Sex, Drugs and Making Memories

Yes I went to Amsterdam, no I didn't solicit a prostitute, and no, I didn't try drugs. But oh man, what a weekend.

It was about a 14 hour bus ride from Swansea to the Netherlands and to cross the English Channel we took a ferry from Dover to Calais, France. We spent a good amount of time driving through Belgium, but we didn't have time to stop to buy chocolate on the way home. Tear.

But once we finally got there, we checked into our hostel. There were about 50 of us, 3/4 American, another eighth Canadian, and the rest Spanish or English or Welsh.

Michelle, one of the Canudians, Carrie my flatmate from New Mexico, Margaret, a Welsh classmate from New York and I started visit with an ATM stop, mozzarella, tomato and pesto sandwiches and a CanalBus tour of the city. I took like a hundred pictures of buildings from the boat, all of which start to look the same, and by the middle of the second day, my camera was dead.


Thank goodness Carrie's still worked.

But anyway, after the CanalBus we took on the Heineken Experience, a tourist attraction that includes a walk through the original Heineken brewery, no longer in use, three beers and a "free gift" all for 10 euros. It was pretty cool, to be honest.

A bit buzzed, afterward we grabbed dinner at a Japanese restaurant where we had no idea what we were ordering. Oh, traveling. I ordered red wine and got something that was on ice with lemon and tasted like a cross between a Long Island and some kind of blush wine. My bill said it was sake, so maybe it was, but I really have no idea.

Anyway, then we went to the Van Gogh Museum. It was incredible to look at his work. No, they don't have Starry Night there, that's in New York. But they did have more than 200 of his paintings, from all his different eras. Carrie and Michelle didn't enjoy it as much, but they're not really van Gogh fans either. There was live music in the main gallery that could be heard throughout the building and also Monets and Manets and Paul Gaugins. I loved it.

We headed back to the hostel after that, it was late and we hadn't really slept well except on the two-hour ferry ride. We hung out in the hostel bar and caught up with all the other little groups of Swansea students that were tired too before we went to bed.



The next day, we slept in a bit, had breakfast at the hostel. It was like having lunchmeat sandwiches, toast with the Dutch version of Nutella, juice and tiny cups of strong coffee. I'm not complaining, it just definitely wasn't a normal American breakfast.

We used one last ride on the CanalBus to get to the northwest side of Amsterdam, where the Anne Frank House is. We waited in line about an hour to get in, but it was totally worth it. It was a very sobering experience, thinking about how she and seven other people had lived there for years before being found. It was larger than I expected, but still very small for so many people. Unlike when I went to the Jane Austen exhibit, I'd actually read the Diary of Anne Frank. It was a few years ago, but with the few quotes posted in the rooms and being able to put a real visual with her words, I remembered it a lot more clearly than I thought I would.

Our plan after that was to grab lunch and head back to the hostel before meeting some other people to go to the Red Light District later that night. But I was navigator, and between eating lunch, taking a detour to stop in a shop and go through a flea market, I got turned around and we walked in the wrong direction for about 15 minutes, making twists and turns until we finally asked someone.

When I say most of Amsterdam looks the same, I mean the part around the canals. There are three concentric main canals and several others that cross and parallel them, making the city look like a spider web from a bird's eye view.

Once we figured out where we were on the map, we were fine. We were just 45 minutes north of where we wanted to go. We made it back, but I thought Carrie was going to kill me. All she wanted to do that afternoon was buy a pin from Hard Rock for her dad. We got there. We just took the scenic route.

The rest of us bought trinkets and scarves and hats from a street vendor. Then we met up with the other group back at the hostel, got ready for the night and went back to where we'd been a few hours before.

We walked parallel to the Red Light District down Ronkin to the Sex Museum. Now that was entertaining. It was only 3 euros to get in. Hilariousness. It was what I expected. A lot of photographs, older and newer, and a lot of old drawings dating to before photography. There were also several, um, artifacts, and a special exhibit about Marilyn Monroe. It made me proud to be an American.

