Thursday, April 2, 2009
24 hours in Oxford
We got back from Vienna at about 10:00 last night after a wonderful trip. A full update will have to wait because I just don't have the energy for that right now. Looking through all of my photos, I predict that it is going to take a few hours to describe everything Amanda and I experienced. So, I'll have to keep you in suspense for a while. I am catching a 3:07 am bus for the airport, and I will be arriving in Rome around 10:00 tomorrow morning. I wonder if it'll be less amazing than when I was in the fourth grade... Doubt it. I am staying at my friend Julien's apartment, and four others from Hopkinton will be staying there as well. I am so excited for this reunion. I'll update again once I'm in Italy.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
Off to See the World!
Amanda and I leave in two hours to catch a bus for Luton Airport. Then we will take a four hour nap before we check in for our 6:00 flight. There was no better way to get to the airport, and this was the cheapest flight, so no sleeping in a bed tonight! We will be a wreck tomorrow. Hooray for being young and stupid. We will get into Amsterdam around 8:30, check into our hostel, and then go exploring for two days. Hopefully we will be able to meet up with a girl Amanda has met through her Truman Scholarship interview process. We are also going to find the house where her grandfather grew up. Then, on the 26th, we are taking a sleeper train to Prague. When we arrive, we will find our hostel there, and then again, go exploring for two days. Then probably a bus to Vienna on the 29th, where we will stay with a woman we met on couchsurfing.com. Parents/Grandparents, I haven't mentioned this because I am a little wary of it myself, but we are staying with a woman close to our age, and other couchsurfers are staying with her. On a limited budget, we figured we'd give couchsurfing a try. Plus, we figured that it would be more safe since we will be together. If it is extremely sketchy, I will get in contact with Blackmer (who I am sure we will see, anyway) and beg his house mother to let us stay with him. We are flying back to Luton airport on the 1st. So there's our very rough itinerary. Keep us in your prayers!
Friday, March 20, 2009
Three more days
I only have to read two more articles and then meet with Rob on Monday to talk about them, and then I am done for the term. I don't even have to write an essay for Biochem this week, which is a relief. Egyptology was awful this week. I just didn't care about the topic, and I literally spent all day at my computer trying to write a decent essay. I turned in a terrible one two hours late. And then complained to Gareth about the topic during our tutorial. He told me that he gave me an A for the term though, so I couldn't complain too badly. If only OWU counted these grades...
Amanda and I have been planning our travels for the end of term. Next week, we are heading off to Amsterdam, Prague, and Vienna. She knows a girl in Amsterdam, and Alex Blackmer (a friend from Hopkinton) is in Vienna, so we're pretty set. We just have to figure out the cool things to do in Prague. I am very excited, it should be a fun week. We are flying to Amsterdam and back from Vienna, taking a night train from Amsterdam to Prague, and then either taking a train or a bus from Prague to Vienna. We're covering all the bases.
Tuesday was Karl's birthday. One of his friends is from Korea, and she made sushi. And his Iranian friend made Sangria. A very random combination, but both were delicious. We wore party hats and in no way celebrated St. Patrick's Day like the rest of UK/USA. We went to a club that night and a live jazz band was playing. I recognized the song when we first went in, but I couldn't figure out what it was. I expressed my wonderment to Karl, and he went up to the guitarist and asked him. After trying to figure out what a Swede heard from a Brit, I realized it was Bossa Madeira. Yes Luke and Emily (I think you're the only two who read this that would appreciate it), Bossa Madeira. For everyone else, Bossa Madeira is a song we played in middle school jazz band. These guys were playing songs from the same book we used. I may have requested Blues at Frog Bottom. They didn't play it. I had a lot of fun listening to them though. And reminiscing.
I am moving in the middle of April to an area called Jericho. It is all the way across town, and I will be living with four other girls. Many more OSAP students live close to the house I will be living in, so I am pretty excited about moving. As convenient as it was to live so close to Magdalen, I didn't become great friends with any British students last term, so I don't mind being far away. And since Amanda, Ben, and Ryan are leaving next month, there was no sense staying here. I have gotten pretty lonely as it is, so it would be terrible to be the only OSAP student living in the area. Even if Karl would still be here... I rarely hang out with him. I can't decide if I should get a bike for next term. Now that I know my way around, it seems sensible to. But Chelsey recommended just getting a bus pass, so I'll probably do that since it will cost about the same.
