Look At Me Go

We had an early morning that was kind of hellish. A lot of kids didn't want to take the train because they had giant bags and there are a lot of stairs on the metro so there ended up only being about four of us and the tutors who took the metro. I was offered to take a cab with a bunch of other people and then the grouchy ass cab driver was like "NO MORE ROOM" and shooed me back inside. Freaking Paris.

Regardless I had no ride so I made my way down to the metro stop with our small group and made our way to the train that would rush us to Nice. The train station looked incredibly French, if that makes sense, and I really have no other way to describe it. If you've seen "Hugo" then it looked like that train station but more modern. It was incredible. We even found the group really easily because Europe has a smart thing called a “Meeting Spot” marked in really busy places. You should try it, America. 

We sat in that train station for about an hour before stuffing our big American luggage onto the train. We all squeezed into the seats and got comfy for the long ride ahead. I barely remember the actual ride itself but I’m pretty sure I was just on my phone the entire time and it felt like no time had passed. Well, I was on my phone and sleeping, so the sleeping definitely helped. 

When we made it, it was noticeably warmer and there were palm trees and a visible sea. It no longer felt like we were in France, but in the tropics instead. There was no bus booked to get us to our hotel so we did a very quick walk a few blocks away and it didn’t even make me feel winded. I think I’m already getting in shape.

My one criticism of the walk, because how bad can it be when it’s right next to the Mediterranian, was there was dog shit everywhere. No one picked up after their dogs. It was gross. You could see where people stepped in it and wiped their foot on the ground surrounding and it was all just nasty. Not safe anywhere. 

We didn’t do anything that day. It was nice and relaxing. But I got stuck with the same roommate again, the only difference this time being that we had another girl with us who changed the dynamic. It was a nice change of pace. 

We had a free morning, so my roommate and I decided to let ourselves get healthier by just staying in the entire day until the tutors said we had to go. Our first and only stop was The Louis Vitton Foundation. It was the gorgeous, all glass building that was incredibly colorful and had a waterfall-like fountain at the front of it. I don’t have any pictures of the outside of it, but we went to the top of the building to see the view and you can see some of the glass that makes up the building.

Inside, usually it is filled with art exhibits and whatnot but they were in between exhibits apparently so all we got to see were the permanent things that were just kind of scattered around. The best one was by far the fish that lit up the restaurant.

I figured now that I had a cure I would be a-okay to go out and enjoy the rest of the journey, so I agreed to go along and draw at a museum filled with “non-western art.” Basically what that meant was it was filled with art from everywhere except Europe. It covered Native Americans to African art to the arts of Asian culture. 

When we got there, it was pretty simple what we were to do: we sat down and chose one of the many masks that were around us and quickly tried to draw it without lifting up our pencil. I suck at drawing in the first place so doing an activity like this along with trying to make it look like the real thing was a real hassle.

When we were done, we all branched off and chose our own object to sketch. I chose the easiest thing I could find without making it look like I wasn’t trying because it felt as though I was getting a fever. It was a mask that a face on all four sides of it and tassels sticking out the top at each corner. If I took a picture of it, you could really tell that this was not a detailed thing to attempt to draw. Not to mention it was really small so even if there were any details, it’s not like I would see them from where I was sitting. 

I was not better by the next day, as hard as I tried to be. On my 23rd day of traveling, my group was going to somewhere that I have longed to go since I was 7. The entire group was making its way to Giverny to see Monet’s wonderful gardens and museum. When I woke up, I couldn’t move I ached so much. I tried so hard to get dressed, but to no prevail. I was done for. The group would go on without me. 

I was heartbroken. With that in mind, I was finally able to be convinced to see a pharmacist about my condition sticking around from London. One tutor stuck behind to take me and she translated my symptoms to the woman behind the counter. I got some cough drops and something that, if I took it every day, would supposedly make my cold or whatever it was, go away in a week. So they said. 

