I grew up with the Beatles. Now, I know that everyone in the world did, but I don't know if anybody understands my  father. He is a Beatles fanatic. We have a little recording studio in our basement that has soundproof walls. It also essentially has Beatles memorabilia walls. Long car rides? Almost always includes a Beatles playlist. The Beatles laugh? My dad has it down perfectly. When Gabbi said that she went to Liverpool and did a whole bunch of touristy Beatles things, I knew that if I would regret it if I didn't take full advantage of my England experience. So, I pulled a Bulchawki and booked a trip to Liverpool by myself.
The day started off at 5:45a. My train left from Euston at 7:07a which meant I had to grab the #10 from outside our house and get ready for the 50 minute ride. The train I was taking was a Virgin high speed train between London and Liverpool. As soon as I got on the train and put on my headphones, the next thing I remember is waking up in Liverpool. I apparently passed out sitting straight up in my seat. I was there around 9:15a and the city was completely dead. There was a scattered mother/stroller combo here and there but other than that, even the tourist booth didn't open until 10:30. I wandered around for a bit exploring the city and taking in how different it was than London. As the stores began to open up I wandered around those, beginning to feel like an old person doing walking laps around a mall. By the time The tourist booth opened, I knew the city already pretty well. What I didn't know was where to meet the bus for my Magical Mystery Tour: a Beatles tour I had booked that departed from the 'Tourist Information Booth' at noon. Well, I went to A tourist info booth and they directed me to another one. They gave me a map and there was absolutely no Beatles on it whatsoever. As I asked people where I could  go to get on the bus and where the docks where, I began to wonder if I was in the wrong Liverpool. Finally I somehow made it to the docks, and the Beatles part of the city. It was beautiful; they have the 'Yellow Duckmarine' for the kids tours, and the Beatles Experience, which I'm pretty sure is run by the same people who opened the British Music Experience in the O2.
At noon I get on the bus for the Magical Mystery Tour in a 1960's tour bus and begin to ride. Our tour guide's name was Paul and our driver's name was Stan. They knew so much about the Beatles! We went to all the childhood homes of all 4 Beatles (except Ringos, his was such a poor and old flat they we weren't given permission to walk down the street). They let us off at all 4 homes to take pictures, as well as Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields. I also saw the original Sargent Peppers and all the places they sing about in Penny Lane. They let us off at the Cavern Club where we got free entry with our ticket. After the tour I wandered back to the docks and did the Beatles experience, where there was so much memorabilia! Guitars, childhood pictures, and just really awesome displays of the Beatles. They even recreated the Yellow Submarine which you could go into, and a whole Sargent Peppers and Imagine room. After this I was pretty Beatled out and needed something else to do, so I began to have a wander around the city again. By this time, the streets were packed; even more than Oxford on a Saturday when its beautiful out. There was a singer or musician on every corner trying to make a pound, and walls of men waiting outside stores for their girlfriends and wives to stop shopping. It was really interesting visiting this city because it was so different than London; the demographics of the people were drastically different even though we had geographically we weren't hours and hours away. I think it was an accessory to have a baby and the girls like to put on blush like a clown. Guys- you are not cool if you don't have a tribal tattoo on your arm.   Also, the accent is so much thicker! I had to nod my head and smile so much more than I usually do in Londontown. (Could you imagine if I studied abroad in a country that didn't speak 'English'? Funny).
After an hour of reflection on the docks, I decided to head to a pub to have dinner. I was going to go to the Grape, another famous Beatles pub, but it was so roudy I didn't think it was dinner appropriate. There was another pub across the way that had a dinner menu and looked pretty packed, so I went in and ordered a sandwich. The guy behind the counter gave me a free pint of Strongbow and I ate my 'New York Steak Sandwich', observing the various rowdy Liverpool behavior.
Believe it or not at this point it was about time for me to get back to the station. I get back and attempt to get my ticket. I had made my reservations for my tickets on my dads credit card via just the digits because my debit card sometimes gets rejected for no reason. In London the lady just let me show my ID and printed the tickets out for me no problem. In Liverpool, however, the ticketdude was not having it. I don't know if he didn't like Americans or if he just needed a Cadbury bar, but he copped me such an attitude. I had to sneakily make my way to a nicer looking lady where she happily printed out my tickets for me.
On the train ride home it was going to take 4 hours. (that's what  I get for booking cheap tickets!). I fell in and out of sleep the entire time because this teenager next to me I think was the heaviest boy in England. He was so loud and when his grandmother told him to be a little quieter because people were trying to sleep, he said 'this isn't the quiet car!'. He is happy I was too tired and have the ability to fall asleep standing up. I get back to Euston and wait at the bus station for the #10 to never show up. I ended up switching buses 3 times to get home at 12:30a. What a day! May have been one of the best day trips. Then again I haven't blogged about my time with Nikki here, Brighton, Eastborne, Milan...

We're with the band

Wow, I suck. I haven't made a post in so long. I figured I really needed to make a post before I left for Milan this weekend. (we're leaving tomorrow at 6:40, aka the ass crack of dawn). I've also had jam packed full weeks/weekend so maybe it's about time to start typing about what's been going on.

Well, last weekend was Yasin's birthday. We started the weekend off early with St. Patricks day on Thursday. First of all, I thought that St. Patricks day was going to be crazy in London. Ok, not as crazy as NYC, but still they were going to celebrate. Did I see one person wear green as I walked to work? No. Was barely anybody celebrating? Yes. When I wished people at work a Happy St. Pattys day, they looked at me like I had 3 heads. What?! This country is right next to Ireland, where the holiday originated. Where is the fun of drinking all day?...
We wanted to go to O'Neills, the typical Irish Pub in the middle of SoHo, but honestly on a weekend the line is around the corner and it's about an £8 cover charge. When we got there, the streets were packed and it was utter chaos (want to know why? Becasue it was all Americans and creepy Brits who wanted to meet the Americans). So we ended up waiting in line for Waxys Little Sister in Chinatown. (A Chinese pub...on St Patricks Day. Oh the culture.) Laurens friends were visiting from America and the entire time they were txting one of the bartenders at O'Neills trying to get us in. Finally a bunch of Brits told us to come outside and they told us we were going out. Yasin said she wasn't going anywhere unless she was VIP. They started laughing at her like she was crazy but they told us to follow them. This is where London differs from America...we just did. We ended up at Zoo Bar, which is on of those London staples: you go there once or for a quick fix of a night but you really don't want to go LETS GO TO ZOO BAR TONIGHT! It's full of creepy Italian men and trashy girls. There was a line around the corner but somehow or another, we got on the VIP line and walked right in. We got inside and went downstairs where the DJ was playing a really good mix. We stayed there for a really long time. I got seperated from the group for a while and when I got reunited with them, they found themselves a corner little room where I guess Africa had it's own DJ. People were tribal dancing (I am not making this up, I have pictures to prove it) and everyone was getting down to old school rap and African music. Begin night one of getting home at 4am.
Start night 2 of Yasin's birthday weekend. We decided to go to 93 Feet East on Brick Lane, where every Friday is Free. The last time I went they had 2 rooms: one room with electronica music and one room of live music. We got there this time and the first room we stepped into was older people (and by older we mean the above 30 crowd) and they were playing 'remixed' Michael Jackson. It wasn't exactly what we were looking for. We went into the other room and Deathwish Disco was bumpin' some dubstep. We decided to get a drink to start the countdown to midnight, when all of a sudden this guy bumped into us. We ended up talking to him the entire night...AND he was a Brit! His name was Michael and he is a analyst broker something with Russian money and he bought us drinks all night and a bottle of Rose for Yasin's birthday at midnight! I was so happy we made a friend and he was so sweet.
The next day we headed to Oxford where we were determined to see where the Great Hall of Harry Potter was filmed. We spent the morning walking around taking in how perfectly cliche Oxford is. We finally went into one of the stores and asked where we can embarrassingly see the Harry Potter hall. It was an Oxford bookstore and the guy behind the counter laughed at us and said 'it's at Trinity College, but you guys are going to be disappointed'. Heads held high, we marched straight into Trinity College and began taking pictures. They had a sign pointing to the dining hall and we opened the doors expecting magnificence and it was....well...very short of magnificent. It was set up like the Great Hall but it was a lot tinier. We thought that it was just movie magic that made it so grand so we decided to start taking tourist pictures. Happy about making fools of ourselves, we headed back into Oxford to explore Oxford Castle (the people in Oxford didn't even know they had a castle. It's a well hidden secret. And actually, the mother of Robin Hood was kept there and escaped on ice skates. How cool! Or at least that's what our tour guide told us). We spent a lot of time there taking silly pictures as well. When it was finally time to catch our bus back, we were exhausted. Plus, we had to rest up for our Camden pub crawl we had tickets to. The Camden pub crawl we did was the pubs in Camden 'off the beaten path'. It was led by this rocker guy with a bleach blonde mullet and who at one point got too drunk and started hitting on me and made me really uncomfortable, but it was too funny to stop him. For 8 pounds we got free entry/no queues at all the pubs, plus a free shot at each place and drink specials. It was quite the deal. Each place was different and unique and typical 'Camden'. We only ended up going to 5/6 places though because at the 5th place, the Barfly, there was a live band playing. We got our free shot and as Yasin and I made our way up to the front of the crowd I said to her, "I want to meet the band". So, we did. And we ended up hanging out with them all night. We bought alcohol outside the pub and drank it on the streets and then went back inside and hung out and danced until almost 4am, where then they came back to our flat and we hung out and talked and had a giant sleepover. Yes, we fit almost the whole band into our tiny closet of a room.

