Trinity Term

So I moved into my new flat on Friday. I am living with two girls who just arrived for Trinity term, Teri and Clothilde, who both go to UMass. Rob is our fourth flatmate. He is a British graduate student studying maths, and he has been living in this apartment all year. They all seem like great people. Clothilde is a classic Bostonian, and it's kind of hilarious. The flat is pretty nice. Not the best, but it'll work out. Ted, a boy who was here for last term, has been chilling here until his flight in a few days, so we've had an extra roommate staying in our living room. It's been fun having him around, and it's going to be kind of weird to see him leave since he seems like a fifth roommate at this point. This group has such a different dynamic than the Wilson Place crew, and it'll be neat to have a different experience this term. I miss those guys though. Karl and I have been trying to get together, but it just isn't happening easily. It was so nice to just live a few meters away from the guys. But it's nice to have more people in my own house too. It got lonely when Amanda was away.

I met with both of my tutors today. And I love them to death. Sam Thompson is my Shakespeare tutor. He is about thirty, and he just finished his doctorate. He seems like he is going to be able to teach me a lot, am I'm excited to read all of the obscure plays that I would never do on my own. He liked my essay, so that was good to hear, and we had a better discussion than I ever had with Gareth or Rob. It was just more two-sided than it ever was last term, so that is good.

After my meeting with Sam, I wandered over to Dr. Hurst's house. His wife answered the door, and was absolutely adorable. She asked for my name, and then she brought me into the study that was stock full of books. Books on the shelves, on the tables, on the floor. It was amazing. Then Mrs. Hurst introduced me, and then asked me of what origin my surname was. And Dr. Hurst immediately said, "it's Hungarian, of course". And so I said, yes, and went into my family history. And then Mrs. Hurst brought me tea and some biscuits. And Dr. Hurst and I chatted about random things and about what we were going to study this term. He is probably 85 years old, and absolutely adorable. And he's probably the smartest person I have ever spoken with. He just has so much wisdom crammed in that head of his. I told him that my parents lived in New Hampshire and that I went to school in Ohio, and he said "oh, so you must have grown up in Ohio?" I am guessing he could tell from my accent or something. I don't know. He spent a year at Bowdoin in Maine and some time at "Harvard, of course".. hilarious. Then in the end, he got my phone number (because he doesn't use e-mail) and he guessed at the spelling of Gerseny.. and he put a "z" in it. How funny is that? He knows his Hungarian, apparently. Anyway, I think that he is great and I love his cluttered house and his Swiss wife, and I am very excited for this term. I am going to learn everything there is to know about the Tudors and Shakespeare. Yay learning.

Family Vacation 2009

After a few days of rest after Italy, I met Mom, Dad, and Laura at the bus stop on Saturday morning. We wandered around Oxford that afternoon and walked up the tower of the University Church to get a nice aerial view of the city.

On Sunday, Mom, Dad, and Laura went to Bath while I read for the Shakespeare paper I didn't write before they arrived.

We took a tour of the Bodleian Library on Monday, which I'm sure will make all the Hopkinton Librarians very jealous.

Mom, Laura, and I got pies, peas, and mashed potatoes (how cliche) for lunch in a covered market while Dad went to the Oxford Rotary meeting. We then met up and went to Blenheim Palace, the estate where generations of Churchills have lived. The gardens around Blenheim are absolutely amazing, and it was a shame that we were kicked out so early because we probably could have spent all evening there.

Laura and I went to a Wailers concert on Monday night. It was so much fun, but probably nothing like it would have been with Bob Marley.

On Tuesday, we all went to Stratford-upon-Avon. Since I had already been there with the OSAP program, I sat in a cafe and wrote my Shakespeare paper (how appropriate to do so in Stratford) while they toured around. We went to see As You Like It that evening. It was such a good show. Absolutely hilarious. I loved it. Beforehand, we went to dinner at a place where Dad had been as a kid, and we made friends with this old lady at the table next to us. She was all about Stratford and England. It was cute.

We went to Wells on Wednesday to check out the market, bishop's palace, and cathedral. It was such a cute town, and the cathedral was pretty amazing.


