My Last Night of My Study Abroad Excursion aka trying not to sob because I don't want to say good-bye!

Well here I am. Writing my last blog entry of my year abroad on my last night in Londontown. Technically I’m a bit outside the city, sitting in an airport hotel because I have an insanely early flight tomorrow morning. Perk? Its direct. Over the past month I have thought about posting another blog only to follow the thought with “but I’ve done nothing interesting and I’m really, really tired right now.” In short, it has been exhausting. From April 3rd until April 15^th or so I was drowning in exams and pre-exam papers and finishing up the last of my book lists and writing assignments. At the same time everyone on my program and I were doing our best to soak up the last bits of London, the city by day and by night, as we could. It was a mad rush to get all our work done and spend as little time actually doing the work so we could do the last little bit of London exploration that remained on our to-do lists. The semester culminated in a wonderful tea-time farewell excursion near Green Park (“alight here for Buckingham Palace”) at a fancy schmancy teahouse/teastore. It was sad and scrumptious. Lucky for me, Priya had arrived from Seattle and was out in Cambridge crashing with some friends until I finished finals. We had an apartment subletting situation lined up in Dalston with another girl from my program. Now let me try to describe Dalston for you because I don’t think just saying “gritty” really explains it. Yes, I know I come from a white female privileged background with higher education as the standard and a bright future not so far out in front of me. But can I still tell you about the meth addict haggling us for money at the bus stop a block from our apartment with a bloody needle hospital instrument taped to her neck and a hospital band around her wrist, saying she needed money to get home, and then our second spotting of her a day later in our back alley talking to hmmm you decide who her conversation partner was. How about the fruit and vegetable market down the back alley from us where Priya would get semi-ripe mango and blackberries? I think there were about 4 1-pound shops between our walk from our apartment to the nearest train stop which was, by the way, no longer an underground station but an overground one. This was east London for real. Not even would the hipsters often venture this far north in attempt to prove their super significant street cred. It is a mainly Turkish and African neighborhood with kebab shops and two night clubs just a few blocks from our apartment, and a plethora of patterns, characters, and stands of all items (edible and non) lining Kingsland Road. Perhaps our apartment is inexpensive for London, but it was still weighty on the non-working student budget. But we were safe and lucky to find this place. So much better than staying in hostels, so much better than couchsurfing with my 4-months worth of luggage. It may have taken us almost an hour to get anywhere, but it was absolutely perfect for what we needed. We even got a cat to take care of!

We went to the Brick Lane markets, blues dancing, put on my last slam poetry open mic performance, visited the National Gallery, two trips to the Southbank Center, an interpretive dance performance, wonderful dinners, saw two musicals (Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables) and one play (Clybourn Park), Hyde Park, Kenwood Estate, its gardens and its Rembrandts and Vermeers, walked along the Thames to see Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster, a trip to my favorite blues club “Ain’t Nothing But the Blues” in Soho, stuffed ourselves with falafel and “chips,” visited the Victoria and Albert collection, Thai food, pierced my nose (maybe twice), the Courtauld Institute to say good-bye to my favorite Manet, wondered about how all that stuff at the British Museum from the rest of the world arrived in London, spent hours riding the tube and the buses (and waiting for them all to arrive!), explored my favorite markets in Camden, spent the day on the rocky beach of Brighton and received a reverse soccer-tan on my calves, bussed it out to Stonehenge and spent the long ride in deep conversation, laughed so much I was constantly hungry, crossed Abbey Road for the third time with pit-stop at platform 9 and 3/4, worked on my coupon card towards my free coffee at the beloved Café Nero (oh I shall miss you), ate the last of my disgusting Tesco 1 pound cheese and onion sandwiches, completed souvenir and present shopping, unsuccessfully tried to fight off some sort of cold and allergy combination of nastiness (think snot-machine), and then proceeded to write the longest list based paragraph in one sentence I have ever written. And that is where you find me.

Trying to imagine myself back in America, whether it be Chicago or Tacoma, is nearly impossible for me. I try to focus on all the people I have missed and am terribly excited to see because being back in America is one of the most depressing pieces of reality that is forcing me to get up at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning. I’m not quite sure how London has changed me but I do feel more sure of who I am. This has been an incredible year, living in both Milan and in London, traveling around and seeing as much of Europe as I possibly could. I don’t know what to quite say about it right now, this point of transition, in this somewhat limbo state on the night before I return. Yes I am more adventurous, outgoing, independent, and capable of handling myself in a strange location with minimal communication options (whether it be stranded in an airport or just unsure of how to navigate night-buses home). I don’t think I quite know where this year has truly left me. But here I am, wherever it is, better equipped for whatever life throws at me next.