Murder and mystery in the city

This past week we started our internships. Walking onto London Wall in the City of London I had no idea what to expect. I knew the ins and outs of London Music Masters but I didn't know what they were expecting of me.


Now, I had never worked a 10-6 (9-5) job before where I had to sit behind a desk for hours upon end staring at a screen. I'm used to running around after autistic kids or even sitting in the sun splashing water in a dirty pool with Wayne Hall for hours. I don't think I've ever been more exhausted in my life. With an hour commute one way just to get to the office, I had no idea that sitting and doing computer work could be so exhausting. Also, I was so used to walking around so much before this that it's like not moving around is making me tired.


Although at times I feel like Anne Hathaway in the Devil Wears Prada in the beginning of the movie where she's juggling Hermes scarves, I was also given a lot of responsibility which is pretty cool and makes me feel pretty honored. First, I'm doing the LMM Recommends, which is basically like what LMM suggests their followers to do in London for music every week. This is a cool job because I have to research what to do for music, and it gives me insight on what's going on in the London Music scene. Also, I get to do blog entires, and although mine this week is about #Operablog and not that exciting, I'm sure once I get to go into schools and start doing real LMM stuff it'll be more interesting to the readers. And finally, LMM basically said to me, 'we're starting a new summer camp this summer for the Bridge Project kids. One Week, limited budget, plan it....go'. I was really excited about this, probably had too many big ideas and, got way too ahead of myself too quickly. I can't wait to really start to get my hands dirty with planning this camp and make it great for the kids. 


To refer back to the title of this blog entry, on Monday after class Yasin and I were walking back after wanting to claw our eyes our from the most dry political lecture of lives, and we stopped at our favorite off license and Yasin got a somosa and a Smirnoff Ice. On Thursday we had a Murder and Mystery tour walk around the city of London where our tour guide gave us creepy insight onto the Tutor time period and how they used to torture and kill people. Our tour ended at a pub where FIE (my school, aka my tuition) bought us a pint of blush cider, which was one of the top contenders of the best cider I've had so far. 


Oh, last thing. So I'm working in the City of London, which is basically Wall Street of NYC. So it's 85% men. In suits. When I walk down the street I'm SO the minority of women. When I'm walking to the tube station after work the pubs around Liverpool Street Station are just POURING out of men drinking pints. It's a beautiful thing. I gotta start taking full advantage of this hand served opportunity. 
I'm half kidding.

Cork: where it's socially acceptable to drink somebody else's pint

So this past weekend I went and visited Kelly in Cork. Let me just say right off the bat, I HATE RYANAIR. I understand it's cool you give really cheap flights and all but you suck.


First of all I had to fly out of Stansted which is just so inconvenient. Thank God I have paranoia and got there more than 2.5 hours early because I ended up being the victim of racial discrimination (My brother pointed that out after I was venting to him and eating my feelings away in the Starbucks terminal).


Anyway, I've flown out of Stansted before and I've never had a problem. My carryon suitcase came with an opaque liquids bag and I've been using that to fly with the entire time. This weekend, however, it was completely unacceptable. After waiting almost 20 minutes in a security line, they told me that little punch was too big and that I couldn't use it to hold my liquids. I would either have to throw out all my liquids and the bag, check my bag for 40 pounds, or be escorted with a security guard to buy 4 little baggies for 1 pound, and then wait back in security line again. I clearly choose the latter. I got my baggies, put my liquids in one of them, and waited in the long security line again. I put all my stuff through security and this time, both my suitcase AND my purse got pulled off to be searched. I stood there while all my stuff was spread out for the terminal to see. They went through everything, the pockets of my jeans and all my little bags. Clearly they found nothing illegal, but they pulled out my mascara and all of my lipstick and told me 'all of these were unnecessary, there were too many and I would have to make a choice'. WHAT? While they took my camera and phone to be taken in the back room to be scanned, they threw out half of my lipstick! This whole process took about an hour and a half and I was so upset and shaken after, I was so happy I had put a Ben's Cookie in my bag before I had left and thank GOD they hadn't taken that. After I boarded the plane, I of course got stuck next to the guy who bought 2 seats so that there would be one seat between him and the person he sat next too, so I didn't even need get to talk to someone cool. 


I got to Cork and took a taxi who I think thought he was in 2Fast2Furious. I somehow arrived to Kelly's apartment alive, and stayed up til almost 2am talking. It was so nice seeing her..again! The next day when I woke up it was..snowing? what? But unlike Europe, we didn't let a little snow stop us in our tracks! We went to Blarney to explore Blarney Castle and kiss the Blarney stone. We had lunch at a pub where I had a baked potato and my first pint of Guinness. When we got back, we walked around Cork and explored their little city. They have a store called Pennys which is run by Primark (my favorite/most hated store in London?..) but its cheaper/on the Euro so it was awesome going in there. When we got back and then had dinner at this Spanish/Irish restaurant. After dinner, we went out with all the Americans/Marist kiddies studying in Cork and I was really shown a good old Irish time. We went to a club/pub/bar and danced/partied until our feet couldn't move anymore. The next morning I woke up with my first European headache (maybe from that Polish vodka?..) but it didn't matter because the day was gorgeous. 


I got to the airport again just to avoid another disaster, and who knew that Ryanair said my bag was too heavy just by the lady picking up my carryon. They made me check my bag for 35 Euro so I was plenty pissed after being one of the first people on line to one of the last people on the plane. I got on the plane all mad but luckily found a window seat. This tall irish kid came and sat next to me and then a kid who looked younger than me who was in a pilot suit came and sat down in our isle as well. Turns out the irish guy next to me is a civil engineer who travels back and forth to Ireland just to hang out with his friends like twice a month, and the babyface next to him really WAS a pilot. Actually, he was a Ryanair pilot. He was 20 years old and had been flying Ryanair passenger flights for over a year and a half, and was proud to say he is a first c aptain. Makes me kind of question Ryanair even more?..


It was sad leaving Kelly because unlike muh who's going to be at Riverfest/band formal, she's not going to be back until May. I mean, she does have the ENTIRE month of April off where she's going to almost 20 countries all by herself.


Anywho, tomorrow we're visiting the Globe theatre for our British Life and Culture class, and then I have my first internship class (so, so riveting).  Also I have exciting days of interning coming up, plus the London Eye on Tuesday. Why does London ever have to end?..

Murder and mystery in the city

This past week we started our internships. Walking onto London Wall in the City of London I had no idea what to expect. I knew the ins and outs of London Music Masters but I didn't know what they were expecting of me.


Now, I had never worked a 10-6 (9-5) job before where I had to sit behind a desk for hours upon end staring at a screen. I'm used to running around after autistic kids or even sitting in the sun splashing water in a dirty pool with Wayne Hall for hours. I don't think I've ever been more exhausted in my life. With an hour commute one way just to get to the office, I had no idea that sitting and doing computer work could be so exhausting. Also, I was so used to walking around so much before this that it's like not moving around is making me tired.


Although at times I feel like Anne Hathaway in the Devil Wears Prada in the beginning of the movie where she's juggling Hermes scarves, I was also given a lot of responsibility which is pretty cool and makes me feel pretty honored. First, I'm doing the LMM Recommends, which is basically like what LMM suggests their followers to do in London for music every week. This is a cool job because I have to research what to do for music, and it gives me insight on what's going on in the London Music scene. Also, I get to do blog entires, and although mine this week is about #Operablog and not that exciting, I'm sure once I get to go into schools and start doing real LMM stuff it'll be more interesting to the readers. And finally, LMM basically said to me, 'we're starting a new summer camp this summer for the Bridge Project kids. One Week, limited budget, plan it....go'. I was really excited about this, probably had too many big ideas and, got way too ahead of myself too quickly. I can't wait to really start to get my hands dirty with planning this camp and make it great for the kids. 


Monday after class Yasin and I were walking back after wanting to claw our eyes our from the most dry political lecture of lives, and we stopped at our favorite off license and Yasin got a somosa and a Smirnoff Ice. On Thursday we had a Murder and Mystery tour walk around the city of London where our tour guide gave us creepy insight onto the Tutor time period and how they used to torture and kill people. Our tour ended at a pub where FIE (my school, aka my tuition) bought us a pint of blush cider, which was one of the top contenders of the best cider I've had so far. 


Oh, last thing. So I'm working in the City of London, which is basically Wall Street of NYC. So it's 85% men. In suits. When I walk down the street I'm SO the minority of women. When I'm walking to the tube station after work the pubs around Liverpool Street Station are just POURING out of men drinking pints. It's a beautiful thing. I gotta start taking full advantage of this hand served opportunity. 
I'm half kidding.