We went to Cardiff on Thursday. Hooray for adding another country onto my list! We didn't really do anything other than check out the castle since it took a while to get there, but it was interesting enough to occupy us for the day.

The inside of the newest building is absolutely amazing. It might even be considered gaudy, but I appreciate bright colors and busy patterns, so I loved it. I was pretty surprised by the decor of it.

We went to Stonehenge, Old Sarum, and Salisbury on Friday.

It was amazing to be able to see Stonehenge after hearing about it for so many years. I wish I lived nearby so that I could sneak in at night and not be forced to stand so far away; that is kind of ridiculous. Old Sarum is one of the oldest settlements in England. Romans and Normans were both there before the British used it, but it was eventually abandoned when the town moved to the present town of Salisbury. This is a photo of the foundation of the old cathedral.

Then we went to Salisbury Cathedral. I don't know why, but I didn't get any photos of the outside. Neither did Laura. We both must have been distracted. Anyway, this is the oldest clock in England I guess:

What surprised all four of us about Salisbury Cathedral is that there is an original copy of the Magna Carta on display in the Chapter Room. There were 40 copies made in the thirteenth century, and the first thirteen on them were written in one hand. Of the 40, there are only four that remain. The one that is in the best condition, and just happens to be one of the first thirteen, is on display in Salisbury. It was very random and incredibly exciting to see. We were all astonished at how little security was guarding such an important historical document.

We headed for London on Saturday morning. We tried to go into Westminster Abbey, but there was an event going on, so unfortunately, we never got to do that. We did go to St. Paul's Cathedral though, and that was good enough for me. What a beautiful building. It was one of the nicest cathedrals I have ever been in. And I guess I can thank Queen Victoria for that, because she apparently visited at one point, and complained that it was too dull, so many beautiful mosaics were installed. We took a tour of the cathedral and the crypt (where Duke Wellington and Lord Nelson are buried) and then went up into the dome. The Whispering Gallery is the area at the top of, but still inside, the dome. Laura and Mom stood on the opposite side from Dad and I, and we were able to hear each other whispering from across the way. That is amazing architecture, let me tell you. Nice work, Christopher Wren. We also went into the tower with a staircase that does not have any support other than the wall and the previous stairs. It was pretty remarkable. Part of Harry Potter was filmed there. I shamefully admit that I didn't recognize them from any of the movies.

That night, we went to see Sunset Boulevard at Leicester Square. It was one of the best performances I've ever seen. The actors were the orchestra, and they played their instruments while acting, singing, and dancing. It was amazing. I was very impressed. The story's plot was kind of strange, but it was still a wonderful show.

The London Marathon was happening on Sunday, so that made navigating through the city a little difficult. Laura and I went to the National Gallery and wandered around before meeting Anastasiya, our Russian exchange student from sophomore year of high school. We were so happy to see her. It had been a really long time. She is pretty much exactly the same. We eventually made it to the Tower of London, and took a tour with an hilarious tour guide that I couldn't get enough of.

We saw the crowned jewels and some films of Lizzy's coronation, showing that those ridiculous things are actually used in real life. I can't imagine. We walked over Tower Bridge, past the Globe (we sadly could not get any last minute tickets), and then had dinner in Covent Garden.

On Monday morning, us girls ran around Harrod's department store while Bobby went to the Methodist center. Mom, Dad, and Laura left for the airport around noon, and I left for Oxford. Overall, it was an amazing week, and I am so happy that I was able to see my family. It will make these next two months much easier, I'm sure.

Roma! part 2

Now for my time in Rome…

We just hung around all day Saturday until we went to meet Barbara Anne at the train station around 18.00. After we dropped her stuff off at Julien’s apartment, we went to go get pizza at this little hole in the wall place. They just make huge sheet pizzas and then cut rectangular pieces to whatever size you want. They use huge scissors to cut the pieces. It was goofy. We ate our pizza while watching all the cats run around the ruins. I forgot how infested Rome was with cats. It’s kind of ridiculous.

We then continued our nice nightly stroll through the Vatican and then up this hill that Julien loves because you can get a pretty good view of the city from it.

