, where he penned "Ode to a Nightingale" under a plum tree in the front yard.

We make our way down Keats Grove, the street on which his house is located, we can see it over the fence.

"The Keats House Museum will be closed for major renovations until August 2008."

Um, excuse me?

I was not pleased.

We went all that way, only to find out the stupid place is CLOSED. I couldn't really believe it; I had wasted a morning, doing something completely useless when I could have gone to Greenwich and the prime meridian.

On the way home, we saw something on the sidewalk that Nicki said "perfectly embodied her emotions":

It's a sad ghost, or possibly a foot.

Anyway, that was Saturday. Sunday was even better. I got up early, thinking, I'll get to the ICLC right when it opens. Then I'll have a quiet place to read and do a little research for Irish Lit before I have to meet with my group at 4.

It was a good plan. I got to the tube station around 11:09, 9 minutes after the center officially opened, and stopped to get some coffee at a cute little cafe on the way to the school. And to my delight, a coffee came with a free croissant. So I had breakfast, all for 1.20 (in pounds).

I'm happy. I get to the school, and see one of the girls who lives next door to me with her visiting boyfriend. I smiled and waved, and was met with this lovely greeting:

"We can't get into the London Center. I don't have the key and the other person who's supposed to be here isn't."

So what do I do? Well, damned if I'm going home now. I came here for a reason: my flat is a terrible place to do any sort of work. So I decide to wait. I'm soon joined by my friend Andy, who is also just as happy to sit on the cold metal patio chairs while we wait for some kind of news. I was so glad all I wore was my sweatshirt over a tank top.

After waiting for a little over an hour, Bill finally showed up on his bicycle. He had to bike all the way from Zone 3 just to let us all in. Kudos to the working girls for creating this debacle. Whatever, at least I eventually got the feeling back in my toes and fingers.

It's like Hitchcock.

There is nothing quite so terrifying as a pigeon flying directly at your face.

The brothers of hummus.

Today I went back to a beloved restaurant with Caitlin and Kelly, the twins that I live with. It's a little place called Hummus Bros, and it is amazing.

Each dish is hummus with a topping of some sort, from vegetables, to guacamole, to meat. And they have really cool drinks too, my favorite being the aloe vera juice. It sounds strange, but it's quite delicious and refreshing; there are little aloe vera pieces in it but they're kind of like fruit, and the juice itself is sweetened with honey and "a splash" of grape juice, as they describe in their menu.

It's probably the best restaurant I've been to here. AND today they gave us a free meal because they messed up and put the wrong topping on, and they just brought it out and said, we made a mistake, you can have this for free. Which worked out because Kelly was just going to share with Caitlin, and didn't get a meal of her own. AND they then asked if we would like some mint tea, on the house!

What a brilliant place. NO WHERE in the U.S. would give you free stuff like that. Sara and Alexa had gone there before as well, and they were given a free dessert. SO fantastic.

Valentine's Day, belated.

Happy (late) Valentine's Day everyone!

Last night to celebrate, a bunch of us went to a wine bar my friend Jamie told us about. I've been wanting to go for a really long time, so I was excited, and we made our way there from the station when half our group was together.

However, one of my roommates had to give me a bad start to the night. When we got to the bar, she took one look in and said, "There's not enough room." I told her I was going to go in anyway, we came there specifically to go there, and I was angry that she had the nerve to take this away from me especially since she didn't really want to go in the first place. But she insisted not all of us would fit, and I finally snapped. I yelled at her that we would go then, and I stormed off, walking as fast as I could toward the station. She called after me but I ignored her, then my friend Caitlin finally caught up with me at a crosswalk. She told me that there was another room with more tables, commiserated with me and waited with me for the others who had not yet gotten to the station. I needed to cool off and this was the only way I could think of.

But anyway, the others finally got there, and we all walked back. The people I had left behind were sitting at a big table where there wasn't enough room for everyone, so my friends Sara, Alexa and I sat at a separate table. Which was fine by me.

We ordered a bottle of the South African red wine, because Jamie had recommended it, and it was delicious. And I usually don't like red wine. It had hints of black pepper in it, and Sara described it as sharp, which I would tend to agree with.

So that was my Valentine's Day. I had a good time once I escaped from the corner I feel like I put myself in during the course of my time here, what with never saying anything to my roommate about her constantly infuriating behaviour. God, I can't remember the last time I was so mad. But after that I had a nice night out with some friends.

Cookies.

So four of my friends (all guys) were the victims of armed burglary two nights ago, after some guys they met came to their place and pulled out a gun (that turned out to be a pellet gun, but still). They were very shaken up, one had his wallet stolen; thank goodness one was able to bolt out the front door and start yelling in the street for help. So because of this, three of my flatmates and I decided to bake them cookies to cheer them up. And you lucky readers get to see everything here.

Yah, that's mostly butter there. We had to taste test; who knows how they would've tasted?? Kelly was skeptical.

They were delicious, by the way. We brought them over to the guys, and they said they were delicious. So nobody say we can't bake. Because we're fantastic bakers. We should live on Baker Street, we're so great.

