Study, Study, Study, LONDON! Study, Study, Study...

Hello everyone!

I know it has been a while since I posted last, and that is because of two reasons: Firstly, I haven't been anywhere particularly exciting lately, and secondly, I have barely seen the light of day for three weeks because I have been writing essay after essay!

The school system here is so different. My classes have been going on all semester, but I haven't had a single assignment until recently, when all of my essays have been due. For two of my classes, my entire grade is the one essay that I turn in, and for the other two, the essay is half my grade, and an exam is the other half. This is an absolutely terrifying prospect for an American student who is used to multiple assignments, tests, projects, etc. making up the grade. So, I've been slaving away to make sure that I get good marks on these papers! I don't think I have ever started an essay three weeks before it was due, but I did for these ones! I turned in the first one on the 19th, another one today, and I have two due tomorrow. After that, I just have an exam review session on Thursday, and then two exams next week, and I am done with school!

I'm not sure how I feel about school coming to an end. On the one hand, it will be nice to have free time to hang out around Brighton, maybe hop up to London for the day, etc. On the other hand, school ending means that the semester is ending. I am definitely going to be sad to leave Brighton and the friends I have made here.

I did take a break from studying on Saturday. Some friends and I took a day trip to London. We were originally going to go see some of the Harry Potter sites, but that didn't exactly work out for us. We went to King's Cross station to go see platform 9 3/4, but when we got there, the lady said that it had been taken away because of construction. My inner 11 year old was BUMMED. But hopefully I'll be able to go back soon and see it. We went to see the alley that Diagon Alley was based off of, and were a little disappointed that it was nothing like we expected. After that, the 8 of us split up, and a couple of friends and I went wandering around London. My friend Alora and I rode the London Eye, a big ferris wheel sort of thing that is on the Thames River. Alora is afraid of heights, so it took a lot for her to go on it. When you get on it, you get in a big glass pod with about 15 other people. It takes around 25 minutes or so to get all the way around. We got some great pictures! It is so cool to be an hour train ride away from London! We're going again on Friday to go to the British Museum and the Tate Modern Museum. It should be fun!

Our King's Cross Station excited faces!

The closest thing I could get to pushing the trolley through the wall :(

Got Milk? Ron Weasley does!

The London Eye

Alora's London Eye excited face!

Our Pod

"Hey, Big Ben! How's It goin?"

Me in the Pod

The View from the top

My friend, Big Ben.

Double Decker bus on the bridge!

Far away view of the London Eye

Things I'm Loving: Study breaks, doing homework with friends, TEA WITH CAFFEINE!

Things I'm Not Loving So Much: Homework, the British Education System.

Things I'm Learning: Useless facts about British Social Policy, to appreciate my own school system.

I'll post again once finals are over!

Love, Jenn

Stratford-Upon-Avon and Warwick Castle!

Hello, everyone! I know it's been over a week since I went on this trip, and I am WAAAY overdue for writing this blog. Life has been really busy around here. Finals are coming up, so my life is full of writing papers and worrying about tests. Buuuuuuuut, I did have a fantastic weekend in Stratford, so I want to tell you about that!

We left campus around 8 in the morning to head to Stratford-Upon-Avon, Shakespeare's birthplace, which is about 3 hours drive from here. While everyone else took the time to go back to sleep, my friend Alora and I spent most of the time listening to Dane Cook and laughing hysterically. I'm sure we were really annoying to the rest of the bus, but it was well worth it!

Anyway, we got to Stratford and checked into our little bed and breakfast. It was so cute! They gave us a cute little tea set in our room, and everything was floral printed and adorable! When we were all settled in, we walked to the main town area to go see Macbeth! They showed us where the theatre was, and we had an hour before the show started, so Alora, Valerie, Becca and I went to go get some lunch. We walked around the main town area, which is super cute! The River Avon runs right through the town centre, and there are all these little cute boats running up and down it! So adorable! Plus, it was Shakespeare's birthday that weekend, so there were people dressed up in costumes, etc. and just walking around town! It was so cool!

