Trying To Fit The World Inside a Picture Frame

Back in London after a relaxing few days in Greece has been book ended by some of the most hectic days I've had here. That sentence doesn't make any sense but I'm entirely too tired to figure out a better way to say that.

Last week, internships finished up which I was surprisingly sad about. My co-workers and I went out for drinks after work on Friday and I was genuinely upset that I wouldn't get to see them again. I met some really, really nice people who were very good to me. Unfortunately, Sunday did not bring such warm fuzzies because I lost my wallet. Not even a nice wallet, but it contained by license, debit card, credit card and BU id. I felt like it was the end of the world when it happened. But instead, the end of the world came just 24 hours later when I accidently deleted my final internship tutorial paper that I had worked on all weekend. 2500 words. gone. Two hours before it was due and I was supposed to be at class in one hour. Awful, absolutely awful. But, I had no time to stop and think about this because the week was about to get even busier and debatably more awful.

Tuesday and Wednesday were spent trying to enjoy my last full days with my friends in London and study for an exam I knew nothing about. Simultaneously, I packed my life into two ramshackle suitcases and tried not to realize how fast it was all ending. Thursay morning's exam marked the end of my junior year.

Ba-na-nas as Rachel Zoe once said.

Thursday, we had the pleasure of moving our hundreds of pounds of luggage over to Knightsbridge into my aunt's garage. This is no easy task, my friend. I can't tell you the amount of dirty looks thrown my way or the number of toes I ran over on the bus. It was getting out of hand. After taking a quick rest at Carla's, we headed back to our last pregame in the Crofton, featuring two blocks of cheese and crackers and of course, Strongbow. We actually saved up random change all semester and put it in a mug called "The Strongbow Fund." I never thought it would add up, but when Reggie and Megan took it to the bank, it totaled 18 pounds. We headed out to the end of the semester party and after some ID trouble at the door and a quick cab ride back to The Crofton to get my passport, we were in. It was fun to see everyone again. Then, it was 2 in the morning and we were vagabonds. We crashed in the Crofton kitchen until our cab came to take us to Victoria at 2:45 AM. Yeah, those early flights always seem like a good idea at the time.

Since the volcanic ash threatened our trip to Greece but magically lifted the day before we flew, I guess we had to expect trouble somewhere. Check in took ages, bags had to be checked and stress levels were peakin'. But we made it on our flight at 5:55, hungover, still in our party dresses but ready to get to Greece. The first day in Corfu was cloudy, but we didn't mind because our eyes were still crusted shut and our bodies were physically eating themselves from the insides out. We ordered room service, pigged out and fell asleep. We hung out in the hotel lobby and then retired early again, psyched up for the sun the next day.

The Aquis Corfu Holiday Palace was quite a place. It was pretty souped up by the looks of the lobby, but they failed to invest beyond that point. All of the hotel staff seemed like robots. We called them The Droids. There weren't many people around but that was fine for us. We spent the week laying out, reading, relaxing, occasionally dipping in the very cold pool and walking around Corfu Town. Oh, and pigging out on our free breakfast and dinner buffet. Whoops.

We flew back from Greece and got ourselves situated in London again. We booked spontaneous tickets to Thriller Live and went for our last dinner at YO Sushi. Sweet deal. Today, I got up at the crack of dawn to get my parents at Heathrow. I was so excited to see them! I teared up when I hugged my mom actually. I felt badly because they were being pretty Droid-y themselves being that they were so jet lagged. They went back to the hotel to sleep and we're meeting up for dinner later. I had to say goodbye to the girls today as they're all headed back to the states. I hate saying goodbye. I always cry. It's too sad. I cannot believe my semester in London is over already. But I've got a week left with KP and Dave to soak it all up.

And All You See Is Where Else You Could Be

London, Long Island, Providence

all in the next three weeks. so scared, so nervous, so happy, so excited.

I'm trying my best to soak up everything about London this next week but it's all happening way too quickly.

Nothing Left to Lose

My friends have been shmeriously slacking on updating their blogs. I win. Anyways, we went to Amsterdam this weekend. It's really different than any other city we've visited. I was glad this weekend to take a little bit of a break from hardcore sightseeing like the fanny pack-wearing tourists we are. We did get to see Anne Frank's house which was sad but so interesting. We also got to play all over the plastic playground and sweet tourist attraction that is the "I Am Amsterdam" sign. You have to! Sure, I thought it was going to be all legal prostitutes and drugs all over the place, too. But Amsterdam was really beautiful and was the most European-looking city I've seen. The atmosphere was really unique. Also, there are so many bikes. Everyone in the city must own at least three for that many bikes to be possible.

7:25 am - tray tables will not lock in place.

On another note, my left ankle is reah-ally swollen and since I've been walking on it for a week, my knee is joining in on the Pain Parade. It really hurts to walk and surprisingly enough, limping is frowned upon in the London Underground system. It doesn't make for an easy commute.

I'm having such a hard time believing that this is my last weekend in London with my friends. We booked a trip to Corfu, Greece for after the program ends which is going to be fabulous. I also can't believe this is the last week of my internship. It's all coming to an end so fast and I am just. not. ready. I don't have much planned as of yet for my last two weeks in London but cramming in everything we still want to do and want to do again. I'll keep ya posted. (see what I did there?) posted. yep...

Your Eyes Must do Some Raining if You're Ever Gonna Grow

Guten Tag. That means hello in German. Impressed? Thought so. We're just back from another long weekend away. We started in Berlin and left from Paris. I should be using my pictures to help me write but I'm at work pretending to be a good intern so that will have to wait. Friday morning we woke up at the lovely hour of 3 am so get our little butts to Gatwick. The Gatwick Express zoomed along and we made it in perfect timing for our 6:50 flight to Berlin. We made our way to our hostel which, although offering a confusing and deceptive lighting system, was really nice.