Chelsey and I tried to get dinner at a pub called the Lamb and Flag last night. It's really old and pretty popular, but they don't serve food. It was the first pub I encountered that didn't when I expected it to. It was strange. So we went to this little pasty/panini/ice cream shop instead and got paninis. The sign about milkshakes had a bunch of bullets with sizes, flavors, etc. One of the bullets said "cold or hot". What could that possibly mean? We didn't ask.
Amanda and I have been planning our travels for the end of term. Next week, we are heading off to Amsterdam, Prague, and Vienna. She knows a girl in Amsterdam, and Alex Blackmer (a friend from Hopkinton) is in Vienna, so we're pretty set. We just have to figure out the cool things to do in Prague. I am very excited, it should be a fun week. We are flying to Amsterdam and back from Vienna, taking a night train from Amsterdam to Prague, and then either taking a train or a bus from Prague to Vienna. We're covering all the bases.
Tuesday was Karl's birthday. One of his friends is from Korea, and she made sushi. And his Iranian friend made Sangria. A very random combination, but both were delicious. We wore party hats and in no way celebrated St. Patrick's Day like the rest of UK/USA. We went to a club that night and a live jazz band was playing. I recognized the song when we first went in, but I couldn't figure out what it was. I expressed my wonderment to Karl, and he went up to the guitarist and asked him. After trying to figure out what a Swede heard from a Brit, I realized it was Bossa Madeira. Yes Luke and Emily (I think you're the only two who read this that would appreciate it), Bossa Madeira. For everyone else, Bossa Madeira is a song we played in middle school jazz band. These guys were playing songs from the same book we used. I may have requested Blues at Frog Bottom. They didn't play it. I had a lot of fun listening to them though. And reminiscing.
I am moving in the middle of April to an area called Jericho. It is all the way across town, and I will be living with four other girls. Many more OSAP students live close to the house I will be living in, so I am pretty excited about moving. As convenient as it was to live so close to Magdalen, I didn't become great friends with any British students last term, so I don't mind being far away. And since Amanda, Ben, and Ryan are leaving next month, there was no sense staying here. I have gotten pretty lonely as it is, so it would be terrible to be the only OSAP student living in the area. Even if Karl would still be here... I rarely hang out with him. I can't decide if I should get a bike for next term. Now that I know my way around, it seems sensible to. But Chelsey recommended just getting a bus pass, so I'll probably do that since it will cost about the same.
Chelsey and I tried to get dinner at a pub called the Lamb and Flag last night. It's really old and pretty popular, but they don't serve food. It was the first pub I encountered that didn't when I expected it to. It was strange. So we went to this little pasty/panini/ice cream shop instead and got paninis. The sign about milkshakes had a bunch of bullets with sizes, flavors, etc. One of the bullets said "cold or hot". What could that possibly mean? We didn't ask.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Such a Great Week
Griffin left about an hour ago. What a bittersweet week. We had so much fun, and it was incredible to get to see each other again, but now I'm in the same state that I was in at the beginning of winter break - knowing that it will be a very long time until I get to see him again. Although the past two and a half months did pretty much fly by, there is a longer span of time until we'll see each other this summer, and it's hard not to dwell on how long that actually is.
But enough of that. Here's a rundown of our fabulous week:
He got here last Sunday morning, and we just hung around the flat for a while, went grocery shopping, and made tacos for dinner. The film society was showing Brazil, so we went to see that. Then the jet lag overtook him, and Griffin crashed pretty early. The next day we wandered around Oxford, and I pointed out all the buildings that are significant to my life here. Then we went to bed early so that we could get up at 5:00 in the morning to catch a train to London.
I was too excited to sleep though. I think I only got about 2 hours in total. We walked to the train station in Oxford, and then went to London Paddington. We had to take the Underground to the International train station, and then we got on our train to Paris. Through the chunnel. It was a very exciting expedition, but we both fell asleep too soon to know we were under water crossing the British Channel. Oh well.
