You know when you reach that point where the guilt over NOT doing something on time becomes all-consuming and paralyzes you from accomplishing whatever it is you are feeling guilty about not doing? I hope you've figured out by the end of the sentence that that is why I never posted last week. I didn't get home from Barcelona until around 2:30 am Monday morning of last week, so there was no way that I was going to be able to blog. And then I had all this work to do to make up for going to Barcelona, and then it just got to be so late in the week that I couldn't face doing a blog post because of all the pent-up guilt and anxiety about not doing it. Of course it's made even worse by the fact that I couldn't/didn't blog yesterday out of sheer exhaustion. But, the good news? I'm alive. In case you were concerned since I hadn't updated the blog in so long. I'm also relatively not-sick and caught up on my work! In all the areas of my life that aren't blogging, I seem to be doing fairly well actually :).
Except, now that I'm trying to think back to what I did two weeks ago, I realize why I had wanted to blog every week. My ability to remember what it is that I've been doing with my time gets weaker with every passing day it seems. So I'll do my best, and since there are over 300 awesome pictures that I took in Barcelona I may just finish up this post with a photo dump for you to all enjoy at your leisure.
The week after I got back from Brussels, if I'm not mistaken, was pretty quiet. I know I spent Monday night having dinner at my flat with Valerie and my flatmate Marissa, eating salad to make up for all the chocolate and waffles and chatting about the trip. Tuesday I spent most of my free time catching up with my family on skype, something I hadn't done in wayyyy too long, and then training, something that has also suffered these past few weeks. I also attended my first "lunch and learn" at LSE on Tuesday. It was a "how to make the best out of a bad day" theme (or so we were told), which was great, because I wasn't having a great day. Unfortunately, the lunch and learn was really a chance for this speaker to come in and describe in excruciating and minute detail what it was like to live with a disabled son, until the son died. I think at the end there was supposed to be some sort of lesson about Judaism but it was completely lost to me because I was so upset by the time he started talking about the lessons we were supposed to be taking away! Wednesday I had some free time in the afternoon so I went and picked up my new camera. It's a canon IXUS and I'm in love. It has all these really cool functions that I'm obsessed with, and the canon rep was there to show me everything that my camera can do. It has the "wink-timer" function, which is a self-timer that takes your picture three seconds after you wink at it so you don't have to scramble into position. It has a "super-vivid" function and also a "SLOW MOTION FILM" function and a "high speed burst" function to capture things that are moving really fast. It is SO cool. I also chose the model that was 10 pounds more expensive but had a wider lens and I noticed on the trip to Barcelona that the extra width allows me to capture in one picture full buildings where before pieces would have been left out. In short, I've made lemons out of the dropping-the-camera-and-destroying-it lemonade of last weekend. I'm also really proud of myself because Wednesday night I went to hear a speaker. This is something EVERYONE at LSE is always doing - just spending their spare time at LSE, listening to speakers! Outside of class time! It baffles me. I get it kind of, because I'm obviously here to learn and I chose specifically to do an LLM because I wanted to indulge my passion for learning. But I'm also here to experience life in London. So I'm not as 100% devoted to taking advantage of everything LSE has to offer all the time because I have other priorities. I occasionally feel guilty about this, but oftentimes the lectures require getting a ticket in advance, which involves caring enough to 1) note that a speaker is coming 2) note down when the tickets become available 3) make yourself available to get tickets, which can involve standing in a line for hours 4) clear your schedule for the actual speech. I'm just not that devoted to any particular speaker, ever. Also we get email after email after email about speakers coming, which means I delete all of them because I don't even have the spare bandwidth to process the available options. Anyway, this speaker was touted by our M&A teacher who tried very hard to convince us to come because the topic was one that we had dealt with in class. I'm not sure how much I got out of the lecture, but it was relatively short and I'm one of those people that believes you learn something from showing up even if you aren't paying full attention. I rewarded myself with a drink at the George pub on campus with a couple of LLM friends afterward and then went home to work on my paper. I devoted Thursday, in its entirety, to working on school work. Instead, I watched Twilight the movie and read the Hunger Games, the whole book, and then packed for Barcelona before falling asleep watching Snatch.
