Prague's "Tears of Stalin"

 

This is an odd one: no one I spoke to is really sure what's going on with the Hollywood-style "Tears of Stalin" sculpture, but apparently Prague just has a difficult time figuring out what should go up there.  There's been a massive pendulum sculpture up there as well, and next they're planning on tearing it down in favor of a forty-foot tall Michael Jackson sculpture.

I guess they really like Michael Jackson.

EDIT: Also, it's in English.  What's up with that?

Prague Castle

 

A view of Prague's castle district from across the river after a rainstorm back in June 2011.  

Prague, Czech Republic

 

Prague, Czech Republic in June 2011 the day after a ridiculous rainstorm.  

More Manchester

 

Another picture from June (2011) of what I'm fairly certain is Manchester's cathedral.  (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)  I meandered around the perimeter and then moved on without going inside, but it was a cute little church/cathedral. 

Manchester, England

 

Manchester, England.  I spent about a day there last June on my way back from Budapest and Prague, since it was cheaper to fly from Prague to Manchester and take a train back to Edinburgh. 

Our very own little portal to hell.

Our flat is always about ten degrees (F) colder than the outside world, and the fridge makes weird clicking noises, so we've decided there's probably a portal to hell hiding somewhere in the flat.  Possibly an invisible one, but also possibly hiding inside the clicking fridge.

But really, so long as no demons or creatures come hurtling (or slinking) out to terrorize the inhabitants of our building--starting with us--we can deal with it.

We it gets too cold, though, and I don't want to give in and put on long pants, I grab my keys and go stand in the sun on the hallway balcony.  It warms me in an instant, and I always end up standing there like a loon, bathing in sunlight, and wondering how in the hell anyone could grow up without sunshine like this.  I can't even fathom what it would be like to think it's normal to go outside, even in spring or summer, and be unable to feel the physical sensation on sunlight on skin.

It blows my mind.

Not usually political, but...

I don’t usually put up political stuff on here, but I recently found a video that is interesting, easy to understand, and possesses none of the helpless anger and frustration that clouds a lot of other explanations.  It’s definitely worth a looksie and I encourage you all to do so. 

It can be found here, at The Guardian's website.

Bell tower

We walked down from halfway up the hill, where the bus dropped us off, to the beach.  This is Positano's bell tower, with the beach right behind me. 

Beachfront property

 

December 2011.  View off a cliff in Positano, Italy.  Weird perspective, but I like it.

Sell/Use by: ____

A few weekends ago I went over to a friend's house for the evening for champagne, homemade tiramisu (courtesy of moi), and to exchange a few stories from last year.  She just got out of a good relationship, and to be quite honest so did I (well--it feels like "just"), but the one conspicuous similarity between the two is that there was a time limit on both.  An expiration date that hovered in our periphery the whole time, that sometimes squeezed the breath out of my lungs with its inevitability, but still hauled us off toward happiness.

That horrible, hovering inevitability could only be disregarded when I consciously decided to make the most of my time left in Edinburgh.  When I got up at a reasonable hour and decided that instead of hanging around and being useless all day, I'd drag someone I wanted to spend the day with to the botanic gardens, or to a movie and then for a pint, or--you get the point.  The deadline-related panic only abated when I spent my time doing something fun with a friend.

Consciously deciding to make the most of your day, though, doesn't apply only to romantic relationships.  The world could be caving in, but we're still surrounded by people who love us and who we love in return.  We shouldn't forget that, even if we're not surrounded by all the people we love at present.

What I'm getting at is that life is a lot happier when we live as if we have an upcoming expiration date (even when we don't)--an expiration date that we've decided to disregard so we can make the most of what's left of our fleeting butterfly lives.

It's difficult, and sometimes requires an excessive amount of optimism.  I won't try to deny that.  But it's worth it.  We can find small bursts of laughter in more places than we're willing to believe, and those amusements build up into something resembling a happy life.  It's worth it.

Positano, Italy

 

Aaand to take a break from all the snowy pictures of Scotland, have a sunny picture of Positano, Italy, on the Amalfi coast.

Sunshine!  Beach!  Ocean!  I flailed with excitement and ended up buying some local art by a chatty old native whose daughters all lived in Rome, but he preferred Positano and Sorrento.

Stirling, again.

Another view of Stirling from last December, again facing away from the castle.  The temperature had begun to rapidly drop not too long before this. 