We had google-mapped our hotel, so once we got into the train station, we figured it would be pretty easy to walk to our hotel. However, Google maps is not the best tool to use in a city without blocks. We didn't want to spend the money on a taxi though, so we just headed in what we thought would be the right direction, and we actually found our hotel relatively easily, considering the circumstances. We were checked in around 2:00, and we picked up a map and decided to go exploring. The area our hotel was in was pretty neat. It was in northern Paris, and right next to a metro station, so that was very convenient. The buildings in Paris are so beautiful. Griffin probably wanted to kill me by the end of the three days because of how often I commented on them. Every apartment has balconies surrounded with decorative, metal railings. I loved them. And there were small bistros all over the place, each one pretty much the same as the last. But they were pretty expensive, so we only went to them a few times.
The view from our hotel window:
After checking in to our hotel, we went to this little hole in the wall pizza/sandwich place. The guys working there didn't speak any English, and neither Griffin nor I speak French, so we had to get by with pointing and sounding out the words. I have no idea what I actually got, but it was some kind of meat sandwich, and pretty good actually. I am not sure if it was ignorant or hot-headed of us not to think about the language barrier at all before we left, but it just never occurred to me. It's true that most people did speak English, but we were on a limited budget, so we didn't go to touristy places to eat, and so three of our meals were ordered with awkward pronunciations and gestures. As convenient as language is (obviously), it's kind of neat that we don't actually need it. Human nature allows us to be able to get a point across with facial expressions and pointing. But it was nice when our waiter or waitress could speak English.
It was raining, so instead of walking, we then hopped on the metro and headed for Notre Dame. The metro system is huge and pretty intertwined, but really easy to navigate. We just wrote down all the stops and line changes we would have to make, and we got everywhere very easily. The second day we were in Paris, I got to experience being squished up next to strangers for ten or fifteen minutes. As good as public transportation is, I'm glad I don't have to do that all the time, because it was just weird.
Our first ever Paris metro ride, however, was so perfect. We hopped on, and all the seats were taken, so we just stood in front of the doors. We were the only ones standing other than this guy who was standing across from us, playing the guitar. He had his eyes shut the entire time, and he was playing and singing Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World. It was a perfectly romantic beginning to our stay in Paris.
We got off the stop, turned a corner, and immediately saw Notre Dame. It is so ornate and beautiful. We wandered around inside for a while and then went up to the top and to the belfry. It was exhausting climbing the spiral steps up to the top. I felt pathetic.
After we came back down, it had stopped raining, so we decided to walk home. We got a little turned around at first, but then we managed to find the right direction. We saw signs for the Bastille memorial, so we went a little out of our way to see that before heading home.
We went to a little bistro for dinner that night.
On Wednesday we took the metro to Champs-Elysees and got something to eat and just walked up and down both sides of the street. I convinced Griffin to wander around the Louis Vuitton store, because come on, we just had to. It's disgusting how expensive the things are in that store. We tried guessing how much a simple t-shirt would be. We guessed around 70 Euros I think. It actually cost around 250. Insanity.
At the end of Champs-Elysees, we ran into the Arc de Triomphe.
Shamefully, I must admit that neither of us really knew what it was, but we obviously recognized it. It is in the middle of a large round about, but we saw people under it, so we went mad for a while trying to figure out how to get across the multiple lanes of traffic. Then we noticed the stairway leading underground to it. Of course. It is really fabulous. It honors all those who fought for France, particularly during the reign of Napoleon. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from WWI is there too. It's pretty beautiful.
Then we wandered down the other side of the street, turned around, and went back down Champs-Elysees. On our way to the Eiffel Tower, we passed the National Gallery and the Petit Palais, which we randomly went into and wandered around for a while to see the exhibit. We didn't know what it was at first, so we were wandering around like fools, and then someone showed us where to get tickets. It was a very random stop, but it had some neat pieces of art. Then we walked across the Sienne and took a look at the Military Museum at Les Invalides. It is an immense complex, and we didn't have time to enter it to make is a legitimate visit, but next time...