Friday morning I woke up late. I had been in contact with a family friend, Ben, who was coming into London for the weekend and we had discussed getting coffee around 9 am. I woke up at nine. I got dressed and ran over to the coffee shop but didn't see him. By that time it was 9:30 so I was thinking I must have missed him entirely. I got a cup of coffee and sat down to wait just in case. Around 10 I got a message from Ben that he had miscalculated the time difference and was just landing on the tarmac. I was SO relieved that I wasn't the only late one that I just wished him a good trip and went to run some pre-Barcelona errands. I was flying out of Gatwick airport, which I had never done before. But there is a train that runs there from London Bridge which is about a 10-15 minute walk from my residence. Despite my prior experience going to Brussels and narrowly making it on the train I still left my residence late and saw the bus I needed to catch pulling away from the stop. I weighed my options and decided to wait for the next bus. This was a mistake. The bus didn't take that long to get there but traffic on Borough High Street was at a dead standstill. I decide to walk the last few blocks and realize when I get to the London Bridge underground station that I have no idea where the London Bridge Train station is. I start to panic. I have 10 minutes. I run downstairs and ask at information where I can go to catch the train. The man behind the glass has literally no idea. None. I'm like but I'm leaving from London Bridge! And he's all, this is London Bridge! I KNOW THAT! So how come you don't know where the trains are? He directs me to ask someone else and they send me through the station, running running running down the escalator, along the length of the Tube platform, up the escalator on the other side. Up the next escalator. I emerge in the train station. But I don't know where to find the tickets! I finally, kind of following signs and kind of by pure luck find the ticket station. I have two minutes before the train leaves. I need the credit card that I used to purchase the tickets, but I can't remember which one that is. I try the first one, enter the ridiculously, unnecessarily long reservation number. Wrong credit card. I go for the next one, even though I know it's too late now. I grab my tickets and run to the turnstile. Try the exit turnstile, can't get through obviously. Try the next one over. I'm through but also two minutes late. I run up to the platform and I see it! The train is still there. I'm sprinting, with my bag behind me, yelling "EXCUSE ME! EXCUSE ME!" and and the second to last person to make it on the train before it takes off. I collapse into a seat, dripping sweat, but I've made it. I get to the airport, make my way through to the train to the next terminal, and wait in line for quite a while to check my bag. Once that is done, I can relax and the rest of the trip goes smoothly. It isn't a particularly long journey to Barcelona and I'm in luck because although I'm sitting in the back of the plane they open the front and back doors for disembarking.
I got to Barcelona around sunset
I felt immediately at home, because Barcelona is ringed in these low green hills/mountains that reminded me of LA
I took the aerobus to Plaza Catalunya, which is not where this hotel in the picture is located (false advertising!)
I made it to the correct stop and grabbed the first taxi that was available. I gave him the address to our apartment in Barceloneta (which I couldn't even pronounce - Carerr de los Pescadors or something like that), and he had no idea where it was, luckily he had a book - and actual paper and ink book, that gave him directions. The only thing he said to me was to ask, in Spanish, if I spoke Catalan. I said no, sorry. That was the end of our attempts to communicate. He dropped me off at the correct address, but I was looking for #7. I had been told to look for "the really big wooden door with the really small 7 sticker on it." Now this door was really big, and very wooden
But I was looking for that 7. I figured "small" meant around the size of a post-it. I walked all around the block looking for another wooden door. Nothing. I came back and called for help. My friends' friend answered and instructed me to look even closer. Closer. Closer. THERE!
I found it! I waited for my friend Mercedes to come meet me and let me in, then dropped off my stuff and went to meet everyone else at happy hour. For the weekend it was me, and my friends from work this summer Mercedes and Tetlo, who are both at UCLA law. Then they were visiting their friend Jeff who is studying in Barcelona this semester, and their friend Kimber who is studying in Geneva came down to meet them with her friend Tangela. So it was a nice size group of people. We did the Spanish thing and killed time until dinner, which then lasted over 3 hours. It was fancy and rich and delicious. We stayed so long the wait staff gave us a free bottle of wine and let us take pictures with the giant bottles they used for decoration.
After dinner we took our time getting ready because the nights start so late there. We all met up at Shoko, a very European club on the beach, danced to mainly euro-techno-pop, accompanied by a live Saxophone player
And shot-gunned 1 euro beers on the beach outside
Unfortunately the club closed at 3:30 am, which was way earlier than we had been led to believe clubs closed in Barcelona. On the plus side this made the next few days bearable, what with the having a reasonable amount of sleep.
Over the course of the weekend I saw the Cathedral, the outside of which is pretty eh, kind of boring, no big deal, and then inside one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen and full of extremely over the top religious imagery (which I guess is to be expected).
A whole bunch of Roman ruins that randomly show up every once and a while as you are walking around
And the highlight for me
Park Guell is hands down the absolute coolest place I have been on planet earth. Man-made place at least. It was originally intended to be a wealthy housing development designed in the Modernista style by Gaudi, but failed as a business venture. Instead, Guadi himself and one other person lived there and it has since been transformed into a municipal park. It is as though Tim Burton and Dr. Seuss got together and designed a wonderland for adults. Its magic is that unlike Disneyland it was created with the intention that people actually inhabit this fairytale space. It is also really inspiring because it was purposefully designed to integrate into the landscape and feel freeflowing and organic. Below are pictures
I'm standing just inside the entrance in the above picture, the stairs lead up to the covered market area. To the right are caverns designed to be stables. But first you pass by two houses (one on each side)
Once you make your way up the stairs you reach the open air market area, the ceiling has the occasional mosaic in its circular depressions
The roof of the market area supports an open space, designed for plays and other community amusements. To get there you walk up some stairs and this is what you see on the side of the roof
To the left, before you reach the arena at the top of the market is a gallery that is designed like a wave, and I got barreled in it
I fell in love with the whimsical balconies and staircases and doors in the gatehouses.
wandered past Gaudi's house
and across a walkway suspended in the trees
The magic ended shortly after this when we tried to hike to the top of the mountain for a view of the city. Instead we got lost, and wandered in the rain for a long while, admitted we were lost, backtracked, ended up on the opposite side of the park from where we had entered. Walked down and down and down and down this large hill into the city, found ourselves on a map and then walked what seemed like a mile or so in the rain before we found ourselves back at the metro.