Pretty soon, our hour was up and we went to go see Macbeth at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company. I practically peed myself with excitement. The show was AMAZING! It was very refreshing to see some well done Shakespeare! After the show was over, we walked around the gift shop where I geeked out over all of the Shakespeare stuff (such as the SHAKESPEARE BOARD GAME!!!!!) and then headed out to look around the town some more. We found a little shop that sold Harry Potter stuff (!) so we geeked out in there too! I basically just had a really geeky weekend. That evening, we went to see the Shakespeare Institute's Shakespeare scene night. It was nothing compared to the Royal Shakespeare Company, but it was nice to support the local college actors. After that, we were tired so we headed back to the bed and breakfast for the night.

The next morning, we got a traditional English breakfast  from the Bed and Breakfast. I didn't know what a traditional English breakfast was, I just knew it existed. But here's what it is: A sunny side up egg, half a tomato, some sauteed mushrooms, baked beans, a sausage, a strip of bacon that was definitely not crispy, and toast. Talk about an odd assortment of foods! But it was all good! After breakfast, we took a guided tour of Stratford and learned about the history of the town which was cool. When we got back from that, we hopped on the bus and headed to Warwick Castle, about 20 minutes down the road.

Warwick Castle is seriously the coolest place ever. I wish we had places like this in the States, because I would totally go there all the time! It's an old castle with live fencing/jousting shows, peacocks running around, people dressed in costume, haunted dungeons, a wax museum, archery, etc. SO COOL!!! Val, Alora, Becca, and I all ran around the castle like little kids for 4 hours and had a blast! The wax museum was really cool! It had wax figures of people who used to live in the castle. We had fun posing for pictures with all of the wax people! After that, it was time to go home, but it was a great weekend!

Coolest idea ever! Growing plants in your wellies!

The Royal Shakespeare Theatre

The Macbeth Poster!

Dress made out of gloves that was on display at the theatre!

We did some Kung-Fu with Kung-Fu Panda!

The River Avon

The River Avon again

Shakespeare's Birthplace

The Church where Shakespeare is buried

All of these boats are named after Shakespearean heroines

The River Avon... again!

Ice Cream BOAT!!!!!!

Warwick Castle

Showin' off our guns :)

Peacocks EVERYWHERE!

Trying to pull the sword from the stone.

More of the castle

Playing cards with some wax guys, and Jeehyun!

More of the castle!

And even more of the castle!

He was hiding from us.

Things I'm Loving: Castles (!), Shakespeare, Beds that you can't feel the springs through!

Things I'm Not Loving So Much: My looming exams, the fact that I'm going to have to leave this beautiful place.

Things I'm Learning: That peacocks MEOW, To take advantage of the time I have left.

I can't believe how quickly this semester is flying by! I only have 5 more weeks here! I'm trying to get as much of my work done as I can now so that I can enjoy my time to the fullest! I'll be writing again soon!

Love, Jenn

Berlin!

Hey everybody!

Sorry this is coming so late! I've been home for a little over a week now. Things have been so crazy with school starting up again and finals looming ahead that I haven't had a whole lot of free time!

So, here's my story of Berlin! On the morning of the 15th, I met my friends Megan and Carli in the train station in Warsaw to head to Berlin. Our train wasn't going to leave until 9:45, so we got there at 9, figuring that 45 minutes would be plenty of time to buy tickets and make our way down to the platform. Oh, how wrong we were. We got in line to buy tickets, waited for about 5 minutes, and were told that the desk we were at did not sell international tickets. So, we headed upstairs where the lady had pointed and saw a huge line of people at several ticket booths. Assuming this was where we needed to be, we joined the queue, waited for about 20 minutes, and were told (again) that we were in the wrong place. By this time, there were about 15 minutes left until our train departed. Starting to worry, the three of us found a desk and asked the lady behind it where we should go. She seemed annoyed as she gestured us to join the line at the other end of the counter. 7 or 8 minutes later, we were told by the clerk that we were, once again, in the wrong place, and that we needed to find the international ticket office. Frustrated, we looked around and spotted a TINY sign that pointed us in the right direction. By this point, we had about 5 minutes left until our train departed, we didn't have tickets, and to top it all off, there was construction going on around the office that we needed to get to. The three of us sprinted around the construction barricades with heavy luggage, until we finally found the international ticket office. 3 minutes until the train leaves. We took a number, and saw a woman sitting at a desk without a customer in front of it. We ran up to her, before getting yelled at by an old lady with an earlier number than we had. We let her go ahead, then spotted another empty desk. We told the girl behind the desk that we needed tickets to Berlin. I swear, I have never heard anyone take so long to answer a question before in my life. "Um... that... train... leaves... in... 2... minutes..." YOU THINK?!?!?! WE NEED TO GET ON THIS TRAIN, LADY!!!! "uh, yeah. we need tickets, like, now." "Well... you... could... buy... them... on... the... train..." Gee. Thanks. So, the three of us sprinted as fast as we could down 2 flights of stairs and an escalator, running over some old men on the escalator in the process. We got onto the platform just as the conductor was blowing the whistle. Megan and Carli, who had backpacks, jumped onto the train, pushing a blonde lady aside who was blocking the door. I was hurrying after them just as a rather large man got in front of me and walked towards the train. I couldn't exactly move around him, but luckily I managed to get on the train just as the door closed behind me.