Adventures through a Winter Wonderland

the weekend crew, left to right: kaitlin, me, reesto's friend, reesto's girlfriend inca, reesto, reesto's sister liisa

square by the protestant church

Kaitlin and I at Suomenlinna, sea fortress ruins in the background

the ice in the water view from the ferry

Suomenlinna

More than Just Architecture in Helsinki, a Two Day Affair

Last Saturday I went to Helsinki. You may wonder why I would fly away from beautiful, sunny, and warming up London and into a snow covered, Scandinavian city on one of my last weekends in Europe. Good question, I thought as we landed on the runway in the early afternoon. Answer: my friend Kaitlin had a Finnish exchange student who lived with her for a year in high school. It was his birthday weekend and a perfect opportunity to visit not only a new city but also a new country for very inexpensive. Her exchange student, Reesto, met us at the airport and took us back to his apartment. On the way over he told us loads about Finnish politics, immigration issues, required army service, and the female Finnish president. When we got to his apartment, his sister and his friend were there munching on candy and popcorn. We hung out there for a little while, forcing everyone to speak in English so we could understand, and figuring out what to do. We ended up going downtown Helsinki, getting some standard falafel lunch, meeting up with his girlfriend, saw the main Protestant church, and getting a general feel for this cold, icy city. Then we decided to take a ferry through the frozen water (they have a special machine that goes through and breaks up the ice so that the ferries can get across) which made loud crunching and crashing noises as it pushed the ice chunks out of its way. The sea fortress is on the island Suomenlinna which is just off the coast and about a 15 minute ferry ride. We walked around through the sea fortress ruins, hung out on snowy hills, Kaitlin and I nearly toppled over a few times as we sunk to our knees, felt like we might never be warm again. It was a beautiful winter wonderland. We had three Helsinki-ers with us which was like having our own personal tour guides. Mainly they just told us how beautiful this place is in the summer, that it is an ideal picnic spot of many city-folk, and that we really should have come in the summer. They also told us about some of the island's history, pretty much all of which I've forgotten by now. I know, disappointing. We walked around for probably 2 and a half hours, ending up at the brewery by the ferry stop. We dragged are wet and chilled selves back onto the fairy, through the frozen water, and back through Helsinki to get to Reesto's apartment. Reesto ordered pizza for dinner, another one of his friends came, and the seven of us all just hung out in his two room apartment eating and drinking and comparing culture and music and all of that. They taught us all about salmiakki which is a sick joke of a candy. Its really popular in Helsinki and the sign of a true Finn. What is it you may ask. Well let me tell you. SALTED LICORICE. Yuck. Distgusting. They even have a liquor version of it. It is the nastiest thing ever.

Anyways, at midnight Reesto turned 22 and we went out for a small night on Helsinkitown. The next morning we got up around 10 or so. Reesto's girlfriend made crepe-style pancakes that were fresh and delicious and hot. So good. We had a leisurely breakfast and then we went the Finnish National Art Museum. This made for a really wonderful afternoon. We got to see work by a range of artists, many influenced by the Realism movement and by the French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. Apparently many Finnish artists went to Paris to study. They even had a piece by Van Gough and Cezanne! The interest in the Realism movement stemmed from the bloody Finnish civil war between upper classes and the proletariat, with communist influences. Hence the significance of the working, poor men, women, and children in fields in the art from the 1800's. Finland is a relatively new country, only gaining its independence from Russia in 1917. I think its fair to say that Kaitlin and I had no idea what to expect but we really, really enjoyed what we got to see. After we made our way through this museum we did a little souvenir shopping (I could not find a bracelet, very sad) and then went back to Reesto's to get our stuff and were on the bus to the airport around 5 in the afternoon.

This was a very relaxed and stress-free weekend in Helsinki. It may have been cold but we did not even open a map once (usually city maps are like our bible on weekend trips). We learned a lot of the current political climate, an emergence of a less scary Finnish version of the Tea Party, immigrants from Somalia, the Finnish depression post the collapse of the U.S.S.R., and how the most common crime statistically is drunk men murdering their wives or close friends. All from locals! We basically had our own tour guides. We spent very little money since we only paid for one meal (and then airport food), transportation, some drinks, and one museum entrance. It was a different kind of trip than the sightseeing marathon us study abroad students often find ourselves in. It was a trip to see people, experience a new culture first hand, hang out, and celebrate. It was a lovely, lovely way to relax before the start of finals.