That night was a girls night out that almost never happened. We were on the list for "Opera" a particular club. But we didn't have the address, just an assurance that "every cab driver knows where it is." Only the first cab driver did not, although he charged us 5 euro to drive around while we tried to use his iphone to find it. The second cab driver did not know either. The third cab driver didn't know so we had him take us to the clubs by the beach. We were literally at the door, opening our wallets to pay when the other girls texted us with the address. We took a fourth cab to the club, to find out we had to pay because it was after 2am and guestlist didn't matter anymore. Luckily, the 12 euro entry came with two free drinks, so I think it evened itself out in the end. We danced until 5:30am while the DJ played a schizo mix of hip hop, top 40s and euro-techno music.
One of my favorite memories of the trip is exiting the metro to La Sagrada Familia, another Gaudi landmark. You come up the stairs facing a bunch of random tourist restaurants, oh look a Subway! And I started to think to myself "gosh I sure hope this thing is easy to find." And then I turned around. And laughed out loud. There is NO WAY it would ever be possible to miss La Sagrada Familia.
Another masterpiece, it does its best to convince your mind that you have finally snapped and completely lost touch with reality. The real beauty is that, according to a book I read in the gift shop, all of the imagery and design elements have meaning. Instead of gargoyles there are animals because Gaudi was celebrating the connection between religion and nature. Like any good mystic, even the number of spires has representational meanings as well.
It's also two-faced - the other side looks completely different
After gawking at the Familia for what seemed like long enough to do it justice Mercedes and I hopped the hop-on hop-off tour bus. And never hopped off. BUT I did take a lot of pictures of things around the city. And very nearly froze to death as the wind picked up and the sun started to go down. I'll save those pictures for my photo dump since they have less meaning to me as I just took pictures as I drove past. The one notable thing I remember from the tour, is that we drove onto Montjuic, so named because it was previously and I believe still is, home to the "ancient Jewish cemetery of Montjuic (lit. Jewish mountain) located on the western edge of the city. The ancient cemetery houses the last remains of some of the most notable members of the pre-expulsion Spanish community and is officially a city park." (thanks virtual Jewish library!).
Once we were off the bus I took a moment to chase down a couple of surfers I spotted with their boards. I had been seeing people carrying surfboards on the metro, on their scooters, on their bikes, on foot, all weekend and I was desperate to know that I hadn't missed out on some sort of freak epic swell. The surfer I stopped put my fears to rest, although I had been staying only 200m from one of the beach breaks apparently the surf was pretty small and I didn't have to go home riddled with guilt that I had missed a chance to surf while I was in Barcelona. We met back up with everyone to grab a quick dinner and then it was time for me to pack up and head back out to the airport, with time for one last picture of me, Mercedes and Tetlo
My flight back was relatively painless. The flight itself. What wasn't painless was 1) the realization that although I had flown out of Gatwick and therefore bought myself a train ticket home from Gatwick my flight was actually arriving at London Stansted 2) the hour and 20 minutes I spent in the immigration line 3) the realization that although I had paid 20 pounds for a train ticket from Stansted to London, the trains weren't running and instead I was going to go on the same coach as everyone who paid 10 pounds for a bus ticket and 4) my inability to find stop D, which would have allowed me to take a bus instead of a taxi home from the drop off spot, the coach stopped at "G", followed in order by "E" and THEN after that "F" which made no sense at all. As mentioned earlier in this post I finally grabbed a cab and I got into my house at 2:30 in the morning and skyped with my sister as I unpacked.
The week after Barcelona was spent doing nothing particularly exciting. I had two formative assessments due a week after I came back so I focused on that and my reading. Plus sleeping. I slept a LOT. Like I slept in so much on Monday I missed training because I didn't get up until 2pm. I also missed the e-mail Monday afternoon rescheduling my Tuesday morning class so I was one of three people that showed up at 10am wondering where all the people went. The only benefit was that I was stuck on campus with nothing to do but work/reading for four hours straight. The bad news was that this meant I was on campus for 10 hours without any break and I had miss training for another day. After the make-up class I unwound with a couple of friends, including Jardena, Camila and an Israeli couple (one of whom is an LLM). The pub was gorgeous, it's called the Knights Templar and it is located a stones throw away from the LSE. It's spacious, very nicely decorated for the season and the drinks are cheaper than the pub on campus, and there isn't a 10 pound minimum on debit cards! I think I'm definitely going back. Wednesday stands out as being the only day this week that I made it to training, I also made it all the way down to the large Tesco a mile away for the first time in months to do my Thanksgiving shopping. On Thursday I slept in once again, ran a couple of errands, including looking for a pumpkin pie but Whole Foods was already out of stock and cooked a lot for my flat's Thanksgiving meal. I also got a chance to skype with Kent and my family, which made me feel a lot better about spending Thanksgiving across the pond. For dinner I contributed my mom's green bean recipe, bread rolls (warmed up in the oven), a green salad, and cranberry sauce, along with spiced apple cider and rum. Dinner was a blast. From my flat it was myself, Marissa, Sayd, and Daniel. From Valerie's flat it was Valerie, Ellen, Doris, Fred, Fred's girlfriend Jessica, and Will, and from Sidney Webb at large we had Gunperi and Chris. My flat hosted. Daniel and Valerie stole a table from the laundry room to accommodate everyone and Valerie and Marissa decorated.
