4 fire alarms and haircuts!

last night, we had 4 fire alarms- at 4 am, 720, 740, 820. ridiculous. out of control. the first one was someone playing tennis in thier room. brilliant. and then the others were a malfunctioning alarm. booooo

me and amy went to get haircuts today. mine was just adding layers, but amy's was really dramatic.

Saturday in the Park (if ony chicago was singing while i was in the park)

So yesterday, it was amazing out, like 70 degrees and sunny, so amy and i ventured to Green Park to picnic (just some pret sandwiches) and lay on the grass (she studied, or "revised" as they call it here and i slept). After a while, she needed the library and that left me to explore the park. I had a great chat with dad, while I walked and then found Hyde Park, which has an amazing lake called the serpentine. I literally walked in the park for like 4 hours, didnt find either of the palaces or their gardens in the parks. that just tells you how big the parks are: i wandered for four hours and didnt find the gigantic palaces. I did find the princess di memorial fountain, which i know nothing about except i was not expecting a odd river like sculpture, which i think was on the ground in the shape of the letter d. but prolly not. It was cool, everyone had thier feet in the water that was running in the d shape. everyone was in the park yesterday. and whats really cool is the horse tracks in the park. next to the pedestrian walks is dirt paths just for horse and riders. so cool. and there are crosswalk lights in the shape of the horse, for when they cross the street. everyone was in the park today, in blue paddle boats on the lake. it was amazing. and the flowers that i did find were soooo pretty. i finally got home to discover that i was realllly sunburned. but its turning into a pretty sweet tan.

St. Georges Day

So last wednesday, amy and i went to trafalgar square for the St. George's Day celebrations. It was really odd. We went after dinner because there were supposed to be live performances which turned out to be a weird guy in a mask, playing the tuba. And then a tuxedo-ed tap dancer. And lots of people dressed as knights or maidens. It was supposed to be a london food festival, but neither amy or I wanted any of it, so we ventured to Leister square for some good ole ben and jerrys (i of course had sorbet.) and then we sat on the grass and enjoyed the sunshine and yummy deserts.... and then saw the mexican restaurant.... and enjoyed happy hour (just one margarita, no biggie). also this is pretty funny, earlier amy had walked smack dab into a trashcan while reading me the newspaper... and then on the way home, i remarked how i was parting the crowds like moses, (because of the holiday and all) and then tripped. well the two of us laughed for a while and then reasoned that moses was not happy with my declaration.

note to me: add marg. pics when printing.

Passover in London

So I went to Chabad services for passover which was held in the Hillel House. It was a mix of israelis in london and mostly american study abroad kids. It was in english and hebrew and was way different then any seder I have been to. I was really happy to have somewhere to go to tho. I went with Lauren and Shira. It didnt start until 930pm. And we didnt get food until 1120. But it was really interesting. Chabads are orthodox but are extremely welcoming... thats their point. they listen to all opinons and accept all opinions. for real. no condesention. and the rabbi told interesting stories... lots on the 4 children and why we welcome them all. and the story of rabbi hillel. that was really interesting. and they used lettuce instead of bitter herbs and potatoes instead of parsley and the haroset was horrrrrrrrible. and this was the worst.... no matzah ball soup. so sad. but all in all. i really was happy that i went to the seder. the rabbi was all ortho and wore the whole outfit and he was realllly fat and had this gorgous wife.... must be arranged i think. it was a good time... but it was only really half the seder because we ate in the middle... before elijah and all and we left after eating at midnight.... most people did. yep. happy passover!!

Brighton and the Pavillion

Saturday, Butler took us on a day trip to Brighton and the Royal Pavillion. brighton is a city by the ocean and is basically a boardwalk town. there was this great pier that streched onto the ocean that had a mini amusment park or fair on it. It was sooo cool. We saw the Pavillion which was a royal palace of George the IV. He literally bought a farmhouse and overtime as he got money built this amazing palace... and then became king. its a palace of asian decoration.... stunning on the inside... too bad they wouldnt let us take pics.... maybe i can get some from the website. We walked in town and on the pier and had a good day. Crazy traffic on the way back into London.

