Social Media

Hey, so I thought I'd throw up a quick things about other ways you can follow the travelsofali tag in the world wide internet.

For starters, you can click here: >>Flickr<< to visit my flickr page, where I post all my photos.  I can upload them directly from my camera and computer, so it's a lot easier than organizing them here on blogger.  I have a lot more to upload, so check back every so often.  I'm working on finding a widget which will link directly to my photostream so you can access it from this page.

And speaking of widgets, have you seen this one I have here?  It links to Twitter.  Because I'm on twitter!

Did you know that I'm on twitter?  You should follow me on twitter.  If you don't want to, or you don't have twitter, you can just read my twitter feed on the right side of the page here.  All my tweets come through, and you can click on twitpics to make them bigger.  But if you are on twitter, feel free to add me.  My username is @travelsofali.  I'm pretty witty, but I keep things relatively tame on this particular feed.

As new things are added, I'll try to let you guys know.  In the meantime, check out my twitter and flickr pages.  I'll try to blog again soon!

Bath

So this last Saturday I had the pleasure of going to Bath with a friend of mine, Lea, and her parents.  It was a weird coincidence that we ended up going together, actually.  I asked to be put on the waiting list for Bath after I signed up for the trip to Stonehenge in April.  On the wednesday before the trip I got an email from another girl saying she had two tickets she wanted to sell.  I was excited and asked around to find out if there was anyone free on the weekend.  Everyone was busy, including Lea, who just said that her parents were busy, so I didn't bother explaining why I'd asked.  Then we met for tea a few days later and I happened to mention that I was going on the Bath trip and she exclaimed that she, too, was going with her parents.  We decided to meet up and walk over together.

It was awesome.  We left at half-seven in the morning and walked to the school together.  The bus took an hour and forty-five minutes (roughly) to get there, which was miles better than the four hours and thirty five minutes that the internet suggested the bus would take.  I managed to keep of car sickness with my new Seabands and motion sickness tabs (yay!) and we arrived in generally high spirits.

First we stopped for breakfast, then we hit the town.  It was just before ten in the morning, so we decided to wander first.  We went past the Theatre Royal, then we just sort of... wandered. There's not a better word for it.  I'm not sure exactly what we were looking for, but we found a church and a bunch of shops and cute little places.  There's something about Bath that makes that mean so much more.  Everything around just feels old.  That sounds weird, but it's true.  It's as if, while you're walking down these cobbled streets and tiny lanes, surrounded by butcher shops, card stores, and a few odd pubs and pasty makers, you can actually feel the history around you.  Everything has this very specific look to it, which I really can't describe.

Anyway, we ended up finding a church called "St. Michael Without," and went it.  It looked to be this enormous Cathedral, so I was of course thrilled, and it was an enormous cathedral.  But... it wasn't what we were expecting.

Okay, I get it, it's a church and this is Bath, so there's not a lot of room to expand.  That was apparently a problem they noticed with the tourist crowd, because there was no where to put a gift shop.  So logically, they cordoned off the back quarter of the church and transformed it into a gift shop and... cafe.... now I realize this is just my catholic upbringing here, where it was practically a cardinal sin to have gum in church, but it really irked me that there were people just chilling with coffee in a cathedral.  It has always bothered me when tourists are disrespectful of churches that are in use, when you're trying to pray at the Mission in Santa Cruz and a bunch of people come in to take photos, or worse, when groups of school children come in.  To put this in perspective, when I was in Westminster Abbey, I went to light a candle and turned around to see my friend standing there, on the plinth, in the chaplet.  If I weren't in a church I'd have told him to get the hell out of there.  That was not a place to stand and look, it was a place to pray.  I was so angry that I lit my candle and left the church without a second thought.  It wasn't until I was outside that I realized I had forgotten to say a prayer over my candle.  So coming into a church and seeing people having coffee... it didn't anger me because, obviously, that's what it's there for... but it did confuse the hell out of me.