Then we continued to wander, picked up some croissants, and then went to the park in front of the Eiffel Tower to relax for a while.
We were already getting exhausted from the trip. Walking around constantly really tires one out. We waited in line for about an hour, and then headed up the elevator. It stopped on the second floor, and we got out to walk around for a bit before going up to the very top. We finished our croissants and took some photos. Then, up we went. And we staked out a fabulous stop on the western side to watch the sunset. It was a pretty cloudy night, but oh well.
We stood in the same spot for about an hour waiting for the sun to set. We had the best spot, and I think people were getting impatient with us for staying where we were for so long when they wanted to take photos of the sunset. But oh well.
Then we went back down, and on our very roundabout and confused way to the metro station, we stopped by a couple of other American tourists who were taking photos, and we asked them to take one of us in front of the tower.
So cheesy, and I love it!
After finally getting home, we ate a random Chinese food place right by our hotel. Then we crashed. The next day we got up and headed over to the Louvre.
I had no idea how enormous that museum is. You could spend a week in there and still not see everything sufficiently. We went to see the Mona Lisa first and then to the Venus de Milo.
After those two, we wandered around Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, French Sculptures, European Paintings, etc. At one point, we were in a gallery full of huge murals, so we sat down to look at them. I remember thinking to myself that if I laid down, I would fall asleep for days. It's remarkable how exhausting only a few days of site seeing can make you.
Eventually, we just couldn't take in anymore, so we left for the hotel. We got something to eat, picked up our bag, and then headed for the train station. We tried to get an earlier train, but they wouldn't let us exchange our tickets, which I thought was ridiculous. So we did a crossword puzzle (Griffin had collected NY Times crosswords to bring because we usually do one together every day) and waited for our train. We got into Oxford around 12:30, and I had forgotten that the buses stop running after 11:30, so we had to walk about 40 minutes home from the train station. Oh well.
We slept late on Friday, didn't do much in the morning, and then went to see Watchmen in the afternoon. Then we made dinner and waited for Chelsey and Amanda to get back from dining out, and we went to the Magdalen End of Term Party together. I had originally wanted all of the Magdalen OSAP kids to go together, but three of them decided not to go, so it was just the three of us and Griffin. I had a lot of fun. Magdalen rented out a small club, so it was just Magdalen students there. Griffin and I just kind of did our own thing the whole night, and on the way home, we got a kebab. They are probably one of my favorite things about Oxford. Paris had them too. The US needs to adopt the kebab stand.
On Saturday we were lazy all day long. Griffin downloaded and burned all of the LOST seasons for me onto CDs, so we watched a couple of episodes. Then we made a romantic pasta dinner, and watched Burn After Reading after dinner. I didn't think it was very good. The characters are creative and funny, but the plot is just lame and doesn't really go anywhere.
Then this morning Griffin had to leave, so here I am, not wanting to write any essays. I only have one week and then I get a month off, but I cannot motivate myself at all right now.
But enough of that. Here's a rundown of our fabulous week:
He got here last Sunday morning, and we just hung around the flat for a while, went grocery shopping, and made tacos for dinner. The film society was showing Brazil, so we went to see that. Then the jet lag overtook him, and Griffin crashed pretty early. The next day we wandered around Oxford, and I pointed out all the buildings that are significant to my life here. Then we went to bed early so that we could get up at 5:00 in the morning to catch a train to London.
I was too excited to sleep though. I think I only got about 2 hours in total. We walked to the train station in Oxford, and then went to London Paddington. We had to take the Underground to the International train station, and then we got on our train to Paris. Through the chunnel. It was a very exciting expedition, but we both fell asleep too soon to know we were under water crossing the British Channel. Oh well.