London Marathon

On April 13th, Amy and I went to the London Marathon to cheer on random people... It was a late night the night before for both of us and we were realllly tired. We walked down to the Big Ben to watch the runners. People were mostly there because they knew people in the race... but there were this group of people who obviously didnt and were yelling the names on the jerseys.... but some of the names were sponsers.... so it was really funny. (and elvis ran the race too.) Amy and I then went to China town and had a nice lunch.

DAY 16 (Last Day!) April 7, 2008- back to London!

One little note: we saw these tour groups with blue and orange backpacks everywhere (even when we got back in london).
We checked out of the hotel and found the bus to the airport... took a nice flight back and got back in time for dinner at Ramsay! It was a great trip. The trip of a life time.
The swiss alps!!

DAY 15 April 6, 2008- Crete

We arrived in Crete at 6 am and sat in the ferry waiting room until it got light enough to walk in the city. we read a bunch. i was reading a kathy reichs. We walked along the water until we found a puppy that lead us to our hotel. they were really cute but i alway remember how dirty those dogs are. We dropped off our bags and took a bus to Knossos, an arch site of a palace. there were peacocks there and they are super loud. We took the bus back and wandered along the sea for ever looking for a beach.... we didnt find one. we walked back.. and asked this young guy working at the hotel and he told us where to find a nice place to sit by the water... we found a park next to the water and sat and read. the wind was crazy and sprayed the water up on us... it was kinda like swiming! I finished my book and we bought chocolate and had a nice dinner (greek salad, stuffed grape leave and stuffed peppers). and went back to the hotel.

DAY 14 April 5, 2008- Athens

Our last day in Athens, we finally got to the Archaeology museum.. it was super crowded. We were both stressed and prolly had really annoyed each other... we went to a farmers market... good food but i reallly dont speak greek. it was raining which was icky. the weather got really bad so we stopped in a cafe for food. we went back to the hostel to get out of the rain and sat reading for while in the common room/dining room. we meet some girls and this anti-missionary missionary. he was preaching science.... really weird.. and really in your face. We watched friends on tv.... it was in english!!! you have no idea how much you end up missing it. we chatted with the girls... they had been to the hostel in patras right after us and dealt with the creepy guy too! We took the metro to Pireaus... the port of Athens. In the pouring rain... it was horrible. we were soaked and our bags were soaked. We found the ferry finally and we got on. we had VIP tickets and got nice seats with tvs! we had dinner on the ferry- salad and baklava and we split a bottle of wine and bonded... it helped us not be so annoyed with each other. and then we needed an invisible wall between our chairs so that we would sleep and stop giggling and talking. the VIP seats ended up being reallllly uncomfortable.

DAY 13 April 4, 2008- Athens

"we didn't have to pay to get into anything in Athens! You know that that means! More money for baklava!!!"- Amy

we woke up alittle late and went to Hadrians library and the Roman Agora/forum and the towers of wind. We walked back to keramikos and got to see the whole thing plus more turtles... (named them myrtle and steve) i think amy took more turtles then anything else on this trip. We ate lunch... a traditional greek lunch... i had the chicken... and i loved how its traditional to walk all guests into the kitchen to display the food. i loved that part! We then went to the agora and fliaoplos hill and saw socrates jail and supposedly where he died. we hiked to the top of the hill and saw all of athens... quite a site. amy spilt seltzer on her ipod and it died. she was pretty upset. that sucked. we walked back to the cafe by the church and saw this clown street performer who entertained us for a while. he was sooo funny. We got more baklava for dinner and went home to the hostel.