So, long story short, we left St. Michael Without pretty quickly.  We found a market, wandered around, considered buying Welsh flags, found a few sweet shops, things like that.  Then we went to Bath Abbey.  Unfortunately I don't have any photos for this blog, because my camera is waaaaaaay over there and I'd have to find the cord and that sounds like a lot of work, so I'll post those in a few days.

Anyway, Bath Abbey was amazing.  We went on the tour which brought us all the way up onto the bell tower.  It was interesting and informative.  We split into groups to fit into tiny places like the clock face and the bell tower.  We were actually with the bells at noon, which was simultaneously awe inspiring and painful.  The bells were insanely loud, but I was filming it so I couldn't plug my ears, but I also didn't want to.  It was so amazing.  Then we went on top of the bell tower to see a view of the whole city laid out before us.  We could even see into the Roman baths, which was nice since none of us wanted to pay the £13 fee to get in.

After that we went to the Crescent, which is this really famous building where rich people used to stay (and still do).  I realized I'd lost one of my seabands from my pocket somewhere in Bath Abbey, and we wandered walked through the park beside the Crescent.  We had lunch and then Lea and I went to the Jane Austen Centre while her parents went to amuse themselves somewhere else (I should probably explain that Lea is studying here from Germany, and her parents spoke very little English, so I know they were talking, but I'm not sure where they decided to go).

The Jane Austen Centre was... okay.  I bought an "I <3 Darcy" lip balm (desperately needed) and a quill just for funzies, but I spent a small fortune just on those things.  The tour cost £8 and ended up being quite dull.  The best part was later when we went into the museum.  There was a bit of information, a short film we could see, though we only saw around five minutes of it, and then the really fun part.  They had a wardrobe of dresses we got to put on and take photos in, I looked ridiculous, and Lea looked awesome.  There was a tray of cookies that were AMAZING, and a small area where we could try out writing with a quill and ink.  I got ink on my finger and felt like a proper writer.  Jo Marsh supposedly always had ink on her fingers from writing, right?

 

We went outside after that and met up Lea's parents for a quick tea before getting back on the bus for Swansea.  In all, a very fun day, though to be honest, it was more fun getting to hang out with Lea at all those cool, ancient places, than it was to just see them.  It's always great to realize that a new friend is a good friend.

One more thing: when we got back to Swansea we found a St. David's Day faire going on.  Weird that on St. David's day neither of us were in, you know, Wales... anyway we managed to each score a Welsh flag while they were cleaning up.  I'm pretty excited because I was disinclined to spend money on one, but I really want one.  Now I have one that was cheap and has a good story behind it.  It's more than just "oh, I studied in Wales for a year," now it's "Well there was this fair going on, and I was with my friend who was also studying in Wales..." Because you're never really done for, as long as you have a good story and someone to tell it to, right?

Sunshine and Ocean Waves

So I'm going to try and share more things on here, at least photos and things.  So here are some photos from the last week or so.

So you may have heard, we've been having a bit of a storm here recently.  We get a lot of hail generally, just whenever it rains we tend to get hail or a bit of sleet.  It's been particularly bad during the last few weeks.  Last wednesday I had to walk to class though rain and sleet, and that was awful.  These photos are from that Tuesday when we got pea sized hail.  Luckily, I was home for that:

These are from the random sunny day we had on Sunday.  I haven't seen the beach this busy since I've been here.  Everyone came out to walk along the shore and soak in the sun.

  

  

And by request, this is Singleton Park, which I walk through every day to get to class.  It was a particularly nice day, although as you can see, it's always a bit wet here.

So yeah, hope you enjoyed my little slideshow.  I've a bit of a cold right now, so I might end up posting tomorrow if I get bored.  Probably not.  

Wind Wind Wind Wind!

So much wind!

Actually not really, not today.  We did have a really random downpour around midday, but other than that today has been quite clear.

But yesterday!  Yesterday it took me twice as long as usual to walk to class because I was battling the wind and sleet.  I looked and felt like a marshmallow, plus I had all of my materials with me so I could spend the day studying in the library.  I took a cab home.