Stirling

Stirling, Scotland, in the midst of a cold December day, 2010.  Behind me is Stirling's castle, and off in the distance on the tree-covered hill you can just barely make out the Wallace monument. 

Here, have another photo.

This one's not as exciting as the others.  It's the (currently) dull view outside my window.  It's been raining all afternoon.  The ground is thoroughly soaked, but I'm inside lying in bed, drinking wine, and working on my novel.  My essays are done and handed in, I survived my Latin midterm, I finally ate a healthy meal this morning, I got to skype for almost two hours with my friend (codename:) Pencaitland, and I'm only a thousand words behind schedule.

Okay, yes, there are still a million things that absolutely must be done, and soon, but for now, just--just give me this small victory.  I made it through the week.  (Thank god it was only four days.  Happy Veteran's Day, my loves.  Go hug a vet.)

View of Loch Lomond from December 2010

Very, very chilly out there.  I had fingerless gloves on at the time.  Did my hands leave my coat pockets?  No, they did not. 

A bad sign, probably.

I don’t remember the last time I frowned this much.  It’s probably a not a good sign.
To be fair, there’s been a lot going on.  Midterms, essays, Nanowrimo, school-related books to read, grad school applications, letters of recommendation, portfolios that’re necessary for graduation, writing contests, (pathetic) attempts at a social life, keeping my (grease-fire-burned) hand from stiffening back up to the point where I can hardly write, etc.

Sleep kind of fell of the Wagon of Importance for a while.  So did eating real food.  So, of course, I got sick.  Spent fifteen hours sleeping last Saturday, and ta-da, I’m almost well enough to do all that self-destructive stuff all over again, all for the sake of making it through my last year.

I’ve got a Latin midterm tomorrow morning.  No, I’m not ready.  Do I know more than last year?  Sure.  Will I pass?  Also sure.  But…

I don’t know what the “but” is.  (Is this all there is to life these days?  What happened?)  At least I got an extension on one of my essays.

Does anyone wanna write me a bomb-ass letter of recommendation?  That’d be really, really helpful, thanks.

View from a train.

Transylvania, Romania.  View from a train from Brasov to Sighisoara.

(Neither are in Firefox's spell check.  This displeases me.)

Well, wouldja look at that. A picture.

Oh, hey--look at that.  Snow in Romania.  In April.

Pffft.  It wasn't even that cold in Edinburgh at that point.

This is me...

A) freaking out over school

B) determinedly ignoring upcoming due dates for grad schools

C) worried about all my writing projects and their due dates

D) trying to keep up with life

E) trying to figure out what to do (and how to do it) after graduation

E) missing that “eternal summer” I kept talking about

F) all of the above


Take a wild guess, guys and gals.

Giving blood (in time for Halloween!)

The weather has been absurdly wonderful the last few days.  Sundresses in October, wooo!

Last Monday I went to give blood—save the world one pint at a time, that kind of thing—and elected to let them run my blood through some kind of machine, then deposit some saline into my system, then take more blood, then deposit more saline, and so on and so forth.  It seemed like the better choice.  After all, if the goal was to do a good deed, then why not do an even better deed?

Because it messed me up for a full twenty-eight hours afterward.  God, it was miserable.  I think I just didn’t have enough iron to go around—I was shaky and dizzy all the rest of the afternoon, even after two litres of water and about a dozen Oreos.  I almost didn’t make it home, even.  I collapsed onto a picnic bench behind the Career Services Center with my head in my hands for almost twenty minutes before I could make myself get back up and start putting one foot in front of another again.  And after I finally staggered through the front door, I kind of stuttered out an incoherent hello to my flatmate (codename: Victorville) and collapsed in the bed for the rest of the day.  I don’t even really remember what I did, beyond lie there and pretend I was recovering.

Being an adult sucks sometimes.  Especially when you have to take care of yourself.

On the other hand, though, last Sunday I spent the majority of my day skyping with an Edinburgh friend (codename: Pencaitland—thank god for Facebook, or I’d never know what to codename everyone), and right now I’m off to the Goleta train station to pick up my friend (codename: Irvine, for where she goes to uni) and the Brother!  It’s going to be an excellent weekend.

