finals & ten.

"Eighty percent of success is showing up."
-Woody Allen

Tell that to my chem professor, Woody.

I'm not sure why I'm bothering with a post, because I really have no updates. My last five or six days have been spent mainly in the library, with the occasional late night runs with Maggie for Tops pizza or to restock my peanut M&M stash. The extent of my free time has been a dinner break each night to catch up on Britain's Got Talent from the night before, or watch highlights from the French Open. You'd think, with all that studying, that I'd be pretty prepared for my exam tomorrow, right? Wrong. I've gotten to the point where I'm finally starting to understand the material, but as my exam is in just over twelve hours, it's a bit late to memorize much. And now that I'm realizing the material isn't impossible to learn, I've actually found a section or two that I sort of enjoy (gasp!). If the entire exam were on naphthalene, carbohydrates or amino acids, I would destroy it. But alas, I'll be lucky if those sections even get me 10 points. I should take this as a learning experience to rid myself of the usual procrastination, hm?

Thankfully, statistics professors here know how to give an exam. We only had to answer three out of eight multi-part questions (I need less than two correct for an A), and if we answered more than three, the professors would take our three best answers. Even better, the questions were based directly off of the finals from the past two years. With classes like that, I understand why people say studying abroad is a piece of cake.

On Sunday morning I hopped on a bus to Heathrow for my Albany fix. (I suppose that makes me a liar, because I just said that my only study break was at dinner. Apologies.) Jill, Becca, Kim, and a few other girls made their way through customs and security just to spend a couple of hours with me, for which I am honored. It was fun to do a brief catch up, though I'm sure we'll have plenty more stories to exchange next year. It's a bit of a strange feeling to see close friends after such a long period of time. To me, I'm living an entirely different life than I was six months ago, yet while I was with them, it seemed as if nothing had changed. I almost thought I was about to get on the plane to Egypt with them. Instead, I hopped back on a bus to Kingston, but I'll be back at Heathrow in just two days to pick up Morgan! =)

Anyway, people have begun trickling home to the states. My dear blogging friend Larry made it back to Albany safely from Japan a few days ago. I guess it'll be my turn before too long. I suppose now that it's well past midnight, the count is down to ten days. I'll just have to make them ten of the most fantastic days of my life! (Well, nine. Nobody in their right mind would count an organic final as a fantastic day.)

It's a bittersweet symphony, this life.

twenty.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go,
but I think I ended up where I intended to be."
-Douglas Adams

20 days. Time, slow down. Please and thank you.


Thorpe Park was an interesting day. We had more than a few problems getting there, but three trains and a bus later, we finally made it to the roller coasters. Brooke broke her ankle last month, so she got a disability bracelet and could get onto rides right away with two or three other people. So Lindsay, Shannon, Leslie and I took turns skipping the lines, which is always fun. I managed to survive Saw! I almost didn't go on it, though. Lindsay and I were waiting in the single rider line when we saw security people go running past. Then I heard the worker telling the people in front of us that somebody had spit on one of the actors. Therefore, we immediately thought that they only let a few people in at a time because we would have to walk by actors, as in a haunted house. Those of you who know me well understand why I freaked. But luckily, nobody accosted me in the dark line, and the ride itself was pretty good. The best part was before the drop though, when you're going straight up. Usually on the way up you can see the track in front of you, but on this? Only sky. Fantastic. The best ride there was Stealth, which goes 0 to 80 mph in less than 2 seconds. Too bad the entire ride only takes about 5 seconds. And I also discovered that I have an irrational fear of bright yellow 3D glasses. I have never liked anything in 3D (I blame It's a Bug's Life from Disney, which my parents forced me to sit through twice), but the fact that I had my ears and eyes closed throughout most of an underwater 3D movie meant for kids was pretty sad. Anyway, I decided that I need to get to Cedar Point sometime in the near future. Anyone want to road trip to Ohio?

I spent most of the week sick in bed, watching movies. Apparently screaming on roller coasters all day with a sore throat isn't a good plan. I did see some things that have been on my "to watch" list for awhile though, including Slumdog Millionaire, Doubt and Knowing. I won't give anything away for those of you who may be as behind in their movie watching as I am, but a few thoughts: Slumdog Millionaire was as emotional as expected, and I can see why it took the world by storm. I hated the ending of Doubt (those of you who have seen it may be able to guess why), but I thought the acting performance of Meryl Streep was stellar. And I liked Knowing for about half an hour before the plot went terribly downhill. I like Nicolas Cage, but...why? I also caught up on American Idol and Britain's Got Talent, with a few more episodes of Heroes thrown in. I am so glad America realized that Kris is more talented than Danny, I love Simon Cowell's face when he truly loves an act, and the first season of Heroes was absolutely fantastic. I also went to see Angels and Demons on Thursday evening. I should really lower my expectations for movies based on my favorite novels, because I am never satisfied. The movie itself was alright, but there were too many pointless plot changes. And Tom Hanks will never be Robert Langdon in my mind.