And the day before yesterday!  It was bright blue skies and a comfortable little breeze.  The rest of the United Kingdom is basically underwater right now.  Go home, Swansea, you're drunk.

Anyway, this is what I actually was going to share with you.  I've let you see the prettier side of the beach near my house, now can see the truly terrifying side. Click this link to see a freaky video of the wind.

School blues

Oh, school.  Ooooh school.

The reason I'm here.

I'm signed up for three classes this semester: Grammar, Postcolonial Literature, and Chaucer.

If you know me at all... that's a pretty hefty list.  I am not a medieval literature person.  I am not a fan of Chaucer, I don't think he's funny.  I just think he's confusing and hard to read and going to lead to a very very big essay at the end of the semester.

Grammar...  Grammar sounds like good times, right?  It's just grammar!  Ali has great grammar, so this should be totally easy, right?  WRONG.  Any English student who is reading this  and has taken a grammar class knows how difficult a class it is.  It's like grammar to the max, grammar to the end of time.  The professor has just thrown all of this information at us on slides that only half explain what the hell we're supposed to be learning, so we're frantically trying to take cohesive notes and then suddenly the slides are gone and we're onto a new word class.  And then on top of it, she throws an exam at us in the third week.  What?  I have three grammar textbooks open next to me and a sneaking suspicion that a poor mark is in my future.  Commiseration in the comments, please, ladies?

Postcolonial is the most interesting class I'm taking.  We're reading seven books this semester, the first of which I'm meant to give a presentation about on Friday.  She told us not to worry about it, it's no big deal.  Then when I went to talk to her about it, she told me to treat it as a term paper that I will be presenting.  I asked if she meant that it should have something akin to a thesis whereupon she said, and I quote, "Oh, right.  You're American.  So you don't really know how to write a term paper."  I may have thought something very not nice to her at that moment.  As someone who hasn't gotten below a high B on any term papers here yet, I take that as an insult.  Plus, you don't know me.  Where do you get off informing me about my capabilities as a student before you've ever seen my work.  So in other news, I basically have to put on the best damn presentation that teacher's ever seen or walk home with my tail between my legs.  And of course, my presentation is the day after my horrible grammar exam.  Kill me please.

Interestingly, I opened my email after starting this blog post to find an apology from her. So that's something, I guess.  I'm going to write back and ask for a meeting on Wednesday and I have a revision session planned with the other girl giving a presentation on Friday, so I think I'll be able to muddle through it.

But aside from that presentation, it is the most interesting topic.  The class examines the effect of colonization (or, as I'm supposed to spell it here, colonisation) upon those colonized.  Among the books we're reading are Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (that's the one I'm presenting on) and Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga.   I've only just started Nervous Conditions, although on top of everything else, I'm supposed to have it finished by Thursday (did I mention, "kill me now"?), but I have finished Achebe's book, and I do love it.

Anyway, I did promise a second blog about classes to follow my blog about my birthday, so, as promised.  I have another one I want to write about traveling and sightseeing, so there is another blog on the horizon.  I would say check back next week, but... maybe give me another week or two before I post anything else.  I'm pretty much going to be sleeping at the library this week...

Twenty-Five

I always know its time to write a blog when I start getting random spikes of viewers.  I imagine little heads popping around the walls to my apartment asking, "Where's the blog, Ali?  WHERE'S THE BLOG??"

Okay, its here, calm down.

I both have tons to cover in this blog, and very little.  I'll start with this last weekend.

It was my birthday!  YAY!

I'm twenty five whole years old how.  I feel so grown up.  I've already had that lovely moment where some girls were talking about tanning in class and I strongly suggested against it.  They brought it up because I had mentioned being Californian, so naturally, sun tans.  I told them not to do it, that I've seen plenty of people my age who have tanned every summer since sixteen and their skin looks old and tired already.  They looked very confused until I told them how old I am, to which I was immediately greeted with choruses of "I would never have guessed" and "you don't look twenty five at all!" and "I figured you were our age (19)!" And I just, "oh bless you," with a little hand flip and hair twirl.  And then I proceeded to get woefully lost in grammar, since they've all just studied it in a-levels and here I am, eight years since I touched grammar.  *headdesk*

Anyway, I'm going to say that this birthday took second place to my twenty first birthday party, when Maureen and I went to San Francisco, ate amazing food at an awesome jazz club, got shortlined and then VIPed within moments at a club, then pleasantly sloshed before going back to our hotel where I'm nearly certain we watched Harry Potter.  Anyway, close second to that amazingness.