Liverpool and The Beatles

This weekend I went to Liverpool with a group from my school, and it was AWESOME. We got there at about noon, hung around for a while then went on the Magical Mystery Tour. I saw so many different things, and I took pictures!

George Harrison's house, where he was born.

John Lennon's house.

Paul McCartney's house at 20 Forthlin Road, where he and John wrote most of their songs, in the room with the window right next to the door. Paul's room was the one right above the door.

These are Ringo Starr's houses, the brown one and the white one respectively, down the street from each other.

"On the corner is a banker with a motorcar, / The little children laugh at him behind his back. / And the banker never wears a mac / In the pouring rain, very strange." This bank:

"Behind the shelter in the middle of the roundabout / A pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray / And though she feels as if she's in a play / She is anyway." This building (and it is in the middle of the roundabout) used to be the shelter that they sing about:

And these are self-explanatory.

That night, we went to The Cavern Club. The original is unfortunately no longer there, but that was where The Beatles first played and were discovered by their manager, Brian Epstein. The one we went to is basically the same, just not the original, and a little farther away than the first one was. But we danced there all night, and it was really fun. I also decided that night to make "Come On Eileen" our theme song, so I requested it.

The next day we went to The Beatles Story, a museum-type place that had basically the entire history of The Beatles and things from their past displayed. It really was the story of The Beatles, told through an exhibition.

When I finished going through the exhibition and was shopping in the gift shop, I was looking around and found a T-shirt with the Abbey Road album cover on it, and I really wanted it. So I bought a medium, like I usually wear, and thought I was all set. Well, I then saw my friend Shawn who had a T-shirt like mine, but hers was just fitting her. And she is smaller than me. So I asked her what size she had, and of course she said she had a medium. Well, I was really sad because I knew that size wouldn't fit me if it was just fitting her; so I asked the workers there if I could just switch my medium with a large. Unfortunately I couldn't; the codes were different. So I had to go through a whole return deal, gave them my receipt, etc. THEN I found out that Shawn had a women's fitted tee, and not the regular T-shirt I had gotten. I freaked out; now it DEFINITELY wasn't going to fit me. They told me to switch it again, since we were still in the store, but I didn't want to have to go through all that again. Plus, it would have been embarassing. So I made a decision. "Here, hold this," I told my friend Lauren. I gave her my bag, switched the large for a medium, and walked out of the store. At that point I didn't care, I just wanted my damn T-shirt.

So we walked out of the store, and ran into a very special man. This is Sgt. Pepper! He was very nice and let me take a picture with him. :)

We also went to Anfield Stadium, where the Liverpool Football Club plays, but since I don't really care too much about professional football (soccer) it didn't really capture my attention as The Beatles stuff did. But after that we did more Beatles stuff on our own. We went to The Grapes, which is on the same street as The Cavern Club; this was where John, Paul, George and Ringo would get drinks before playing their gigs. And we sat at their table! Well, only for like 15 seconds because some ladies were already sitting there and we asked them to move so we could take a picture... haha. They were very nice ladies.

All of this stuff was on Mathew Street, famous for being the starting-off point for The Beatles. There's a statue of John Lennon there now, leaning against one of the walls. The walls around him are made up of hundreds of bricks, each one with the name of a band or performer. Every single band that has played at The Cavern since its opening in 1957 has their own brick.

So I had a pretty great weekend. And the icing on the cake was this pub we heard about and ate at called Wetherspoons, where they had a deal for a pint of beer (or some other drink options) and a burger with chips for 5 pounds. That was a really great deal, especially since pints usually cost from 2 to 3 pounds each. So we ate cheap in Liverpool. :)

Now I know what it's like.

So I think we have nightingales near our flat. Because we hear birdsong at odd hours of the night. I guess now I know how everyone else feels when I spontaneously burst into song. Sorry everyone.

A day on the job.

Hi everyone. I thought I'd give you a virtual tour of what my day is like at my work placement.

First I walk from my flat to Bayswater Station, a few blocks away.

Me walking:

Then I get to the station and go inside.

It takes about half an hour to get to my destination, Farringdon Station.

Then I walk down the street and turn down a small alley-type street, toward the door that leads to the offices inside.

I walk up some stairs after buzzing in, and then walk through these doors.

This is the Duckworth office. Beyond the bookshelfs are desks, which is where I sat on this particular day. The other days I sat in a room that is kind of next to that white pole.



This was my view from my desk this day. Nice.

This day I spent looking for places to sell books. Namely, sex museums and sex toy shops for "Love and Sex With Robots," and global-warming-is-not-real websites for the anti-global warming book "An Appeal To Reason." Hm.


This is the Starbucks I go to for lunch every day, around 1 or 2 pm. There is additional seating downstairs, and I think it's quite cozy to sit and read for an hour while sipping my drink.


After my day, I walk to the Farringdon station at 5:30, or half-five as they say here. The station is pretty busy.


This particular day I got off at Notting Hill Gate station, since I wanted to go to the Waterstone's bookstore on this street.

And that is my day on work placement days.