So, we were all on the train. Out of breath, with massive amounts of adrenaline pumping through our veins, but on the train. It was then that we realized that the seats were assigned, and we didn't have tickets. We set off to find a compartment to sit in until we found someone who worked on the train to sell us tickets. We found a compartment with three empty seats, put our baggage up on the luggage racks, and sat down, drained. Just then, a guy walked in and told me that I was in his seat. Crap. So, we all got our stuff back down again (much to the disdain of the nun that was sitting next to me) and set off to find someone who worked on the train. We found a man  and asked him where to buy tickets. He told us to follow him, and put us in a compartment at the very back of the train, without giving us tickets. I'm assuming we didn't need reservations with our eurail passes, because we never actually bought tickets for that ride... The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful. We found our way to our hostel without too much trouble, and even navigated the metro system with only a few minor mishaps. Needless to say, we were all exhausted by the time we arrived to our hostel (around 5:45), and we spent the rest of the evening napping and watching a movie.

The next day, we decided to go see the Berlin wall, considering that it was the only really famous thing that we knew about in the city. We found the wall, or what is left of it. There are only three sections of the wall remaining, as the rest was torn down in 1989. We went to a free 15 minute movie about the wall, which told the history behind it. It was a good refresher course for us, considering how long it had been since any of us had taken a world history class. The wall itself isn't as big and menacing as I thought it would be. It is mostly covered in graffiti, and there is a memorial for all the people who died there. The stories are sad to hear. It's crazy how one wall can separate families and friends, and the risks that some people took to get back to their loved ones.

We got hungry, so we decided to get a bratwurst from a street vendor for lunch. Coolest thing ever. These guys wear a belt with a grill and an umbrella attached to it, and they grill bratwursts on the go! So crazy! We spent the rest of the day just wandering around the city. We found a little flea market that was fun to look around! I found a couple of my favourite children's books in German at one of the stands! We wandered more into the town centre and saw a group of breakdancing guys putting on a show. That was really fun to watch. A few minutes later, we saw a group bicycle thing, with a big square bar and beer taps on it! Basically, everyone sits at the bar and peddles and drinks at the same time. It looked like so much fun! We wandered a little further and saw a big tent looking thing. It turned out to be a dinner show venue, and we decided to go see that night's show by an Australian group called the Tom Tom Crew. They were amazing. They were basically a hip hop/ drumming/ acrobatics group. I don't even know how to describe them. Basically, there would be a dj playing music and doing his thing, a guy beatboxing (he was the best beatboxer I've ever heard in my life!), and some guys doing acrobatics, all at the same time! Then, a guy would come out and do some crazy drumming stuff! It was amazing.