Paris...can't even do a decent pub crawl.

So as I was writing my post about Nimes, we somehow realized that we were on the wrong train. From Nimes, we were supposed to go to Lyon, and then from Lyon go to Grenoble. Well, on platform A there was a train that came in at around 17:53 that said Paris De Lyon that we figured was our train because hey! we don't speak French, it said 'Lyon' and it was around 17:58, which was the time of our train. Little did we know that our actual train, which was actually at 17:58, was just Lyon. That went straight to Lyon. Paris De Lyon is actually the name of the station in Paris, so we just ended up going straight to Paris, skipping our 6th city. When we got to Paris, all the trains to Grenoble the rest of the night were sold out. Not funny at the time, but definitely funny looking back on the situation. We found a last minute hostel on hostelworld that was the cheapest on the site, and started our trek on the metro towards our hostel. When we got off at our stop, we were legit in the ghetto of Paris. Now, I've walked through the streets of Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn at ungodly hours of the night/morning and I've NEVER been more scared for my life ever. We arrive at our 'hostel'..if you can call it that. More like an old hospital turned hostel. Clean, but creepy. We didn't even feel comfortable leaving our hostel because of the area so our first night in Paris, we stayed in our hostel. Yasin and I decided to just stay in Paris but Ryan decided he was going to head to Grenoble the next morning.


When we awoke Yasin and I had a mission: to find the Paris Longchamp store. I wanted to buy the new limited edition white bag with the stitched flowers on it. The euro is weaker than the pound, there's no import tax, and the bag would say 'Made in Paris' as opposed to 'Made in China'. Those were all my justifications for wanting to buy the bag. I had google mapped the store and we arrived at the Metrostation but all we saw was this giant temple thing. We asked all the locals where the store was but no one seemed to know! We spent the entire morning on a wild goose chase for the store until we realized it was almost 1:00 and we had wanted to do a free walking tour. At one point, we turned around and we legit BUMPED into the Eiffel Tower. Now, I had always thought that the Eiffel Tower was just a very cliche landmark and I didn't think that I was going to like it, but my heart literally pounded in my chest when I saw it. It was so large and beautiful, I couldn't help but fall in love with it. 


After excusing ourselves from the Eiffel Tower, we went to our walking tour. The tour was given by graduate students and everyone on the tour was young because they only advertised in youth hostels. Our tour guide Brian was out of control awesome; he was so knowledgeable about the Persians and the city of Paris. We went to all of the major Paris-y things and then some.  At one point he made a point that saying the French were bad at wars, revolutions, government, diplomatic relations...and all they could do was party. Hence, the world fair. Hence, the Eiffel Tower. When we got to the Louve, we realized that it was also fashion week in Paris, so this was the second fashion week I had been to. Although we may have gotten mini history lessons at all of the buildings, each one ended with a lookout for GaGa.We saw models posing throughout the city and we tried to get in the background of their pictures. He taught us the history behind high heels and corsets (stupid cream sauce) and how a nazi during the second world war was actually the one who saved Paris. At the end of the tour Brian told us about their tour company that gave a pub crawl every night. Then he helped point us in the right direction of Longchamp. 


We finally got to Longchamp, and it was better than we expected. It was a beautiful old building right in the middle of the shopping district of Paris where coffee is about 8Euro. Oh, did I mention that it was on the OTHER side of that temple that we ended up that first time we tired to get to it that morning? So all we would have had to do was walk around the temple and we would have been there, but whatever. We walk in and we're obviously not decked out in Chanel so we don't get a second glance. As soon as I asked them to get me a new bag of the limited edition one I wanted, I suddenly had a lady waiting on Yasin and I's need. Yasin also bought a bag and we walked out, feeling so accomplished. 


We went back to our hostel and met up with Ryan, who apparently never ended up in Grenoble (all the trains were sold out that day too! He went to some French coastal town for the day). Yasin and I decided we were going to do the pub crawl throughout the city...you go to 3 pubs and end up at a club where the entrance fee is 20 euro, but with the pub crawl you don't pay entrance to any of the places and there are drink specials at all of them. We get to the Moulin Rouge and there ended up being 70 people that showed up that night for the pub crawl. Some of the crowd included a group of girls that called themselves the 'Jersey Sluts' (I can't make this up...our tour guide actually had to yell at them and told them that if they were going to dress that slutty that he couldn't promise their safety). As we start pub hopping Yasin and I realized we had barely eaten all day, and after barely eaten all week from food poisoning, we were STARVING. On the walk to one of the pubs we walked past a kebab place, ditched the pub crawl, and got falafel kebabs. Did I have one drink on the pub crawl? No. Did I meet one French person? No. I met a cool Austrailian guy named Andy who was basically doing a world tour by himself, so I guess that was kind of cool. However, he ended up getting wooed by one of the Jersey Whores so after stealing a shot glass from one of the pubs, we got some chocolate and went back to our hostel to rest up for our Eurostar back to London early in the morn. So, you know what Paris? You fail at partying too...the Worlds Fair doesn't even continue today. All in all though, the city is beautiful and full of so much history, I was definitely upset I was there for such a short amount of time. The trip itself was such a tease; being in these incredible cities for only a day. Despite my food poisoning, it was so interesting to see the clashing cultures and the rich history. It just would have been nice to eat more, considering I love to eat. 

Spain: Speedy Boarding is Always an Option

The plane ride to Madrid I passed out the second I got into my seat. I woke up with about half an hour left in the flight and an ungodly amount of turbulents. The Spaniards, apparently, thought it was as fun as a rollercoaster ride, whooping and hollering every time the plane slightly moved. I have to admit however I was slightly scared because they were the worst turbulents I had experienced in my life. I was also slightly miffed because being sick, I thoght there was no need to yell about it. I was feeling really weak when we landed and headed to the metro and towards our hostel, which luckily was only stops away. As we were walking to our hostel, we noticed a Dunkin Donuts. In all of the places in the world, not London, but Madrid. Who knew. We put our stuff down, and headed towards a little café where Yasin and I had decided to try and eat some food. I had a really delicious fruit smoothie with raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries. The euro is weaker than the pound and Spain is so much cheaper than London, I felt like I was almost like robbing them. After the little café we decided to get donuts at the Dunkin donuts, where almost all of the donuts were in shapes of hearts. I was only able to take a few bites of mine but needless to say it was delicious.

Back at the hostel Yasin and I took powernaps while Ryan went for a run. I woke up still feeling really shitty so Ryan and Yasin went out for some dinner around 10. They came back with a 1.5L of water, Powerade, and crackers, all of which cost them less than 3 Euro. Insane. After a long nights rest, I woke up feeling better and able to walk around. We had breakfast at the hostel and Ryan had planned out a walking tour for us of the city. It was a beautiful day outside and we spent the entire time just walking around Madrid, going inside Cathedrals, taking pictures of beautiful walls and streets, looking at postcards and little shops. We went into this really cool handmade belt and suspender shop where they had hundreds of belts! After a long day of walking, we got our ticket to Barcelona and got on the 3 hour high speed train.

We slept the entire train to Barcelona, so we were ready to go. We arrive at our hostel, where the lady was so friendly and welcoming. We were staying in the only other mixed dorm, and it just so happened to be a Chinese family. The parents didn’t speak English, but the girl who was our age, spoke perfect English and was actually studying abroad from China in Amsterdam. We had a lot of fun talking to her and she loved our American accent. She said it was ‘much more beautiful than the British accent’, which personally, I didn't understand because I think the British accent is way cooler than any 'New Yawk' accent but hey, I'll take whatever American compliments I can get. That night in Barcelona we decided to take the metro to the Mediterranean where there was a boardwalk and lots of nightclubs.  On the way out the door of our hostel we notice a booklet for ‘Icebarcelona..10% off’. We decided this was our destination. There is an ice bar in London but it’s really expensive and you only get 45 minutes inside. We get down to the boardwalk and we get handed even more little flyers for ‘Opium’ where they are advertising for a chocolate fountain. It’s free until 2:30am, and dress is ‘funky and classy’ so we decided that that would be our dessert after Icebarcelona. We get to the ice bar and for 13.5 Euro, we got a drink and got the entire Ice Bar to ourselves. We were given these big puffy jackets and gloves and allowed inside. The entire place is made of ice; floor, sculptures, seating, tables, even the mugs you get your drinks in. They played an AWESOME playlist of Missy Elliott and old school 80’s rap and R&B (Yes, American of course, because why would we go to a foreign country to listen to foreign music? What a concept). I only drank about 1/4 of my drink and after about an hour of dancing to keep warm, we decided to head to Opium. Opium was a whole other world, packed with classy dressed Spaniards…but none of them were dancing. The DJ was popping so we obviously got the dance floor started. After about an hour of dancing we found the chocolate fountain, or amazing fondue fatstation, and then after exercising our rights as fat ass Americans, we got back to the dance floor. Now, reminder, this is a Tuesday night. I know that the Spanish culture is to have siesta and all, but the club, which was half full when we got there around midnight, didn’t start to get going until about 2am. (Side note: we’ve been wondering about Europe…Do people work? Do children go to school? What do people do? We see children just roaming around with their parents at all times of the day and people of all ages just shopping or walking around the streets. I know the phrase “Americans live to work, Europeans work to live” but still. Come on people….what do you do with your lives?). At this point I started to feel ill again, and I guess that ¼ of a drink wasn’t the best idea. We walked all the way back to our hostel (I’d say about 3 miles) because the bus/metro system shuts down around midnight.