SO here’s the scoop. McKenna got real sick out of nowhere and couldn’t get out of bed. I sat in bed until around lunchtime, killing the time by calling my parents or watching things on Netflix or iTunes. 

Around lunch, there was a knock on my door and one of the tutors came in to talk to me about how I was feeling. I told her I was feeling really bad and tired that morning but after getting some much-needed sleep. She suggested, just so I wouldn’t miss out on anything, that I go quickly with them to a small museum with a hell of a lot of drawings. It was an incredible museum. I was amazed to see all the different topics he covered over his life and to see how many works he left unfinished. The artist was Gustave Moreau and though I still wasn’t feeling at the top of my gameI could still enjoy sitting front of these giant, unfinished paintings and appreciate that even great artists deal with a lack of concentration sometimes. 

I was supposed to go right home after the museum but something came up and the tutor couldn’t take me home. She kept apologizing and coming up with new plans but eventually I just went along with the plans because was the easiest. We took a train to Moulin Rouge where there was a grocery store. I took a picture of a very fitting windmill in the middle of a city. 

After buying some snacks, we went to this beautiful staircase on Montmartre where we had more champagne, cheese, and bread. It was gorgeous  to look out at all of Paris. It seemed so small. You couldn’t even see the Eiffel Tower. It almost was like looking at a scale model. 

Panorama boyyyyyyyy.

I made my way home after that with the help of a tutor and a few other girls who weren’t quite feeling up to par either. It seemed as though everyone was slowly getting sick. 

Our second day in Paris was, to say the least, nonstop. We started the day bright and early and walked straight from our hotel to the Louvre. We got there and I was surprised just how small the pyramid was. I didn’t understand how it connected to the monumental palace surrounding it.

But before we got to explore the wonderful insides, our entire group was sent on a wild goose chase looking for the group ticket line. We were sent inside (after going through airport-like security of course) then downstairs to where the group area USED to be before the fairly recent construction, then our tutor wandered around and spoke to one of the guards only to find out that it was now outside and about a block away from the original entrance. So we left and walked that block, then another. Soon we just started following what seemed to be a group of elementary school kids to where their teachers were going to buy their tickets. They knew what they were talking about because that’s where we had to be. (Favorite thing about the little kids: they were holding hands and singing Hello, Goodbye by the Beatles.)

When we finally got in we headed straight up to the top floor and saw some classical artworks. They were not my favorite type, but they were pretty nonetheless. They just all seemed so static and that’s not how people are. Of course, that was the whole style of the work, but I’m just still not going to like it. We then moved on to the big masterpieces of David. I was told by my tutor while we were analyzing that I have an incredible eye and I think that is the best compliment I have ever received and ever will receive. We also acted out one of the paintings....

As you can see I’m a natural model of these paintings.

We moved on towards the cafe and stopped so we could wish my roommate a happy birthday over some wonderful pastry creation. After we all had our time to eat and drink our coffee we moved on yet again to my favorite picture from France:

This revolutionary painting. Oh heck yeah. I made that pun.

Saw the Mona Lisa. It was tiny and crowded and stupid. There were so many better paintings around it and just-- ugh.

Like this second painting is by far so much better. But whatever people will do what they do.

We had lunch in the gardens outside after we were done with seeing what paintings we came to see and our chairs were right next to this beautiful fountain. It was simplistic but so pretty. My sandwich was really bad, but you win some you lose some.

After lunch, we all made our way over to a museum famous for having these incredible tapestries with unicorns on them symbolizing the five senses. They were so pretty but it was quiet and everything in the museum was so old that I wasn’t exactly sure what their feelings about photography was so I didn’t take a picture of anything but the ticket to get in.

So pretty.

