Pip Pip! Cheerio!

So looking back over my blog, I've had a few bumps in the road but I have had a lot of ups, A LOT of ups. And I am eternally grateful to my parents and UMD for facilitating my abroad experience. This blog will always be here for me to come back to and reflect upon. I look at it as a modern scrapbook or diary and I'm so happy that I have it. My cultural portfolio is created within this blog as the last 5 or so posts mainly focused on reflection. I hope that all who have been following have enjoyed sharing in my experiences. I'm glad to be home but I am in a place where my heart aches for London. From seeing the queen on mugs, to afternoon tea, from the exquisite array of artistic exposure to the everyday tube rides. I carry apart of London with me everywhere I go. The people I've met and the friends I've made, the things I've learned and the places I've been, I carry them in my heart. 

"i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go, my dear;and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling)                                                   i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true) and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)"

- E. E. Cummings

             Thank you, England.

So one final time, one last goodbye,

Pip pip! Cheerio! and Cheers,

Learning is not something one sets out to do. If you're trying to hard to find anything you'll never really get what you're looking for. When it comes to travel, the learning should find you, not vice-versa. We take classes abroad to justify why we went but 90% of the learning takes place outside of those traditional academic walls. Planning trips around the city of London, as well as utilizing all of spring break, or simply walking home on a different road than normal is how I went about my learning. I found myself helping out Englanders navigate the tube more often than tourists from any other country. There is a confidence that comes from living in a place rather than visiting it. And with travel, confidence is key. 

I've learned a whole lot but in a nutshell, these are the things that are most important to me. And honestly, nobody wants to hear me ramble on about things that I don't care about.

1. The world is a beautiful place. - There is beauty everywhere, sometimes you have to look for it or expand your definition of beauty to find it, but its always there. If you are open to seeing it, beauty will always find you. 

2. People are nice. Nice is one of the least descriptive words in the english language but it encompasses connotations of goodness. Everyone can be a jerk, I don't care if you are Mother Teresa, you are going to have a bad day every now and then. And when this happens it is important to remember that people have bad days, people have an instinctual need to belong that forces them to be good on some level, and you can't let other peoples bad days affect your good days. So I am trying to have a firmer belief that people are or try/want to be nice. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. This is mostly a respond to pushy people on the tube. 

3. Traveling keeps my endorphins high. I was so unbelievably happy to be in a completely new place with so much potential for exploration and adventures. I'd never truly had that before and now theres no going back. I crave those little happy makers and travel seems to be the only way I can get to that level. Its like a drug and I want more. 

4. Stop worrying about what you eat. Food is one of the best pleasures in life. Exploring food is literally being able to consume art. Food is art and the only way to embrace the artistic value of food is to eat things you've never eaten before. Stop asking about ingredients (unless you have an allergy), stop obsessing over calories, and if your traveling get over yourself and eat some meat. Scientifically you need the protein and being abroad is no time or place to be taking dietary supplements. The world is too delicious to limit yourself in any way. Personally I'm lactose intolerant but I consumed more gelato than I think is humanly possible and it was worth it. Just popped a lactaid and all was well. Also the food exploration had given me a passion for cooking. I have always hated it because it stressed me out but learning how much was out there has made me want to learn to make everything and experiment. 

5. Money is important. As a favorite of myself, the UK, and the entire world, the Beatles say that money can't buy you love. However it can buy you a whole lot of other shit that is absolutely essential to traveling abroad. Most important to this lesson is that there is a cheap way to do just about EVERYTHING. Whether is sacrificing your high standards of living to stay in a crappy hostel, or living on street food in Prague (which is my favorite by the way), there is always an alternative. You need to lower your standards and live a little. Stop obsessing over luxury goods or being grossed out because you found 1 singular hair on your hostel blanket (which was probably your own) because life is too short and people are too uptight. If you are this way, I probably don't want to travel with you. Roughing it can be the most fun and provide the best stories. All that aside you do need money to do anything. Its unfortunate, but its how the world works.