The next morning, Sarah and I got up early to go to Palm Sunday service at St. Peter’s. It was pretty amazing. There were seats set up in the square, and then tons of people were standing farther back. We did not want to get up early to try to get seats, so we just stood in the back. There was a processional where all these priests brought palms up to the steps of St. Peter’s, and the Pope followed them from the monument in the middle of the square.

They had a really great choir and several passages were read in a few languages. The Pope gave the sermon, but it was in Italian, so we got kind of antsy standing in the heat for so long, so we left.

We went to a café near the Pantheon to get a drink, and afterward, when we were maybe two blocks away, I realized that I had forgotten my palm on the table. We went back to try to find it, but the table already had another patron at it and our waiter was not in the mood to ask around for us. Oh well. I’ll just have to go back some day.

When Sarah and I got back to Julien’s, the rest of them were having a picnic out in the courtyard. We hung out there for a while and one of the old men that lives in the complex fell in love with Sarah (she has blonde hair and blue eyes, so go figure). He came outside and started painting these small statues of the Virgin Mary, and then he motioned for Sarah to come look at them and then he showed her all the statues around the courtyard that he had painted. He was adorable. And Sarah knows a little Italian because she befriended a lot of Italians in France, so that was good because they old guy knew no English. That night we made chicken, risotto, and asparagus for dinner and we brought the table out to the balcony so that we could eat outside. It was awesome. Then we went on a walk to the Forum and Colosseum. I loved wandering around Rome at night when all the (other) tourists were at dinner or asleep. It was really peaceful.

We found a random mattress in Julien’s apartment, and so Alex and I decided to bring it out to the balcony so that we could sleep outside. Around 3.00, Julien’s really drunk roommates came home and outside and they woke us up. They went to the other end of the balcony so it was no big deal, but then the balcony was shaking and we didn’t know what was going on. Alex and I were both groggy since we had just been woken up, so I thought that he was moving around and it was just the mattress that was shaking, but he thought Julien’s roommates were making the balcony move. Whatever we thought, we were annoyed, so we moved inside. When I went into my room, Sarah asked me if that was an earthquake or people jumping on beds. I laughed because I thought that the idea of an earthquake was ridiculous and so it must have just been people jumping on beds. The next morning, I walked into the dining room and Julien goes “so, how bout that earthquake last night”. We looked it up at it was like a 6.3 on the Richter. That’s not a small earthquake. It was about 60 kilometers away from Rome, and it shook the house that much. Granted, we thought it was people jumping on beds, but we were tired and confused. But it’s pretty crazy to have experienced an earthquake. It shook the house for ten seconds or so. I don’t know how I didn’t realize what was going on.

On Monday we bought a ticket to go see the Colosseum, Forum, and Palatine Hill. There were lilacs all over the place and they were so beautiful and smelled like heaven. I was happy. We then went to check out the Trevi Fountain.

We decided to make Tuesday our day trip day, and we agreed on the beach. This place called Ostia Antica is apparently a wonderful little town on the coast, so we decided to check it out. We never really made it to the little town though because the metro went past it to get to a stop closer to the beach. Oh well. We brought a picnic and just hung out all day long. We had so many picnics, and they all consisted of bread, cheese, and fruit. I don’t know how much cheese we all ate that week, but it was a disgusting amount. It was just too delicious to pass up. It wasn’t the warmest of days, but it was sunny and the water was actually surprisingly warm for April (probably just because we’re all used to the freezing NH beaches). The boys went swimming. We got gelato at a little place in the town, which was a cute Italian version of a beach town. I loved all the houses.

We went to the Pantheon and the Spanish Steps on Wednesday.

And then we went to this huge park and rented a four person bike and a two person bike. The seats were side by side on both of them, so they were like little cars. We had a blast racing around the park on those things. That night, we went to dinner at a place that Sarah had read about in a travel book. It was called Alfredo e Ada. And they don’t have menus. We sat down, and Alfredo (who was the cutest old man alive; I fell in love with him) brought us over a jug of wine and a basket of bread. He then brought out the first course, which was a pasta dish with absolutely delicious marinara sauce. I don’t know what Ada did to it, but it was awesome. We then had a choice between veal, beef, or fish for the second course. I chose the beef, which was also fantastic. Italians really have it down. Then Alfredo brought out these desert cookies that we had been watching other dip into their wine, and so we did the same. I didn’t think that made them any better really, but they were still great.