Heaven on Earth, or pictures from the only city so far that may rival my love of London

A Magical Watery Wonderland Weekend, or three days in Amsterdam.

The amazing qualities of Amsterdam go beyond the obvious reason it makes most peoples' lists for European adventures. Yes, the coffeeshop culture is pretty mind blowing but so are the canals and the parks and the bikes. In the center of the city, you find yourself crossing a bridge every seven minutes or so. It was beautiful. We had sunny weather for Friday and Sunday and the water glistened and incredible eclectic architecture hung over the edges and bikes were chained to railings. To get from our hostel to the center of the city we had to walk through the entirety of Vondelpark. The distance was about a kilometer and a half and took us 30-45 minutes. The park was beautiful and it made the city feel so healthy. People were out running. Picnics on the grass, musicians near the fountains and in between hot dog stands, bikes zipping by everywhere, crazy contraptions attached to bikes to transport children. Every so often we would catch a whiff of tobacco and/or marijuana smoke. People were out and about enjoying the sun and exercising. Although this walk got annoying that it took so long to get to all the interesting stuff, and much colder at the end of the day, it was still beautiful.

We arrived super early on Friday morning, getting to our hostel around 11 am. My travel buddy, Jennica, took a nap and I went to the Rijksmuseum and Stedelijk museum. The Rijksmuseum has "The Night Watch" and "The Jewish Bride" by Rembrandt and some others. That was really cool, to see paintings I had studied in survey classes. It also has Vermeer's "The Milkmaid" and one of his few landscape paintings. I could have stared at that milkmaid forever. She is alive, I swear it. The Stedelijk has modern and contemporary art. I didn't really know a lot of the artists that have stuff there and it was a lot of installations and pieces that clearly existed within some sort of self-referential context that I wasn't in on. But they did have a student discount to get in! I walked around the museum district, soaked up some sun, walked around the canals, just kind of wandered around aimlessly and got some coffee due to the really, really early morning we had. I went back to Jennica around 2:30 and we walked back into the center to get some lunch and then went on a bike tour. The bike tour was cool. We saw some zebras hanging out near the zoo, rode past some locks for the canals, saw the music conservatory and library, heard stories about the dead bodies that get pulled out of the canals, some quick history about the development of Amsterdam from city-state and on, talked about the legalization of prostitution and the licensing of coffeehouses. We stopped at a microbrewery attached to a windmill in the middle and this is where things got interesting. Dear family members, prepare your mind to be blow by the small, small world we live in. We start talking to a couple of other girls on the tour. Find out that one of them lives just a few blocks from where my family lives in Old Town, Chicago. So funny right? Small world. Just wait, it gets smaller. We're laughing hysterically about how strange the situation is and the girl goes "yes just listen to this other small world story I have. I was on this rafting trip in the middle of New Zealand, not a very touristy part of the country, and I was talking to the guide about my friend who led rafting trips in Switzerland and the guide was like 'what's his name I probably know him' and I was like 'pete' and the guide was like 'with the american girlfriend, adrian?' and I was like 'omg what a small world, yes!'" I say "wait, what is pete's last name?" Well you know where this is going. Turns out this chick is best friends with good ole cousin Peter's girlfriend. Now talk about small world. Then we continue biking all over the city until dinner time. Jennica and I found somewhere and got scrumptious Thai food, by far the best Thai food I've had in Europe thus far, and it was about 9 o'clock or so by this point and we headed back to the hostel, exhausted from getting up at 2 am to get to the airport in London, and freezing our butts off on the hour walk back.