I woke up the next morning feeling like shit, and we had a walking tour of the old city of Barcelona planned for the day. Honestly, people all of my pictures are either Yasin’s or Ryan’s because I was barely about to keep my camera out. Walking was a task for me; that’s how shitty I felt. I don’t even know what I could have ingested that made me feel so shitty but Morocco, damn, you took a toll on me. It was such a shame because in the waves of minutes where I felt ok to look around and enjoy the city, it seemed amazing. There was so much history and our tour guide was funny and had so much knowledge. I could have definitely pictured myself going to school in Barcelona because of all the winding side streets, shops, people, and endless history.

From Barcelona we headed to Nimes, which included a train switch. When we got to Montpielle the station was closed so we couldn’t buy our ticket to Nimes, so we legit just hopped the train and rode it to Nimes. When we got there, I had accidently booked the hostel for the wrong night. The ‘hotel’ which was on hostel world as a ‘hotel’ was actually disgusting and undergoing construction, so we ended up staying at the Hotel Caesar, which was only 4 Euros more and the nicest hotel so far. It was down the block from the train and we got towels! We spent the entire day walking around the city, which isn’t big at all, but is beautiful to say the least. It is a city, but has a small town feel. It’s French, but was taken over by the Romans hundreds of years ago so has a coliseum, Roman statues, temples, and Roman stairs all over the city. Also, we got the impression it was a wealthy city because there was Armini, Chanel, and boutiques all over the city. We started the day with a bag of French pastries (a bag of French pastries  each, still keeping up the American fat ass title. I got a Capris sun, this brioche sugar thing, and three mini French pastries for less than 3 Euro. Why did I go to London again?) Yasin and I obviously stopped in the Zara and it was such a good decision. They had such a good sale going on and since the euro is weaker than the pound, I got a whole bag of stuff for about 30 Euro. Incredible.  We walked up to the top of the hill/mountain where we got this awesome view of the city. At the end of the day we went back to the hotel to cancel our room for the night, where we met this cute German couple. I’m currently on the train to Grenoble, where the entire car is full of French army guys. Bonjour!

Morocco- Where Dreams are Made and Broken

I don’t even know where to begin for this blog post. The stories and emotions are all over the place for this trip; the beginning of our spring break. I guess I’ll just start from the beginning.

Yasin, Ryan and I had a 2:40 flight out of Stansted. We were taking Ryanair, which none of us had ever taken before. They are very strict about their 1 bag limit and their 10kg limit. So, me having a backpack and a 13kg carryon, I had to check my bag for 35 Euros. You weren’t even allowed a personal item on the plane which was such BS, but whatever. Getting on a Ryanair plane is like a stampede; there is no assigned seating so when the gate opens, everybody legit runs to the gate to try and get a ‘good seat’, not like there is a good one. I’m looking out the window and I see people getting off the plane we’re about to board. Yes, Ryanair boards their planes 10 minutes after their passengers get off.

It was about a 4 hour flight to Agadir in Morocco. Where we were going is very southern on the coast so it took a little longer once we flew into the county to actually fly into our city. Flying over Morocco was very cool though, we flew over mountain ranges and we sang ‘Waka Waka’ the entire 40 minutes as soon as we passed the African boarder. Once we landed in Agadir at around 6pm, the temperature was almost 70 degrees F. At boarder control, Yasin and I both got stopped asking if we were Arabic and where our father’s origins were from. As we continued walking through the airport, there was another scan system to see if you were smuggling money. Yasin and I get stopped asking how much Dirham we have on us, us both quivering at the sight of the huge gun he has wrapped around his body, but the guy tells Ryan to keep going, saying ‘I see nothing I see nothing’. It was quite amusing. Once we get through that debacle, we see a guy holding a sign with ‘Surf Berbere’, which was our hostel on it, standing at the exit.  Apparently the hostel we were staying at was unknowingly a surf camp and one of the instructors had gone home to London for a week and was waiting to get picked up, so we ended up going home with him. The hostel was about 45 minutes outside Agadir, and the instructor Matt is telling us about the exotic places he’s been to and how he ended up teaching surf lessons in Morocco. When we get to the hostel, we realized we were sent by a guardian angel to bring us there. We would have NEVER have found it by ourselves; once dropped off by a taxi, we had to walk through a maze to get to it. After the labyrinth, however, it was so worth it. We had to walk on the oceans rocks to get to our hostel. It was absolutely mind blowingly beautiful. At the hostel, we are greeted by an Australian surf bum who checks us in and asks if we want dinner. We put our stuff down in our dorm and go outside to hear a chatter of Brits and Australians. The yoga instructor there gave us places to go in Agadir for the following day, but we told her we wanted to go out clubbing that night. One of the cooks there (who was actually Moroccan), Rakim, heard us say we wanted to go out clubbing, and asked if he could take us out. Us in our loud American ways said ‘sure!’ and he told us that by 10:30 we would head out. While waiting, we got to talk to the fellow Brits saying in the hostel and the instructors as well. One of the instructors, Tom, was only 20 years old and had been in Morocco teaching surf lessons for over 3 years! They were all drinking, smoking shisha, and had interesting stories to tell about their lives. They were also making fun of us for wanting to go out. Matt said ‘go to Dreams’ (one of the clubs in Agadir) ‘it’s where Dreams are made…and broken’. That soon became the quote of the night. At 10:30, Rakim came, looking fly, and off we went to Agadir for our big night in the city. When we got into the taxi, he told us he loves to make music. All of a sudden, this BOOM of techno music came on and we all started rocking out. After a few minutes, dirty lyrics such as ‘Put it to my lips, it better be big’ (yes all these lyrics were in English) started to come on. We think that Morocco needs a sexual revolution, not a political one.

                Rakim told us we were going to 2 places, one chill place first and then a club. He took us to the ‘British pub’ and we all started laughing. It was full of nicely dressed people, a DJ, had a pool table, and a karaoke machine DJ. Now, if they had pubs like this in London, I’d be at one almost every night. Everyone was laughing and having a good time. Some of the golden gems being sung on karaoke (in English mind you) were Faith, Zombie, Aicha (in French). Don’t  recognize any of these titles? Don’t worry. They had an entire American book of music featuring Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Brittnay, Madonna, Mombo #5, Bet Midler,

One lady even had a black sparkly prom dress like thing on. In the bathroom, I ran into a Sweedish girl who thought I was British, and invited me to her table at another club called Stuff N’ Tell. Clearly, we didn’t go there. We’re classier than that. (Rakim later told us that Stuff N’ Tell was more expensive than the club we were going to).

After a couple of hours of soaking in the Moroccan culture, being completely sober, it was time to head to the club. Now, being in a third world country, I wasn’t expecting anything fancy. Rakim took us to the front of ‘Actors’, shook the bouncers hand, and we were let in. Rakim then turns to us once were in and goes ‘just to let you guys know, it’s about 200 Dirham just to get in. (that’s about $25), which for them is about 3 days worth of food. Inside was the most unreal club. I have pictures and videos to do it justice because I don’t even know if I can begin to describe it. If anyone in London has been to Whiskey Mist, take that and multiply it by 100. Most of the people inside were foreigners and what seemed to be higher class Moroccans. After 3 hours of dancing and some of the best DJ-ing I’ve heard to date, we called it a night. When we got back to the hostel, Yasin’s stuff had been moved off of her bed and onto the floor and there was a boy sleeping in her bed. So, we had to ‘snuggle’ on the top bunk of a bed with 7 other boys in the dorm.

I was awakened the next morning by gorgeous Moroccan sunlight. The window right next to my face was a very cliché Moroccan style so I just laid in bed and looked out the window a while. We decided not to take the surf lessons and just go to the beach ourselves. We had a determination to ride camels on the beach, and as soon as we got the beach, what do you know! Camels. A couple of little boys were hustling the camels and this man who looked like he was right out of Arabian nights was with them on a horse. After talking them down to 20 Dirham each for a camel ride, we hopped right on. It was so much fun, the little boys bringing our camels along the beach had the camels in the water and gallop. After our 10 minute ride, Mr. Arabian Nights himself wanted us to pay up. As we got out our 20 Dirham, he started getting angry, saying 20 Euro. We got confused, but as we started asking questions, we realized he didn’t know any English. This was a scary Arabian nights man and he just kept getting angrier and angrier. I took out the Dirham I had (Which was 200) and he grabbed it out of my band, he took 200 Dirham out of Ryans wallet, and Yasin just gave him 200. After that, the entire herd just walked away from us. We stood there in utter confusion until we realized we had just been robbed. Looking back on it, we realized it was about a $20 camel ride and we probably fed that family for almost 3 days, but still.