You would think that analyzing my entire cultural and academic experience would be easier. At the end of the day you should be able to assess your progress and your "take-away" from any situation, atleast thats what my Psyc361 professor taught me. But when it comes to this experience, it has been such an integral part of my life, shaping the woman I am right now, whoever that is, that I am finding it extremely difficult to dissect into fractional analysis that won't even brush the surface to all I have learned. The things I have learned have changed pieces to the core of my whole being. A core part of myself that I liked before but now I love. Travel will be forever a part of my life. The idea of never leaving the United States again, even just now, makes me short of breathe. I hate feeling trapped and I'm not there yet but I know in a year or so the craving to explore will take over and I'll scrape together some money to go somewhere again. I just have to. 

Thats what this trip did to me... for me. To tear it apart like its a bunch of separate cause and effect situations seems to demean its personal impact on my life but I'll do it, so that you will better understand. 

so im home. traveling for 17 hrs is a killer. woke up at 615 london time, got to washington dc at 330pm and finally got back to south jersey at around 730pm after grabbing some much missed panera with my mom. i spent the night eating pizza and sorting laundry and gave my parents the presents i brought back for them. then was exhausted and fell asleep at 11pm (4am london time). woke up at 630am (1130 london time) and was all kinds of awake except my bed is sooo freaking comfortable in comparison to my london bed that the drugs of its comfort allowed me to keep sleeping til 9am. my mom was surprised when i wanted breakfast because i never eat breakfast. and i then told her it was lunch (4pm by my internal clock). then we did some cleaning of patio furniture and sat out on the porch and drank a bottle of moscato. unfortunately it started to rain but it was ok cuz we went inside and watched a movie in the middle of the afternoon called Undertaking Betty. And now my moms making one of my favorite dinners, steak with garlic mashed potatoes. it is truly a lazy wonderful sunday and its nice to be home. 

Throughout the day today i kept going back and forth between feeling like a stranger in my own home and feeling as if i had never left. its a weird balance and im getting pretty tired but its only 6pm. hopefully ill adjust to the time change quickly. also my best friends from maryland come to visit me this thursday through sunday so i am super excited. also only 7 weeks until my boyfriend Chris gets home from his study abroad in Argentina!!!! :D

Cheers,

to start reflecting and write a "Things I will miss" list. 

it will be periodically updated but heres a start.

Things I will miss about abroad:

paprika flavored chips

bacon flavored chips

queen liz (mah homegurl)

the fashion

primark

the tube

being of a legal drinking age

cider in large quantities

pret

digestives

scones

pastries (croissants, chocolate croissants, etc.)

...Why yes, I DID just quote Maroon 5 in the title. :D

So. I am not ready to leave London. I am not ready to say that my study abroad experience is over. Granted it will be cool to say for the rest of my life "Yea, I lived in London for a few months back in college blah blah blah." But I can confirm that I am a country girl at heart. Here is why: There are probably 3 hospitals in the mile radius of the ISH building. Therefore there are constantly ambulance and police car sirens. ALL THE TIME. My roommate has been here long enough to tune them out (the way New Yorkers do) but its driving me mad and I HATE it. In addition, people around here are shit drivers who sit on their horns all day so there's that to add to the jolly chorus of siren tunes. I miss the crickets and the quiet of the rural and suburban areas of the east coast. Don't get me wrong, I have come to appreciate the city more than ever before but it stresses me out. Also living above a school of young children is not a dream boat. They are loud. They scream. They cry. just SHUSH already. Im tryna get work done. And if someone doesn't shut that boy up with his pussy-ass fake crying, Ima start taking names. Its embarrassing for him and annoying to me. He's too old for that bullshit. Looks like he's about 8. POP. in the nose. (alright, im done beating up little kids now...whoops)

Being sick with a cold and your nose is running like a faucet and you cant breathe and everything sucks because you're sick and can't hear anything because your head is so clogged makes you complain a little more and a more violently than usual. 

Three weeks. I really hate that I wont be able to fully enjoy them because I'll be working my ass off with these 4 papers, 2 journals, and 1 exam. Honestly I think its bullshit to have 50 to 70% of your grade based on final papers because it is the time of the semester where you are most stressed out and probably will perform most poorly. That one week should not be the only record of your performance over the span of 4 months. 

