itinerary.

"Procrastination is the thief of time."
-Edward Young

Smart man. Too bad knowing such a thing doesn't stop me from procrastinating my life away. It seems I have run out of time to write about Paris, as I need to be awake in five hours to begin my travels, so you'll have to wait awhile for that.

I thought I'd fill you in on the final itinerary of spring break. Starting tomorrow we're heading to Athens for a few nights, taking a ferry down to the island Mykonos for two nights, and then flying to Rome. Then a couple of nights each in Rome, Florence, Venice, Barcelona, and Valencia, and three nights each in Sevilla and Madrid. Hopefully this means lots of ancient Greek and Roman ruins, a gondola ride in Venice, a beach afternoon or two on the Mediterranean, either a bullfight or a football game in Sevilla, the end of the famous Semana Santa Easter festival, and plenty of Greek food, Italian gelado, and Spanish tapas. And a wonderful ending in my favorite city in the world before returning home on the 17th. Life is fantastic.

What's the good news for you? No suffering through my posts for a few weeks! =) (Don't worry, you'll pay for it with plenty of posts when I return.) Hope you all have lovely spring/Easter breaks!

grumblings.

"If there is one thing that is constant in this world, it is the power of music."
-Josh Groban

Leave it to my buddy Josh to give me the perfect quote for today. This was supposed to be a post about Paris, but I got a paragraph in and decided I wasn't really in the mood to write about the trip now, so this is instead turning into a "talk about nothing" post. You'll have to wait another day or two for pictures from the "City of Love". Apologies.

Yesterday I had to walk the half hour to campus for chemistry in the rain. Now, this wasn't just any heavy rain, it was a torrential downpour. The wind made sure that my umbrella didn't do me much good, and by the time I got to class, my jeans were complete soaked all of the way up to my coat. To top it off, the rain went right through my bag and got the bottom half of my chem notebook sopping wet, so that's currently laying out to dry. I just love it when notebook pages get all wrinkly...oh, the things I'll do for chemistry. Of course, had I known that the second lecture would be canceled anyways, I wouldn't have bothered going. The only amusing part of the entire thing was that the Londoners seemed to be caught unaware; most of them didn't have an umbrella, which is quite unusual here. So the school boys that are usually pristine looking in their uniforms with jackets and ties looked like unruly messes, which I (perhaps cruelly) found entertaining.

I've been trying to write an essay for British Life & Culture all day, and been having zero luck. I have less creativity than a goldfish, which doesn't come in handy when you're trying to fake your way through describing a place that epitomizes British culture. It's an everyday occurrence to find me procrastinating on things, but to find me taking a run instead of doing work never happens, but it did today! I actually found a park down the street with a few soccer fields and a mini playground, so I ran around that a few times with a break on the swings in the middle. And you know what? I sort of enjoyed it. Mainly because I love swing sets. It sort of made me miss the olden days of playing soccer, too.

And more than anything else today, I miss the piano. I haven't played since January, and my newly autographed William Joseph book sits lonely and unopened in my drawer. A walk to the piano rooms at Albany was such an easy way to take out my frustration, but here I sit with no piano and frustration building up. What about, you ask? I finally got a response about forensics vs. honors, which in essence said "we're not sure yet." Great. But it looks like I'm up to a Friday consisting of five classes in a row, so I have that to look forward to next year. Oh, and any bio majors want to help me survive freshman bio? Please and thank you. A few other things have been testing my patience over the past few days, but I'd rather not get into the details, so I'll spare you the further rants.

For now, I'm going to drown myself in some music and try to pretend that I don't have a gigantic list of things that need to get done in the next two days. I think I'm having one of those "stop the world -- I want to get off!" moments. A break from everything would be perfect right about now, but alas, life continues whether you want it to or not. And it looks like this turned from a "talk about nothing" post to a "complain about everything" post, so once again, apologies.

I guess more than anything, I just need a hug. Or Hershey's dark chocolate.

a wee bit o' scotland.

"O ye'll tak the high road and I'll tak' the low road
An' I'll be in Scotland afore ye,
But me and my true love will ne'er meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond."
-Loch Lomond, Traditional Scottish

Alright folks, pictures are finally uploaded, so here's a bit o' Scotland for ye. The trip started at the unimaginable hour of 4:15 AM, when I left my house to catch a bus down the road. The trains don't run early enough to get you into central London by 6, so I had to settle for a combination of buses and the first tube of the day to get myself to King's Cross. Being the only one on the entire tube line is amusing, though! But Sara and I both made it on time to the train, which we thought was quite the accomplishment.