On Thursday we did the Vatican thing. They were setting up for that weekend inside St. Peter’s, so I couldn’t get directly underneath the dome to take a photo laying down like I did back in the day, but oh well. We climbed to the top of the dome again, but then it was absolutely packed at the top, so we didn’t spend too much time outside.

That night we made pizzas. So many pizzas. They were fabulous, but we pretty much couldn’t move after eating so much food. And we couldn’t find yeast (or we didn’t know how yeast was said in Italian) so we just kind of made the dough with flour. It was weird, but it turned out okay.

Julien’s professors had told him about a park a few miles outside of Rome where there are really neat ruins of the aqueducts, so we went to check them out on Friday. When we got off the metro stop, we didn’t really know where to go, so we just started walking in a random direction. Eventually, we could see the aqueducts in the distance, so we just kept walking toward them. This was a bad idea, because we got to the park a really roundabout and ridiculous way. We had to cross train tracks and climb over fences and then walk through random fields. But in the end we got to the nice part of the park. And, of course, we had a picnic.

We went out to dinner on Friday night for Alex’s birthday. I got an amazing artichoke pasta dish with veal. It was delicious.

Sarah and Barbara Anne had to leave on Saturday afternoon, so Julien and I took Sarah to her metro stop while the other two walked Barbara Anne to the train station. Then the four of us just hung out all day. That night we went out around the Trastevere neighborhood, which is where Julien’s apartment is. Italians are crazy. A network of about ten streets is just packed with people during the weekend nights. The cars and scooters have to go so slowly to get down them. And people just hang out on random people’s doorsteps. We were sitting on one for a while, and the guy who lived there just knocked on the door so that he could come outside. It was goofy. I had a good time.

The next morning, on Easter, I had to get to the train station at about 9. The service at St. Peter’s was at 10.15 and I couldn’t find any earlier services (probably because every Italian is out so late on Saturday nights), so I had to miss Easter Sunday this year. It was really weird. I hadn’t even thought about when I booked my flight a few months ago. Oh well. As I walked to the train station, tons of bells were chiming throughout the city. That was pretty neat.

My flight went well, but this Australian kid wanted to talk to me the entire time. I was not in the mood for small talk; I just wanted to sleep. Oh well. I got into London Gatwick, caught the bus, and was back in Oxford around 16.00. I was so happy to be home and able to stay in one spot for a while. But then I was locked out of my house. Our deadbolt was loose, and I was consistently tightening the screws so that it wouldn’t fall off, but while I was away, it got to a point where one of the screws had fallen off and made a problem. I don’t really know what happened with it, but Amanda couldn’t even open it from the inside. We just took the entire deadbolt off and it was fine, but I was very annoyed with the whole deal.

For the past couple of days I have just been lounging around, watching LOST, and getting ready to move. I am moving to:

11a Little Clarendon St.
Oxford, UK OX1 2HP

It’s in an area called Jericho, which is really busy and where lots of students hang out, so I’m thankful to be moving. It’ll be nice to have two different experiences for my two different terms. And I emailed a kid from the OSAP program to see if he would sell me his bike, so hopefully that happens. My family is getting in on Saturday morning and I am so excited! I cannot wait to see them.

Here Goes...

I have now been back in Oxford for two days, and I’m not going to lie, it feels wonderful to be able to stay in one spot for a while. Even though I will have to move apartments this week, I will still be in the same city, and that’s nice. I had an amazing time traveling, but it’s extremely exhausting and expensive, so it’s nice to be back.

March 24^th…Amanda and I caught the bus bright and early on Tuesday morning to get to Luton Airport. Apparently you can’t buy tickets from the bus driver as easily as you can on the buses to Heathrow and Gatwick, so I had a slight heart attack when I thought that we weren’t going to be able to catch the bus. The bus driver was nice enough to let us buy a ticket from him in the end though, so everything worked out. We got to the airport and pretended to sleep for a while until our 06:10 flight to Amsterdam. Once at the airport in Amsterdam, we caught a train to the central train station, which was conveniently only a few blocks away from our hostel. We found it quickly, and it seemed nice enough, but I will never again stay in a room with thirty other people. They just had two large dormitory rooms, and it was cheap, so that was nice, but people tend not to be very conscientious when coming home late after a night out on the town. It was pretty obnoxious. Live and learn.