On Saturday we slept in a bit and left around noon. We walked through Vondelpark and back to the museum district to go get in line at the Van Gough Museum. I was not expecting a line!!! Oh well, it was so worth it. We got a bit of lunch and then went through the museum. I've been having a bit of self-discovery lately regarding my taste in art and realizing that the post-impressionists and their many forms are probably my favorite European artists. Cliche, I know, but I can't help it. So obviously Van Gough sweeps me off my feet. I continue to be baffled and intrigued and amazed at his use of color and texture. I didn't realize he was so influenced by Japanese landscapes and art. Jennica is half Japanese so she really like that. The museum also has a floor dedicated to Van Gough's contemporaries, artists who inspired him and who he inspired. There is a lot of Toulouse-Lautrec on display, for example. Then there was a special exhibition on Picasso in Paris, 1900-1907. There were images from his blue period (although my favorite is of course the guitarist at the Art Institute in Chicago) and some studies and his famous self-portrait of himself as a younger man (1907). After we got our fill at the Van Gough museum we walked over to get in line for the Anne Frank house, stopping in souvenir shops and in front of dessert displays along the way. I think the most powerful part of the Anne Frank house is seeing the pieces of the walls where Anne had posted her magazine clippings and Otto had kept track of Anne and Margot's growth. The parts that really show the personalities and specific characteristics of who lived there. Its often hard to tell in these kinds of places what is true to what it was like when it was used and what's renovation. It was much bigger than I expected. And just really, really sad. There were quotes from her diary around and the original Kitty is on display. There was a quote somewhere about mandates for bicycles owned by Jews to confiscated and after understanding the importance of bicycles in Amsterdam, I had a whole new appreciation for the severity of that law. After the Anne Frank house we got some Falafel dinner (Jennica had never had Falafel before) and wandered around some more souvenir shops, getting gifts for you lovelies back in the states and laughing at the ridiculousness of the some of the shops and things. We got more desserts, I swear all I ate for the three days were french fries and chocolate covered waffles. Mother, please forgive me. We made our way into the Red Light District. I'm not really sure what to say about walking up and down these streets. Am I a bad person for visiting? According to our bike tour guide, the Amsterdam government is resigned to the fact that prostitution happens whether or not its legal and so they might as well legalize it and do their very best to keep the girls safe. I guess there is a union the girls belong to and plain clothes policeman on patrol and that the rooms have lots of alarm buttons, silent and not silent. The Red Light District is also full of bars, clubs, sex shops, coffeeshops, I guess everything you would expect. We got super, super lost trying to get back to our hostel (I have no sense of direction) and finally got back at nearly 2 in the morning.

Sunday I got up and went to the Jewish museum and Rembrandt's house. Jennica didn't have any interest in seeing these places, especially paying to visit them, so she stayed at the hostel. I liked the Jewish museum, it was very accessible and wasn't as massive and overwhelming as the one in Berlin. I guess Amsterdam wasn't such a bad place in terms of anti-Semitic legislature. Apparently there was also a sizable Sephardic population. They were rich and the Ashekenazi's were poor. But there weren't Jewish ghettos mandated the same way the were in other European cities. And things like that. I don't know how much was exaggerated to make the Dutch sound really great, and how much is just a relativity issue, just because it was better than other areas didn't make it wonderful in of itself. But it just added to my affinity for the open-mindedness that is a theme of Dutch history and culture. Then I walked over to Rembrandt's house. I got to see his printmaking studio and his painting studio where he painted "The Night Watchmen" that was really cool. And his kitchen, bedrooms, etc. Then there was a room fool of his prints. They are tiny and so detailed and its mind blowing how much life he fit into such small details on such a small plane. Then I walked over to the Dam which is the historical center of the city. There was a demonstration/protest going on to stop bombing Libya. I met up with Jennica and we got some lunch, walked around, finished up souvenir shopping, soaked up the last of the Amsterdam sunrays and architecture and bike culture and streets that smelled like marijuana. Finally, and very sadly, we made our way back to the hostel through Vondelpark and all the exercising and relaxing people there and on to the airport. Our plane was delayed and we got back a little bit before 11 pm into London. It was a busy weekend, trying to fit everything in to a small amount of time, and there was definitely more stuff I wanted to see and do in Amsterdam. I guess this just means I'll have to go back. It really is quite a wonderland.

A note on coffeeshops. So the slow start of licensing coffeeshops and the legalization of marijuana stemmed from the high number of hard drug addicts and overdoses in Amsterdam in the 50's. I guess it was a city with one of the highest number of hard drug addicts and overdoses in the world. The government needed to take action. They identified marijuana as a "gateway" drug and saw that a lot of people who were finding dealers to buy weed from were getting exposed to hard drugs through these dealers. Amsterdam thought that if weed was accessible from people and places that weren't exposing them to cocaine and heroin and other hard drugs that the amount of drug addicts and overdoses would decrease. It was a risky government decision but it worked. Now Amsterdam is one of the cities with the lowest numbers of hard drug addicts and overdoses. However, drug tourism is becoming a problem for the Dutch who are just getting really irritated for people hopping the border to get pot and bring it home and people traveling just to smoke some green. So some discussion is being held currently about issuing passes to get into the coffeeshops. Residents and citizens would have passes that would be renewed yearly and tourists would have to go to the city hall or something and get like a 24 hour pass or something. So Jennica and I were glad that we made it to Amsterdam when we did. This is all according to our tour guide. Being in a place where marijuana is legal was hard to get used to. In America, underage drinkers know that at some point what they're doing won't be illegal anymore. Many people have watched their parents have a glass of wine at dinner, beer at summer barbecues, etc. Parents don't have to hide this socially acceptable indulgence from their children and after they turn 21, people don't have to hide it from their parents or the law. But weed is something that is illegal no matter how old you are. Parents still have to hide this habit from their children because it is not as socially acceptable and it is just not legal. Children have to hide it from their parents (depending on the family of course) always for the same reason. Its just something that isn't going to change when you turn 21. To be somewhere where people weren't hiding marijuana, just smoking it in front of lunch cafes, in parks, walking down the street, in front of a church, it was mind blowing. Freedom is a beautiful thing.