The next day, we decided to go to the top of a space-needle-looking tower in the middle of Berlin. We waited in line and got our tickets, then had to wait about 45 minutes before we could go up to the top. In the mean time, the three of us walked around another little marketplace for a while. We went up to the top of the tower and saw the view,which was smoggy, but still beautiful. We were planning on eating in the restaurant at the top of the tower, but apparently you need to make reservations 4 weeks in advance, which didn't exactly suit our "fly by the seat of your pants" sort of attitude. We spent the rest of the day just walking around the city again. We found this church-looking statue in the middle of a park, where we sat and watched the sun set. Then we set off to go back home. It was then that we realized that we hadn't eaten anything substantial all day. Pair that with being tired, and the result: cranky Jenn. We ended up getting food at a random restaurant on the way back to the hostel, where none of us talked for a good 10 minutes while we were scarfing down our food.  We went to bed fairly early that night, from sheer exhaustion. After all, we had all been traveling for about 18 days by that point. It gets exhausting after a while.

The next day was the final day of our trip. We slept in, which felt amazing, before getting up and heading out for the day. We went to Checkpoint Charlie, the entrance to what used to be the American Sector of Berlin. There were American flags flying, and I felt at home for a second. We saw the Topography of Terror museum, which was basically a museum on the Nazi Regime in World War II. It was really interesting, but SO much reading. After sight-seeing for 19 days straight, my brain couldn't take much more. We walked a little further and saw the last section of the Berlin wall, which pretty much looked the same as the first two sections we had seen, but it was still cool. That afternoon, we went and saw a palace. It was gorgeous, especially the gardens, which were planted in swirly patterns that sort of reminded me of the Queen of Hearts' garden in Alice in Wonderland. We got back to our hostel fairly early that night, since I had to catch a plane back to England early the next morning. I woke up at 4:15am to leave for my flight. I caught the metro to the airport without any difficulty and got through security with no problems. My flight went just fine, and I got into London Gatwick airport at 8 in the morning.

It has been so nice to be back. Just the fact that I don't have to live out of a suitcase has been amazing. Since I got back, I've been doing a lot of schoolwork, although I took a break on Thursday (the 21st) to go to London and meet my friend Hannah who lives in Wales. We went and saw two plays: Frankenstein, which is apparently the hot ticket in London right now, and Cause Celebre, a play about a woman who is on trial for killing her husband. They were both PHENOMENAL! I'm so glad I went!

So, there you have it. My spring break is over. It was absolutely incredible. I'm so fortunate to have been able to do all of this! I feel like I know so much more and have experienced so many amazing things! I just hope that I will have another chance to come back and travel around Europe some more.

The bratwurst guy.

The bratwurst.

The beer bike!

The big tower

Sunset over the park

Checkpoint Charlie

Me in front of the palace

Hope everyone is doing alright! Tomorrow, I leave for Stratford Upon Avon, Shakespeare's birthplace!!! I'll try and post soon!
Love you all!
Jenn

Poland!

Hello, All!

Well, I am almost done with my trip. I can't believe how quickly this has all gone by! On Saturday (the 9th), I left my hostel in Pisa to go to the airport and fly to Poland. Everything went pretty well! I found the train alright, got into the airport, and realized that I had allowed WAY too much time for myself in the airport. The counter for my flight wasn't even open yet when I got there! Well, I guess it's always better to be there too early than too late! The Pisa airport is really small, and there wasn't much to do outside the terminal, so I sat down with my book in a cafe and waited for my flight number to pop up on the board. Finally, I checked my bag and got in the security line. Security at small airports is definitely not as intense as at SFO. I didn't have to take my shoes off, and I got my hand sanitizer through, which was definitely NOT the case when my family traveled to Maui in 2007. In that instance, I had accidentally left my hand sanitizer in my purse, and (LORD FORBID!) it wasn't in a plastic bag. I was pulled aside and my whole bag was unpacked before they finally found the abominable object that was my 2 ounce bottle of hand sanitizer. Anyway, that didn't happen this time, and I got though security without trouble. However, I was there so early that I had to wait in the terminal for 2 hours before my plane finally boarded. At SFO, it wouldn't have been a big deal. I would have just walked around and looked at the shops, gotten something to eat, etc. In Pisa, there were a total of 4 stores, all of which I thoroughly looked through before getting bored and pulling my book out again.