There was socializing/schmoozing and lots and lots of food. I think most of the below photos are happy without individualized captions
Dinner was as delicious as it looked. We each went around the table and said what we were thankful for (obviously I said my fantastic family, wonderful friends and opportunity to study in London for a year). Then we dug in. I dug in so hard my paper plate disintegrated and Marissa had to take it away when I started playing with my food. The party lasted until around 11pm when we were faced with the task of cleaning up. Everyone was so helpful that it really didn't take that long at all and luckily the weekly kitchen cleaning is scheduled for Fridays. I spent the rest of the night in true Thanksgiving fashion, trying to digest while watching Attack the Block as I lay in bed.
The next day was my parent's 32nd wedding anniversary! I waited ALL DAY LONG to call and wish them a happy anniversary. But because of the time difference it was too early, too early, still too early, SHABBOS. Dammit. Shabbos starts at like 3:42 here and it just snuck right up on me. I had a really quiet weekend. I watched Step into Liquid with Marissa in the Atlas common room. The common room is set up so that you walk into the main room where there are three or four large tables you can sit at, to the right is the TV area, it has some couches to sit on while watching TV and at its extreme end, one of the large tables is between the couches and the TV wall, to the left of the TV. Marissa and I are comfortably ensconced on the couches watching TV when a group shows up to hang out. They enter the common room. We are literally the only ones in it and they walk in front of the TV to sit down at the table in the TV room. 15 minutes later I had to actually ask them to leave and move to any of the other open tables in the other part of the common area when the rest of their party showed up and it became clear that they intended to a) make themselves at home b) had no clear understanding that it was going to be literally impossible for me to hear the movie so long as they stationed themselves there to socialize.
On Shabbos I slept until 3pm, which meant it was practically over, then finished up my formative assessment before going out for a friend's birthday in Shoreditch. Normally it would take 20 to 30 minutes to get to my friend Jardena's apartment, at least in theory since I had never been there but she had been to my place. Instead, I first hopped on the 21 bus and got stuck in horrid traffic on Borough High Street. Then I switched over to the 35 which should have delivered me to a stop a five minute walk from her apartment. Alas, the entire city of London was under construction that night. It took me an hour on the bus ride from hell to make it to Jardena's. In the mean time the bus driver wove the bus back and forth across the city, trying in vain to get to our destination. Occasionally he too despaired, and would pull the bus over and leave the driver's seat to stretch his legs and wander aimlessly. I finally made it to the apartment and we finally made our move some time after midnight. The first club we stopped at was 20 pounds cover. We kept going. The second club was only a five pound cover and promised to stay open late. I had no idea prior to this however, that such a thing as a club that played exclusively dubstep existed. Nor that they could get away with charging 5 pounds for the privilege of admittance. Dubstep, if you don't know what it is well,
I recommend you google it if you aren't sure what that means. Suffice to say, it's not my favorite for a night out of dancing when I was prepared for something more along the lines of top 40s. We made the best of it anyways.
I made my way home by much more direct bus and got in around 4am. I had plans to go surfing on a quick day trip Sunday (via the London Surf Club!) and there didn't seem to be any point in sleeping since I had so much Friday night. Instead I stayed awake and then followed the directions TFL gave me to get to my ride's house. This was yet another public transportation nightmare. There was no 5:05 bus, but I got on the 5:14, which dropped me off at Liverpool street station. My next directions, from the transportation authority itself, was to walk across the station to the Bus Stop E and catch the 242. Oops. Turns out TFL didn't realize it had closed that particular bus stop. I resign myself to taking a cab. I had previously gotten a quote from Addison Lee (a minicab service) of 16.50 for a trip from my apartment to the destination address. I hail a cab. Driven by a man who has literally no idea where he is going. First off, when he picks me up, we are on the correct side of the street, since that is the same direction the bus would have gone in. I close the door and he makes a U-turn. I request that he stop and enter the address so that he knows where he is going. He explains he's just going to make a right and then another right and circle the station, I point out that is going to cost me 5 quid for him to circle the block could he PLEASE PUT THE ADDRESS IN NOW. He puts the address in. After 10 minutes he exclaims "The address has disappeared! We've been going in the wrong direction!" He tries to put the address back in, he spells the street name wrong. He's hard of hearing. But I'm starting to make exasperated "I budgeted 20 pounds for this journey" noises. Finally I ask exactly how long we were driving in the wrong direction, because Addison Lee quoted me 16.50 and that was from my apartment, and since I've taken a bus half way I expected to pay even less. He agrees that I won't have to pay more than 16.50 no matter what the meter says. He eventually gets us close to where we need to go. Then takes a wrong turn and sails the down the street, muttering, maybe it's the next one... I have my phone and gmaps out and I'm repeatedly saying "you are going in the wrong direction, it's not the next street, no definitely not, we are going the wrong way, you need to just turn around" He finally figures out I'm saying that because I have a GPS and agrees to turn around. We make it, only a few minutes late! And with 30 pounds on the meter. I pay 16.50 and wish him a good day.