The first city of the trip was Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and the second biggest city. There is a clear divide between the Old Town, which contains Edinburgh Castle, and the New Town, where the main shopping and financial districts reside. Our hostel was just underneath the castle, so we checked in and then set off to explore the Old Town. First stop? The Elephant House! If that doesn't ring a bell...think Harry Potter. Still nothing? It's the cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote at least some of the first book, so it's been dubbed the "birthplace of Harry Potter". So of course, it was a necessity to eat lunch there. Then we headed off to the castle to check out the fortress and the crowned jewels. The view from up in the castle is awesome. Edinburgh is in a beautiful location. In one direction, the sea is clearly visible, and in the other, towering cliffs loom over the buildings on the edge of the city. I'd already visited the castle when I was here a couple of years ago, but it was fun to see again, mainly because of our silly antics. We spent some time browsing the souvenir shops (because where else can you find milk chocolate coo pat?) and then walked across to the New Town. This part of Edinburgh doesn't have the glorious architecture that the older part has, but there are still people everywhere in kilts and bagpipers on the streets, so it manages to retain the Scottish charm. A few more shops, a look at the Scottish monument (which is actually quite ugly), and back to Old Town to relax in the hostel for a few minutes. We were put into the Happy Days room, so I was humming that theme song all evening. We then took a "haunted" tour of Mary King's Cross, which is a collection of old streets and chambers that now lie beneath the city. It was mostly historical facts, with stories of people who used to live in these streets, but a few cheesy scary parts were enough to make me grab Sara. It was interesting though, and our tour guide was fun. The last stop of the night was a pub for a late dinner, and then we returned to the hostel and crashed.

The next morning, we took a bus to Glasgow, the biggest city in Scotland. It's a more modern city than Edinburgh, with the main part being centered around a business district. It was a bit rainy, so after we met up with Kaitlin, we opted for a bus tour instead of walking everywhere. Our first stop was to the cathedral, which contained the tomb and chapel of St. Mungo. I don't actually have a clue as to who that is, but since the name is used in Harry Potter, I thought it was cool. There is a huge necropolis behind the cathedral, so we hiked up there. Some of the tombstones were beautiful, and once the sun came out, I think I could have sat up there for hours. There were hundreds of graves, and of course many of them were marked by celtic crosses, which are my favorite. But alas, staying in a graveyard forever would be a bit of a morbid life, so I dragged myself away. Our next stop on the bus was the People's Palace, which contained a small museum and gardens in the back. The museum wasn't all that interesting, but I did find the Scottish version of the 10 Commandments, which I thought was pretty entertaining. (I know, I have a strange sense of humour.) By the time the bus came again, we were all pretty cold, so we stayed on the bus throughout the rest of the tour. We drove up into the northwestern corner of the city, where the University of Glasgow is located, and saw some of the university buildings, the "armadillo" hall, the science tower, and a few other interesting things. Then after a quick dinner, we hit up a few pubs and had quite the enjoyable evening.

For our final day, we took a bus tour that went up into the highlands. Our first stop was Loch Lomond, and we then made our way north through the mountains to Glencoe, up to Fort William and Loch Ness, then east to Pitlochry, south through Perth and back to Glasgow. In other words, we covered a huge chunk of the country in just one day. The sights were beautiful, especially when the sun was out, but sadly there was no spotting of Nessie. Our tour guide Karen was a lot of fun, though, she knew just about everything you could know about Scotland's history, the landscape, the making of whiskey, and anything to do with Braveheart. It was a worthwhile trip!

Now that I've finished off a few places in the UK, it's time to hit up the rest of Europe. First stop? Paris! Oui oui!

springtime!

"And it looks like the perfect time just to get away,
All the mundane has brought out the rebel I was born to be.
And it feels like the perfect time just to break away,
This is my life, it's a sojourn from the norm."
-Natasha Bedingfield

Hellooooo sunshine! This afternoon, I stepped out of the Kingston train station to a bright blue sky, sunshine pouring down, and a temperature in the low sixties. It looks like spring has arrived in England, and I love it!

I was planning on writing about my weekend in Scotland, but my pictures are taking an unusually long time to upload, so that will have to wait until later tonight or tomorrow. Of course, I could have just waited to post anything altogether, but as my organic synthesis assignment is currently destroying me, I thought a bit of writing would be more enjoyable.

I pulled out the capris for the first time today, which raised my happiness level a few notches. It was quite a change from needing a sweatshirt and a coat just a few hours earlier in Scotland. It's amazing how a small increase in temperature can so easily change one's mood. On the train home, I was exhausted, not looking forward to schoolwork, and just wanted to crawl into bed for the day, but within half an hour of being home, I was having the most enjoyable walk to school I've ever had in my life. If someone had tried to tell me a few months ago that I would love walking half an hour to class every day, I would have questioned their insanity, or how much they actually knew about me and my lazy tendencies. But seriously, I love the walk, even for my 9 AM classes. It wakes me up in the morning so I'm not sleeping through my early classes, and it gives me treasured time to think about things.