I had been planning something for awhile and found out that a group of people I knew were going to the same place on the same night, so it was going to snowball into something awful.  And then some friend of there's went and got engaged and had an engagement party that night, so everyone I knew from that ended up bailing.  I went around to theirs a few nights before my birthday for a movie night they'd been planning, and then it turned out that it had become an impromptu sort of party for my birthday!  Not even, but Lily made me this lovely cake:

so that was pretty awesome.  They sang me happy birthday and we shared the cake and watched a racy movie.  Good times all around.

Well, then came Friday, which was the night before my birthday.  I had big plans.  A big group of us were going to a place called Playzone.  Any nineties kids out there are probably raising their eyebrows questioningly, so yes, it was totally exactly like Discovery Zone.  Not a nineties kid?  Here's a link to it:  http://www.theplayzone.co.uk/.  Turns out they do an "adult" night on the last friday of every month, which was perfect for us. Now, being that we are not in fact eighteen, we all had the foresight to meet up before hand and have burgers and crisps and a few drinks before we headed out to drink and run around like idiots.  I got a few little presents like chocolate (okay a lot of chocolate), and a few pens and a notebook.  Then we each had a drink and took off.

And then we ran around like idiots.  I can't really go into too much detail here, one because it was pretty hectic, two because we'd been drinking, and three because we'd been drinking.  So my memory is a little iffy on it, though I took a video I'll be posting eventually.  I can tell you that we played tag and capture the flag and manhunt.  I can tell you that I was terrified of the biggest slide, which was really just a glorified death trap, but I did eventually go down the slightly less big slide (did you click on the link earlier?  I went on the blue slide, NOT the red slide).  It was crazy amounts of fun and I STILL hurt from it.  Good times.

Then the next day while we were all nursing our injuries from Playzone, we met up, had more drinks, went to Wind Street, which is a street here where there are about twenty different clubs and bars and dancey places and all of the young people go to get inordinately drunk.  Which, of course, is what ended up happening with me.  So here again, I cannot give you many details.  Although I can tell you that at one point a woman sang Happy Birthday for me in Welsh, which was probably the highlight of my weekend.  I can also tell you that for the third time in my life I had a massive hangover the next day, so if you're worried that I was being reckless (I wasn't, don't worry.  I had tons of friends with me and all of my roommates were there as well), don't worry, I won't be doing it again anytime soon.

In all I'm calling it a huge success.  I had friends come out and drinks and stories and bruises and laughter, and I think in general, what more can I ask for from a birthday?  Especially from a milestone birthday like 25.

A London Advanture

People talk about falling in love all the time.  They talk about the way your heart leaps, the way that it flutters in your chest and the gut wrenching leap of excitement when you are given a surprise, albeit wonderful, moment of unexpected joy.  They talk about smiling all the time, the feeling of supreme contentment that fills you to the top until all you want is to sit and watch the world go by.

Twice in my life before now I have felt that rush, that thrill, of love.  The first time was with a boy a long time ago.  The second time was with San Francisco.  And now, now it is London.

Okay, so I literally just wrote a love letter about London.  That's weird.  Well, that's me.