I jump in the surf van with 5 other people, and immediately pass out, I need a couple of hours of sleep if I want to have energy for surfing. We arrive at the Southeast coast and it is freeeeezing. I'm wearing a pair of thin pants, a tank top, a long sleeved shirt and a hoodie. It's not enough. I chug hot chocolate and try not to mind when the people I'm with tell me I'm probably cold because I'm wearing flip flops (not because I've forgotten a JACKET). The waves are shit. We are standing in literally gale force winds. But we drove all the way here, and it isn't crowded (except with the odd windsurfer). I suit up in my thick wetsuit, booties, gloves, hood. I realize that I've somehow jacked up one of the screws meant to hold in my fin, one of the guys helps me out and I screw that fin back in. We pick up the boards and head down to the water. I'm behind everyone because I stop to put on my gloves. The wind is blowing so hard that it's whipping the moisture out of my mouth and spreading it across my face, as I try to breath. At one point I literally come to a standstill, I can't pick up my feet because it's so fierce. I jump in and try to battle my way outside. But there isn't any outside. I'm down the beach from the rest and stuck in this nasty rip that won't let me over to them or outside. I give up and get out and try again down the beach where the rest are surfing. I take six inch steps to get there. But I make it outside this time and actually catch a cute little wave. But that's it. The tide changes and we lose the waves. We jump out and head back to the car, the wind is dying down a bit and at least it's pushing us in the direction we want to go.
We throw the boards and ourselves, still in wetsuits in the car and go looking for more waves.
We find them at the Marina (apparently the largest in Europe!).
It's crowded and the peaks are shifty but there are waves. They are still too crumbling for my board, but I wait and wait and wait and try to take off and try to take off and finally it happens. I catch a BOMB. The wave I had been waiting for all day and everything falls into place. I feel the board catch the wave and throw myself to my feet. Everything works the way it's supposed to, my feet are exactly where they should be and I'm racing down this wave to the left as it continues to grow above me. I look ahead of me and see it closing out, I look at the lip, now a good few feet above my head, and CRANK a bottom turn that has me racing back up up up until I hit the lip and jackknife off the board and into the water behind the wave. It was a feeling that I plan to keep close to my heart until the next time I get out in the water. It isn't until I get out of the water later I realize that fin that I had issues with at the beginning of the day has come off the board at some point. Even this can't shake my feelings of elation though. We change and pack up the van
Then grab lunch and head back to town, I sleep most of the way. Sunday afternoon I was a wreck from not sleeping Saturday night plus spending the day surfing. We got back to town fairly early but all I accomplish is a failed attempt to make cookies. I try really hard, but 1) there aren't chocolate chips for sale in bags here in any of the shops I check 2) the butter is unmarked, I need 170 grams, there are 250 in a stick, and no measurements to tell me how to cut off 170 grams worth 3) the measuring cup is in grams, not cups, and there is no way to compensate for the different densities of brown and white sugar when measuring. Finally, I melt instead of soften the butter so all my cookies come out as cookie crisps. They don't taste bad, they just aren't really cookies. Marissa makes a delicious pumpkin cake/pudding thing so I fill up on that instead. Instead of blogging I pass out into blissful sleep around 8pm.
I'm sorry again this blog is so very very late, but I am also thrilled that it's done! It's late now, so I don't have time to do my photo dump but I will get that up here sometime in the next week if I can. The good news is this week looks like it might be pretty boring, so next week's blog will hopefully be mercifully short. Until then, much love from London.
Except, now that I'm trying to think back to what I did two weeks ago, I realize why I had wanted to blog every week. My ability to remember what it is that I've been doing with my time gets weaker with every passing day it seems. So I'll do my best, and since there are over 300 awesome pictures that I took in Barcelona I may just finish up this post with a photo dump for you to all enjoy at your leisure.