The day was not even close to done, though, because right afterward we headed to a church that was really small and intimate but had the most wonderful display of stained glass I had seen in a while. The entire thing lit up in blues and purples then slowly dimmed as the evening moved on. All the while we were listening to a beautiful string quartet that performed a “best of classical music” sort of show. With all the lights and sounds, I was nearly brought to tears. Not only that but the entire time, even though it made me feel incredibly disrespectful, I was able to write all the posts I needed to catch up to that day. There is a wonderful TED talk by the author of Eat, Pray, Love where she talks about geniuses (geniuses meaning both the mythological muses that whispered in the ears of those who created and how the evolved meaning to the people who are these mythological creatures) and where they come from and it just got me thinking that I wasn’t being disrespectful at all. Work created using geniuses inspire more geniuses to arrive and I think those few little whispers I caught was one of those moments.

From the church, we headed to this lovely restaurant somewhat nearby where we celebrated the birthday of my wonderful roommate. No cake yet because we had a wonderful surprise for her coming up.

We exited the restaurant only to get cursed out by an angry Frenchman who didn't come over to our group because A. he was drunk and B. one of the students looks like he could be a linebacker in the NFL and I think with one look at him he knew not to mess with us or he would get punched so hard he wouldn’t wake up until the next morning.

There was also a really nice painting on the wall outside the restaurant so, in the spirit of art history, I’ll also show you how gorgeous that was.

From the restaurant, we headed back to Notre Dame where we had a wonderful celebration with little cakes from a local bakery, champagne, and Prosecco. It was wonderful and we all got our own videos of the birthday girl popping the cork off her first bottle of champagne. Notre Dame was especially beautiful at night because there were not even close to as many people there and there were no birds in sight. We had the whole island, it seemed, to ourselves.

We got up bright and early and ran downstairs because today was the day we would leave London and be on our way to see Paris. To make the travel story short, I was in heels because they took up the most space out of all my shoes and I fell three times because of uneven roads and fast walking.

The Eurostar was really cool. It had wifi and was super comfy, but my two criticisms are that the chairs were too damn close together (less leg room than on most airplanes) and there was little to no space for luggage (most of us couldn’t fit our bags in without a lot of rearranging). There was a cool screen that kept giving facts about the Eurostar as we were going and they were all incredibly interesting. I would seriously recommend to anyone looking up the fun facts of the Eurostar.

When we arrived, the Paris train station looked exactly as I thought it would because of Hugo Cabret. Something that really got me down though was there were a lot more homeless people than I expected. Sure I expected refugees but no one I saw seemed to be a refugee. It was confusing to say the least.

We got a cab and rode to the hotel. First impressions of Paris? Not what I expected in the slightest. It looked a lot like the Bronx as we were leaving the station but as soon as we got to the hotel it looked exactly like the France that everyone seems to know and love. It was a weird experience to say the least.

They got us rooms, supposedly with new roommates but my roommate and I didn’t choose roommates fast enough because everyone was gone by the time we were aware, and then said to wait until they checked on us till we could get lunch. We waited and then hopped away after the room check to the nearest cafe or deli we could find.

Right down the road and around the corner there was a cafe that sold us a wonderful salad and my roommate got the best cheesecake I have ever tasted. It was dense and sweet and just overall delicious. They also had incredible smoothies that were smooth, as the name suggests, and rather thick which I love in a smoothie.

When we got back we headed out for a quick tour of Paris. Highlights? We went into Notre Dame and saw the Seine river. It was so beautiful and then we had dinner at this perfectly tiny place. I had an amazing cheeseburger and apparently I chose correctly because my roommate’s steak was just okay and apparently she’s “not a snob” about it.

After a lengthy day in Oxford our tutors let us have the day off so we could pack for Paris. Unfortunately, this also meant we had to do laundry which neither of us were exactly skilled at. We put it off as long as possible, for example we ordered hamburgers for lunch before even getting detergent. (The burgers were great. Don’t worry.)

When my roommate was the brave one and finally ventured out of our room to gat detergent, I started with my laundry first. My load went okay, but my roommate’s is another story. We’ll get to it later though.