After that, the ten of us walked over to Warmeosstraat, two blocks west of the central Red Light District. I'm pretty sure every person we saw there was stoned. The street is full of coffeeshops where brownies and what not are served. Highly entertaining.

It was still fairly early, maybe 9 or so, and we were in Amsterdam. So we decided to suck it up and walk down the main drag of the Red Light District.

You hear about it, you see random pictures sometimes, but, at least for me, there's something that says, "No, that's bullshit." But it was real. Red lights everywhere. Red curtains pulled in half the windows. And in the other half, there are prostitutes. Younger, older. Most of them strangely attractive. And all dressed to entice customers, but none of them completely naked.

I would guess that it was about a 10 to 1 male to female ratio, and of those men, they were anywhere from 20 to 50 years old. We saw an older, heavier guy trip and fall, flat on his face. I think he was trying to communicate with one of the hookers through her window, but he was so wasted, he just lost his balance and fell over in all his gesturing.

It took us about 10 minutes to cruise the street and you could feel a collective relief when we reached the end. It wasn't that we felt unsafe. It was just a really odd place to be.

We found a Mexican restaurant close to our hostel, had some dinner and then went back and hung out in the hostel bar until we couldn't stand it anymore. I was soo tired.

We left early the next morning. Overall, I liked Amsterdam. It was really a clean city, unique with the canals. If I lived there, I would die in the first year. Not because of the drugs or the sex elements, but because I would get hit by a bike. No joke.

According to the Amsterdam board of tourism, there are 600,000 bikes in the city. Almost every street has a separate lane for them, and where there's not, bikers have the right of way, above walking pedestrians and cars. Seriously. And while we're on numbers, there are almost 739,000 "inhabitants." That means about 80 percent of them ride bikes. It's craziness. They park them everywhere.

Also, there are 165 total canals, 2,500 houseboats, 141 Rembrandts, 206 van Goghs and almost 16 million visitors a year. Unbelievable.

So, in short, that was Amsterdam. It was cool. The end.

I'm back Mom

The bus ride was long, but I'm home safe and sound. I behaved. For the most part. I'll post more late tomorrow.

Amsterdam, go

That's it. I'm leaving now. I'll catch up on posts someday. I'll be back late Sunday night. Xo. Bye.

Ah, Ciampino

So there are two airports in Italy, and I flew in and out at Ciampino, and it probably wouldn't have really made a difference because I would have flown with Ryanair no matter what, but ...

I now know that airport very well. I had a great weekend in Italy. My travel there was perfect, I explored part of Rome before I went to Viterbo to stay with Marshall, and then I went back to Rome two days later to see a bit more if it before flying out in the afternoon back to Stansted London.

Well, I got to the airport, two hours before my flight, with plenty of time to check in and get through security, and I looked at the screen that tells you where your flight checks in — and it was canceled. It said to go to the ticket counter.

So I found the line for the ticket counter, and I wanted to kill myself right then. There were two lines, massively long and there wasn't anybody helping anyone at either counter. I didn't have any other choice, so I got in line, busted out my headphones and popped a squat.

Three hours. I spent three hours waiting in that line. The Ryanair air traffic controllers were on strike, so four flights were canceled. There had to have been at least 500 people trying to reschedule.

I did really well in Rome, getting around, asking people questions in Italian and mostly understanding their responses. I used the metro, I used the buses, I ate a couple times, I got lost once or twice, and I was perfectly calm that entire time. But after about two hours waiting in line, I almost lost it. The husband of a Spanish couple that was standing in line a few people behind me starting yelling at the Italian guards, who of course started swarming him and therefore me as well. I don't know if everyone was speaking Italian or Spanish or just complete jibberish, but I couldn't understand any of it and I had no idea what was going on.

Then there was this group of Spanish teens in front of me who started drumming on their luggage and banging a Coke bottle on the ground in protest of the wait. We hadn't moved. It was all very intense and high energy. Everyone was frustrated and angry. Then some people got out of line behind me, so I was the only person between the Spanish couple and the kids.