The week after I got back from Brussels, if I'm not mistaken, was pretty quiet. I know I spent Monday night having dinner at my flat with Valerie and my flatmate Marissa, eating salad to make up for all the chocolate and waffles and chatting about the trip. Tuesday I spent most of my free time catching up with my family on skype, something I hadn't done in wayyyy too long, and then training, something that has also suffered these past few weeks. I also attended my first "lunch and learn" at LSE on Tuesday. It was a "how to make the best out of a bad day" theme (or so we were told), which was great, because I wasn't having a great day. Unfortunately, the lunch and learn was really a chance for this speaker to come in and describe in excruciating and minute detail what it was like to live with a disabled son, until the son died. I think at the end there was supposed to be some sort of lesson about Judaism but it was completely lost to me because I was so upset by the time he started talking about the lessons we were supposed to be taking away! Wednesday I had some free time in the afternoon so I went and picked up my new camera. It's a canon IXUS and I'm in love. It has all these really cool functions that I'm obsessed with, and the canon rep was there to show me everything that my camera can do. It has the "wink-timer" function, which is a self-timer that takes your picture three seconds after you wink at it so you don't have to scramble into position. It has a "super-vivid" function and also a "SLOW MOTION FILM" function and a "high speed burst" function to capture things that are moving really fast. It is SO cool. I also chose the model that was 10 pounds more expensive but had a wider lens and I noticed on the trip to Barcelona that the extra width allows me to capture in one picture full buildings where before pieces would have been left out. In short, I've made lemons out of the dropping-the-camera-and-destroying-it lemonade of last weekend. I'm also really proud of myself because Wednesday night I went to hear a speaker. This is something EVERYONE at LSE is always doing - just spending their spare time at LSE, listening to speakers! Outside of class time! It baffles me. I get it kind of, because I'm obviously here to learn and I chose specifically to do an LLM because I wanted to indulge my passion for learning. But I'm also here to experience life in London. So I'm not as 100% devoted to taking advantage of everything LSE has to offer all the time because I have other priorities. I occasionally feel guilty about this, but oftentimes the lectures require getting a ticket in advance, which involves caring enough to 1) note that a speaker is coming 2) note down when the tickets become available 3) make yourself available to get tickets, which can involve standing in a line for hours 4) clear your schedule for the actual speech. I'm just not that devoted to any particular speaker, ever. Also we get email after email after email about speakers coming, which means I delete all of them because I don't even have the spare bandwidth to process the available options. Anyway, this speaker was touted by our M&A teacher who tried very hard to convince us to come because the topic was one that we had dealt with in class. I'm not sure how much I got out of the lecture, but it was relatively short and I'm one of those people that believes you learn something from showing up even if you aren't paying full attention. I rewarded myself with a drink at the George pub on campus with a couple of LLM friends afterward and then went home to work on my paper. I devoted Thursday, in its entirety, to working on school work. Instead, I watched Twilight the movie and read the Hunger Games, the whole book, and then packed for Barcelona before falling asleep watching Snatch.
Friday morning I woke up late. I had been in contact with a family friend, Ben, who was coming into London for the weekend and we had discussed getting coffee around 9 am. I woke up at nine. I got dressed and ran over to the coffee shop but didn't see him. By that time it was 9:30 so I was thinking I must have missed him entirely. I got a cup of coffee and sat down to wait just in case. Around 10 I got a message from Ben that he had miscalculated the time difference and was just landing on the tarmac. I was SO relieved that I wasn't the only late one that I just wished him a good trip and went to run some pre-Barcelona errands. I was flying out of Gatwick airport, which I had never done before. But there is a train that runs there from London Bridge which is about a 10-15 minute walk from my residence. Despite my prior experience going to Brussels and narrowly making it on the train I still left my residence late and saw the bus I needed to catch pulling away from the stop. I weighed my options and decided to wait for the next bus. This was a mistake. The bus didn't take that long to get there but traffic on Borough High Street was at a dead standstill. I decide to walk the last few blocks and realize when I get to the London Bridge underground station that I have no idea where the London Bridge Train station is. I start to panic. I have 10 minutes. I run downstairs and ask at information where I can go to catch the train. The man behind the glass has literally no idea. None. I'm like but I'm leaving from London Bridge! And he's all, this is London Bridge! I KNOW THAT! So how come you don't know where the trains are? He directs me to ask someone else and they send me through the station, running running running down the escalator, along the length of the Tube platform, up the escalator on the other side. Up the next escalator. I emerge in the train station. But I don't know where to find the tickets! I finally, kind of following signs and kind of by pure luck find the ticket station. I have two minutes before the train leaves. I need the credit card that I used to purchase the tickets, but I can't remember which one that is. I try the first one, enter the ridiculously, unnecessarily long reservation number. Wrong credit card. I go for the next one, even though I know it's too late now. I grab my tickets and run to the turnstile. Try the exit turnstile, can't get through obviously. Try the next one over. I'm through but also two minutes late. I run up to the platform and I see it! The train is still there. I'm sprinting, with my bag behind me, yelling "EXCUSE ME! EXCUSE ME!" and and the second to last person to make it on the train before it takes off. I collapse into a seat, dripping sweat, but I've made it. I get to the airport, make my way through to the train to the next terminal, and wait in line for quite a while to check my bag. Once that is done, I can relax and the rest of the trip goes smoothly. It isn't a particularly long journey to Barcelona and I'm in luck because although I'm sitting in the back of the plane they open the front and back doors for disembarking.
I got to Barcelona around sunset
I found it! I waited for my friend Mercedes to come meet me and let me in, then dropped off my stuff and went to meet everyone else at happy hour. For the weekend it was me, and my friends from work this summer Mercedes and Tetlo, who are both at UCLA law. Then they were visiting their friend Jeff who is studying in Barcelona this semester, and their friend Kimber who is studying in Geneva came down to meet them with her friend Tangela. So it was a nice size group of people. We did the Spanish thing and killed time until dinner, which then lasted over 3 hours. It was fancy and rich and delicious. We stayed so long the wait staff gave us a free bottle of wine and let us take pictures with the giant bottles they used for decoration.