After not sleeping all night and not having eaten for a long time, the first thing we did after dropping our stuff off at the hostel was go for traditional Dutch pancakes. The waitress recommended apple and bacon, which was delicious:

Amanda got something that probably gave her the six cavities she had when she went to the dentist last week.

Over the next two days, we went to Anne Frank’s House, the Van Gogh Museum, and the Rijksmuseum, which were all really great. The Rijksmuseum was under construction, so we didn’t get to see everything it has, but we still got to see its best paintings, and we jumped on to a tour group to learn all about them. Anne Frank’s House was pretty neat, but I feel like they could do a lot more with it. It was definitely a strange experience being able to walk up to and around the annex where they hid for so long. The Van Gogh museum was by far my favorite. We had perfect timing because we visited when they were displaying Starry Night and other paintings on loan from the MoMA in New York; I was very pleasantly surprised. I really like Van Gogh. After visiting the sophisticated museums that Amsterdam had to offer, we had to go to a Sex Museum and the Hash, Marihuana and Hemp Museum. How could we not? One time is probably enough though. The Sex Museum was frightening and the Hash museum was just kind of boring.

One evening while I was napping and Amanda was reading, she was interrupted by the first of the several new friends we met on our adventures. Kane the Australian. He was a semi-professional surfer who had been on an internship in Japan and was now just running around Europe by himself. He hadn’t met up with anyone yet, so hadn’t talked to anyone, so he chatted Amanda’s ear off for a while. When I woke up, I was happy to hear that we met this kid because we wanted to check out the Red Light District, but we didn’t want to go alone. And Kane wanted to too, but he felt that it was even weirder for a guy to be going alone. So off we went. It was not as crazy as I thought it was going to be, but maybe it was because it was a weeknight? I don’t know. It was what I had heard it was. Bars and prostitutes.

The only thing that really surprised me was one morning, Amanda and I walked to the grocery store to buy some peanut butter and bread (which was the only thing we ate for two days straight) and as we were walking home, we saw several prostitutes sitting in their windows drinking cokes, reading the newspaper, doing whatever. It was hilarious. They weren’t really trying to get anyone’s attention like they do at night, but they were there if someone wanted them. Strange.

We also visited the street where Amanda’s grandfather had once lived. When planning our trip, we thought we’d make it a heritage quest and go to Holland for Amanda and Hungary for me, but then getting to Hungary was too expensive, so we bailed on that idea. In the end, as you will learn, I got a different type of heritage quest in the end. Hooray for the American melting pot.

It was raining or drizzling pretty much the entire time we were in Amsterdam, so that took a little away from it, but it was still a really beautiful city. All the canals have boats and houses on them, and everyone rides bikes. I was amazed at how many bikes there were. It was really great to see. Instead of parking lots for cars, they had lots for bikes. You wouldn’t really need a car in that city though; it’s pretty compact

.

On to Prague! Kane decided to tag along, so the three of us got on a train at 19:00. I guess I didn’t know how to book a sleeper car on the Dutch website, so Amanda and I didn’t have beds. We had a car to ourselves though, so we were able to lay down on the seats, so it worked out. Sort of. In the morning I woke up to discover that I had been robbed. I was so mad at myself. I don’t know how many times I read that sleeper trains are sketchy and that Czechs in particular are as well. I was just exhausted, and hadn’t thought about it when I went to sleep, but my purse was completely out in the open. We couldn’t lock our car, so if anyone popped their head in, they would have seen my purse right above my head. I had taken out 100 euros because I was running out in Amsterdam and I knew I would need euros in Vienna anyway. So they took 100 euros from me. Awesome. I was seething that morning, but I just had to remind myself that I was lucky that they hadn’t taken my entire wallet, my passport, or my life, so I was fine. I’m still annoyed by the whole ordeal though. Who steal like that? I’d rather they pick my pocket instead of sneaking around when I’m asleep. At least the former would take some sort of skill.