We had google-mapped our hotel, so once we got into the train station, we figured it would be pretty easy to walk to our hotel. However, Google maps is not the best tool to use in a city without blocks. We didn't want to spend the money on a taxi though, so we just headed in what we thought would be the right direction, and we actually found our hotel relatively easily, considering the circumstances. We were checked in around 2:00, and we picked up a map and decided to go exploring. The area our hotel was in was pretty neat. It was in northern Paris, and right next to a metro station, so that was very convenient. The buildings in Paris are so beautiful. Griffin probably wanted to kill me by the end of the three days because of how often I commented on them. Every apartment has balconies surrounded with decorative, metal railings. I loved them. And there were small bistros all over the place, each one pretty much the same as the last. But they were pretty expensive, so we only went to them a few times.
The view from our hotel window:
After checking in to our hotel, we went to this little hole in the wall pizza/sandwich place. The guys working there didn't speak any English, and neither Griffin nor I speak French, so we had to get by with pointing and sounding out the words. I have no idea what I actually got, but it was some kind of meat sandwich, and pretty good actually. I am not sure if it was ignorant or hot-headed of us not to think about the language barrier at all before we left, but it just never occurred to me. It's true that most people did speak English, but we were on a limited budget, so we didn't go to touristy places to eat, and so three of our meals were ordered with awkward pronunciations and gestures. As convenient as language is (obviously), it's kind of neat that we don't actually need it. Human nature allows us to be able to get a point across with facial expressions and pointing. But it was nice when our waiter or waitress could speak English.
It was raining, so instead of walking, we then hopped on the metro and headed for Notre Dame. The metro system is huge and pretty intertwined, but really easy to navigate. We just wrote down all the stops and line changes we would have to make, and we got everywhere very easily. The second day we were in Paris, I got to experience being squished up next to strangers for ten or fifteen minutes. As good as public transportation is, I'm glad I don't have to do that all the time, because it was just weird.
Our first ever Paris metro ride, however, was so perfect. We hopped on, and all the seats were taken, so we just stood in front of the doors. We were the only ones standing other than this guy who was standing across from us, playing the guitar. He had his eyes shut the entire time, and he was playing and singing Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World. It was a perfectly romantic beginning to our stay in Paris.
We got off the stop, turned a corner, and immediately saw Notre Dame. It is so ornate and beautiful. We wandered around inside for a while and then went up to the top and to the belfry. It was exhausting climbing the spiral steps up to the top. I felt pathetic.
After we came back down, it had stopped raining, so we decided to walk home. We got a little turned around at first, but then we managed to find the right direction. We saw signs for the Bastille memorial, so we went a little out of our way to see that before heading home.
We went to a little bistro for dinner that night.
On Wednesday we took the metro to Champs-Elysees and got something to eat and just walked up and down both sides of the street. I convinced Griffin to wander around the Louis Vuitton store, because come on, we just had to. It's disgusting how expensive the things are in that store. We tried guessing how much a simple t-shirt would be. We guessed around 70 Euros I think. It actually cost around 250. Insanity.
At the end of Champs-Elysees, we ran into the Arc de Triomphe.
Shamefully, I must admit that neither of us really knew what it was, but we obviously recognized it. It is in the middle of a large round about, but we saw people under it, so we went mad for a while trying to figure out how to get across the multiple lanes of traffic. Then we noticed the stairway leading underground to it. Of course. It is really fabulous. It honors all those who fought for France, particularly during the reign of Napoleon. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from WWI is there too. It's pretty beautiful.
Then we wandered down the other side of the street, turned around, and went back down Champs-Elysees. On our way to the Eiffel Tower, we passed the National Gallery and the Petit Palais, which we randomly went into and wandered around for a while to see the exhibit. We didn't know what it was at first, so we were wandering around like fools, and then someone showed us where to get tickets. It was a very random stop, but it had some neat pieces of art. Then we walked across the Sienne and took a look at the Military Museum at Les Invalides. It is an immense complex, and we didn't have time to enter it to make is a legitimate visit, but next time...
Then we continued to wander, picked up some croissants, and then went to the park in front of the Eiffel Tower to relax for a while.
We were already getting exhausted from the trip. Walking around constantly really tires one out. We waited in line for about an hour, and then headed up the elevator. It stopped on the second floor, and we got out to walk around for a bit before going up to the very top. We finished our croissants and took some photos. Then, up we went. And we staked out a fabulous stop on the western side to watch the sunset. It was a pretty cloudy night, but oh well.