After dinner we took our time getting ready because the nights start so late there. We all met up at Shoko, a very European club on the beach, danced to mainly euro-techno-pop, accompanied by a live Saxophone player
And shot-gunned 1 euro beers on the beach outside
Over the course of the weekend I saw the Cathedral, the outside of which is pretty eh, kind of boring, no big deal, and then inside one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen and full of extremely over the top religious imagery (which I guess is to be expected).
A whole bunch of Roman ruins that randomly show up every once and a while as you are walking around
I'm standing just inside the entrance in the above picture, the stairs lead up to the covered market area. To the right are caverns designed to be stables. But first you pass by two houses (one on each side)
To the left, before you reach the arena at the top of the market is a gallery that is designed like a wave, and I got barreled in it
I fell in love with the whimsical balconies and staircases and doors in the gatehouses.
wandered past Gaudi's house
That night was a girls night out that almost never happened. We were on the list for "Opera" a particular club. But we didn't have the address, just an assurance that "every cab driver knows where it is." Only the first cab driver did not, although he charged us 5 euro to drive around while we tried to use his iphone to find it. The second cab driver did not know either. The third cab driver didn't know so we had him take us to the clubs by the beach. We were literally at the door, opening our wallets to pay when the other girls texted us with the address. We took a fourth cab to the club, to find out we had to pay because it was after 2am and guestlist didn't matter anymore. Luckily, the 12 euro entry came with two free drinks, so I think it evened itself out in the end. We danced until 5:30am while the DJ played a schizo mix of hip hop, top 40s and euro-techno music.
One of my favorite memories of the trip is exiting the metro to La Sagrada Familia, another Gaudi landmark. You come up the stairs facing a bunch of random tourist restaurants, oh look a Subway! And I started to think to myself "gosh I sure hope this thing is easy to find." And then I turned around. And laughed out loud. There is NO WAY it would ever be possible to miss La Sagrada Familia.
Another masterpiece, it does its best to convince your mind that you have finally snapped and completely lost touch with reality. The real beauty is that, according to a book I read in the gift shop, all of the imagery and design elements have meaning. Instead of gargoyles there are animals because Gaudi was celebrating the connection between religion and nature. Like any good mystic, even the number of spires has representational meanings as well.
Once we were off the bus I took a moment to chase down a couple of surfers I spotted with their boards. I had been seeing people carrying surfboards on the metro, on their scooters, on their bikes, on foot, all weekend and I was desperate to know that I hadn't missed out on some sort of freak epic swell. The surfer I stopped put my fears to rest, although I had been staying only 200m from one of the beach breaks apparently the surf was pretty small and I didn't have to go home riddled with guilt that I had missed a chance to surf while I was in Barcelona. We met back up with everyone to grab a quick dinner and then it was time for me to pack up and head back out to the airport, with time for one last picture of me, Mercedes and Tetlo
My flight back was relatively painless. The flight itself. What wasn't painless was 1) the realization that although I had flown out of Gatwick and therefore bought myself a train ticket home from Gatwick my flight was actually arriving at London Stansted 2) the hour and 20 minutes I spent in the immigration line 3) the realization that although I had paid 20 pounds for a train ticket from Stansted to London, the trains weren't running and instead I was going to go on the same coach as everyone who paid 10 pounds for a bus ticket and 4) my inability to find stop D, which would have allowed me to take a bus instead of a taxi home from the drop off spot, the coach stopped at "G", followed in order by "E" and THEN after that "F" which made no sense at all. As mentioned earlier in this post I finally grabbed a cab and I got into my house at 2:30 in the morning and skyped with my sister as I unpacked.
The week after Barcelona was spent doing nothing particularly exciting. I had two formative assessments due a week after I came back so I focused on that and my reading. Plus sleeping. I slept a LOT. Like I slept in so much on Monday I missed training because I didn't get up until 2pm. I also missed the e-mail Monday afternoon rescheduling my Tuesday morning class so I was one of three people that showed up at 10am wondering where all the people went. The only benefit was that I was stuck on campus with nothing to do but work/reading for four hours straight. The bad news was that this meant I was on campus for 10 hours without any break and I had miss training for another day. After the make-up class I unwound with a couple of friends, including Jardena, Camila and an Israeli couple (one of whom is an LLM). The pub was gorgeous, it's called the Knights Templar and it is located a stones throw away from the LSE. It's spacious, very nicely decorated for the season and the drinks are cheaper than the pub on campus, and there isn't a 10 pound minimum on debit cards! I think I'm definitely going back. Wednesday stands out as being the only day this week that I made it to training, I also made it all the way down to the large Tesco a mile away for the first time in months to do my Thanksgiving shopping. On Thursday I slept in once again, ran a couple of errands, including looking for a pumpkin pie but Whole Foods was already out of stock and cooked a lot for my flat's Thanksgiving meal. I also got a chance to skype with Kent and my family, which made me feel a lot better about spending Thanksgiving across the pond. For dinner I contributed my mom's green bean recipe, bread rolls (warmed up in the oven), a green salad, and cranberry sauce, along with spiced apple cider and rum. Dinner was a blast. From my flat it was myself, Marissa, Sayd, and Daniel. From Valerie's flat it was Valerie, Ellen, Doris, Fred, Fred's girlfriend Jessica, and Will, and from Sidney Webb at large we had Gunperi and Chris. My flat hosted. Daniel and Valerie stole a table from the laundry room to accommodate everyone and Valerie and Marissa decorated.