On Friday, Leslie and I went to Windsor for the day! We left early in the morning so we could get into Windsor Castle in time for the Changing of the Guard, and then we stayed until nighttime for the Royal Military Tattoo. Windsor Castle is beautiful, though I wasn't overly impressed with the State Apartments. The Changing of the Guard was fun, especially when the band broke out into the Mission Impossible Theme. Too cool. Then we took a bus tour so we could see the area around Eton school, and we wasted away the rest of the afternoon by hitting up a candy and fudge shop and a fish 'n chips pub dinner. We also decided that we couldn't continue to hang out, because all we do together is eat. =) The tattoo was fantastic. It was a "military music spectacular", where we saw the following:
1. several military bands
2. a bagpipe ensemble
3. a few traditional horse acts
4. a skit involving the kidnapping of a TV report by rebellious forces
5. horses performing to Top Gun and Pirates of the Caribbean
6. a steel drum band with a dancer who limbo-ed under fire about a foot off the ground
7. a combined military marching band playing "Thriller"
8. some sort of race? I'm not sure, but our side won!
It was a great night, and even though it had rained all day, it stopped for the show! Too bad Leslie and I were already bundled up in ponchos.

Yesterday, I did statistics while watching sports all day. First up was Wimbledon Centre Court Celebration! To test out the new roof on centre court, Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf, Tim Henman and Kim Clijsters played exhibition matches. I tried to get a ticket, but alas, people on ebay apparently are richer than I am. I had to settle from watching Andre at my desk, but it was still great fun. He won his singles match, cheers! It looks like all systems are a go for the roof in this year's Wimbledon. I will miss the rain days though, sometimes they show fantastic matches from years ago when trying to waste time. Ah well, technology is progress. My other tennis love Roger Federer managed to beat Nadal on a clay court in Spain. Sure, Nadal was probably exhausted from his 4+ hour match yesterday, but it's still an important win for Federer. Maybe this will boost his confidence going into the French Open. And it was also the day of a Chelsea game, so I proudly wore my new jersey! Sadly, Manchester United has already taken the Premiere League cup this year, but defeating Blackburn doesn't hurt anything.


Anyway, you can tell that I really haven't done anything with my life (besides Windsor) in the last week. Hopefully I'll have something to update on besides all of the TV I've watched next time. But, considering my only plans are to take the stats exam and start studying for chem, I make no promises. =)

less than a month?

"Being grown up isn't half as fun as growing up,
these are the best days of our lives.
The only thing that matters is just following your heart
and eventually you'll finally get it right."
-All-American Rejects

Back to life in Kingston. I can't even tell you how quickly the past few weeks have flown by. All of a sudden classes are over and I'm in the midst of farewell events? It seems like I've done a lot since break, but I also feel like I've been living in the library. I'm not sure how that works.

I think I currently love life in London more than ever, but there have been two weekends when all I wanted to do was be back in Albany. The first was for Fountain Day a couple of weeks ago. It is one of the best days of the entire year where everyone piles into the fountain, and I loathe missing it. But my mission to have someone steal me a rubber duck was completed! (I have amazing friends.) Even worse than missing Fountain Day is not being in Albany for the Dance Council show this weekend. Thankfully Allison has been fantastic at sending me videos of the tap rehearsals and keeping me updated on everything, but I still miss tap more than ever. On top of that, Third Eye Blind is playing at Tulip Fest this weekend! But, like I said, I am in love with my life right now, so I'll just have to continue watching videos and stalking dance pictures until I can be back next semester.

I've been hitting up some more West End shows! The first week back I went to see The 39 Steps, a comedic play, and Blood Brothers, one of London's longest running musicals. The 39 Steps was funny, but I was hoping it would be more of a murder mystery than it was. Still, watching four actors play over a hundred different roles was worthwhile. Blood Brothers, the story of twins separated at birth, was a very English musical. One of the main themes was class, which came in handy when writing my British Life & Culture research paper on The Evidence of Class Divisions in English Theatre. (Yes, the English really are a class-obsessed society.) The acting was fantastic, the twins were actually twins, and I loved the ending. And lastly, I saw Spring Awakening this past week, the rock musical about 19th century German teenagers discovering their sexuality. I absolutely love a few of the songs, and though the cast didn't quite hold up to the original Broadway voices, it was still powerful. It will never be one of my favorite shows, but who doesn't love singing along to "Totally Fucked"?


