Monaco: first bit

   So, I have some lovely cousins who live in Monaco, and I decided to go and see them. Monaco is in the South of France and about a 15 minute drive away from Italy. It's actually its own principality and has a constitutional monarchy and everything, and isn't part of the EU (but in my mind it's the same as the rest of the Cote d'Azure, and thus=France). I spent about a month there two summers ago and couldn't wait to get back--not only are my cousins super fun people, but it's one of the most beautiful places on Earth!

   I decided to go by train instead of plane because train rides are one of my favorite things about being in Europe! It was 6 hours of beautiful countryside and because the train was fairly empty I found the best seat and sprawled out--so much less squished than an airplane!

    Upon arriving in Monaco I realized that I had never told my cousin where I was going to meet her. awkward. Also, my phone had run out of minutes (a phone plan is one thing I really miss about my life in the U.S.) so I had no way to contact her. I decided to just wait outside the main entrance of the station in hopes that she would somehow find me. 

     On the way to the entrance, I stumbled upon some lost English-speaking guys...who were actually some Russians from Canada (complicated, I know) and because we were all in need of maps, went to the exit together. They were really nice and we chatted for a bit...but I'm pretty sure they lied about their names because it's too ridiculous that they were called Vlad and Olaf....really? no Russians are actually named that are they? That's like meeting a guy from Ireland called Patrick McFloo or something. They were super friendly, asked for my number and suggested that we hang out sometime, then they asked me my age and once they found that out...they just kinda mumbled something about seeing me around and caught a taxi. ouch. And not ouch at the same time because I probably wouldn't have hung out with them anyway (after seeing Taken I don't make friends with strangers), but it's nice to think yourself cool enough to hang out with Russian Canadians. 

     Just then my cousin came running up the stairs and tada! I don't even need a phone! We then went back to her apartment and I got to see the whole family! I couldn't believe how old all of the kids were--when I had left their youngest was still crawling around and now he can talk! We had a great dinner together, made plans for the next day, and enjoyed each others company. 

   The next day I walked around town a bit and then met up with my cousin to go to the market in Ventimiglia (Italy). It was so pretty! The market is just like all of the others I've visited, as far as wares go, but it's right by the beach!  

     It was sunny and warm and the seagulls were crying--ah, I really need to make sure to live by the ocean. 

   I love the Cote d'Azure, and it was especially refreshing after a cold, foggy week in the city--which is also fun, but it was nice to have a change.

  It was also so crazy to be able to just head over to Italy on a whim. Incredible.

   We then went home and I hung out with the kids and then had dinner. One of my cousins Greek friends came over, he was a rugby player for Greece in the Olympics a couple years ago, so that was a culture I'd never really been exposed to before. I tend to avoid hanging out with super sporty people because they usually enjoy talking about their muscles for a prolonged period of time and recount all of their super cool plays where they smashed some guy out of the way and then threw a ball or something. I really do need to develop an interest in sports, it's on my list of things I need to learn to like after going to the dentist. I think it's fun to play them, but watching and having a conversation about them is a whole different story. a really boring story. in my opinion, of course. Anyhow, after this guy talked about some of his old game plays we all watched some goofy YouTube movies and then finished off the night with a movie. What a day!

London Round 2: Last day

  I went with a small group to Kensington Gardens which were right by our hostel. I had forgotten how much I missed English gardens!

  Also, we found the Peter Pan statue!

    Then we went to the grocery store to get our British-goodie fix. I, of course, chose Hobnobs. I also discovered that in Marks and Spencer there is a bakery and that bakery sells scones. If I had discovered this earlier I would have eaten a scone every single meal--so yummy. I was talking to some girls in my group about them and discovered that George Bernard Shaw was indeed correct when he said, "England and America are two countries separated by a common language." They were thinking of the deep-fried North-American scones which are like Indian fry-bread and not at all a proper English scone. The shape of a British scone is similar to an American biscuit, but tastes a million times better and is usually sweet, not savory. To experience a truly British delight one must have a warm scone with Devonshire cream and strawberry jam with a nice cuppa. It's heavenly. 