In all seriousness, though.  I fell in love with San Francisco a long time ago.  I just enjoyed it, walking around, being surrounded by the most fascinating people from all over the world.  If for one moment I believed that I could make a life for myself in San Francisco, I would be back there in a heartbeat, searching for a house in the Nopa area, going for runs in Golden Gate Park, skipping rocks on Baker Beach.  But San Francisco and I were never meant to be.  And weirdly, it wasn't even about the money.  Sure, it was expensive, but I worked hard enough and I was focused and careful enough, so I was fine.  For one moment in my life, I wasn't concerned about money.  But for the love of all that is holy, I hated the people.  Not the everyday people walking past me, I loved them, irrationally.  I loved their stupid hair and their ridiculous clothing and their weird accents and bad smells because it meant that I was in San Francisco.  I loved them in the way that you love an ugly dog who bites when it's scared but cuddles you the rest of the time.  You love it because, on some level, deep down, it loves you too.

Well, I didn't expect to fall in love with London.  Not really.  I liked it well enough on my first trip, when I went to Kensington Palace and snapped photos of it from the open top of a tour bus.  But really, that was a view from the outside looking in.  It was like looking at a painting and admiring the landscape.  How lovely, you think, as you pause to gaze at it and acknowledge the work that went into it, and then you move on to the next painting in the exhibit, and you don't think much about each painting, you just let the overall effect of the thing rush over you.  Well, that was my first trip.

But then I went back.  This time I went with a friend, and this time I didn't take a bus tour, or wind up sick as a dog on my third day.  I also stayed in a much nicer hotel.  Don't get me wrong, the first hotel was nice enough, but for what I paid? Maybe not as nice as it could have been.

We stayed in Earl's Court, very near to the tube station.  It took a moment of remembering San Francisco and New York to get a hang of the underground, but once I'd figured it out it was cake.  The first day we arrived we settled into the hotel and set up our happy little Christmas tree.  Then we hit the shops.  Of course: London? That means shopping, right?  Well, it was raining and we weren't familiar with the area so there was a lot of wandering and admiring of the Christmas decorations and not a whole lot of actual shopping.  We did get to see Hamley's and Selfridges, even if we didn't really buy anything.

Then unfortunately when we started the second day we were both pretty exhausted, so it was a fairly lazy day.  None of the museums we were hoping to see were open and the Botanical Gardens were booked until kingdom come, so it was just off to Buckingham Palace where we got to see the tail end of the changing of the guards.  We were going to walk to Kensington from there (where did I get the idea that THAT was feasible??) but then this sort of downpour happened.  I don't think my friend appreciated it as much as I did.  To him it was just rain, whatever, get out of it for the worst of it, then move on.

But I was fascinated.  We were walking through Green Park when it started drizzling, and by the time we's reached Hyde Park Corner it was pouring.  I mean, it was a proper downpour.  Only, this was in London, so it was sideways.  My rain coat is only a short length, so I wanted to get out of it.  We made for a War Memorial, heads ducked against the onslaught, so I didn't immediately see what was inside.

For one thing, there was a war memorial inside, truly amazing with beautiful sculptures of soldiers standing on a plinth beneath an open sky.  Okay, there's one problem about what was inside, it turned out not to be fully covered.  There were pillars and a bit of a roof, but it was open in the middle, so not much against sideways rain, but it was good enough for a moment.  It was also freezing inside.  Unfortunately, it wasn't just the rain that was against us, but the air itself was frigid.

But there were also people inside.  The whole place was packed with other people sheltering from the storm, and in that weird way that we sometimes find ourselves connected to total strangers, here was this group of people from all over the world all sheltering together in a war memorial of all things.  And everyone was looking around, in awe of this mighty weather, of the extreme power of torrential rain, not only to soak you to the bone in icy water, but also to bring people together.

Of course, it was also a problem, because there wasn't much space for us to stand and anyway, it seemed silly to expect it to stop when the rain was predicted for the whole week.  So we waited out the worst of it and then soldiered out into the downpour again.  It took about two minutes more of walking to have me soaked to the skin from the waist down, and about a minute after that before the rain completely stopped.  Of course.

The next few days were still good fun.  We briefly saw a christmas market, shopped on Oxford Street some more, rode the tubes, ate at a pub.  Twice.