We had our last British Life & Culture field trip to Stonehenge and Bath. Stonehenge may be an important archaeological site, but once you've seen it, you realize it's just a pile of rocks. I know, I know, it's a mystery that has yet to be solved and there are all sorts of crazy theories, but still...it's a bunch of rocks. Our bus broke down on the way and we were stuck on a parking lot for an hour, so luckily we were able to cut down our time at Stonehenge to a quick walk around the circle. That was enough for me!

Bath was the more interesting part of the day. The architecture there somewhat reminded me of Oxford, and it was cute. Plus, there were fudge and gelato shops everywhere. We took our last walking tour with P.Woods and then took a tour of the Roman Baths, which I believe are mostly a reconstruction now. I should have paid better attention to my kid's version of the headset. And of course, since it was a BLAC trip, it rained on and off the entire day. Did we ever have nice weather for one of these trips?

I think I spent the entire next week in the library, trying to do chem assignments, lab reports, and an online exam. At least I wasn't suffering alone, as most of my lab class was in there with me. I have to say, it must be nice to be in all of your classes with the same people, because the chem kids can always work together on everything. They're a fun group too. My first week back, I went to a bbq at Sophie's flat, and last week I had lunch with Sophie, Neha and Shilpi, so it was a nice break from only hanging out with Americans.

We also had our BLAC final, where P.Woods decided to pull multiple choice questions out of nowhere. Thanks for that, buddy. But we all celebrated being done with that class on the International Students Farewell Boat Party. Yup, we dressed up, cruised down the River Thames for the evening, and then headed out afterwards. It was quite a fun evening, though having a farewell party already was a bit of a shocker. They followed it up with a farewell luncheon yesterday at King's Tun. Does that mean I leave soon? I'm in denial. Of course it's hard to be in denial when my friend Caleb left yesterday morning!

I guess that's everything important from the last few weeks. Tomorrow a group of us are going to Thorpe Park, and I am beyond excited to hit up some of Europe's best roller coasters. For some reason I've been craving roller coasters/freefall for the past few weeks, so I'll get my share tomorrow! They not only have the world's first ten-looping coaster, the world's first and only backwards coaster in the dark, and Europe's fastest roller coaster, they have the brand new Saw coaster that contains the world's first 100 degree drop. I'm going to ignore the fact that I despise horror movies and would never watch any of the Saw movies, and pretend that watching this advertisement doesn't make me want to pee my pants.
Saw: The Ride
It should be an interesting day.

In other upcoming news, it's time for friend invasions! There is an Albany honors trip to Egypt going on in a couple of weeks, and a few of my friends are going. It turns out they have a 7-hour layover in Heathrow, the closest airport to me, so I'm going to head over and see them all! Even if it's only for a short time, I'll get a bit of an Albany fix. Then a few days later, I'll get my Ilion fix when Morgan comes to visit for a week! Her plane tickets are officially booked, and she flies in the day after my chem final, so we'll be hitting up all of the London sights that I haven't had time for yet, which is most of them. We're a crazy pair, so there is no doubt in my mind that we will take London by storm.

I'm also going to brag for a minute. My beloved photo of the windmills in Mykonos won first prize in the study abroad photo competition! I got twenty pounds out of it, so I'm glad my camera broke after Greece. =) And I also managed to get a committee chair position on the district level of Circle K, so next year I'll get to plan the NY district conventions and conferences with a girl from Elmira. I seem to enjoy giving myself the most hectic schedule possible, but it will definitely be fun.

And with that, I'm off write my briefing paper for Evidence & Issues. I've discovered that it's difficult to argue against the National DNA Database in the UK when you're interested in forensic science, so wish me luck?

give my heart back, spain.

"Life is a road I want to keep going
Love is a river I want to keep flowing
Life is a road, now and forever,
wonderful journey..."
-Anastasia

Second time in Barcelona, first time in Valencia, second time in Sevilla, and third time in Madrid. Spain -- take three. Let's go!

The first afternoon in Barcelona, it was a rainy, cold mess. Kaitlin and I made up for this by spending the evening on my top bunk of the hostel pigging out on all sorts of junk food. Yes, we really did spent the entire night eating. And the guy in the mini-mart thought we were hilarious. I'd show you the picture of all the food we devoured, but then you would just laugh at us. (And I wouldn't blame you.)













The next morning, it was off to Gaudi's infamous Sagrada Familia. Only Gaudi has the guts to start building something in 1882 that won't be finished until around 2026. At least he's got style. I actually went inside this time, and it was interesting to see the construction in progress. It must be strange to be one of the workers and have tourists constantly walking around while you're trying to work, but I suppose it's necessary, as all funds go towards finishing the project. Maybe I'll get back there someday when it's completed?