   Then to ensure that I went into cardiac arrest, I got a Cornish pasty. It had to be done, you can't go to England and not have one. 

Success. 

     The train ride home was super nice, we took the Eurostar, which was super comfy and like on the way to England, I didn't even notice we were in the tunnel under the channel until we were half-way thorough. I had anticipated something a bit more exciting being under all of that water, but it was like going into any other tunnel. I think they should have glass windows or something so you can say hi as you zoom past all of the fishies. 

    I had been feeling kind of homesick before we went to London, but after going and feeling so at home there, I think I'd be fine for another month or two! I can't believe I only have 15 days left--I haven't even visited the Louvre yet! These next two weeks are going to be jam-packed with things I've procrastinated doing, the largest of these being my studies...that I should be doing right now, actually, I'd better go and do that...

London Round 2: The day after that

    The day was a chilly one! However, we headed out bright and early to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.

My view of it.

The invisible man:

Then we went to the Tate Modern.

  I have to say I like the modern art collection at the George Pompidou Center a bit more than the one at the Tate. This was interesting though:

Sunflower seed pile, every seed was hand-painted porcelain. 

and of course I have to show good ol' Mr. Warhol.

   Then I went over:

Not the Tower Bridge, but close enough.

On the other side I saw:

Southwark Cathedral

But my destination was:
The Borough Market!

   The charm of going to a market never gets old, there's always so much to see, smell and, of course, taste. Like I said earlier, it was a chilly day so it was fantastic to get some fresh mint/ginger tea and sausage roll and peruse around.

    Then I went to the British Museum. The last time I went there was when I was eight, however, it's one of those things I remember in fairly good detail.

   One of the things I didn't remember was the Rosetta stone, so that was exciting.

  I think the reason I remember the British Museum so well was by how eye-opening it was. It's the place where I saw my first dead human body:

     Some of the images I saw in that museum were kinda traumatizing for an eight-year old, be careful with children around the Indian statues...some of them if I wasn't trying to be understanding and accepting of other cultures I would definitely rate "x".  However, this time around I wasn't as shocked and actually didn't even go to the Indian statue section, I put if off until the very end of the visit (because I really wanted to see the mummies) and didn't have enough time. I did see this cool hippocamp pendant though. Remind me to use the word hippocamp more often in my vocabulary.

 Then I did some more night walking, remember this place?

  This is a very big high-heel.

    When I returned to the hostel I noticed this poster and had a good inward-chuckle. Delightful.

    The other exciting thing at the hostel was that someone had broken into one of the rooms our group was in and stole: a computer, a backpack, iPod, iTouch, and several headbands. Scary, huh? Luckily the room I was in was left untouched, so that was a relief! Also, our director had been keeping our passports in a safe, so that was very lucky too--I can't begin to imagine the disaster that would have happened if someones passport had been lifted. When the police were called over, they said that the hostel had had about 50 recent police reports about things being stolen there. So I guess the moral of the story is to never take anything valuable to a hostel and to always rent a locker to safe-guard your belongings. I think it's too bad that you can't trust people, it makes me especially sad that in a place with other young people you can't expect them to behave properly and treat others with respect. 

London Round 2: The next day

We started out our day at the Tate Britain!

It was absolutely fantastic! The art collection there was so lovely!

Aww, precious.

   I found some of my favorite artists--I never guessed I would ever see their work live, wow.

"Ophelia" John Everett Millais

Sorry for the glare of the lights...I couldn't do anything about it. 

"The Lady of Shalott" John William Waterhouse

"Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose" John Singer Sargent

"A Wreck, with Fishing Boats" JMW Turner

    There were millions (okay, more like dozens) of paintings I totally fell in love with, but I just tried to pick my favorites to show to y'all. Speaking of the word y'all I wish English had a personal pronoun for speaking to multiple people that didn't make you sound like a Texan (just kidding all my Texas friends, the world would be lacking something if not for you).  I just mean that it doesn't sound like something you could use in a formal situation.."you guys" doesn't really work either...so I propose that we start using the French personal pronoun "vous" which is used for speaking to someone in a formal form or when speaking to a group, it just makes life so much easier. So I'm going to do that from now on, just a heads up.