With the new bed came a new person. The girl from England joined our party and, after dropping off all her bags, quickly left to see a play with her mother.

Back to laundry, as I was hanging my clothes to dry, my roommate was washing her clothes. We went out to a bar when our new roommate came back and then went up to one of the other rooms for a pizza party to introduce her to the whole group. Before the pizza party my original roommate “used the dryer for her clothes.”

Ate pizza had a great time, got back to finish packing, and the “dryer” has water sloshing around. Keep in mind that our washer/dryer was a combo so when my roommate thought she was drying her clothes she really just set them for a second spin cycle. Not to mention that we figured out not too long after the dryer part of it didn’t actually work AT ALL. So, long story short, her clothes wet the entire apartment because she hung them everywhere to dry.

At the ungodly hour of 7:30 I had already awoken, gotten dressed and was on my way to a train that took my to a bus that took me to Oxford. The train was nice. It was almost a coach bus and I almost certainly could have caught up on my sleep on there, but I really felt inspired to write so I took out my phone, used the free wifi, and wrote my Tumblr post on some preceding day.

When I had finally finished I thought I should probably keep going and catch up but I had looked out the window and was awestruck by the countryside. There were sheep and cows and fields as far as the eye could see. You could tell we were heading up towards the middle of nowhere but I didn’t seem to mind it.

We finally arrived and met up with a new tutor. He led us around and told us about a round theater and the library we were going to go see. Then we were led to a really old library I don’t remember the name of. It was gorgeous and we got to take a tour. The tour guide showed us the books they had, explained the sorting system and the underground tunnels to get a book from one library to another. She explained the system of how they used to keep chains on the books so people wouldn’t steal them and how Harry Potter filmed a scene in that very part of the library (first movie: restricted section when he almost gets caught by Filch). We then proceeded to look out the window and see statues on the next building which represented some of the authors that went to Oxford previously. Aslan from the Chronicles of Narnia was there and so we Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. There was another figure but I don’t remember what it was and I feel so ashamed.

After the library we went outside and went to get lunch. Our tutor decided to book us boats since it was such a nice day so we went to a local deli and got baguettes with whatever we wanted on them and went to the river. We each got a different boat so one group got a punting boat, one group got a pedal boat, and my group got a row boat. There were ducks everywhere and it was just such a good time. Most of the time our tutor rowed because she was the best at it but two other girls in the boat gave it a try and they didn’t do terribly given the conditions. It was so much fun and the perfect way to spend lunch.

After lunch was over and we had discovered that everyone was successful at not falling in, we went to a book exhibit where they put out some of their oldest and most prized books for the public to see. My favorite thing to see was their copy of the Magna Carta. They also had a page from the original Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s handwriting. It was incredible.

We were late to our next booking but they didn’t care because they were an incredible museum filled with all the best things in the world. I can’t even begin to do it justice so I’m making a separate photo post where you can see everything.

After the wonderful museum we walked back to the bus and got on back home. We got stuck in terrible traffic so I took a nap and then when I woke up my roommate and I made plans for dinner. We were going to order sushi in and be happy in our rooms.

Well, we did that. Little did we know that there was a reason the place’s slogan was eat beautiful and not eat well.  Oh god it was probably the worst Asian food I had ever had. No, make that second worst. Mom, that Chinese food in New Hampshire is the only thing that beats it.

For our not-so-busy day of Wednesday fun we went to an art exhibit at the Royal Academy that I was really excited about and even thought about going to even if we weren’t going as a group. It focused on abstract expressionism and the Americans that dedicated their lives to it. Some of the major examples were Pollack, Rothko, and De Kooning.

As many of you may know, I’m more of a traditional girl myself, but Pollock is and always has been one of my top favorite artists. His work leaves me standing in awe and imagining the music he was listening to or the moods he was feeling and every time I see a different piece of his work I stand still practically jumping for joy and sobbing at the same time.