Christmas was good fun.  Once we got past the fact that everything was shut and nearly all the tours were booked for the day, we started making plans.  Even the tubes were closed!  We had to call for a car, which cost £25 one way.  Still, we went on a walking tour that went to several of Charles Dickens' most popular locations all while learning about his life and writing.  It was interesting, if freezing cold and a bit dull.  Then we went back to the hotel and had christmas tea at our hotel restaurant, which was surprisingly good, although the poor woman working didn't know what a yorkshire pudding was and referred to it as "a little pie," which was a bit misleading.

On boxing day we were misinformed that the Natural History Museum would be opened, so we decided to go there.  I was crushed when it was closed, but we decided to go to Sherlock Holmes instead.  Then on the way there we decided to swing by Kings Cross and see Platform 9 3/4.  So long story short on that front, London basically closes from Christmas Eve until the day after Boxing Day, because even the train station was closed.  Sherlock Holmes wasn't, though, so we went in that direction only to find a line as long as the street which wasn't moving.  Instead we went and spent tons of money on silly souvenirs and wandered down to Westminster where I bought a gargoyle and named him Watson.  He's on my bedside table looking so adorable I can hardly handle it.

After that we went on a Jack the Ripper walking tour which was sufficiently creepy, and much less cold than Charles Dickens, since I came prepared in layered stockings, four jumpers under my coat, earmuffs, a hat, and a tightly tied scarf.

That was basically the end of the London Adventure, to be honest.  My friend left for the airport around six-thirty in the morning and I went back to bed until ten.  Then I packed my bags and checked out with my eyes set on Natural History Museum and the Victoria and Albert.  I waited in line for NHM for about half an hour, but it was worth it in the end, although I missed the dinosaurs because the room was so claustrophobic and the line ridiculously long.  I knew if I waited I wouldn't get to see any of V&A, so I skipped it.

V&A was lovely, though I was so tired at that point that I was getting confused about what was where.  After about thirty minutes of aimlessly wandering I realized I hadn't eaten anything other than a handful of christmas candy, so I headed for the dining room and decided to have tea.  TEA.  In the V&A.  Earl Grey tea and a raisin scone with cream and strawberry jam.  It was delicious in the way that I could actually feel my coronaries constricting.  I felt so proper, sitting at my table reading my pamphlet and having my tea.  While I was walking it to the table after ordering, a woman pulled her daughter out of my way and said, "look out for the nice lady with her tea" and I just couldn't help but smile at the idea of having tea at the V&A.

Once I'd had something to eat, it was a bit easier to figure out how to maneuver the rooms and exhibits.  I can't decide if the Ironworks, the stained glass, the pond, or the ancient history room was my favorite.  I think probably the pond, which I cannot explain, but I'll post my flicker account once I've uploaded photos so you can see it.


The weird thing is, after all this, I hadn't actually done all that much in London.  Still, as I climbed onto the bus I knew that sudden and gut wrenching feeling, like I was being taken away from a lover.  There's no real way to describe it other than to say that somehow, somewhere in the day to day goings-on of my vacation, I fell in love with London.  I could see myself in a few years sitting at a Costa and writing or standing on a tube, fighting my way through the doors to the exit with the quiet background chime warning me to "mind the gap."  Of course, I won't, because in the same way that I know San Francisco and I aren't meant to be, I know that London and I aren't meant to be either.  This year is wonderful and I wouldn't change a thing. If I had the option to relive this last year, I wouldn't do anything different.  But I can't stand being so far from my friends and family, from California and San Francisco and redwood trees.  So as much as I love London, it is more of a winter fling than a deep abiding love.  I'll always remember my times in London with fondness, of the Globe Theatre and Oxford Street and walking tours.  I'll look back in fondness, but I will never regret leaving it either.

Anyway, I think that is about all there is to say on the subject of London.  I have several other blogs queued, so keep checking back.  I'll post when my flicker account is up and running with a link, so you can see all my lovely travel photos so far (spoiler: there aren't that many, since google+ apparently decided that it wouldn't actually upload any of them despite autobackup, and my phone crashed, so half my photos are just gone).

Until next time, my fearless followers!