     After the Tate Britain I went with a group of people to Leicester Square to try and find some tickets to my all-time favorite musical: Les Miserables. Sadly, the only seats that were left were the 85£= Not going to happen, sorry chum-- or the 15£ ones that are really worth 5£ because you're facing a wall or have a pole in the middle of your view. Thus, I did not end up investing in a ticket. Don't worry, I already cried and listened to the original cast recording, so I'm over it. 

    Then I moseyed off to the National Portrait Gallery and then realized that I was kind of museumed-out and just wanted to go on a long walk. So I did a terrible thing, I only went through one section of the gallery and then left...terrible I know, I'm sorry. Turns out the Mona Lisa was there...oops. I did see this one though:

Remember this from that one textbook?

    My long walk took me from Trafalgar Square to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the way I saw:

The original Twining's tea shop! I love herbal tea, so I stopped in and got some. Ahhh, herbal tea just doesn't taste as good anywhere else as it does in England.

    I forgot to take lots of pictures because I was just enjoying my walk. It was great fun to walk up Fleet street, see a pie shop and then a barber's shop just after it. I had assumed that after the Sweeney Todd story that eating a pie or going to the barber would be a sort of taboo along that street, I guess the British just have a dark sense of humor.

    Upon arriving at St. Paul's I was met with this sight:

    Hippies!? I don't know, I was too shy to talk to them. I think they were protesting a new government reform. They looked like they were having fun, playing guitar together and drawing with side-walk chalk, I really should have made friends with them. Oh well, next time.

    Our group was meeting at St. Paul's for evensong. I'd read in guide books about evensong, but I didn't know what it was until I went. Basically, it's a church service in the evening with singing. I loved it, the singing was so beautiful and the acoustics were so nice, the harmonies of the choir were to die for! I wasn't allowed to record it, and the mic on my camera wouldn't have done it justice, but it sounded kind of like this, except the choir was much smaller.

  Then I wandered along Oxford street with some friends. I couldn't believe that Christmas lights were already up, it made me feel like I've been gone a lot longer than I thought.

Have I mentioned how much I love walking at night?

London Round 2

  

   Yes, I'm back in good ol' London town! My program decided instead of going to Venice to take us to London so we could compare and contrast it with Paris. 

   It was super fun to go back again because if you remember I didn't have much time to see things last time. Also, because I was with a group I was able to hear about everybody's suggestions of things to do. 

  # 1 suggestion I followed:

all-you-can-eat Indian food. 

It was so yummy! I definitely ate myself sick.

   Then a small group of us walked to the London Eye--I have decided that night walks are one of my very most favorite things. I could just walk all night, it's so beautiful with all of the streetlights and the stars! *sigh* I just wish it wasn't so risky in a city, I would love to go on night walks every night, but lone female night-walkers are often assumed to be dodgy characters.
   On our walk almost all of the wrong-way signs had been jazzed up by some creative person:

Fab!

   Speaking of street art, I can't believe I haven't shared this song. It's probably why I like street art so much, the poetry is absolutely stunning-- je vous présente: "A Poem On The Underground Wall."

Then we stumbled upon Hogwarts!

And saw the lovely moon having a chat with a planet (?) over the Thames. 

   After seeing the London Eye (the blue thing in the picture above), we walked to the nearest underground station and on our way this caught our attention:

Underpants draped over light bulbs.
It was both beautiful and bizarre at the same time. 

Then we minded the gap,

and went back to the hostel we were staying in.

   I really like youth hostels, or at least the idea of them, I haven't actually had a very legitimate experience because the room has always been reserved for a group of people that I know. It's just really fun to feel all wild and free without much baggage to tie you down and to sleep in bunk beds and share bathrooms...ok, that part isn't very fun...but it just feels so nice, make-shift, and gypsy-like!