We stood in the same spot for about an hour waiting for the sun to set. We had the best spot, and I think people were getting impatient with us for staying where we were for so long when they wanted to take photos of the sunset. But oh well.
Then we went back down, and on our very roundabout and confused way to the metro station, we stopped by a couple of other American tourists who were taking photos, and we asked them to take one of us in front of the tower.
So cheesy, and I love it!
After finally getting home, we ate a random Chinese food place right by our hotel. Then we crashed. The next day we got up and headed over to the Louvre.
I had no idea how enormous that museum is. You could spend a week in there and still not see everything sufficiently. We went to see the Mona Lisa first and then to the Venus de Milo.
After those two, we wandered around Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, French Sculptures, European Paintings, etc. At one point, we were in a gallery full of huge murals, so we sat down to look at them. I remember thinking to myself that if I laid down, I would fall asleep for days. It's remarkable how exhausting only a few days of site seeing can make you.
Eventually, we just couldn't take in anymore, so we left for the hotel. We got something to eat, picked up our bag, and then headed for the train station. We tried to get an earlier train, but they wouldn't let us exchange our tickets, which I thought was ridiculous. So we did a crossword puzzle (Griffin had collected NY Times crosswords to bring because we usually do one together every day) and waited for our train. We got into Oxford around 12:30, and I had forgotten that the buses stop running after 11:30, so we had to walk about 40 minutes home from the train station. Oh well.
We slept late on Friday, didn't do much in the morning, and then went to see Watchmen in the afternoon. Then we made dinner and waited for Chelsey and Amanda to get back from dining out, and we went to the Magdalen End of Term Party together. I had originally wanted all of the Magdalen OSAP kids to go together, but three of them decided not to go, so it was just the three of us and Griffin. I had a lot of fun. Magdalen rented out a small club, so it was just Magdalen students there. Griffin and I just kind of did our own thing the whole night, and on the way home, we got a kebab. They are probably one of my favorite things about Oxford. Paris had them too. The US needs to adopt the kebab stand.
On Saturday we were lazy all day long. Griffin downloaded and burned all of the LOST seasons for me onto CDs, so we watched a couple of episodes. Then we made a romantic pasta dinner, and watched Burn After Reading after dinner. I didn't think it was very good. The characters are creative and funny, but the plot is just lame and doesn't really go anywhere.
Then this morning Griffin had to leave, so here I am, not wanting to write any essays. I only have one week and then I get a month off, but I cannot motivate myself at all right now.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Busy Busy
Amanda came back home this morning. Hooray! The last four nights were pretty restless. I really don't like being by myself. On Tuesday night, it took me about two hours to fall asleep. Every little noise made me jump. What am I so afraid of? Who knows. At least the ghost never showed herself.
I've spent the past couple of days finishing up essays and then reading Watchmen in two days. Loved it. My tutorials were okay, but I definitely have lost the momentum. This week will be a nice break from school, but then just having one more week is going to be awkward. Hopefully I can shape up and write some killer essays.
Ryan and I spent the afternoon and evening in London yesterday. My tutorial was moved up four hours, so we were able to go to the British Museum for a while before going to see the London Symphony Orchestra. The Rosetta Stone, The frieze from the acropolis, "colossal" statues of Ramses II from Thebes, and various Mesopotamian artifacts that Ryan studies and apparently verify some Biblical stories. Not too shabby a collection.
The LSO performed Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto and Tchaikovsky's sixth symphony. Both pieces were fabulous. The pianist for the first was incredible, but I liked the second piece more. I prefer Tchaikovsky anyway, but I think that they did a better job with his piece. Plus, it had a gong. A little anticlimactic... I was waiting the entire time for the gong man to stand up, and when he finally did I was so excited, and then it was just, well, anticlimactic. Oh well.
Today will be filled with cleaning, travel arrangements for Amanda's and my month off, and anticipation for tomorrow at 10 am, when Griffin will arrive!
I've spent the past couple of days finishing up essays and then reading Watchmen in two days. Loved it. My tutorials were okay, but I definitely have lost the momentum. This week will be a nice break from school, but then just having one more week is going to be awkward. Hopefully I can shape up and write some killer essays.