That moment of horror

Last night after I'd finally buckled down to study Latin, I heard a bird call it's little birdie tune--one that I'd heard a few times last year during the wee hours of an Edinburgh morning--and I had a horrifying moment where I was certain I'd stayed up all night and I'd look up from my textbook and see the sky was lightening and then my alarm would go off suddenly and I'd have to run off to my midterm without having slept. 

So, having recognized that same kind of deathly panic that rises up when you lean juuust a little too far back in your chair and are suddenly convinced you are about to die, I turned off my desk lamp and crawled into bed.  And then I huddled around my body pillow and felt clever for not staying up all night. 

Magical Realism...

is how the academic world can accept small doses of poetic urban fantasy as real.  It's how the erudite literati can pick up and read a fantasy novel without addressing or suffering under the stigma of it.

Academia drives me crazy sometimes.  There's nothing wrong with liking fantasy!  We don't have to classify it under some highbrow genre title just because the prose is pretty and there are non-anglo cultures represented in the story.  If there are ghosts and spirit guides, you're probably reading fantasy.

Good grief.

Meh and etc.

Today was the first of what I'm sure will be many frustrated moments that all sound vaguely similar:  "I want a week off.  Two weeks.  What happened to my eternal summer?!"

Dyed my hair today.  I'd call it an auburn-y color now, but there are those who might call me ginger.  Can't decide yet if I'd agree with them.

Oh, and that part about rocking Latin?  Lies.  Braggery.  (<--not a real word)  Boasting and arrogance.  I'm drowning in declensions and it's horrifying.  Horrifying like a horror movie.

I wish there was more time for fun writing, but whatever.  November's coming up, which means Nanowrimo (which means writing a 50,000 word story in 30 days).

Life, it do go on.

Oh gosh, and guess what!  Google "weird penicillin dreams."  Seriously, go do it and see what the first thing that pops up is.  Life goal on the bucket list: check!  BECAUSE I'M AWESOME. :)

Oopsies, Oreos, Latin, and Halloween.

I got a gentle nudge today from a lovely family friend about how I maybe ought to update my blog.  Oops.  In my defense, everything from move-in to the start of classes has either been too hectic or banal to write about.

So now I’m sitting at my nice desk in my lovely bedroom in my new flat in the postgrad/grad housing munching on double-stuf Oreos when I should be making dinner and avoiding tonight’s Latin assignment.

I’m rocking Latin this go-round, by the way.  A+.  It’s making me feel pretty awesome.

I’m taking a Dante class as well, and my flatmates and I have decided that one of our Halloween costumes this year are going to reference the first canto (chapter) of the Inferno.  Before Dante descends into hell, he tries to skip all the bad stuff and climb a mountain that leads straight to heaven and god and his lifelong unrequited love who’s suddenly thoroughly enamored with him.  He’s thwarted, though, by a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf, all of which have very deep allegorical meanings that nobody actually knows.  Soooo… clever animal costumes!  I’m going to be the leopard.

And The Brother, who is taking the train up to spend Halloween weekend with me, is going to be the tenth doctor from Doctor Who!  I think I’m more excited about it than he is.  Maybe I’ll dress up as Donna Noble one night.

So many oreos.  I’m going to turn myself into a fatty, and then I won’t fit into my leopard costume.  Brilliant.

Layin' it on a little thick, maybe? (Everything's true.)

Excerpt from an application I've been filling out:

What would you tell a student who is unsure about studying abroad?

"The time I spent abroad was the best year of my life.  You're going to have more fun than you can even imagine right now, and you're going to meet the coolest people in the process.  It's okay if you're nervous.  When I first got off the plane in Edinburgh there was a moment of, 'Oh, my god, what am I doing?  EVERYONE I've ever known is thousands of miles away!'  But I don't have a single regret--I don't even regret the grease fire and landing myself in the hospital, or ending up on the wrong island in Greece and worrying about being solicited for sexual favors in the wee hours of the morning.  In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't even matter where you go--you'll never forget your time abroad."

It's kind of a lot of text for the dinky little box I was given.  And I really wish I could italicize stuff instead of capitalizing it. And I know it sounds kiiinda cheesy, but... meh, it's all true.  And I've said most of it aloud already to another girl who left for a semester in Stirling (also in Scotland) last week.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Also, a year ago today I had already missed my first flight out to Edinburgh, had made it to my rescheduled flight, landed and lugged my massive 50lbs/20kg bags up four flights of stairs.  (Three, for you people counting across the pond.)