We headed out into the large dust lot which was our local area and found our way through the German rail system to get lunch and take a boat tour. Unfortunately, it was pretty chilly but it was sunny. The boat tour was good but I didn't learn much about what I was seeing. After that, we headed back for a nap and got ready to go to dinner. Megan navigated the underground like a champ and got us to Orangesomethingorother. It was a super-cool area and we found a great Thai place. After that, we hung out at a couple of places and headed over to Watergate. SO COOL. This club, which is actually really hard to get into, was right on the river and had amazing views. Once we made a pitstop for schwarma (a miracle?) we were in bed around 5 am.

Day two we got ourselves to the train and headed to some other stop I can't pronounce to get a free walking tour. It was three and a half hours and it was so great. Our tour guide, Ben, was really fun, really nice, and knew everything about Berlin. It's such an interesting city. It's still really underpopulated and there's so many remnants from the war. It's recent history compared to everything else we've been learning about. We did a bit more walking around and headed back to our hostel before we boarded the night train.

We boarded the train two minutes before it left. Even though we had booked an all female car, there was one guy already with his bag on one of the beds in our room. And when I say room, I mean closet. And when I say closet, I mean crawlspace. The room had six beds stacked three high on the walls and approximately one foot by one foot wide space inbetween. You couldn't sit up straight on a bed. So once the nice German man was kind enough to switch rooms, we felt more comfortable and settled in for a bit. By settling in, I mean contorting our bodies into spaces which felt midly comfortable for an hour. We got ready for bed, popped a couple sleeping pills and said goodbye to Berlin.

peace out berlin.

hello paris.

When we woke up, we were an hour from Paris. We did our best to get ready in the small space and finished up right on time. We found our way to our hotel which was actually quite out of the way from all the sights. After grabbing our first Parisian croissants, we made our way to the Metro. The Paris Metro made me love the tube even more than I already do. Frankly, it was dirty, smelled like pee and body odor and was filled with dudes who just looked sketchy. We headed to the Louvre but the line was insane, being it was Easter Sunday and all. We went to Notre Dame after that which was amazing because we were allowed in during Easter mass. My favorite part was the choir. The music was so beautiful. We got lunch and headed to Champs Elyees to see l'Arc de Triumph. It proceeded to hail and then pour rain, so we ducked into Laduree for some macaroons and the most amazing hot chocolate in the world. Once the skies had clearer and Allie tried to convince us that you had to run across the most dangerous traffic circle in the world to get to the arc, we found the pedestrian subway and made our climb up. The views were amazing.

We headed back to our hotel, showered and got ready for dinner. Megan had looked up a few good places to go and once we had walked all over trying to find out, it looked like it had been abandoned for years. We also noticed that we were the only girls in the area, because we had stumbled upon a gay district. Well, we also found a great restaurant in the gay district. We had an amazing meal with veal, escargo, cheese plates and other delicious things I cannot pronounce. On the way out, an overly friendly Frenchman hailed us a cab that we didn't ask him for and it ended up being a blessing in disguise because we met one of the coolest cab drivers in Paris. He listens to Michael Jackson and that was all we needed to know.

We settled in for a good night's sleep. Unfortunately, Allie woke up with food poisoning. Presumably from one of the snails she ate the night before. After trying to print our boarding passes and making sure Allie was okay to stay in bed, Megan, Alex and I went to the Louvre. It was really cool to see what we did in there, but it's such a big place. We left and got on the bus to the Eiffel Tower. The lines there were too long for us because we didn't have time to climb it, but it was good to get that close. We met up with Allie and tried to get to the top of another hill but we didn't have the time. We headed to the hotel and got a van to the airport. It was nice to take an earlier flight because we were all so exhausted from the weekend. As much as I love visiting other cities, none of them even compare to London for me. I was really happy to get home.

This week should go quickly. I've got a lot coming up with registration, papers and internships so I'll be busy. I'm really looking forward to Amsterdam this weekend!

We Were Halfway There When the Rain Came Down

maybe that's just growing up. when you're young, you tell yourself things like "well, if it didn't work out, it wasn't meant to be.' as if that actually meant something just because it sounds like it does. i think you can say something like that so blithely because you expect to stumble onto something else just as wonderful just around the next bend in the road. but people are rare, perfect, unique things and just because everyone really does live a life full of farewells doesn't mean you should at least realize what it really means to say goodbye to something that meant everything. just because you will survive and get over it doesn't mean you should let it go. - adam duritz

that's been one of my favorite quotes for such a long time now. if there's anything i've learned since i've been here, it's that life really is full of goodbyes. it's not something that i can say i'm okay with. but it's proven to be true. someone who you consider a best friend for some time may not hold that title later on. and you never consider that a possibility at the time. but it happens. because you're not there. you're off with other best friends. sometimes i just want to push pause. like, all the time actually. but anyways.

i had a great weekend, sneaking off to scotland on friday and not returning to the real world until monday afternoon. it was so good to get out of the city and breathe the fresh air and see the ocean again.

tomorrow morning we leave for berlin and sunday and monday we'll be in paris. my feet feel like they're breaking but so i'll need to assess my footwear situation. i wish it would get warmer out. my weekends left in london are numbered. to about two. which is horribly depressing. but i got a free pair of oakley's at work today. score! also, my mom and dad booked their flights and i cannot wait to show them around where i've been living. we booked amsterdam for the weekend after next and are looking into going somewhere in greece for the weekend after finals. so many good things to look forward to...