We made it a Gaudi filled day by walking uphill (plus a million stairs) to Park Guell. This park is the reason I insist that Gaudi was insane. I don't even know how to describe it, so I'll just post pictures. (Okay, so I'm really just getting lazy. Guilty as charged.)
























Then it was time for a stroll down Las Ramblas. Only would Barcelona have a street worthy of being an attraction in itself. The living statues there are by far the best I've seen in Europe, there are people with annoying whistles everywhere (but no goo balls!), a giant produce market, and every person in Barcelona. It's a great place to people watch, especially at night when the crazies are out. Kaitlin and I walked down to the water and walked across to the mall on one of the ports (taming a lion or two in the process). After getting some gelato, I believe we wandered the city for a while. This ended with a photo shoot in a plaza with the cathedral and a marketplace. Sadly, the pictures of Kaitlin are on her camera, but there are a few good ones of her failing to get on top of the sun. And don't bother asking why, because I really don't know. =)













And last, but not least, we headed to another park to see a monumental fountain. I can't remember who it was for, though. Oops. It was cute though. Then it was time to pretend we were Spanish and have paella and sangria for dinner, yum!



We took a bus to Valencia, which is one of my new favorite cities in the world. (And no, not just because it's in Spain.) The sun was shining brightly when we arrived, so Kaitlin and I dropped our stuff off and went right to the beach, which is only a short bus ride away from the centre of the city. We just relaxed in the sand (which I still despise), and I listened to In the Heights and rocked out with some Spanish music.

The next day I took a bus tour around the city, and then walked across most of it again. Valencia manages to balance classic plazas and modern architecture, and it's a fun place to wander. I didn't do much besides walk around, so again, I'll just post some pictures. (Lazy cop out number two.) The weird looking body is a playground, apparently kids play on giant corpses in this city? And the cool looking modernistic pictures are from the City of Arts & Sciences.




































Time for an eight hour train ride to Sevilla! That was fun. The movie choices were Get Smart or Meet Dave, neither of which I would have wanted to watch even if it were in English. I did get a chapter done of chemistry though, so at least I was productive! Getting to our hostel was an adventure. The directions from the hostel website were incorrect; they implied that the street was off of a particular plaza. After finally finding the plaza (which involved a bus route stopping early and us trekking through Semana Santa processions), we discovered that the street was nowhere to be found. We finally asked directions (twice?) and eventually made it there, but were too exhausted to do anything but find dinner (with sangria!) and cotton candy! Yum.

On Easter morning we headed down to the cathedral and found the final Semana Santa procession. I think we only caught the end of it, but there were different brotherhoods in cloaks, floats with hundreds of candles, and marching bands! Then we went to the service, and I was surprised at how much of it I actually understood. Cheers to Spanish class.


And then came my favorite event of the entire trip. A football game in Spain! So much fun! We saw Sevilla v. Getafe, and it confirmed my belief that the United States needs to forget "American football" and get into the real football craze that the rest of the world has caught onto. It is such a fun sport, and I thoroughly enjoyed the game, even though Sevilla lost 0-1. But I made sure to buy a Sevilla scarf, and will proudly support them in the future (unless they play Real Madrid).


And here is where the pictures will end. I managed to drop my camera onto the floor of the hostel and break the piece with the power and zoom button. Nice going, Carolyn. It worked for another day or two (with difficulty), but died before long, so these are the last pictures I have from break. At some point I'll have to steal a few from Kaitlin. Anyway, we spent our last day in Sevilla walking over to the Plaza de Espana and across some of the city centre. And got some helado.

One last train ride to Madrid, and we were in first class! The food was nice, but they stuck us with another showing of Meet Dave. Truthfully, without any pictures, I can hardly remember what I did in the city for three days. One morning I visited the Prado, which I actually liked much more than the Louvre (and much more than I had the first time I was there). My favorite section was Goya's Black Paintings, but I'm not sure if I should be questioning his sanity for painting them or mine for liking them. I made yet another trip to Retiro Park, and it again did not disappoint. The only new thing I did this time around was visit the Egyptian temple. Who knew there were hieroglyphics in Madrid? And our last night in the city, Kaitlin and I went to the same churros place I was at three years ago...pure deliciousness. I think this may have been my favorite visit to Madrid, because I felt no need to do the majority of the tourist attractions. It felt more like I was a person living there instead of a tourist, and I loved every second of it. So after three visits, Madrid still remains number one on my list of places I would like to live.

And then it was back to Kingston. It's never easy leaving Spain, especially Madrid, but it was nice to be done with living out of a suitcase in hostels. (Especially because my suitcase zipper broke, too.) All in all, it was an amazing tour of the Mediterranean. Of course, now a week of spring break will forever seem too short. Thanks for spoiling me, Kingston. But I'm not complaining! =)