I felt a tap on my shoulder, and the yelling guy's wife started talking to me. I said, "Non parlo Italiano," and "No hablo Espanol." Then the husband asked me, "Inglese."

"Si," I said.

The wife pointed to me and said, "Que."

I was confused, so I asked what they meant, what about the que.

She pointed to me and said, "You weren't here."

I almost screamed at her. I said as forcefully as I could without crying, "I've been here for two hours! I've been sitting and standing and laying down, but I've been in this line."

Then I turned around and put my hood up as the husband started to apologize. I could feel myself tearing up. I turned up my headphones and blinked and blinked and blinked. Crying was the absolute worst thing I could have done. It was a good thing I had another hour before I had to talk to someone about re-booking.

After 10 minutes, I was fine. And eventually, I made small talk with the couple. When they found out I wasn't trying to go to Madrid as well, they were a lot nicer. There weren't any more flights to there that day, so most likely they were going to have to go to Santiago.

They had a hard time understanding my accent. They didn't speak English very well either, but I think what they did know, they'd picked up from watching the BBC.

When I said I was American they said "Ah, Americano" with a look of understanding on their faces, finally.

The husband said, "It's very different." I assumed he meant my accent.

When I finally got to the front of the line, I made the 10 p.m. flight, the last one to the U.K. that day. The ticket lady told me I had the last seat, but I think they tell everyone that.

After that, I waited two hours until I could check in, two hours to get on the plane, and once I finally got to London, I waited two hours for a bus to Heathrow, then after that two hours for a bus to Swansea. It was 7:15 a.m. on Tuesday before I was on the final leg of my journey.

I missed two lectures, got to Swansea at 11:45, went straight to my noon lecture, my one o'clock lecture, and finally at 2:30 p.m. got a shower and some food. I didn't go to bed until 10 after I had one more class, unpacked and caught up with everyone about their weekend trips. I was up for 40 hours. I've got to learn how to sleep on the bus.

Despite all that, my four days in Italy made it all worth it. Completely. I even bought some Venetian shot glasses in Ciampino that I wouldn't have found otherwise.

I'll blog about the actual cool stuff later.

In Italia!

Basically that's it. Off to Italy in and hour and a half. I'll be back with a post Tuesday. Go Tribe!

Mission Patriots

So I've mentioned before that my flatmate Jack and his friend/honorary flatmate Andrew are from Boston and are rightly so addicted to the Red Sox and the Patriots. They've subscribed to the entire MLB post-season and all the Pats games for the season. (Let it be noted I never would have adopted the reference of the Pats for New England, but they talk about it so often, it's embedded in my brain.)

It's really be quite enjoyable to see the Indians doing well against the Sox, and I'll talk about that in a moment, but first, another story.

Sunday, the boys went on a mission to find a pub/bar that was going to broadcast the Pats game on SkySports. The UK buys the rights to two NFL games a week, and the Pats/Cowboys and the Tennessee/Tampa games were the ones this week. Yes I realize that I should have used either mascots or region/cities to refer to the games, but not only do I not know who Tennessee or Tampa's mascots are, I don't care.

Anyway, the point is, because of the UK having rights, they wouldn't be able to watch the game online until after it was already over. That was unacceptable to them, so they began their mission at 3 p.m. BST time to make sure they'd find a place in enough time to catch both games. After failing in the Mumbles, they headed to Wind Street and the Australian bar, Walkabout, was the winner.

I'm truly amazed with their dedication. Earlier in the day I had told them I'd join them, with the secret motivation of showing up halfway through the first game to actually watch the South Africa/Argentina semi-final rugby match. My plan worked perfectly. And of course, the rugby game took priority over American football and was on the big screens with commentary.

Score. I was rooting for Argentina, firstly because South Africa has a dirty reputation of stomping on the other player's heads with inch-long cleats and grabbing them where no man should grab another with intent to inflict pain. Secondly, now that France is out of it, I want England to win even though I feel like a traitor to Wales and they had a better chance of beating Argentina than South Africa. But they didn't. South Africa was just bigger and stronger and won 37-13.