Exhausting.  And scary.  I've never felt so isolated: I didn't know anyone; I couldn't even call anyone for help if I needed it or got lost.  And besides (as I kept telling myself), what was my mother or my dad or my best friend going to do?  They were thousands and thousands of miles away.  I was totally on my own for the first time.

(And frankly, it was a matter of pride that I didn't call home for help or in tears.  It was one of those mornings after sitting on a plane for seven hours, unable to sleep, where you just grit your teeth and tell yourself that you got this shit 'cause you're awesome and damnit, you're an adult, now act like one!)

I didn't know what a Tesco or a Sainsbury was.  I couldn't find anywhere to eat, and I was too tired to wander far.  I slipped into an overpriced pizzaria on Grassmarket just before they started closing up and tried to both stay awake as I ate and not wonder too much about what I was going to do tomorrow.  Tomorrow didn't matter, I kept telling myself.  Tomorrow'll be much easier to handle after sixteen hours of sleep, anyway.  Or, you know, nine or ten hours.

And it was.  Fresher's Week was ridiculous and hilarious in all the ways that first week off at uni/college always is.  And by the end of the week, I'd already met so many of the people that I've been missing while sitting around my parents' house in California.

Hugs to all my Edinburgh friends, even if you're not in Edinburgh at the moment.  I miss you guys.  So, so much.

Neverending summer break

I literally didn't know what day it was today.  It was both one of the greatest and confused moments of this summer.

I thought it was Wednesday. 

It's Friday.

(Well, it's about fifty-eight minutes into Saturday morning, but you get the gist of it.)

Perhaps Wednesday was the last day I looked at the calendar.  Or Tuesday--that might make more sense.  I would have looked at it on Tuesday and gone, "Oh, tomorrow's Wednesday," and ended up doing that for the next... however many days.  Three days.  (Except the looking at the calendar part.)

Water from the sky

It’s one of those stupid familial inside jokes: “what is this water falling from the sky?”  It’s right up there with “yeah, and the Titanic never sank.”

First rain since I returned at the beginning of July.  Pretty frigging weird.  It’s a respectable rain for anywhere in the world, and a veritable downpour in San Diego terms.  (We’re always in the middle of one drought or another.  There’s never enough water for everyone who lives out here, and there probably never will be.)

I left my window open last night and dreamt of rain in Edinburgh—probably because I could hear it falling this morning.  It felt very real. 

Pens and PTSA. And dog turds.

I just found a pack of the nicest pens I've ever owned.  Yes.  Such success today.  Baked a cake (chocolate), mixed up the icing into the proper color (Tardis blue), cleaned a bit (under the bed), packed a bit (scarves, books and two mugs), read some of Dante's Inferno. 

Oh, and yesterday during a PTSA meeting my dog, in his profound excitement, pooped under the table and nobody noticed until after the meeting. 

Nobody said anything, anyway.  Noticing and drawing attention to the mongo dog turd under the dining room table are two rather different things. 

Back to travel pics

Fewer musings on Vegas and coyotes, more travel pictures.

Thus, the Hungarian Parliament in Budapest, Hungary on the banks of the Danube.

I don't understand how something so gorgeous can exist.

SoCal Coyotes

There are always weird things you gotta get used to, living in a foreign country. The language/accents. The food. The weather, the measurements, the attitudes, the public transportation. The layout of cities that are about a thousand years older than your hometown. It's phenomenal, granted, but it's also... sometimes it's exhausting. Mostly it's just tiring, like when you take a puppy outside and they run themselves ragged.

What's weird, though, is lying down in your new bed with it's too-thin mattress and strange duvet at the end of each day and listening to the unfamiliar noises outside your window.

I don't think I will ever, ever miss the sounds that came from the Three Sisters. Just to be clear.

What I did miss, and what I will always miss no matter where I go, are the coyotes in San Diego. When we first moved into this house--I was thirteen or fourteen--I panicked and huddled under the blankets the first night I heard them, convinced there was a pack of screaming women out in the canyon across the street. And then I started wondering if I was going crazy and hearing things, because no one came to their rescue. And since I'd already half-decided I was losing my mind, I wondered if there was some kind of unearthly creature racing through the darkness and eating people.

(Try not to laugh too hard.)