After that we decided to just chill on the beach. After a man with delicious homemade donuts came and offered us some about 4 times, a man from the Sahara desert came and decided to show us his handmade jewelry. He knew 5 languages: Berber, Arabic, English, French, and a ‘little bit of German’. He would sing a little tune as he would show us his jewelry; he  was one of the nicest men we met on the trip. It was such a shame we couldn’t buy anything from him, but we explained that we had just gotten robbed from the camel riders, and he was very upset for us. He even told us to go to the police, but we told him no, it was okay.

Ryan and I decided to go into the water for a bit, and then we decided to head into Agadir. We were told to go to the Sioux, which was the market, We took the bus which cost 7 Dirham (or less than $0.60), and we were soon in the middle of Agadir square. When we got off the bus we had a mission to find Suprabus, which was the bus we were taking from Agadir to Merrakesh the next day. This man came out of nowhere asking if we were going to the Sioux. When we responded yes, he told us to follow him. He was so nice, bringing us right to the Sioux, explaining that him and his brother owned a shop in the market that sold beauty products. When we got to the market, it instantly reminded me of the bazaar in Istanbul, except the floor was mud, there was vegetables and dirt everywhere, there were household items being sold such as things you would find in the Egyptian bazaar, and there were beggars everywhere. He brought us to his shop where his brother, who spoke almost perfect English, began to give us like an infomercial production of his products. I ended up buying Moroccan coffee, Berber lipstick that is so cool, it lasts you forever, and jasmine (which according to him, smells better than Chanel. I can agree). After sharing homemade mint tea with the brothers, the non-speaking English brother soon became our guide for the day. Just because! He brought us all throughout the Sioux, showing and pointing us out various things we wouldn’t have seen. He even brought us across town to the Suprabus. When we departed, he just gave us a big hug and went back to his shop. He spent almost 5 hours with us for nothing. We wouldn’t have known what to do without him.

We headed back to Surf Berber and decided to go to the pizza place that everyone said we had to try. After getting our rooms switched so we all could have a bed and an amazing shower, we headed into the little town in Talamazoo. I got chicken pizza, Yasin got a chicken Panini, and Ryan got a ham and veggie pizza. While we were leaving the restaurant, I SWORE I saw Jack Johnson eating pasta by himself. We headed back to our hostel, stuffed, chilled with the people for a bit, then headed to back. We had to get up for our bus at 5:30 to be on our bus at 7. At this point I was feeling fine, just full, but not sick at all. At around 1am, however, that all began to change. I don’t know what happened but I got the worst food poisoning of my life. Lauren who had gone to Morocco a couple of weeks before had warned me of this but I thought I was home free. The entire night I spent being sick. We got on the bus to Merrakesh and I thought I was fine, and about half an hour into our ride I knew I was going to puke. I frantically looked at the woman next to me who had a baby in her arms and suddenly puked all over the bus. She gave me toilet paper, a bag, and then perfume for my hands. The nice guy in front of me gave me gum and Arabic axe. I was so embarrassed but I felt a little bit better. About half an hour later, Yasin started to get sick as well. Ryan slept through it all. We arrived in Merrakesh 3 hours later. We were flying EasyJet to Madrid and it worked as the same was as Ryanair; everyone kind of runs to the gate. We were some of the first people on line, and the guy was yelling ‘speedy boarding?!’ and looking at us. We shook our heads no but he told us to come anyway. Clearly, we’re ballers, needing speedy boarding to be in VIP seats next to the bathroom. 

"Poppin' bottles with the Chelsea soccer team"

Ok ok so since my last promise that I was going to update this more frequently, I've fell even more off the wagon. I've had an extremely busy week and as Yasin and I sit here listening to the Chicago movie soundtrack on Youtube because we just booked ISH student tickets to go see Chicago and Lion King, I figured I had more than enough time to let the world know my life.


Last Monday our British Life and Culture class went to Brick Lane for a tour around one of the oldest parts of London. It was freezing but it was really interesting to learn about Petticoat Lane and the poor part of the city. The journey ended with a fantastic meal at an Indian restaurant where it we got to sample almost the entire menu. That night I had my Islam presentation, and then after my Islam presentation and all day Tuesday I had to work on my presentation for my music class on Tuesday night. We did an ethnographic project on the relationship between London hiphop and dubstep and how they relate back to the US. In fact, they don't, but the other groups did their projects on the history of punk and the history of dubstep, so we got to learn in depth the music cultures of London. This Friday we're going to Corsicorda Studios, which is apparently a nuts-o dubstep club as another one of our music excursions; I'm super excited...we're not even leaving until 11pm.


Wednesday after Islam class I met up with Fiona and after Yasin got out of her play, I dragged her out to Imperial club. It's so bizarre that I haven't seen fiona in years and I see her, no, BUMP into her, in London. We went out, and the bar was just closing when we got there, which sucked. This was just another night which confirmed that the Brits can't dance, but it was seriously so much fun. The music just shut off at 1 with Barbara Strisand (apparently the Brits love this song) and we walked the like 50 feet back to our flat.


Friday I had class in the morning and sadly Yasin left for her adventure weekend in Wales. I came back to the house and hung out for a bit all day. At night, a few of the flat mates and I decided to go back to Brick Lane to a club called 93 Feat East where I will definitely be going back. It was 'Free Fridays' so entrance was free; the outside was a BBQ and hangout area, then you went inside and the first room was an electronica/dubstep club and then the 2nd room was a live music hall. Whatever you wanted, they had. We had a blast and headed back pretty late. I had a sad night eating drunk hummus and pita without Yasin.


The next day Kelly was expected to arrive from Cork, but her flight was very delayed so Steph and I decided to walk around South Ken and get Starbucks/flatbreads from Whole Foods until Kelly got here. Kelly finally arrived and we walked around Piccadilly and Oxford Circus. As soon as we got off the Tube station in Piccadilly there was a human beatboxer who was making noises I had never made a human make before. We wandered around and eventually ended up at a pub where I finally got my fish and chips!  I actually really liked it even though I'm not a fish person. Kelly was amazed by the architecture and it was so nice to finally be with her again. We went back to my flat, got ready and headed into Camden. We went to the Worlds End pub where its usually a good time but there was a weird crowd going on. We ended up in Leichester Square and she was amazed by the flood of people there at 2am. On the bus ride home we of course got serenaded by a guy with a guitar and a whole top bus full of rowdy people. I got it on camera and it's uploaded on Facebook. The next day we woke up at 7am and were out for almost 11 hours and must have walked almost 10 miles. We saw all the London classics that Kelly wanted to see: Big Ben, Parliament, London Eye, Southbank Center, Changing of the Guard, Harrods, Aldsgate/Brick Lane, Kings Cross (aka Platform 9 and 3/4), St. James Cathedral, and Portobello Rd. We did a lot of traveling on the tube and the bus and she definitely got her days pass worth. We got home that night and ate Chinese take out on High Street for about 5 pounds and passed out around 10pm. The next morning I had class and Kelly left before us because she wanted to see Abby Road. It was sad to see her go but no worries, I'm going to Cork March 11th!


Class that morning was of course riveting with all of our newspaper presentations, and I started to feel more and more sick as the day went on. It was Singles Awareness Day as you all knew and I was feeling badass enough to skip Islam and go shopping on High street with Yasin. I finally got the cliche London boots I wanted for a student discount price of 15 pounds, suspenders, and medicine for my nasty cold. We also got sparkling special wine at Whole Foods for about 6 pounds. That night we gathered in flat 6 with Gabby, Lauren, and Rob, drank our sparkling wine, I ate my leftover delicious 5 pound chinese, and made up twitter updates about our fabulous Singles Awareness Night lives. All and all it was a great weekend/night.

(This is where I should have started a second blog, but I thought I'd just continue my week. Tomorrow starts a new week, and I will update it before Spring Break. Promise!!)

Phil had training for his company in Erith so he came back to London to hang out again, so it was really great seeing him again. We went to the British museum and saw mummies, pots, spoons, coins...the museum is huge but gets very repetitive after a while. I think it's really great that after so many years of talking I get to finally hang out him in person. It's crazy that we are able to just talk and talk without feeling awkward quiet. We click so well and it's such a shame we live so far.

I had my interview with my internship with London Music Masters. The company is on Wall Street (yes, I'll be interning on Wall Street in London) and I get off at the Liverpool Tube Station. I just feel really baller saying all of that. They seem really passionate about their projects and although I'll probably be copying papers and doing intern-y things to start off, I'm really excited to start off with them. They only need me 3 days a week and Marist expects me to do 4, so they referred me to Nordoff Roberts, which is a Music Therapy Masters program in London, but also internationally. I'm going to try and contact them and see if I can intern for them for the last day of the week.