No matter. We arrived in Prague and got kind of lost on our way to the hostel. We eventually found it, and billions of high school kids were arriving at the same time. Some sort of Interact/Rotary trip. This was a really nice hostel. Amanda, Kane, and I had a room to ourselves for the first night, and then the second night two other kids stayed with us, but they didn’t bother us. We first wandered around and up a hill to get a great view of the city. Prague was so beautiful.

Then we checked out the Jewish Quarter, where we went into the oldest extant synagogue in Europe. Pretty neat.

We went to a small pub for lunch. I had goulash, and it was extremely delicious. I would go back to Prague just for that. That night, Amanda and I went to see Black Light Theater. It was probably the goofiest thing I’ve seen in a while. The performers weren’t the best acrobats, but some of the acts were creative, so it was cool. I enjoyed it.

The hostel gave us free breakfast (just cereal, but they also provided coffee or tea, which I hadn’t had in days, so that was wonderful), and the first morning there we met Jeff and Dan. Jeff and Dan are in the US Army. Jeff is a captain, and a medic. He is planning on going to PA school soon. Dan recently graduated from West Point, and is a lieutenant. They are stationed in Grafenwoehr, Germany, and were in Prague with their friends Mike (also a West Point grad) and Sarah (I have no idea about her, really). Sarah was running the Prague marathon that day, so they had all driven down for it. Amanda and I were at breakfast, and so I guess it was only natural for Dan and Jeff to strike up a conversation. We told them that we were planning on going to see the castle that day, and they decided to come along. Sarah and Mike had booked a hotel room, so we met up with them later in the day. The five of us went to the castle (Kane is still with us at this point). We got there in time to see the major changing of the guard deal at noon, which was pretty neat to see. We wandered around some more and went into the cathedral, which was really beautiful. That evening, Amanda and I went to see Salvador Dali and Alfonse Mucha exhibits before going to see a concert in one of the churches in the old square. I have decided that Mucha is one of my favorite artists. They had set up a little festival in the square, I’m assuming in preparation for Easter, so Amanda and I got this random pastry called a Trdelnik (good thing you made me write that down, Amanda) and watched some goofy singing and dancing routines.

The next morning, Amanda and I made the most spontaneous, ridiculous, and probably stupid decision we have ever or may ever make. In the end, it turned out fabulously, but I probably won’t do anything like it ever again. I actually probably won’t have the chance to, so it doesn’t even matter. Jeff and Dan invited us to go to their base with them. So we did. Kane opted out, which made sense, seeing as how it is in the middle of nowhere, and it wouldn’t be that cool for him to see a US base anyway. He headed off to the airport to go somewhere (Paris, we would later learn), and we drove to Germany with four strangers. Mike has a big house that we all crashed at, and he has unlimited minutes to the US on his landline, so if anything had gone wrong, the trip would have been worth it to be able to call my parents and Griffin. And I got to go to Germany, which is even more relevant than Hungary actually, so I had my heritage quest as well I guess.

We went to the base with them, which is where Hitler used to watch his troops train and whatnot, so it was pretty neat actually. And Bavarian architecture is awesome. All the houses look like giant gingerbread houses. I loved them. We went grocery shopping at this mall that is basically mini America right inside Germany. I got some taco bell. I have not seen taco bell anywhere else in Europe. It was nice to have a taste of home after being away for three months. And it was nice to get out of a city. Amanda and I are both countryish girls, so even though Grafenwoehr doesn’t really have anything to offer, we were thrilled to go there and see some fields. We were very excited on the drive down to see all the small villages scattered about.

That's the Welcome to Germany sign...