Finally, my flight was called, and I joined the throng of people bustling to get in line for the Ryanair flight to Krakow, Poland. Ryanair flights are definitely different than, say, my flight with Virgin Atlantic, mostly because of the lack of in flight entertainment and assigned seating. When we got onto the plane, there was a mad rush to get the best seats possible. I lucked out and got a window seat, AND no one sat next to me, which meant that I had an entire row to stretch out on for two hours. I mostly read my book and played Angry Birds (a game on my iPod that I, along with about half of the world's population, am obsessed with). The flight went fairly smoothly, and we landed without too much trouble. Apparently, it is customary on a Ryanair flight to clap when the plane lands... Maybe celebration that the barely qualified pilot managed to land the plane this time? In any case, I quickly grabbed my bag off of the luggage claim and headed out the door. My instructions told me to go to the train station... There were no signs for a train station. I walked in the dark for about 5 minutes before turning around and heading back to the airport to ask for directions. Turns out that I had to take a shuttle, which my directions conveniently forgot to mention. Oh well. I took the shuttle and met two girls from New Hampshire, who were looking just as lost as I was. Thanking God to be talking to native English speakers, we found the train together and navigated our way to the right station.

I was supposed to meet up with my friends Carli and Megan when I got off the train. It was then that I realized that my phone didn't have enough money on it to make calls or text anyone. I could, however, receive texts and calls, which left me helpless, waiting for them to contact me. They finally did, and I met up with them. We were all starving, so we set off to find some food. We found this little vegetarian restaurant that reminded me of East West Cafe in Sebastopol. The food was delicious. After dinner, Carli and Megan helped me find my hostel, and I passed out on my bed pretty much immediately.

The next day, the three of us met up and explored the city on our own for the morning. We found a little shop that had free coloring pages of dragons, so we spent a little while coloring! That afternoon, we decided to go on a free walking tour of the Jewish Ghetto of Krakow, Kazimierz (pronounced Kaszh- miszh). We met up with the group in front of this beautiful church in the middle of the town centre. We walked around the ghetto and saw Oscar Schindler's factory, as well as a bunch of other places depicted in Schindler's List.  The guy that led the tour was really interesting, but 2 hours and a TON of Polish names later, we were getting tired. Finally, an hour later, the tour ended. We walked for 20 minutes to get back to the city centre. Poor Megan, who had had to pee for the ENTIRE tour, was on a mission to find a bathroom. We finally asked a nice lady in a Chinese restaurant if we could use her bathroom. We got strange looks from all of the people in the restaurant as we raced to the bathroom. We were absolutely starving after that, so we attempted to find a restaurant that Megan had a flyer for. Apparently, it doesn’t exist anymore… But we went into the restaurant at the same address and had dinner.

The next day, the three of us went on another free walking tour, this time of the city centre. We had mentally prepared ourselves for the three hour tour this time, and therefore enjoyed it much more than the previous day. We saw a castle that is right in the middle of the city, and right next to it is a statue of a dragon that REALLY BREATHES FIRE!!!! Our guide told us the legend of how the dragon  became the symbol of Krakow: Apparently, there was a dragon that lived in a cave underneath the castle. The king at the time didn’t want a dragon living there, so he ordered his soldiers to kill the dragon. When the dragon killed all the soldiers, the King made an announcement that whoever could kill the dragon could marry the princess. So, a man took a dead sheep and filled it with peppers and other really spicy things, and put it in front of the dragon’s cave. The dragon ate the sheep, and pretty soon, his mouth was on fire. He fled the cave to the river (which runs right next to the castle), and drank so much water that he exploded. Good story. When the tour ended, We decided to split up for a while and go take naps at our respective hostels before meeting for dinner that night. We slept for a while, and around 9:30 or so, we walked around the city centre and found a little restaurant that pretty much had any kind of food you could want. We sat down and ordered. Fun fact about Europe: If you ask for water, they won’t give you tap water. You have to pay for your water. And they don’t give you very much water in the little glass bottle. It gets really frustrating, especially when you order something spicy and want to wash it down with a decent amount of water. Anyway, we were at the restaurant until it closed at 11, then headed back to our hostels.