All of this being said, you can see why I would be excited to go and see an entire room full of Pollocks that I had never seen before. But my excitement soon left as I walked into the rooms and noticed the numbers of people standing everywhere. It seemed as thought every place I stepped I was in someone’s path, blocking heir view of the very same art I was trying to enjoy. I would slip out of the way and suddenly someone else would be behind me trying to squeeze to the front as well. I left the rooms dedicated to Pollock, hoping the chaos would die down, but none of the other artwork spoke to me. I tried my best to get into it because I had an hour to walk through these rooms but they all just seemed to blend together like there was nothing special about them.

So, I made a decision. I was not going to let my anxiety get the best of me and I was going to see what I wanted if it killed me. Back straight, head held high, I went back and stood right in front of every single Pollock painting I could find. I looked at every splatter, observed every pebble, loved every foot print (there was only one that I could find but my tutor claims there were three in the entire exhibition). It made me as happy as it could, but even the joys of Jackson Pollock can only get me so far. I was trying my best and standing in front of “Mural” when I heard some little old ladies trying to explain the meaning behind the splatters and I lost my shit and just had to leave.

(I’ll just explain quickly why I lost my shit, if you don’t mind. If you do you can skip over this. But the whole point behind almost all of Jackson Pollocks paintings [and I really mean almost because “Mural” is a great example of one that was painted with a meaning behind it] and most of abstract expressionism in general is that it’s not what’s created it’s how. The whole point is in the creation and thinking back to the emotion felt and getting new ways to create. There literally is no meaning in the final product, that’s why Pollock wasn’t set on making sure his products were always properly preserved and would withstand the lengths of time. Okay. I’m done now. Thank you.)

I swear to god if I had a trillion dollars I would buy a beach house, a Pollock, and a chef so I wouldn’t starve. I would open the bay doors that would open to the beach and the ocean so I could hear the waves and just stare at my Pollock painting all day, every day. If ever a museum would want to borrow it I would say sure, because I don’t believe in art being withheld from the public, as long as I could get free entry at least once a day so I could have my normal routine of just staring at it. You can probably tell I’ve thought about this a lot, but it’s a legitimate dream of mine. Like I would love for that to happen. But dreams are just dreams, after all.

It wasn’t really an eventful day, it was a day when we went to an art dealer’s studio, and that was interesting, to say the least, but it was all drawings. We saw some Picasso’s and a few other artists that I had never heard of but I was so tense because I was really scared I was going to break something and everything in there was worth more than £100,000. I’m sure my mom would not like to pay that soooo.... 

Afterwards, we went for tea and I got a nice blueberry tea and a raisin scone with clotted cream and jam. I loved it so much. I would eat the proper British tea for every meal if I could. That would just make me so happy. Then we had a lunch where we just kind of wandered around Picadilly, but then we went home and had a nice long nap.

Next, the Tate Modern. Sure, there are some cool things there, but I’m really not into the whole modern art scene of “What is art?” I really just like the paintings and statues where you can really have a right answer as to what it is or what you’re meant to feel. To each his own, I guess. I just kind of wandered through, accepting that people loved everything. But, here’s the exciting part, I did see three things in the Tate that I loved and only one of them was a piece of artwork.

So when we walked in we went all the way up to the top floor, but we took the stairs which were right next to the elevator. I was at the back of the group but I saw someone waiting at the elevator that I thought I recognized. I squinted a little bit and then he turned in my direction and it all clicked. IT WAS JIM STURGESS!!!

Now I recognize that many of you may not recognize him by name, but he was the guy who played the main character in 21 and if anyone has seen Across the Universe (one of my favorite movies of all time) he plays Jude. Across the Universe is one of those movies that just makes me fall in love with theater and cinema every time I see it I fall in love with it again. Regardless he was walking into the elevator and I just nearly died and sang “Hey Jude” the rest of the time I was in the museum.