After the rugby match was over, just as the Pats were about to start up on the big screen, imagine the boys' disappointment when instead of also switching the game's commentary to the main speakers, the bar turned into a nightclub and bad American pop music from the past 10 years began to play. It amused me and then additionally my other three girlfriends who had come with the main priority of celebrating Anne's (my French friend) 21st birthday, even though it didn't have as much significance as such a mark would in the U.S.

The boys watched the Patriots as blasting in the background were Dolly Parton, B52s, Brittany Spears and Ice Cube, to name a few. And, my favorite non-American song was by the Spice Girls. I then found myself explaining why I knew all the words to "Who Do You Think You Are." Short story, I can't remember if the Spice Girls or Third Eye Blind was my first CD in the fifth grade.

But anyway ...

Somewhere around the break between the third and fourth quarters, the Pats scored a critical touchdown that put them in a comfortable lead. So Jack and Andrew went nuts, as is usual in the states. But half the club turned to look at us, and all I could do was smile. Some Welshmen, who I'm pretty sure didn't know anything about football, tried to argue with the boys about whether it counted or not. It actually underwent a challenge and was ruled as legit. But that didn't matter to me. It was just amusing to see such a strange interaction between cultures.

At midnight, with most of the fourth quarter left to play, Walkabout started to close. I don't think I've ever seen anyone more disappointed in my life. The boys lingered until we were the last ones in the bar and the bouncers started heading our way, and then they stood outside and watched the television in the window for 10 minutes until they shut off the satellite feed.

The the only mission was to get home ASAP to check the score online and wait for the game to end so they could watch the fourth quarter. Talk about commitment.

I went to bed cause I was still tired from watching the Indians the night before. And now that I've made that transition, I knew this morning after I hadn't been woken by excessively loud cheering that the Indians must have done well. Alas, when I checked online, glory!

Jack's face this morning when I asked him what happened was enough to keep me from rubbing it in. Just complete dismay. If they win again tonight ... well, I'm not a huge baseball fan, so I might be able to restrain myself. I think I can't wait and see how the series comes out :-).

Rome-ing around Bath

Leah and I went took a day trip this weekend, to see the English city of Bath and take in a bit of history. We almost missed the bus because our cabbie couldn't find our flat. And Mom, you'll be glad to know I am my mother's daughter; I was ready to flip out because there was nothing I could do about it. Luckily, Leah was the calm and collected one, but I think it was only because I was the one freaking out so she had to be.

Anyway, it took less than two hours to get there. We basically had free reign to do whatever from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. So we bought a map for a pound from a vending machine at the coach park and went wandering.

Bath looked a lot bigger coming in, but by the end of the day, Leah and I had covered the entire tourist section and then some. We started, of course, with the Roman baths. It cost us 8.95 pounds, but I had decided I wasn't going to go to Bath and not see the baths, although we met some people on our bus who did just that.



It was worth our money. We got audio wands like we did a Stonehenge, only there were like more than 150 places where we could have stopped to listen instead of just seven. We spent almost two hours checking it all out.

We entered at street level on the terrace, looking down at the Great Bath, the largest and probably most photographed. The actual baths are at least 15 feet below street level. For the tour, the guide takes visitors around the terrace, back into the formal temple and temple courtyards, and then to the Great Bath itself, the East and West baths and the Sacred Spring.

The temple has been commercialized, but it a way that didn't bother me as much as it did at Stonehenge. It was necessary to show visitors what the baths used to be like and explain their significance in ancient history. The Celts discovered these natural hot springs and built a small shrine, but the Romans mastered them during their rule in Britain. If they had never come, who knows what would have happened to them. Certainly they wouldn't be as they are now, but somehow, I think they would have remained sacred.

The temple is dedicated to the goddess Sulis Minerva, a goddess of healing. Roman soldiers, in particular, and others who were inflicted with injury or sickness, would travel to the baths to take advantage of their healing powers. Evidence remains of an unknown, but assuredly massively large number of visitors. Archaeologists have uncovered piles of coins that people left for the goddess, hair combs that indicated women visited as well as men and countless other artifacts.