The next day, we got up early and headed for Auschwitz, the concentration camp about an hour and a half from Krakow. We first went to Auschwitz I, the smaller camp where they have set up a museum. There were windows where you could look into rooms that contained piles upon piles of confiscated eyeglasses, pots and pans, clothing, shoes, even crutches and prosthetic limbs. The worst one, though, was a window probably about 15 meters long that looked into a room full of human hair. That was hard to look at. We walked through the gas chambers and the barracks as well. As if that wasn't bad enough, then we went to Auschwitz II- Birkenau, which is about 3 minutes by bus from Auschwitz I. It was enormous. As I walked through there, I could picture the people living there. Birkenau was left pretty much as they found it, which made it hit home for me a lot more than Auschwitz I. We walked around the barracks and came across one that mothers and their children had lived in. There were still drawings on the walls that the children had made. I couldn't stand being in there for very long. It was crazy being in the place that I had read about in my history books, and standing in the midst of it all was even more terrible. We were in a somber mood by the time we left to take the train back to Krakow. While we were on the train, we looked out the window and saw the beautiful sunset. The three of us all felt a renewed appreciation for how lucky we are, and we celebrated by turning on some happy music and singing all the way back to Krakow.

The next morning, we checked out of our hostels and went to grab a quick breakfast before catching our train to Warsaw. We found a place called "The Piano Rouge" and decided to have breakfast there. We walked downstairs into what I can only describe as the sparkliest room I have ever seen. There was glitter in the paint, little lights all over the place, and rich fabrics draped everywhere. I probably would have thought it was just a cool place, if the lady seating us hadn't asked us how old we were before letting us sit down. We found that rather strange. After sitting at our table, the lady asked us if we would like the wine list (WITH BREAKFAST??). We said no. There was no one else in there, and as the meal wore on, I kept feeling more and more like a naked person was going to jump out at us and start dancing. Luckily, this didn't happen, but I have a feeling we unknowingly ate breakfast in the front room of a strip club or something.

So, with that interesting start to our morning, we set off for Warsaw. The train ride went pretty uneventfully, and we got to my hostel without too much confusion (although we did go the wrong way on the tram and had to go back the opposite direction...) We walked around the city that afternoon and had Indian food for dinner (YUM!), before heading to the university pub. We had some coupons for cheap drinks there, so we sat and had a beer. It was a really cool place. Every inch of the ceiling and walls was painted with some cool character or design, and they were playing good music. If I lived there, I would definitely hang out there.

The next day, we planned to walk more around Warsaw. This didn't really end up happening. Megan was sick, and we were all exhausted. We walked into a coffee shop to grab something to eat and ended up sitting there for 4 hours, just hanging out. There was a scary lady at the table next to us, who we nicknamed Cruella DeVille. Carli and I were spinning coins on the table, and one of my coins rolled under her chair. We were too afraid to go over and get it, so we decided to wait until she left. Pretty soon, we saw her bend over, and I'm pretty sure she picked up the coin and pocketed it, because it wasn't there when we went to look for it later. Rude. A while later, I went to sign up for my classes at Chico next semester, and then we met up with the lady that Carli and Megan were staying with. She was really nice, and showed us a couple of cool bars.

All in all, Poland was really cool! It was so different from anything else I had ever seen.

The town centre of Krakow

St. Mary's Church in Krakow

These pretzel stands are pretty much on every street corner in Krakow!

We took a colouring break... Yep. We're in our 20's.

Here's my easter bunny picture for this year!

I just thought this was crazy.

We had Mexican food. It's better in California :)

Funny graffiti we found in Krakow

The fire-breathing dragon statue!

Random guy dressed up as a mug of beer. Carli had just poked him and was running away.

The sign over the entrance to Auschwitz. It means "Work brings Freedom"

Just a fraction of all of the confiscated shoes

A starvation chamber.

In between two electric barbed wire fences surrounding Auschwitz.

The bunks they slept on.

The bunk houses looked like this.

Things I'm Loving: Traveling, Meeting up with friends, how cheap everything is in Poland, how as soon as you hear someone else speaking English, you immediately strike up a conversation with them.

Things I'm Not Loving So Much: Living out of a suitcase, moving every few days, feeling constantly tired.

Things I'm Learning: To take cool pictures, that I rely on the internet WAY too much.

Sorry I'm so behind on my blogging. I've just been so busy with my travels, and internet is not a guarantee in hostels. I'll write about Germany soon!

Love,
Jenn