Damnit I meant to not complain. Whoops. Damnit and then I was gonna talk about the shitty weather. Someone (aka me) needs to put a cork in it. I love London and I dont want to leave but I would like some summer please! :) ok thats that. Went to bed at 3am and woke up at 8am so I need a nap really bad (explains all the complaining and groucho remarks...lol groucho marx)

OK

Cheers! 

<3 Andi

So after getting back to the hostel at 1:30am, then waking up for a flight to Venice at 3am, I was pretty freaking tired. The best part about Venice was our hostel. Venice Fish. The Venice Fish is an old renovated palace turned hostel run by travelers who will work for a place to live. The two guys that ran the place while we were there, Angus and Dan were the kind of travelers who wanted to make sure their renters had a great time all the time and therefore made a 10 liter pot of sangria every single night and played drinking games and card games with all the people until it was gone and then took us all to great bars and clubs throughout Venice. Super fun. Venice was rainy so we were super chill about it. There were six of us total and we wanted to do different things with our trips also there was a shit ton of tension from the girls (probably because I'm too fun or hogging attention or something stupid like that) so I went with Mark and Jon and the girls went with Matt. and I had a fantastic time. We walked around the city in the rain ate some great pizza, did some shopping, ate more at cafes to get out of the rain. Just generally chilled out and had an awesome time. Then the second night we got a nice dinner and gelato and bought some fancy liquor that the shop owner suggested to us. It was saffron based liquor but was surprisingly super cheap for saffron. Turns out it tastes like perfume and adding fruit juice does not make it better. Jon, Mark and I drank it anyway. And then we all played the awkward questions game. The game consists of trying really really hard to make everyone else uncomfortable. Its a drinking game really because when they dont feel awkward anymore because of casual amounts of alcohol, they tell you things that are embarrassing, awkward, and obviously funny. It was hysterical. Then we were being kinda loud so Angus invited us into the staff room to drink with them so we wouldnt disturb the other people staying there (cool right?). They had a bottle of liquor that they didnt know what it was or why it was so horrible so they let us have it. It was anise. Straight anise aka the ingredient in all things delicious: biscotti, sambuca, absinthe. So I was psyched. Someone described it as being Good&Plenty in a bottle. I dont like Good&Plenty but add a little burn and its my thing. Venice was the perfect end to a long long vacation because it was so chill but not in a Vienna way. I was enjoying my surroundings and the people that filled them, even though the Venetians were really old and kinda grumpy (like Cape May, NJ really). I blew through alot of money because of all the conversions and hostels and food etc. But it was so worth it and I wouldnt change anything about it. I learned so much about traveling and the kind of traveler I am, and that is one really important lesson to learn, especially if you have the travel bug like I do. 

I must say though, coming back to London was really comforting. I know I've got a new little piece of home when I accidentally refer to places as "home." It happened with UMD and now its happening here in London. Its actually pretty nice to have 3 places in the world where you feel comfortable and are completely yourself.

Until I get the urge to write again, which after all this might not be for a little while,

Ciao amici!

Ok im not really in the mood to write but if i dont write some stuff down now, by the time i actually feel like it, it will all slip out of my head like goo. 