Friday night my class had an excursion to a dubstep/grime concert at Corsica Studios, which is essentially a broken down warehouse. It was intense. The dubstep lifestyle in London is nothing like I've never seen before. In my music class we did a ethnographic project on dubstep and the culture but it was another thing actually living it. My teacher bought us drinks on FIE (so essentially, my tuition paid for my alcohol), and we ended up on stage literally feeling the beat of the drum and bass. The party didn't start until 12 but we couldn't handle more than a couple of hours of it. The next day I slept the latest I had here and Yasin, Lauren and I spent the day on High Street eating Bens cookies, looking around and walking around. We were going to stay in and do homework but Ally had other plans for us. Christina's friend had a 'hook up' at a bar in SoHo and Bob Sinclair was playing at Ministry of Sound. Well, Ministry of Sound was totally sold out and after rushing to get to Christina's friend's bar by 11, we were told we couldn't get in because they had the cap on the amount of 'free ladies'. Out of nowhere, this girl in almost rags came up to us and asked if were looking for a club. Although it's usually creepy old men trying to hustle you to get you to go into their club, it was a really nice cute girl. She said she had this club 'Bond' with a bunch of lights and that it was free for ladies. We went there, got in for free, and it was one of the nicest clubs we had been in so far in London. It was Willy Wonka theme night and there was oompa loompas walking around. On the menu there was finally LONG ISLAND ICED TEAS. Although they were 10 pounds 50p which is insane, Yasin and I splurged and finally got them. The DJ was crazy with techno and trance and every once and a while he would play a Willy Wonka song and remix it. Neil, Christina's brother, got us this crazy drink that serves '10', aka serves 20. It was a sex on the beach and honestly took all of us at least half an hour to drink (there are pictures on my facebook of this crazy drink). It had fireworks and had fresh fruit in it. We were dancing all night, Lauren got offered sex by Germans and met the owner and the socialites of London and Ally sucked face with a soccer superstar (theme?...).

This week is finals week. What? I have 3 finals, 2 papers, and a presentation. On Tuesday my music class is going to the British Music Experience which I'm really excited about. Saturday we're flying out for Spring Break (which I'll reveal at a later date!) We're going to Paul van Dyke, a Trance/Techno artist at Ministry of Sound on Friday night before our flight out on Saturday, cuz we live big in London. I'm currently attempting to study for British Life and Culture at the moment with no success. It's so far come to me uploading a picture of Steven Colbert as my user picture on Moodle, FIE's own version of iLearn with the description of myself as Colbert's pledge of allegiance. Oh well, 20% of my grade on this test? I think the whole flat will just have to push for Dr. Graham for a combined learning exam. Wish me luck!

When in Istanbul..

So these past 4ish days I was in Istanbul, Turkey. It's going to be so hard to describe my experience there but I guess the only line that can sum up my experience was that I was so heartbroken to have left. 
Kate, Zehra, Hameed, and 19 other people went on this amazing 'class' excursion. 


Turkish Airlines serves the best food and was extremely comfortable, but has a hard time leaving on time. When we arrived in Istanbul as some people were collecting their bags, a man came up to the boys and started yelling at them shouting 'you kill my wife you Americans fuck you' or something to that effect. The boys were kind of laughing and Hameed had to tell him that we had just landed and nothing was wrong. At first we were all a little freaked out because that was legit our first interaction with anyone from Turkey, so it was obviously scary. But honestly, I've never met a more welcoming, accepting, women respecting culture...but we'll get to that later.
On our drive to our hotel we pass the basic Turkish McDonalds, Burger King, BP..yano, all the things I didn't expect to see in Turkey. After a cobblestone bumpy drive we arrive at our hotel, which looks more like a hostel. We settle in and all walk down the block to an extremely nice restaurant where we sat on the 3rd floor and had an extremely nice meal of hummus, pita, scoops of various turkish raw and cooked veggies, chicken kebab with crepe, and finally...baklava. Everybody got the house wine but I decided that I was going to try a drink I couldn't pronounce the name of. It was called Ayran, and what a mistake that was. Imagine drinking greek yogurt that's been watered down and salted. Apparently you're supposed to drink it with meat and everybody in Turkey loves it. I could barely get one sip down, but we passed it around the table so everybody could have a sip. That night we explored a little bit of the part of the city we were in, but after over a 4 hour flight, being 2 hours ahead of London and not finishing dinner until after 11..we were ready for bed.


The next morning I was slightly woken up at around 6:20am and confused. All I heard was this mans booming voice outside my window. Where we were located was right outside the Hagia Sophia, along with other various mosques around the area. That was the first time we heard the call to prayer. Turkish breakfast was served at the hotel; it included fresh whole grain bread, tomatoes, olives, yogurt, cheese, hard boiled eggs, oranges, and a nutella like spread. It was absolutely delicious, light, and a perfect way to start off the morning. I was served turkish coffee as I sat on top of the rooftop terrace eating breakfast while I read the morning news on my nook (I woke up earlier than everybody else). The view was breathtaking, and I'm sure I'll be using that word a lot. We started our day with a guest speaker, Dr. Keyman who spoke about politics in Turkey and relations between Islam and the west. It was so interesting to hear him speak about Turkey; I learned things about the history, government, people, and Muslim culture I never knew before. I didn't realize this was going to be a taste to the wealth of knowledge I was going to acquire along this trip. After the hour and a half lecture, we were led to the docks where we sailed across the Bosporus to Asia to have lunch. When we got to Asia, it was also the call to prayer and it was a mad rush to the mosque. I ate a really awesome lunch and then we headed back to the boat to have about an hour long boat tour around the Bosporus, where we met our tour guide. After the boat tour, we headed back to the European side of Istanbul and started off our tours with the Hagia Sophia. The history in Istanbul is incredible; although this Hagia Sophia is a mosque, and now it's a museum, it was once a church. So within all the arabic calligraphy and turkish deisgn and mosque like features, there are tiled pictures of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and her baby. It looks giant from the outside, and then you walk inside and you feel like an aunt trying to make your way from one side to another. 


After the Hagia Sophia we went to the Basilica Cistern, which was left from when Istanbul was Constantinople. It's underground, and it's huge. It has 336 columns and it was where Justinian stored water for the palace. It has 2 Greek heads that nobody knows why its there. After that we went to the Hippdrome which was a open area where they used to have chariot races. A lot of it was destroyed during the crusades, but a 3000 year old Egyptian obelisk still stands to this day, and a column about 1600 which is so badly destroyed because they melted down the plaques to make coins, but it looks even more beautiful because of it. It was about 5pm at this point and the Grand Bazaar was closing at 7, so we decided to go to the bazaar to get a feel of what it would be like the next day when we had more time.
The Grand Bazaar is 60 blocks of shops. I can kind of compare it to Chinatown where it's the same stuff and you can haggle your way down in price and if you don't like the price you move on...but this is on a completely different level. First of all, everything is handmade. And I know most things are made by hand, but like, people are either sitting down on the floor or in the back of the little shop actually making the items they're selling in front of you. Bowls, plates, tiles, bags, shirts, jewelry, you name it...it was bold colorful beauty for blocks and blocks. Now, we were warned that because we were American we were going to get spottled out like a sore thumb and heckled, but we thought hey, how bad could it be. THESE TURKISH MEN ARE RELENTLESS. If I ever want a husband..I'm moving to Istanbul. Cheesy pickup lines such as "even if you don't buy anything..you can have my heart for free" skims the surface of what I heard.
Count: 
"Espana?!" (because apparently I looked Spanish): 46
"Turkish?!" (because apparently I looked Turkish): 15
"Ohhh Spice Girls!": 11
"Charlies Angels!!": 3
and those were only the ones I really remember. Putting all kidding aside though, these people were seriously the most friendly culture. It's part of their culture to make foreigners feel welcome and at home, so almost half the shops we were in we got offered Turkish, Chai, or Apple tea. They were so excited to talk to you, hear about your past, and I think I ended up with almost 15 business cards and email addresses. After we were done looking at the bazaar, we headed back to have dinner and then we decided to hit the town. We went into Taskim Square, which I guess I could compare to Times Square, but not really. There were no cars in the place where the bars/restaurants/shops were, and it was beyond packed. (oh, right, because 18 million people live in Istanbul). People were shouting and singing in the streets; just enjoying life. We were looking for a bar when all of a sudden this guy comes out of nowhere and offers us a free shot if we come into his bar. 