I still imagine a pack of coyotes could give professional mourners a run for their money, but I've come to appreciate the idea that there's some wildlife outside our despicable cookie-cutter neighborhood. There's at least a single pack out there, maybe two packs, and there's got to be enough deer and bunnies running around to keep them alive. I like the idea that there's life out in the canyon, even when the dry brush is almost as tall as I am and twelve inches of rain every year is probably all we're ever going to get (and five of those inches happen all at once, in December).

Usually I'm in bed by the time the coyotes have caught something and start celebrating. Usually it's between midnight and three in the morning. Tonight, though, I came home from a friend's house and parked the car across the street from my parents' house. I gathered up all the nonsense I'd brought out to the car and crossed the street, hoping the front door was unlocked or I'd have to go digging around in my bag for my house keys. (It wasn't, and I did have to.)

In the middle of the street, I stop and lift my head. It's faint, but coyotes sing in the canyon to the south. I stand out there on the blacktop for a while and enjoy the music. Before tonight, I hadn't heard them since leaving for Edinburgh last summer.

After a short while I turn to cross the other half of the street and take a step, then realize I'm hearing coyotes in surround sound. They're singing to the north, too.

There's an odd moment of simmering panic as I picture myself surrounded without having realized it, but both packs (and the northern one didn't sound like more than two or three coyotes) are faint. They're not among the houses.

This would have been a much more interesting post if I'd spotted one or two or been attacked, but unfortunately that's the extent of my story. No sightings, no attacks, nothing interesting--just the first whisper of appreciation for home stemming from something outside the obvious bits. (Family, the weather, my massive pile of books.)

Las Vegas

I’ve got some friends who’re trying to get me to go holiday in Vegas this winter, but I’m not buying it. It’s kind of a cruise to get out there, even starting in Santa Barbara instead of San Diego (not that the drive is such a huge deal in itself—it’s a longer trip across the Atlantic, with less to look at, and I’ll always jump at that particular chance) and it’s in the middle of the desert (but the scenery is admittedly pretty satisfying to look at).

My biggest objections, though, are this: (#1) I’ve already been there, and (#2) everything that makes Vegas such a great getaway can be done almost anywhere else. Santa Barbara is for partying. We can catch shows in L.A. or San Diego. UCSB has pools and perfect weather to lounge in. Chumash has gambling.

Now, admittedly, Caesar’s Palace looks pretty cool. Luxor, too. I just returned from north Las Vegas yesterday and wish I’d had a chance to wander around those two resorts a bit just to look at the decorations. Maybe Excalibur, too, though I sort of remember it—my family stayed there for a few days back when I was closer to ten than twenty.

Vegas is an interesting city, though, and sort of reminds me of eastern Europe in a few respects. The parts that everybody sees (downtown Prague, Budapest, and even Athens’ plaka district) are gorgeous and glitzy and enchanting. The rest… not so much.

Vegas was hit very hard by the recession. It’s got the worst housing rates in the entire country—oops, the rental houses that were supposed to pay for university/retirement/whatever are underwater!—and unemployment is high. The population has dropped by more than 35% in the last decade as people scrabble to escape.

All that shows. It’s visible the moment we step off the strip. Neon lights dim, the dust that seemed like such a trifle at the poolside bar suddenly chokes, and everyone around us is sunburned and slouching under the weight of this month’s rent.

Money troubles look the same across the world, I guess.

Riverfront view

View of the riverfront and Hungarian Parliament from a bridge just under halfway across the Danube.

Buda, Pest, Bridges and Lions

This is a view of Budapest's castle from across the Danube the evening after I first arrived. I landed in the afternoon, found my hostel (which took a while--I got lost, and getting directions in Hungarian was a lot harder than I was expecting. It's impossible to pronounce anything properly!), and went for a walk down the river, across the bridge in the picture, and back down the other side of the river.

It's not the greatest picture I took, but one of the only ones of the whole front of the castle. The bridge, I figure, is an added bonus. There are lions standing guard at both ends.

It was quite dark by the time I got back to the hostel. A little nerve-wracking as I had some difficulty getting around a construction site without getting lost, but I worked it out, found the bridge, and got back to the hostel before my exhausted feet decided to mutiny.

Czech Puppets

There were puppets all over Prague. I'm embarrassed to admit that I have no idea why--all I can figure is that it's a traditional thing that kind of gained momentum and turned into puppets of naked mermaids, Jack Sparrow, Michael Jackson, and Charlie Chaplin.