Budapest was originally two separate cities, Buda (the side with palace and church) and Pesch (the commoners side). The two were combined at some point in the 20th century to form Budapest. Budapest is a surprisingly beautiful city. Going into it i had no idea what to expect. Maybe some leftover communist stuff? idk. Either way the Hungarians are super chill. For instance, our tour guide informed us that their president resigned. We as Americans panicked and asked what would happen. She said we're not sure what to do, its never happened before, she then shrugged and walked away. She had this attitude that all this bad stuff happens to the Hungarians and then they just smile and shrug it off and fix it at some point. I felt like Budapest was a giant Hufflepuff. smdh. They had really great food. There is a Hungarian dish called gouyash. Its exactly like goulash except its different in that instead of a thick gravy stew, its more like a soup with a thinner, spicier broth. Both are great but I like the Czech goulash better. just sayin. Also at night we all went to these places called Ruin Bars. The Ruin Bars are old abandoned factories or apartment buildings within the Jewish quarter. People would rent a room and start a bar, as the bars become popular, people would expand and buy another room and another until they turned the entire building into a weaving, artistic, eclectic place for people to hang out and drink. Super cool. Prolly the greatest thing in Budapest. After a few days in Budapest, we had to take a sleeper train into Vienna. The bed section of the train was booked so we had to stay in the corridors and try to sleep there. of COURSe there would be 6 people filling every seat in our little space. Doug was tipsily talking to our new corridor mates (people about our age) and went from tipsy to hammered midsentence. it was hilarious. he introduced us as his friends but hten corrected himself by saying he had other friends but we were only 3 of them. it was hysterical. then we got woken up at 5am by a Slovakian man who didnt speak english telling us we were wrong. Apparently the Eurorail people didnt tell us that the train they were telling us to get on was passing through Slovakia instead of curving around Hungary directly into Austria. With the Eurorail pass you can only go through countries on the pass and Slovakia was not one of them so we had to buy a 20 euro ticket to stay on the train  just to PASS THROUGH stupid Slovakia. so now the 4 of us have a strong aversion to slovakia. No wonder the Czechs ditched them. good riddance. 

Praha = Prague in Czech. so obviously the substitute for "lol" was "Prahahaha." Let me just say now, I LOVE PRAGUE. I will go back. No doubt about it. Our hostel was a little sketch but it was in a pretty good location. Sketch in that all the sheets were red and had weird symbols on them and it was run by this family. Probably some post communist something or other. Idk my speculations may be very off but that could be a thing, right? So the first day we got there around 2 so the tours had really already started and we just walked all over the city and down by the river and by charles bridge and stuff. Then the next day we caught the tour but Roma didnt feel so hot so we stepped out and planned to make the later tour. We got some food instead and had some absolutely delicious kielbasa made in the huge Easter market in the town square. Simply amazing. Thank god we caught the second tour because this guy was the best tour guide I've ever had. He was an Aussie and started his tour with, "Now you may be wondering why an Aussie is living in the Czech Republic giving tours, I can honestly tell you that the only reason is ....(points to hand) love." Super friendly guy and really outgoing. I find that the free tour guides are always better because they are working for tips, not already paid therefore they not only work harder to please, but they actually care about what they're doing because the participants actually care what they're doing. Great system I'd say, kind of like waitressing, you work better to get paid better AND the customer has a nicer experience. Win-win. Later that night we walked across on of the bridges to the other side of the city to see the palace and the amazing view of the whole city. We sat on the steps overlooking the whole city and drank a few bottles of cheap wine. We didnt have a corkscrew so we just pushed the corks in. Not ideal but it works. At the end of those few bottles came what we now call "the incident." Hannah, Roma, and I had to pee. And I dont just mean pee but like hurts your whole body, might actually pee your pants bad have to pee. No place was open because it was late, and we had to catch the train back to the hostel. I think I ran with my thighs clenched so tight that I got a decent workout. Thank god I have a bladder of steel or else I would have been screwed. I've never had the feeling so terrible in my whole life. Roma and Hannah jumped in the girls rooms but I was so desperate I used the mens room. Not a proud moment of the trip, but there are more to come. 

Not sure which night, but one of the nights we went to a club that Doug's friend who was studying in Prague recommended to us. So much fun super cheap. But my shining moment of the evening was a trip to the ladies room, again. 3 of us in there. I come out of the stall, wash my hands the whole jazz, etc. Cant seem to find the paper towels, oh look cloth. Roma then informs me that they are curtains. And to look slightly to my left, oh a nice paper towel holder. Out of dignity I continued to use the curtains and let her take a picture. :)

Ok so today is Friday and I am packing for my ambitious 2 whole weeks of running around Europe. I plan to eat, drink, and be as merry as possible all while taking in the many tourist attractions and historical things, I guess you could throw culture in there too. Our first stop is Berlin, I'll be leaving London at 3am on a bus to the airport and hopefully get to Berlin by 9:45am. Then its off to Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Florence, Rome, and ending in Venice! I'm so pumped its ridiculous but I have a good feeling that when I get back I'll be living on noodles, pb&j, and cereal. Hey, maybe Ill throw in a little diet coke as a treat! ahhh well I'll survive.