Ryan and I spent the afternoon and evening in London yesterday. My tutorial was moved up four hours, so we were able to go to the British Museum for a while before going to see the London Symphony Orchestra. The Rosetta Stone, The frieze from the acropolis, "colossal" statues of Ramses II from Thebes, and various Mesopotamian artifacts that Ryan studies and apparently verify some Biblical stories. Not too shabby a collection.
The LSO performed Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto and Tchaikovsky's sixth symphony. Both pieces were fabulous. The pianist for the first was incredible, but I liked the second piece more. I prefer Tchaikovsky anyway, but I think that they did a better job with his piece. Plus, it had a gong. A little anticlimactic... I was waiting the entire time for the gong man to stand up, and when he finally did I was so excited, and then it was just, well, anticlimactic. Oh well.
Today will be filled with cleaning, travel arrangements for Amanda's and my month off, and anticipation for tomorrow at 10 am, when Griffin will arrive!
Monday, March 2, 2009
Dark Matter
Today has convinced me that our flat is haunted.
The two times the fuses were blown, I didn't even think twice that it had happened when I, specifically, tried to turn on the lights. Then a few days ago, it happened again. When I told Amanda, she goes, "it only happens to you!"
A few days before that, I had gone down stairs to check on the laundry, and it was done, but the dial kept turning around and around. I watched it for a bit to see if it would stop at the top, but it didn't. I probably watched it for about five minutes. Then I called Amanda down to see it. She freaked out. Then I stopped it manually.
I didn't think that I believed in ghosts, but Amanda does, and she actually checks for them and can usually sense their presence. She can't sense this one though. But I was starting to believe that there may be one in this house.
One day when I was sitting on my bed, my door was swinging slightly. There was no breeze and no one had touched the door.
Then this morning. I was reading on my bed, which is underneath my window. And I got a call from Ben. He was outside our apartment, so I went down to let him in. "Did you not see me? I was waving to you!" ..."What? I was sitting on my bed"... "No. I saw you, it looked like you were brushing your teeth or something"... He hadn't slept last night, so he may have been hallucinating, but still. I have a ghost double. I think she is my dark matter equivalent. And she is following me around the flat.
Amanda leaves for an interview in Atlanta tomorrow morning. I am going to be so scared here by myself... I need a night light.
I am definitely moving next term.
In happy news: I'm going to a Oxford/Cambridge rugby match tomorrow and the London Symphony Orchestra on Friday! And Griffin is coming on Sunday! Life is fabulous. Minus the ghost...
The two times the fuses were blown, I didn't even think twice that it had happened when I, specifically, tried to turn on the lights. Then a few days ago, it happened again. When I told Amanda, she goes, "it only happens to you!"
A few days before that, I had gone down stairs to check on the laundry, and it was done, but the dial kept turning around and around. I watched it for a bit to see if it would stop at the top, but it didn't. I probably watched it for about five minutes. Then I called Amanda down to see it. She freaked out. Then I stopped it manually.
I didn't think that I believed in ghosts, but Amanda does, and she actually checks for them and can usually sense their presence. She can't sense this one though. But I was starting to believe that there may be one in this house.
One day when I was sitting on my bed, my door was swinging slightly. There was no breeze and no one had touched the door.
Then this morning. I was reading on my bed, which is underneath my window. And I got a call from Ben. He was outside our apartment, so I went down to let him in. "Did you not see me? I was waving to you!" ..."What? I was sitting on my bed"... "No. I saw you, it looked like you were brushing your teeth or something"... He hadn't slept last night, so he may have been hallucinating, but still. I have a ghost double. I think she is my dark matter equivalent. And she is following me around the flat.
Amanda leaves for an interview in Atlanta tomorrow morning. I am going to be so scared here by myself... I need a night light.
I am definitely moving next term.
In happy news: I'm going to a Oxford/Cambridge rugby match tomorrow and the London Symphony Orchestra on Friday! And Griffin is coming on Sunday! Life is fabulous. Minus the ghost...
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