Prague's cathedral

The cathedral was even prettier than the castle, which was nice enough of its own accord. The above photo is of the outside--part of it. It's in the middle of Prague's castle district, surrounded by tons of other buildings, so I couldn't back up far enough to fit the whole of the outside into one photo.

The inside of the cathedral, to give you a vague notion of how big it was.

Zoomed-in photo of the stained glass at the far end. Tickets were required to go about thirty or forty feet past the entrance, so I didn't bother. There was still plenty to see, particularly the stained glass. I genuinely can't think of any stained glass I've ever seen that might be prettier, or as pretty, as the enormous, twenty or thirty foot tall windows in that cathedral.

Prague's famous clock

The famous astrological clock in Prague, Czech Republic.

Not as impressive as most would think. Mostly it's just pretty and kind of complicated-looking. The best part, I'd say, is when the groups of confused tourists gather around it at ten or eleven at night waiting for it to ring--it quits ringing at 9PM, and starts back up at 9AM.

Oxford, England

Oxford, England.

Oxford was nice because I didn't really know what I was doing. I just wandered. Turns out there's a castle to tour, complete with with horrific stories from when it was turned into a jail and a tower to climb (the top of which is where the above picture was taken). I went to the biggest bookstore I've ever been in--three stories tall (four for Americans)--and that was just the store where they kept the books. There were completely separate buildings for music, for posters and art, and for--something else. Can't even remember anymore, because the book one was the building I cared most about. I had a wonderful dinner at a nice little restaurant that turned out to be a chain, and I was only there for about thirty hours. (You can do a lot in thirty hours, especially in any English town or small city.)

England's Lake District

England's Lake District (without any lakes. Just awesome mountains).

England's Lake District

This video made me laugh. I'd forgotten I made it, and found it as I was going through some more of my photos. Enjoy my silliness!

Eight hours

I was sunning myself in the backyard just now and it occurred to me--hey, it's almost four in the afternoon. That means it's midnight in Edinburgh.

Eight hours is kind of a big time difference. I'm lying in the sun, outside, in the middle of the afternoon whereas if I was in Scotland, I'd probably be thinking about going to bed soon. I certainly wouldn't be wearing a bathing suit.

San Diego really is a world away. Or, I guess at this point, Edinburgh is.

Stories, starting with Stonehenge

There's not much happening at home. I read Clockwork Angel (all 478 pages) today, and I'm working on getting my hands on American Gods. (Even though I've got a million other books to read.) I unpacked a little more, and tracked down a cell phone/mobile charger that will fit into an American wall socket. Started another book and watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith with the Brother.

Yesterday was more exciting. I went surfing with my dad, then ice skating with a bunch of friends from high school. One of them graduated early and is going to be traveling this winter and upcoming spring. I can't quite express the degree of envy that inspires, so I'm not even going to try.

To avoid boring anyone this summer with tales of how many seconds I managed to catch a wave, I'm going to tell stories--completely out of order--and slooowwly put up pictures of my own travels. Stuff I hadn't yet gotten to before disappearing back into the wilderness.

Not that Stonehenge is really the wilderness. At all. I stayed in the quaint and touristy little town nearest it, Salisbury, for two nights. Showed up at the train station, disembarked, and called the YHA hostel as I started walking toward it to see if I could book a room.

They were full. Cue one of those brow-furrowing, "Hmm" moments where all that's to be done is turn over your current predicament in your mind a bit before you can even start to churn out possible solutions.

Didn't know anyone. Evening. Exhausted. Didn't have anywhere to stay. Shit, I shouldda stayed in Oxford--that was a nice hostel, at least.

In the end, I just started walking into town. Really, there wasn't much else to be done. My plan was to stop at each hotel I saw and ask about prices, but the very first place I passed--a pub--advertised accommodation vacancies. So I went in, more or less ignored the harmless old drunks that wanted to hit on me, and arranged to rent a private room for twenty-five pounds a night. Not a bad deal, considering I'd had to pay eighteen pounds a night in Oxford to share a room with fifteen other people.

I didn't actually make it out to Stonehenge until the next day. I came downstairs and met another American guy about my age from D.C. at breakfast. He was affable and nice, and we hung out pretty much all day.

I'd been told a few times that Stonehenge was kind of disappointing, so I had pretty low expectations. I needn't have bothered--Stonehenge was fantastic. No, you don't get to crawl over the stones and chip off pieces to take home, but I'm one of those people who finds that rather horrifying, anyway.