The baths contain bacteria infested water now, that's not safe to drink and not really safe to touch either. But Leah and I couldn't resist. It was just the tip of my right finger, but it was enough to tell that it was warm and naturally that way. It was cool to think that so many people had been there before me, and so many would come after, to check out this phenomenon.



Some quick facts: The water that comes from the springs is 46 degrees Celsius, which I had to convert to get an idea — it's 114.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Holy crap. And for more than 2,000 years, the springs have been producing 309,081 gallons of water a day. In liters (which makes it sound even more impressive) it's 1,170,000 a day.

After we left the baths, I was starving. So I copped out an grabbed some Burger King. I know, I'm in the UK with massive amounts of pubs that serve burgers if that's what I really wanted. But I was hungry and we wanted to walk and eat. So it worked.

We stopped out a bridge that overlooked the Avon river. There were a lot of people there, watching something that wasn't the river's levies. It was a rugby game, apparently sold out. And we were standing in the exact spot were everyone else wanted to be. We could see about 25 yards of the field, definitely not enough to know what was going on, or even which team the city of Bath was playing. But it was prime ground. We hung out for a big. Caught a glimpse of a scrum or two. Heard magnificent cheers indicating Bath was doing well. Then we moved on.

We walked across the bridge. It had shops on either side of it, and when we crossed it again later in the day, it took me a second to realize that was where we were. You couldn't see the river coming from the other way, so it just felt like a normal street.



Eventually, we headed to the Jane Austen Centre. That was what Leah wanted to do, and I had no objection. She had appeased me by going to see the baths. We weren't sure where it was, so we followed the posted signs that seem to be in every city in the UK. I know they have them in Swansea, and Leah said she saw them in London as well. Streets aren't very clearly marked, and when they are, it's because their names are carved into the sides of buildings or posted on a plaque. There isn't such a thing as street signs here.

After, I think only one wrong turn and a detour to buy Pashmina scarves from a market vendor for 5 pounds each, we found the center. The tickets we bought got us a 10-15 minute talk from a very informative and engaging volunteer. She knew things about Jane Austen I never would have guessed. Then we got to explore the museum. That was kind of crap, but I bought Pride and Prejudice at the end from the shop because Leah almost killed me when I told her I'd never read it. I figured I liked the movie enough, it'd be worth it and now it's rivaling my school reading. Stinkin' good books.

Just down the street from the exhibit was where Jane Austen lived for a bit. So we found that and took some shots too.



We spent the rest of the day just wandering the city. We walked our butts off. But it was worth it. Bath is a pretty unique city. All of the buildings are the same, and if we hadn't had a map, I'm pretty sure I'd have been lost. My favorite spot was this place that had massive trees, five of them. They were in the middle of a roundabout and had to be at least a hundred years old. I bet they were there when Jane Austen visited the city. The center is in Bath, not because she lived there briefly, but because her books give several references to the city and it's social life inspired a lot of her work.

I really enjoyed the trip. The only thing I would have done differently is found a pub to have a brew and watch the England soccer game that was on that day.

When we got back, we caught the second half of the England versus France rugby semi-final game. England won, but it came all the way down to the last few minutes. Then I watched the Indians game with Jack and Andrew, who are from Boston. I went to bed after the 5th inning when I realized I'd been up for 22 hours. It was a long, but good day.



Pictured above: The Great Bath from the east end; a view of the Avon River and the bridge that has shops on either side from the spot where we watched the rugby game; me, stalker like, at 25 Gay St. where Jane Austen lived; hugging one of the ginormous trees, Leah and I at the Roman baths, taking a moment.

I'm English ...

So Carrie and I were explaining to our friend Jon from Manchester how to say a certain word with an American accent. I can't remember what it was, but after saying it over and over and over and overandoverandoverandover...

Jon said, "I'm English, not stupid."

He is fantastic.

Visiting Avebury and Stonehenge

Every heard of Avebury before?

Yeah, I hadn't either. But I saw it with about 50 other American students on Saturday. It was pretty cool.