We made some pasta that night and watched It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I really felt like I was back in the States. It was weird. The next day, we were supposed to go get lunch with Jeff and Dan on their break and then head to Nuremberg, but they had to get back to work sooner than they had expected, so they quickly drove us to the train station to see us off. This is the only part that was a real problem, but again, it turned out okay. I don’t know how we were so lucky, but we were definitely well looked after. The guys had to hurry off to work, so they dropped us off at the train station which is a little shack in the middle of nowhere with a dilapidated building across the tracks. It was very sketchy. They left as soon as the train was pulling in. And then these German men who were farther down the tracks started screaming at us and waving to us. We had no idea what was going on. We got on the train, but only one other woman was on it, and so we asked her if it was going to Nuremberg. She didn’t really speak English, but she said no about Nuremberg. So we hopped off the train, and luckily, the guys had come back because they had not felt right about leaving us there all alone, not knowing a bit of German. They figured out for us that the tracks are down farther on, so a bus was taking people from the station to another station. That’s what the German’s had been yelling to us about. We thought we had been in trouble. Whoops. So they drove us to the next station, where we thought we’d be able to catch the train. They left us at that one, which was okay because it was more legitimate than the other one. But the tracks were still down at the second one. There was at least a sign that said so in English, though. So we knew that we had to get on a bus. We had to wait for it for a while, but it came eventually, and we caught our train and arrived in Nuremberg in one piece.

I absolutely loved Nuremberg! It’s such an old city, and you can tell that it was surrounded by a moat; it’s awesome.

We were able to walk around the city and see all the significant churches and the old castle in a couple of hours. They had a little market square that we wandered around, and we made friends with this vendor who sold a tea cup to me. He was really goofy, and he brought us to this random ring that, when touched, apparently gives you good luck.

The army boys had told us that we had to try a Hefeweizen, so we went to a pub to try one out. Amazing. It tasted like bananas. We had to walk through Nuremberg’s Red Light District to get to a pub the guys had recommended. It was no big deal really. Just a bunch of half naked girls tapping at windows. A few of them tapped at us. I had no idea that it was legal anywhere else other than the Netherlands. But I just Wikapediaed it, and there is actually regulated prostitution in several countries and in parts of Nevada and Rhode Island. What? You learn something new every day. Back to our hostel, which was another pretty nice one, even though a kid stole my bed after I had made it so I had to make another one… Overall, it was nice though.

The next morning, we got on a train to Vienna. Doris, our couchsurfing host, met us at the train station. She is twenty years old, German, and studying in Vienna after a year as a au pair in Kansas. She had a class to go to, so after dropping our stuff off at her apartment, Amanda and I ran around Vienna together. We got on one of the trams that goes all around the center of town, and just stayed on it to get our bearings. We were obviously tourists, and this old woman sitting behind Amanda started pointing sites out to us. It was so cute. She couldn’t speak English, and we couldn’t speak German, but we could figure out what she was saying anyway, and she would point to the map and things. It made my day.

I gave Alex, my friend from high school, a call, and we met up with him for a bit before he had to go to dinner with his classmates. Then Amanda and I went to the Opera. It was about 3 euros to get a standing room seat, and so we got some. The ticket office guy was extremely unhelpful, but a man behind us in line tried to help us get the right tickets. We didn’t get what we wanted, but whatever, we were still sort of able to see. Die Tote Stadt (The Dead City) was the name of the opera. It was very strange. They had electronic subtitles in front of every person in the audience, so that was awesome. But we didn’t figure out how to switch them from German to English until the second half. That was less awesome, but at least we were able to figure out what the heck had been going on the entire time. The bulk of the opera is a weird hallucination/dream, so it was odd.

After the opera we met up with Alex for a drink, and then took the tram back to Doris’ apartment. We hung out for a while, but ended up going to bed without really getting to chat with her that much. She seemed like a really interesting and down to earth girl. It would have been cool to have stayed with her a little longer. I learned a lot about the couchsurfing network, and it seems pretty cool, so I’m going to look into it more and maybe find out more about the Oxford network. We were going to get up early to see some more things, but at this point, we were just very very tired, so we slept in and then wandered around the city until we had to go to the airport. Doris had class again, so Alex met up with us for lunch. We got some Wiener Schnitzel, which was pretty good. Not my favorite, but we had to try it. Then Alex brought us to the station so that we could take a train to the airport. It was easy enough, and after a long bus ride, we were back in Oxford around 22:00. It was an amazing trip that I absolutely loved. But I don’t know how people could backpack around Europe for several months. I guess I don’t have the free spirit mindset that a lot of people (like Kane) have; I wanted to plan everything, and it made some parts of the trip really stressful for me. And perhaps most of that stress was unnecessary. Oh well. It was still a great experience that I am so happy to have taken advantage of.