I want to go back and have a picnic out there one day. You're all welcome to join me. It's going to be wonderful. :)

I'm home.

I'm exhausted beyond belief and confused at how nothing seems to have changed, but very very pleased at the enormous pile of books waiting for me. I'm not even sure I'll be able to make it through them before classes start back up in September.

And yes, that is a lava lamp. And yes, I did win it at Chuck E. Cheese, thankyouverymuch.

Why hello there, Ahmurica. Happy bday.

(Originally posted on Tumblr on July 4, 2011.)

So the last few weeks, as predicted, were a big fat failure in terms of blogging. But really, they were too awesome to stop what I was doing and sit around on the computer for longer than it took to check my email and make sure there weren't any deadlines I was missing. (Housing for next year: boom. Sorted.)

I'm not in Edinburgh anymore. I flew away on a big fat jet plane yesterday afternoon and forgot that sleeping on said big fat jet plane might help negate the worst of jetlag. At this precise moment in time it's seven AM, Eastern time, and I've been up for almost two hours. Goodness gracious me-oh-my, I'm going to be exhausted by the time the fireworks start tonight.

(And a happy fourth of July to all the rest of the Ahmurica. Hope yours won't be as rainy as the one I'll be having.)

Getting through customs was a nightmare compared to every other trip through customs I've taken in the past year. (Even Heathrow, which you always hear horror stories about.) It's weird being around only one kind of accent. I kept using the wrong words in conversation last night. (My uncle had to ask what a "flat" is--an apartment.) I found the $25 USD my mother handed me last September to be used when I finally left Edinburgh, but I can't find my American sim card. I know it's around somewhere, but I remember putting it somewhere "safe" while I was packing for move-out (you remember, that night I didn't sleep?) and we all know how well that always turns out.

And... that's probably the extent of what you'll be hearing about my return-culture-shock, because to be honest it's completely unsettling and I'm not sure how to put everything into words. I do have internet access, though, and it looks like I'll be having plenty of quiet time to myself in the mornings. So there'll be anecdotes about traveling with Melbourne and her mother through England, wandering through Budapest, getting caught in the rain in Prague, and visiting Skye to see an (ex) flatmate. And I'll be going into NYC tomorrow and the day after, so... yeah. Be mentioning that as well, more'n likely.

It's all going to be all right. I could use some quiet time to myself, probably. And I've got plenty of new books to read. :)

Catch-up!

Soooo, I updated my Tumblr once while I was abroad. This is that post, from June 13, 2011 (i.e., like two weeks ago):

There is going to be minimal keeping-up with the blogging/documentation, as there has been in the almost-week-and-a-half since I moved out of my housing. Internet is just too hard to come by without an laptop/ipad/cell phone/itouch/something that does me good when there’s wifi around.

I’ve been snaking my way across England the last week or so, mostly with Melbourne and her mother—we started in the Yorkshire Dales, then sort of criss-crossed back up to the Lake District (I played the piano in John Ruskin’s house! =P), then went south to Chester to see some Roman and English Civil War stuff. I split with them the next morning and took a train to Oxford, then another train to Salisbury—the closest town to Stonehenge, which was FANTASTIC—and then flew out of London to Budapest.

I’ve finally got internet, all thanks to the hostel I’m staying at. (Haven’t found a single internet cafe yet, but now I don’t need to!)

Budapest is pretty fantastic. Gorgeous, and all I did was wander today. After dinner I walked down the riverfront (of the Danube) past the parliament, across a bridge, past the palace, and back up the other side of the river. Marvelous pictures, but I don’t know if I brought the right cord to do any uploading. (Move-out/packing for this trip turned into an all-nighter, so I’m still not quite sure what’s in my bag.)

The hostel is nice, even if the internet is slow. The rooms are big and brightly colored, and the people are nice. I’m going to the opera tomorrow with a Dutch guy I met tonight—the tickets are so cheap. There’s a tram line right outside, though, so I’m glad I’ve got ear plugs. (Lame but effective.)

And the heat out here. It’s not as humid as I was expecting, but my fingers have swollen up. It makes me glad I haven’t been wearing rings.