DAY 13 April 3, 2008- Athens

We got lost early in the morning by the acropolis... amy was feeling sick so we got breakfast... low blood sugar i guess. we climbed the acropolis in the rain and it was so crowded. We then saw the temple of zeus. everything was free with student ids. i guess greece doesnt understand the difference between american and english accents or they dont really care. we had london ids... which is kinda apart of the EU, which kinda makes us a part of the EU and so we got into everything free again. We walked through the gardens and saw the little zoo and then came right out by the presidential palace where the guards were changing.... soooo funny. they wear skirts and thier shoes have pompoms on them. i took video. it was hilarious. Then we had coffee and saw protesters and the army with riot gear by the government headquaters (the greek white house). We walked to keramikos, ancient brothel... and it closed at three so we had to leave but there were turtles everywhere... all in the archaeology... it was like my two favorite things together!! or something like that. Cats were all over the archaeology in rome and amy decided that "turtles and archaeology is so much cooler then cats and archaeology!"
We walked through shopts and sat by Mitropoli--- famous orthodox greek church and got coffee again. Amy had ouzo- greek liquor. said it tasted like licorice. Then we went to the Benaki Museum... it was free this day and open until midnight. We got Baklava for dinner and headed back to the hostel.
Pics: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051405&l=0917c&id=9804527

DAY 12 April 2, 2008- Athens

(this was the worst day) We got up when some french girls came in to drop their bags. The creepy guy was reallly creepy and we left super fast. We got on the train... a lady insisted she sit where my heavy bag was and then got up and moved...and then we almost didnt get off at the right spot. We found the hostel.... reallly nice... just renovated. We walked to the archaeology museum but it closed at 3.... everything does in this city. so ridiculous. we walked around and made such a bad desicion that our guide book told us was a great idea. we walked through the meat market. we ended up being the meat. it was totally empty and even the women working it was like "hey guys, two blondes!" it was horrible. we felt so awful, especially after a rough morning. we got some greek salad (the first time that my stomach hurt... damn feta cheese, i made it all the way through pizza and gelato and cheese in italy and i hit greece and feta does me in.... insane.) we went to an internet cafe... in greece they mean cafe... they serve coffee and drinks.... which i wouldnt want near computers... and we went to the hostel... and didnt go out side because even walking to our hostel during the day we got honks and catcalls... it was insane. amy and i got kinda scared of Athens and greece in general... because of this day. its sad. and it rained... that didnt help.

DAY 11 April 1, 2008- Patras

Not our best day. actually our second worse. We arrived in Patras and walked along this sketchy highway, a man stopped and asked us if we were going to the hostel. Amy looked freaked... we were on our guard. I was like "yeah whatever". I assured amy that he prolly owned it.... and i was right. he pulled in in front of us and opened up the hostel so we could check it. really lucky that he saw us or we would be outside waiting for him. We walked into town and found the ocean and laid on the rocks for a long while. Amy even fell asleep. It was warm so we were wearing tshirts.... no thing to do in greece.... everyone gave us weird looks.... we were not feeling welcome. We walked back to the hostel to get sweatshirts and walked back into town to get drinks... got hot chocolate with baileys.... really good. Greece is known for their ice coffee they call freddo. its really good when its made at a real cafe... and realllly bad if its not. We walked back to the hostel and discovered that a guy was staying in a room near us and he was super creapy.. we locked our door tight. this hostel was the only one that we didnt book ahead of time... they didnt have a website... that should have told us something... the bathroom doors didnt close the showers barely worked. and super sketchy people stayed there. yay. we were bound to get a bad one at some point on the trip. oh well.
Pics: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051403&l=21489&id=9804527

DAY 10 March 31, 2008- Bari

Thank god we checked the internet, or we wouldnt have known that it was DST and our train was an hour earlier. well we left reallllly early in the morning and caught our train to Bari. We wandered around Bari... had really cheap pizza (our last italian pizza!) and walked along the seaside. This is an ancient (and modern) port town.... realllly pretty. I see why cruises stop here. We found the port and go on the boat early. we had our bags and really just wanted to rest. We played alot of cards (like usual). and learned that greeks do not obey the no smoking rules. it was reallllly hard to get away from the smoke. The ferry had a bunch of teens on it (american and italian) the italian teens were drunk by 8pm and were running and screaming. Me and amy found a place to sleep (we didnt have a cabin or bed... we found airplane seats. There was this crazy greek lady who was really odd. couldnt understand that i didnt speak greek. just wouldnt accept that fact. and kept looking at me. and followed amy when she went to brush her teeth. really weird. also, mean coffee guy ended up being nice and giving us free hot chocolate... and then yelled at me for having my feet up against the boat.... like my little feet are going to hurt the industrial steel hull of the massive ship.
Pics: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051398&l=45d5c&id=9804527