We end up at this club with a red carpet leading into it. Kelsey haggles with the owner saying free shot and free entry for 11 beautiful American women. We walk in and the place was kind of empty but the DJ was pretty decent and they gave us a free shot. He had 2 of his workers set us up a table and we got the party started. After dancing for a little while, we decided we were going to leave and try somewhere new, or possibly go back to the first place where we could get our other free drinks. The owner I guess saw we were going to leave...and that's when the drinks started to roll. The workers would just bring out trays of shots and then eventually the bottle where they would just pour in our mouth. The owner came over eventually and said 'all drinks now 5 lira', since before they were like 25 lira. (5 lira is equivalent to about 2 pounds). Laurel and I go up to the bar and get a shot of Raki, or Turkish Oozo. It's 40% alcohol shot and it tastes like black licorice, but hey...when in Istanbul, do as the Muslims. When we got back to the table with the shot, the workers came out with an entire tray of free pints of Turkish beer. So, I chased my shot with Turkish beer. Total amount of money spent in this club: 5 lira. or 2 pounds. or $3.80
We eventually left that club, promising to come back the next night. We headed to the first initial club with the two really hot Turkish men outside. They see us and roll us right inside and bring us a tray of shots as well. We don't stay very long and One of the men, who was very nice to me, said he was going to bring us to another place. He asked if we liked black rap music and we said yes, so he took us to the top floor of this club where they were playing Turkish swing music. Everyone was up dancing, happy and drunk. I think he thought we wouldn't like the music which is why he said 'black music' but we were so happy to have found the 'local' spot. 


The next morning was a hard wakeup at 7am. After another fantastic terrace turkish breakfast, we went to the Blue Mosque where, you guessed it, it had thousands of blue tiles. I think this was my favorite mosque we visited. The geometric patterns and arabic calligraphy is just incredible and intricate you just look up and stare. After the Blue Mosque, we went to the Tosikopi Palace where we had many adventures. There were 4 gardens and Kate, Zehar, Hameed, and our tour guide had given us a game where we had to take pictures and answer questions throughout the day at the mosques and palaces. We had to take a picture of a golden umbrella that when we got there was off  limits because they were doing restoration. Luckily, we of course had made friends with one of the security guards there who took us past the blockades and we got to take a picture under the umbrella with an amazing view of the city behind it. The security guard got caught and got yelled at by his boss and we made a run for it. We also saw the 5th biggest diamond in the world and other incredible relics, such as Moses' rod (he was mad short). We got lunch at an incredibly cheap place and somehow or another, I managed to pull a free lunch (when I went up to pay, I got a wink and told it was on the house. I had gotten used to this by now, free earrings because I had nice cheekbones, free pillowcase because I'm beautiful...etc). After lunch we went to the Rustem Pasa Mosque, which was a much tinier mosque in a sketchier part of the city. Following this mosque was a trip to the Egyptian spice bazaar which was so crowded the only way to describe it was 'packed like sardines'. It smelled delicious and while we were managing to push our way through I spotted dried papaya and got some for a really great price. (I always look for some in the states; it's really rare to find papaya that's not candied and when you do find it it's extremely expensive). When we finally managed to get out of there we went back to the Grand Bazaar to do our serious shopping. I wanted to get a bowl/plate/cup to eat off of in the flat (16 people sharing the same flatware...) and we met this guy who brought us into the 'back room' of the bazaar where it was literally floor to ceiling bowls, plates, mugs, and tiles...all hand painted. I got a beautiful plate, a mug with no handle, and a bowl that has a dancing Turk. I also got a lot too many other things (people, you will be getting gifts from Istanbul!). We went back to the hotel, got ready, and somehow managed to get all 20 of us and went back out to Taskim Square. We went back to that first bar where we got free shots to see if we could swing that again. No, we didn't get free shots...we just got 3 free bottles of Turkish Tequila. Don't even ask me how because I don't know either. All I know is the Americans are now on their website because their promoter was taking pictures of Kelsey on the couch pouring the bottle of Tequila in our mouths as we were on our knees lined up on the dance floor as the DJ played We Speak No Americano. We went back to the club where my 'boyfriend' was who brought us to Turkish swing club and Andrew and I had an amazing dance off (a winner will be decided at a later date). 


The next morning we had to wake up and pack to go home. It was so sad to think it was our last day in Istanbul. We went to the Dolmabahce Palace, which was the last thing that was built during the Ottoman Empire, but honestly the most gorgeous. The palace has a lot of European influence and has like 12 grand halls or something crazy like that. Also a 4.5 ton chandelier. Every single room we went into was more amazing then the next. Google image that shit. Our tour guide that day let us visit the Harem section, which was the family section of the palace. She really put to rest some of the rumors about the sultans having many wives in Muslim culture. They could only have 4 wives and they were many stipulations, and the entire home was extremely family driven. It was extremely interesting and so much more interesting than sitting in a classroom or a book. We were so hungry after the 3 hour tour of the palace (yes, it was that big) and we went to one of the stands who was selling these things that were like half bagels/half pretzels. They were one lira but I didn't feel like breaking my bills so I found a dollar bill stashed in the bottom of my bag and handed it to the guy and he gave me two! (it kind of my day). Then we went to the Syleymaniye Mosque which was the only Mosque that made us women wear head scarves. It was the one of the prettiest mosques we had gone to and definitely a great  end to a gorgeous tour. We then ate lunch across from the mosque and took our final long walk back. In the Istanbul International airport, they had two security checks which was interesting to say the least. 


Anyway, back to good ol' Londontown. Kelly comes from Cork this weekend and I'm sure I'll have an interesting week. Even though it's a little grey, I'll just have to bring some Istanbul color :)

Alright so I didn't keep up with my promise..it's been exactly a week. Tomorrow I depart for Istanbul! I'm very excited to go to this beautiful city; we have a very exciting schedule planned. I can't wait to write that blog post.


First of all, I got my provisional internship: London Music Masters, which, "London Music Masters is a non-profit organisation promoting young classical artists and providing programming. Targeting socio-economically challenged inner-city boroughs, the Project encourages children, their families and their communities to develop a life-long appreciation for classical music in all its varied forms. In particular, this project aims to help increase the ethnic and socio-economic diversity within professional music ensembles by reaching out to broader communities from a young age and preparing them to participate and succeed in the classical world." 
I'm SO excited about this. This is music therapy from a different perspective than I was thinking I was going to get, or that I was thinking in general. I really hope that I'm able to benefit this organization and that it'll inspire me further to peruse a career in this field.


Thursday was one of the most exciting days for me in a very long time. Jiro, my dad's 'brother', lives in London and has just returned from Japan last week. We were finally able to get together for dinner last Thursday night at Da Marias, which is apparently where Princess Diana loved to eat in South Kensington. I haven't seen Jiro in over 6 years because he is back and forth from Japan and London, and of course I live in the states. I had the best time I've had in London so far with him and I can't wait to keep seeing him. 


Other than that, this past week has been one of the slower weeks in my London adventures. Friday after class I went into Oxford Circus as Yasin napped and walked around for almost 5 hours just venturing in and out of the shops. I wanted to buy one of the cliche British boots but couldn't find a pair a decent price. I was more interested at the fashion, all the different cool shops, and people watching. Plus, it's fun getting lost in London. Unlike New York, it's not a grid, and yet somehow you always find yourself in an area you know or on a block you can figure out where you need to go. My main mission was to go to Primark, which is like the Forever21 of the UK. It was over a mile from the Oxford tube, and after finally getting there, I realized I had made a huge mistake. This 2 floor department store was busier than a mall on Black Friday. I wandered around aimlessly for almost an hour just being shoved and pushed around as young girls threw themselves at pantyhose. The stuff in this store is very fashionable and very cheap, I saw handbags for between 4 and 8 pounds and dresses for 5 pounds, but girlfriend, you don't gotta shove me out of the way for it. I got so overwhelmed I only ended up buying a cool pair of stockings, a pair of earrings, an anchor necklace, and a travel bottle set for my luggage. Nothing really that exciting for my first highly upped Primark experience. After a few hours Yasin met me and I walked her back to Primark where luckily she didn't want to stay too long either. 


Saturday Steve, Rob, James, Yasin and I were up bright (or grey) and early to get up for Stonehenge and the city of Bath. Stonehenge was absolutely freezing; it was in the middle of a bare field and I'm not sure I've ever been so cold in my life. I know people hate that I'm going to say this next thing but I don't care: I think it's cool that these rocks were dragged hundreds of miles and everything and have some sort possible mystical powers, but when I'm freezing in the middle of a field and theres a perimeter around the freakin' rocks that I can't even go up and touch, all I'm thinking is...it's just a bunch of rocks. There. I said it. However, the city of Bath completely made up for it. Starting off, Bath was a lot less cold, Secondly, I felt like I traveled back in time as soon as we pulled up in Bath. Bath was build when the Romans invaded Britain, so it has all original Roman architecture. It's beautiful, and the people there are so different than Londoners. On almost every corner there are street performers, musical performers of every age, or random magic acts just trying to make a few pounds. People are out and about in the city streets and there are many many cool shops. Plus, the Roman Baths (which I suggest you Wikipedia) are really interesting, even though the tour was crowded and kind of boring. When we got back, we kind of had a fail of a night, aimlessly piss walking around Piccadilly, but with a hot somosa waiting at home, a warm bed was all we needed to seal the long day. 