The site predates Stonehenge by 1,500 years, but it's doesn't receive near the media attention. It's more difficult to photograph and our guide actually carried around a diagram of where the stones were.



First off, it's a mile in circumference. The stones are smaller than Stonehenge's and they weren't shaped like those either. They're spread apart about 10-15 feet and the tallest one was probably 15-18 feet or so above the ground. Originally, there were 98 stones, according to the Web site http://www.avebury-web.co.uk/.

Two smaller circles sit inside the larger one, referred to as the northern and southern circles consisting of 27 and 29 stones respectively, at least originally.



The stones were made of sandstone, which is the fourth hardest stone after diamonds, according to our guide. So a lot of them were taken down to be used for building other structures, especially at the encouragement of religious leaders who thought the circles were pagan.

What makes Avebury so different, is that a town of 90 people sits in the middle of the circle, so visitors have to navigate roads, houses, a church and a pub to see the entire circle. Not to mention the sheep that live there to keep the grass down. Conventional ways of mowing would damage the site. So half the time instead of looking at the stones, I was looking down at the ground to avoid the massive piles of pelleted poop.



But other than that it was pretty cool.

Stonehenge was Stonehenge. I put up a picture, you can find the rest online. It was very commercialized and people can't walk up to the site because it's being preserved. It may be more impressive on first impression, and many of the people I came with enjoyed it more than Avebury. But I liked being able to touch the rocks, walk around the town without feeling like I was going to be yelled at for stepping in the wrong pile of crap.

I don't think I'll ever feel the need to go back. But I'm glad I did go at least once.



Pictured above: Our tour guide with diagram at Avebury; a view of the circle from the south side; Leah after chasing sheep, resting one of the biggest rocks; me listening to my audio at Stonehenge.

Nothing to do with Wales

Me: Leah, what's your koala's name?
Leah: Eucalyptus, Eucky for short.
(Pause.)
Leah: Not to be confused with Yucky.
(Carrie and I laughing hysterically.)

Mine is better than yours

Ryan from Mississippi: That's hard cider, it's 8.2 percent.
Cassie from Texas: My milk is 2 percent.

Just had to share. Xo to everyone at home. Missing you.

Queuing, queuing, queuing

Maybe I've truly inherited the American way of always being in a hurry, but I never would have said that until now.

Queuing, queuing, queuing. Also known as waiting in line, queuing seems to be a very British habit. At first, when I was traveling, I just thought it was because I was traveling, and then last week I thought it was just because we were registering for classes and what not. Any maybe it'll change, but I don't think it will. Today was the first day of classes, and I waited in line half an hour to drop some classes.

I've waited in long lines to get on the bus, to check out at the grocery, at the ATM and to book trips at the travel shop. I've waited in line to get into clubs and at the end of the night to get taxis. I've heard other people talk about waiting in line for an hour or more for all kinds of things. I, in my impatience, usually come back an hour or two later or the next day If I can. I feel like I'm at Cedar Point all the time.

Maybe I just notice it because I'm a little nervous about everything new I try here, and thus, I'm a bit more anxious. But I really do think that queuing is a very British thing. I'd never even heard a one-word way to say "waiting in line" until I came here.

And these aren't lines like, with two or three people ahead of you. Sometimes, but there were 20 people in line for the ATM today. There was last week when I needed it, too. Maybe I just have really bad timing at going the places where I need to go.

The buses I can understand. You have to wait on the bus to get there in the first place. But with taxis, queues of people form and then queues of cabs form. And the cab drivers won't let you in if you try to just go to one that's towards the back. They wait too. I don't know if I've ever seen that in the U.S., but then again, I've never had to take cabs very often in the U.S.

If you ever visit the U.K., expect lots of queues. I think the only place I haven't had to wait in line is the bathroom — not at the airport or the train stations, not even at the pubs and clubs, which you always have to wait in line for in the U.S. I think it's because the U.K. has more toilets.

At least they've got the important ones right. I should probably be more grateful for that and less whiny about the rest. So I will. Here lies my last complaints about queuing the the U.K.

The end.