Suddenly so, so tired. Going to see Verdi’s Otello tomorrow evening at the opera. G’night, world. <3

Last night

Tonight's the last night of my lease. Those of us that're left will be kicked out tomorrow at ten AM, bright and... semi-early. And no, I'm not packed yet. I'm working on it. I tried to take a picture of the bomb site that is my room, but my camera died.

I'm kind of freaking out. Not too much, but I'm hungry and all the food has been binned and I'm tired because it's three in the morning, and it's not really making for the best mental state at the moment.

And even if I was packed at this precise moment in time, I'd still have to vacuum and dust. Gaaahhh.

Kincaid's Court, it's been... interesting. Both disgusting and the best year of my life thus far.

This weather--I just can't even.

It's raining. But the sky is blue. And there's sunlight glaring like crazy off the wet rooftops.

I just don't even understand Scottish weather. (But it is kind of exciting.)

Room with a view

I had a nice little room in Naxos at this place called Pension Irene. Irene's son met me at the Naxos dock at 11:30 at night when I arrived and offered me a thirty euro room. I snorted, and he offered it for twenty. I told him I'd pay fifteen, and he grumbled but gave in. No hard feelings, either. He was a very nice guy. On my last day there, he let me stay in the room until midnight for five euros.

The shower sucked and sprayed water everywhere, but at least it sprayed warm water. And I had a double bed, a television, a mini-kitchen (with a kettle for tea!), and a balcony. Not bad a'tall.

Looking left out of the balcony...

And looking right. Yes, that is the ocean off in the distance. It was about a ten minute walk away, maybe less.

From a distance

I really, really fell in love with Ariadne's Arch, in case you couldn't tell.

Pictures from Naxos' dock

The Turkish castle. Opening times varied and the entrance was difficult to find. (So no, I didn't make it inside.)

Naxos' waterfront. Ariadne's Arch is almost directly behind the camera.

Inland

Another photo from the bike ride around Naxos, this one from securely inland. That hill in the background is actually another island, though. (Paros, I think. Which I ended up on eventually, though it wasn't part of the original plan.)

Ugh.

LOOK AT THAT HILL. Ugh.

(Taken during my bike ride around Naxos.)

Cycling Naxos

View of Naxos town, Greece. Probably my favorite (inhabited) island. That teeny-tiny little blue-domed roof is a block away from where I stayed. I rented a bike and went cycling through the hills with the goal of making it to the ruins of the temple of Demeter, about 6 km from Naxos town. I made it about four km before I got sick of eating bugs and worrying about being hit by trucks and smartcars as I cycled, then turned around and went back. (Which must have been slightly downhill, because it was infinitely easier going.)

And this is that goddamn bike. Made it back to the waterfront and collapsed onto a bench for a while before heading back into town to an internet cafe, then to shower, return the bike, and dinner. Phew.

More wildflowers and ruins

More wildflowers and ruins on Delos, Greece.

Delos

This was my first view of Delos, which is an uninhabited island about half an hour by boat from Mykonos. It used to be inhabited, which is what makes it such a modern archeological theme park.

The wind was bitterly cold and ferociously strong, which I hadn't been expecting. I was very, very under-dressed and probably looked like I was doing the I-have-to-pee dance during the whole two-hour tour just to keep moderately warm.

See that? It used to be someone's window.

There were wildflowers growing and blooming everywhere. The colors coupled with the bitter wind and absolutely gorgeous ruins made Delos exactly what I was looking for--it felt like I'd really gone somewhere new.

The boat runs from Mykonos once every two or three days, depending on the season and the weather. It took four days for me to make it out to Delos. I'd almost given up on getting there at all--there'd been a storm, the weather still wasn't great and the travel agent told me the wrong time for the boat. I ended up racing along the waterfront to the end of the dock--sprinting like I was in the sixth grade Olympics--but I made it before they cast off.

(I still breathe a sigh of relief when I think about how close I cut it. They pulled up the gangplank/walkway/whatever it's called behind me as I boarded.)

There aren't any second stories (storeys?) surviving today, but apparently in ancient times they were about as common as in I.V. or P.Q. (I.e., very. Many buildings had them.)

The ledge was used to hold olive oil lamps. And the surviving plaster on the wall! So cool.

Ruins for as far as the eye could see. Ohhhh my god, it was beautiful. (And cold.)

And the famous Delian lions! These are copies, though. They moved the originals into a small museum on the island to protect them from the damage they'd been receiving from smog and air pollution and such.