Sunday when we woke up it was, surprise, sunny? In London? what? So Yasin and I decided to take full advantage of the nice weather. I decided to exchange my pounds for Turkish Lira in preparation for my trip (this was a stupid move on my part. In our meeting for the Istanbul trip they said don't wait until the last minute to get your Lira because they might not have it at the exchange place. Well, I didn't leave myself that many pounds for the rest of the week so after spending 20 pounds on a blazer marked down from 80 at Urban outfitters for my internship, I was left with about 13 pounds for the rest of my 4 days in London. Stupid). Anyway, we decided to walk around Camden market, where Yasin and I somehow convinced one of the guys on the street to give me a dress for 5 pounds. After walking around all day, Jomar ended up at our house and honestly, he hasn't changed one bit either. 


Last night Christina and I made our way out to Brick Lane to try and catch some hiphop/dubstep for our ethnographic project for our music class. On Vibe Bar's website it read that they were having a hip hop/dubstep/rap night so we walked through what seemed to be the Indian Mile where people were trying to hustle us for Indian food. Like, of all things. We finally get to the Vibe and we walk inside, it reeks of weed, and it was apparently free acoustic Monday. We show the bartender the ad on the website and he shakes his head and just says 'nope'. The singer then announces that he's from New York so Christina and I cheer, the whole bar just stares at us, and we decide that its our cue to leave. We walk back feeling really defeated, but then we find a guy with a BBQ outside cooking corn on the cob. I decide to  splurge with what little pounds I have left for the week and get corn. We also stop in an Indian dessert store and get little Indian desserts which were like doused in what tasted like maple syrup...but it was so delicious. 


The rest of the week besides last nights fail has just been work work work. I had my Islam midterm today which was very long and Hameed changed the questions he had given us originally. I still have so much work left to do, but as Yasin said: who does homework abroad? Kelly comes to London next weekend! And we planned Spring Break last night...just wait until I post those epic plans. Just. You. WAIT.

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

According to Lorelyn, I take too long to write these, so from now on I'm going to try to update these more frequently than 6/7 days. (There's your shoutout, biotch <3)
Anyway, last Friday started a weekend of exciting events: In the afternoon Phil (my penpal of yearsssssss) came down to London to visit! I went down to the rail station to pick him up and knew it was him right away because he was the only ginger in the station. That night Yasin Ryan and I wanted to show him around the good parts of London but ended up in the red light distrcit of SoHo trying to find Chinese food at a decent price. We ended up at the Pizza Hut on High Street where it was more money than going out to a really good lunch at a posh cafe. Pizza Hut in London is nothing like Pizza Hut in America; they have wine glasses and things are clean. What an amazing night we really showed Phil in London....Pizza Hut.
Saturday we went to the science museum where Phil told us that his dad built the energy ring. The museum there was more for little kids but if you spent time actually reading the little blurbs on everything, you could have actually learned a little bit of more information than your 8th grade science class. Also, we spent about half an hour trying to find the 4th and 5th floor that was on the map, but didn't exist in the stair well or the elevator. Interesting. We were going to roll with a few of us to Camden that night, but somehow we convinced Rachel, Michelle and Chris to come out with us. Chris goes and gets changed and comes out legit 2 minutes later having chugged one beer, chucks it in the trash, then chuggs another Stella and chucks that in the trash as well. All in less than 4 minutes. This is from the kid that barely drinks. It was the epic start of a epic night. We ended up at the Worlds End Pub which might just be the biggest pub in London. (Fun fact: that really random club that Ryan and I ended up at in Camden one of those few nights, the Camden 'Underworld'? That's the 'sister' club that is UNDER this pub). The rooms and bars just never end. We found ourselves in the corner where one of the DJ's was playing. Of course the Brits couldn't dance and after we had a drink in hand, we of course requested Lady GaGa to get the night started. Now let me remind you, Camden is the home of the punks, hipsters and goths, so you can imagine the type of crowd of shaved heads and facial piercings we rolled up into. After a few songs we leard GaGa's beautiful voice once again roll through the pub and the Americans really started to boogie on the dance floor. I think the DJ thought we were entertaining because after that, the whole mood of the pub totally changed from a calm, possibly country type of atomosphere to a slightly club/dubstep/old school 90's (not forgetting Sean Paul/No Doubt/Nelly/Grease) scene. We got the whole place on their feet and dancing. I met some 'Turkish playboys', who were just really ugly but buff guys in white jackets who couldn't speak a word of English trying to pass off as 'Playboys' who thought their accents could get them girls. All the Americans averaged about 1 drink each while Phil, who had 4+ and could have still pased about sober sally, pretended he didn't know us because we were the ones who acted as though we should have been failing the breathilizer. Oh, and when GaGa's Telephone came on Yasin cleared the dance floor and I did it in front of the section of the pub where there were cameras going off. The night ended with dancing on tables with more foreigners and took the night bus home in the middle of the night. British people actually went up to Ryan and asked if they could come out with us next time because the Americans were so much fun. All we had to say to that night is, You're Welcome Camden.
Sunday was more chill than that night, to say the least. Phil and I walked around Oxford because he wanted to see this epic 95,000 pound watch, but most of the stores were closed including that one. We ended up just back at the flat and I cooked a huge family meal of stirfry. I hate to say it was also a very sad day: my dog died and I was very distrubed to hear that Papa Flemming passed away. I loved Papa Flemming so much and I'm just really thankful that I got to spend 'Thanksgiving' with the Flemmings right before I left so I can have a last wonderful memory of him.
Monday I had class almost all day. In British Life and Culture we learned all about the London newspaper system, from the trashy Sun tabloid to the 'New York Times' of London, the London Times. The Marist Bitties got in groups and we were given sheets of paper and 4 headlines and were told to create a British newspaper, based on the ones we read, geared towards our British audience. It was really interesting to see the similarities and differences between American and British newspapers and what kind of audiences they draw. After that I had a small break where I brought Phil to the train station to say our sad goodbyes :( and then I had to go back to Islam class, which was another snore and a half. Seriously, I love Hameed but after doing 50 pages of reading and then not discussing anything remotely close to what we had to read and being so off topic is being frustrating. We got through that class and I want to mention how awesome the sandwich I made that night was: that amazing Whole Foods grain bread, tomato, lettuce, mayo, chicken, and smoked cheese which I grilled in a pan. Delish.
Tuesday I slept in really late because I didn't have class til 5. That night in my music class we were studying experimental music and got to study the bizarre almost picture like qualities that this time period of music genre in Britain. We got put in groups and assigned a piece of experimental music and got to improvise and take what we thought the music was to us with only the objects we had in our bags. It was a really interesting and fun class. Halfway through, Ally and Christina turn to me and asked 'what are you and Yasin doing tonight?' I replied, 'nothing'. Christina then tells me that her friend is a club promoter and is getting us on the VIP list on 2 of the hottest London clubs, so she needed Yasins last name. I texted Yasin to tell her the good news and she texted back that she just met Keanu Reeves. I get back to my flat and look up the places we were going to (Funky Buddah and Wiskey Mist) and they looked insane. We were told to get there by 10:30 and we arrive, on time, and we were apparently early. (Because with this crowd, you need to be fashionably late. Speaking of fashionable, while we're looking like hatters, the people around the club have Louis Vitton and Chanel on. No big). So, Ally being Ally decides to stroll into the Ritz hotel next door and convinces the manager who says that the Members Only bar which is 21+ to let us in. We order drinks (12 pounds a drink mind you, I'm used to my 1.90 in Imperial pub or Camden.) and at 11:00 decide its time to go into Wiskey Mist. John tells the VIP lady that we're at his table and we just stroll right in. Now, this is not Camden, hell, this isn't even South Kensington. This place is nothing like I've ever seen before. There is crystal chandellers and class money dripping everywhere. Posh people are just walking around and I felt like I had to be 20 pounds thinner, have a Chanel handbag and holding a martini just to stand in the place. Apparently, when Nikki Manaj was in London a few days ago this was the place she was shakin' her booty at, and Drake was here the weekend before. Finally the dance floor starts to get going people started to loosen up. The DJ was SICK. Some really drunk British kids tried to tell us they were from Spain because they thought it would make them sexier and I kept getting groped by one of them so we moved away as quickly as possible. Out of nowhere, our friend Mary who had disappeared for literally 2 seconds told us that she had found some Swedish guys who had invited us into VIP with them. Um, excuse me? So there we were, in VIP with some Swedish guys who had 2 GIANT bottles of Grey Goose they were pouring as long as you stood there and shook your bootys for them. Um, no thank you. I stayed sober the entire night. I met the striker for the Chelsea soccer team Fabio who was in and out of the VIP ROOM (which of course we weren't allowed in, we're no Nikki Manaj). There were burlesque dancers with firewands parading around the entire night. It was legit intense. All of a sudden the Star Wars theme played and Rick Ross started rapping. What? Oh ok Rick Ross was just in Wiskey Mist with us on a Tuesday night. No big deal. At around 2:30 we decided that our feet hurt too much and it was time to go. Thank god the bus lets out right in front of our door.
Today was the first day I slept until noon since I've been here. I had class until 4 and then I've been doing work for my music presentations on Friday. I think the most exciting thing that happend today was that Erica, our RA had to come reset our circuit breaker before our food went bad. I'll try to keep this more frequently updated but I'm sure more hilarity will ensue!