Now I'm back in London. I have three papers due next week, my last week of classes. I have a paper and 4 finals the week after combined with Priya arriving which is super super exciting!!! I am going to be very sad when classes are over. I'm going to miss my literature classes and my kitchen mates and friends. I'm going to miss London so much when I finally leave on April 27th. But I have one more weekend trip this weekend and some more adventures to embark on. Its frustrating because as I want to make the most of my last few weeks in London, going to the museums I haven't visited yet, checking out neighborhoods still unknown, etc I have to buckle down and focus on papers.

Sometimes I just feel like the luckiest person in the entire world to have this beautiful pocket in time, this year of exploration.

Alba and Hannah Explore London

Eating lunch in front of the British Museum, just like my Grandma used to do.



Trying to get on the Hogwarts Express.



Buckingham Palace.

A London Update, Alba Comes to Visit

Last week was full of touristy adventures. My friend who studied abroad with me last semester in Milan came to visit for the first half of the week so we ran around trying to do as many touristy things in as few days as possible. Alba arrived around noon on Monday and after checking her into my dorm we went to go see Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey. Many picture opportunities. Then we walked along the Thames and went to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. Alba had been in my Leonardo da Vinci art history class last semester so at the National Gallery we visited the Madonna and the Rocks that is controversially attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. Alba and I are both convinced that he did not, however, paint it and that his only original is the version in the Louvre. We visted El Greco, Van Gough, Renoir, Degas, Klimt, della Francesca, Van Eyck, Cezanne, Monet, Morisot, Manet, and other wonders of wonders. Then we went to My Old Dutch for 5 pound pancake (crepe style) Monday special. We stayed in that night and Alba battled jet lag.

Tuesday we got up and first went to Tate Modern around 11 am. This place is huge and I really liked the factory style design. I thought it fit the content quite nicely. I was also excited to see pieces of Arte Povera that I had studied last semester in my modern art history class that I didn't know was in London! Like Venus and the Rags. Also the super famous Futurist sculpture The Continuity of Movement through Space or whatever its called was there. Lots of Cubism and Surrealism as well. And plenty of pretentious installations. Some Pollock and a piece by his wife. Alba and I had mixed reactions to museum but its necessary place to visit when living in or visiting London. Afterwards we grabbed lunch and went to Oxford Circus, one of the major shopping areas in London. She insisted we visit the Disney store. Then we walked through Green Park and to Buckingham Palace. The sun was setting and our feet were killing us so we came back to the dorm, made dinner, and hung around with some other IES students.

Wednesday was Alba's last full day. I went to class from 10-12:30 and Alba went to the Courtauld Gallery, full of impressionist and post-impressionist art. We met back up after class, grabbed some lunch, and stopped in for a short visit with the Rosetta-Stone which is in the British Museum just two blocks from the IES center. Then we raced over to King's Cross to find Platform 9 and 3/4. This is surprisingly hard to find since it is between platforms 8 and 9, not 9 and 10. LAME. But we did find it and pose for pictures. Most excellent. Then we went over to Abbey Road to cross the historical crosswalk and exploit another picture opp. This is surprisingly hard to do due to all the cars trying to run over tourists and all the other tourists jumping into take the same picture you're just desperately trying to snap. It began spitting which is the British term for super duper light rain. We came back to the dorm, Alba took a nap, and I went to the boat club for service. I came back, we made dinner, and then we went out to the pub where blues dancing usually is in Shoreditch. Everyone liked it. And then we strolled down Brick Lane, showed Alba a little of the East End, and got a dozen "beigels" for 3 pounds. We got back around 2 in the morning and went straight to sleep.

Alba flew back home Thursday morning after an awesome few days in London and the best excuse for me to play hookey ever.