That being said, when both of my trains were delayed today, all I could think about was how much I missed my car. It's probably sitting on the edge of my driveway right now, lonely, wishing it were back at school with me, making wrong turns in Albany, Troy, Schenectady, and even on campus. To those of you who have been with me on these driving adventures, I would apologise for getting you lost, but I know you all secretly enjoyed it.

Anyway, I should probably get back to this chemistry assignment before it eats me. I hope you're all taking advantage of this lovely weather! Yayyyy spring!

frustation & oxfordation.

"Life is a journey, not a destination - we determine our destiny by the direction we take."
-Anonymous

Is it me, or are the best quotes always by an anonymous figure? Or maybe there is a really brilliant thinker out there named Anonymous. It could happen. After all, with names like Moxie CrimeFighter and Pilot Inspektor out there, Anonymous is, by comparison, quite normal.
End tangent.

Not too much has happened in the past week and a half. I've been spending a lot more time at the uni trying to get some work done, now that the semester is halfway over. It's kind of a scary thought, considering I haven't had an exam or received a grade in any course besides British Life yet. Although, it's not scary enough to stop me from going to Scotland this weekend and Paris next weekend! We've also been busy trying to book hostels and transportation for spring break, which in itself is frustrating. It's slowly coming together though, and we are definitely going to Greece, Italy, and Spain for three weeks! The U.S. needs to jump on the bandwagon for a longer spring break. Technically we only have two weeks here, but they attach on a reading week beforehand, so what's a study abroad kid supposed to do?

Last week, Sara, Mateusz and I went to see Wicked. It was my second time seeing it in London, and despite it being two years later, I saw the same actress play Elphaba. Kerry Ellis is absolutely fantastic. For those of you who actually know something about the musical, her "The Wizard and I" and "Defying Gravity" are good, of course, but she blows "No Good Deed" out of the water. If you haven't heard her sing version yet, look it up on youtube. Brilliant.

On Saturday, we had a British Life trip to Oxford. For those of you who don't already know this, Oxford University is split up into 39 independent colleges around the city, and the architecture of some of these colleges is beautiful. Actually, the architecture in the entire town centre is a sight to see. We ate lunch at a pub called The Eagle and Child, where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien used to meet with a group called 'The Inklings' to have discussions with fellow writers. There was even a letter on the wall signed by both that said they had drunk to the pub owner's health. Pretty awesome to be sitting among such history. Then we took a short tour of the city, led by the one and only P.Woods! (No, he's not famous. Yes, he's just our professor. Yes, there is a fan page for him on facebook. Yes, we always laugh at his terrible jokes.) We ended at Christ Church College, to tour the college and the adjoining cathedral. The entrance hall and the Great Hall from the Harry Potter series was based on the hall at Christ Church, so I was quite excited to walk through there. None of the paintings on the walls moved, though, and sadly there were no floating candles or enchanted ceilings. The entire time, we were thinking about how strange is must be to eat lunch in that hall every day, and go to college at a place constantly being visited by tourists. I'm thankful that nobody wants to visit Albany. We finished off the day with a trip to our favorite pub in Kingston. It was our last weekend in Kingston for over a month, so Kaitlin, Sara and I met up with Matt, Matt, and Mateusz to celebrate. (Really, I just put this in here to emphasise the fact that we hung out with three Matts. Craziness.)

In terms of classes, things have been going pretty well. Evidence & Issues is now into the forensics section of the course, and I'm enjoying sitting through DNA and digitial forensic lectures much more than the ones on crime data. Chemistry practicals remain surprisingly short and easy, statistics continues to contain the most uninteresting material on this side of the solar system, and discussions in British Life have included the class system, press, theatre, school systems, the monarchy, and everything in between.

At the moment, I'm actually spending more time worrying about classes at home for next semester. I already knew there would be problems when it came time to decide between forensics/internship and the honors program, but everything managed to become more complicated when they added a new "comprehensive forensics" track, with even more credits. Personally, I'd rather do the new forensics track with an internship and forget about the honors research. It would mean suffering through bio, but I'm not very interested in research, and I wouldn't mind throwing a few criminal justice courses into my schedule. My advisor, the forensics prof, and the department head are going to meet and try to work out this honors and forensics mess, so I'm interested to see what they come up with. It's frustrating to not be at home to talk directly with everyone to figure things out, and it doesn't help that they haven't encountered this problem before this semester. But whatever track I end up taking, it looks like I'm going to have at least four Friday classes next semester. Goodbye, three day weekends. I thought I'd capture my frustration on webcam for you, mainly so my dear friends at Albany who can't hear my usual scheduling rant this semester don't miss my frustrated face too much.

Now that I've ranted and wasted a good chunk of time (mine and yours), I should probably return to my chemistry homework. Be on the lookout for pictures from Scotland and France soon! =]