There was socializing/schmoozing and lots and lots of food. I think most of the below photos are happy without individualized captions
The next day was my parent's 32nd wedding anniversary! I waited ALL DAY LONG to call and wish them a happy anniversary. But because of the time difference it was too early, too early, still too early, SHABBOS. Dammit. Shabbos starts at like 3:42 here and it just snuck right up on me. I had a really quiet weekend. I watched Step into Liquid with Marissa in the Atlas common room. The common room is set up so that you walk into the main room where there are three or four large tables you can sit at, to the right is the TV area, it has some couches to sit on while watching TV and at its extreme end, one of the large tables is between the couches and the TV wall, to the left of the TV. Marissa and I are comfortably ensconced on the couches watching TV when a group shows up to hang out. They enter the common room. We are literally the only ones in it and they walk in front of the TV to sit down at the table in the TV room. 15 minutes later I had to actually ask them to leave and move to any of the other open tables in the other part of the common area when the rest of their party showed up and it became clear that they intended to a) make themselves at home b) had no clear understanding that it was going to be literally impossible for me to hear the movie so long as they stationed themselves there to socialize.
On Shabbos I slept until 3pm, which meant it was practically over, then finished up my formative assessment before going out for a friend's birthday in Shoreditch. Normally it would take 20 to 30 minutes to get to my friend Jardena's apartment, at least in theory since I had never been there but she had been to my place. Instead, I first hopped on the 21 bus and got stuck in horrid traffic on Borough High Street. Then I switched over to the 35 which should have delivered me to a stop a five minute walk from her apartment. Alas, the entire city of London was under construction that night. It took me an hour on the bus ride from hell to make it to Jardena's. In the mean time the bus driver wove the bus back and forth across the city, trying in vain to get to our destination. Occasionally he too despaired, and would pull the bus over and leave the driver's seat to stretch his legs and wander aimlessly. I finally made it to the apartment and we finally made our move some time after midnight. The first club we stopped at was 20 pounds cover. We kept going. The second club was only a five pound cover and promised to stay open late. I had no idea prior to this however, that such a thing as a club that played exclusively dubstep existed. Nor that they could get away with charging 5 pounds for the privilege of admittance. Dubstep, if you don't know what it is well,
I made my way home by much more direct bus and got in around 4am. I had plans to go surfing on a quick day trip Sunday (via the London Surf Club!) and there didn't seem to be any point in sleeping since I had so much Friday night. Instead I stayed awake and then followed the directions TFL gave me to get to my ride's house. This was yet another public transportation nightmare. There was no 5:05 bus, but I got on the 5:14, which dropped me off at Liverpool street station. My next directions, from the transportation authority itself, was to walk across the station to the Bus Stop E and catch the 242. Oops. Turns out TFL didn't realize it had closed that particular bus stop. I resign myself to taking a cab. I had previously gotten a quote from Addison Lee (a minicab service) of 16.50 for a trip from my apartment to the destination address. I hail a cab. Driven by a man who has literally no idea where he is going. First off, when he picks me up, we are on the correct side of the street, since that is the same direction the bus would have gone in. I close the door and he makes a U-turn. I request that he stop and enter the address so that he knows where he is going. He explains he's just going to make a right and then another right and circle the station, I point out that is going to cost me 5 quid for him to circle the block could he PLEASE PUT THE ADDRESS IN NOW. He puts the address in. After 10 minutes he exclaims "The address has disappeared! We've been going in the wrong direction!" He tries to put the address back in, he spells the street name wrong. He's hard of hearing. But I'm starting to make exasperated "I budgeted 20 pounds for this journey" noises. Finally I ask exactly how long we were driving in the wrong direction, because Addison Lee quoted me 16.50 and that was from my apartment, and since I've taken a bus half way I expected to pay even less. He agrees that I won't have to pay more than 16.50 no matter what the meter says. He eventually gets us close to where we need to go. Then takes a wrong turn and sails the down the street, muttering, maybe it's the next one... I have my phone and gmaps out and I'm repeatedly saying "you are going in the wrong direction, it's not the next street, no definitely not, we are going the wrong way, you need to just turn around" He finally figures out I'm saying that because I have a GPS and agrees to turn around. We make it, only a few minutes late! And with 30 pounds on the meter. I pay 16.50 and wish him a good day.
I jump in the surf van with 5 other people, and immediately pass out, I need a couple of hours of sleep if I want to have energy for surfing. We arrive at the Southeast coast and it is freeeeezing. I'm wearing a pair of thin pants, a tank top, a long sleeved shirt and a hoodie. It's not enough. I chug hot chocolate and try not to mind when the people I'm with tell me I'm probably cold because I'm wearing flip flops (not because I've forgotten a JACKET). The waves are shit. We are standing in literally gale force winds. But we drove all the way here, and it isn't crowded (except with the odd windsurfer). I suit up in my thick wetsuit, booties, gloves, hood. I realize that I've somehow jacked up one of the screws meant to hold in my fin, one of the guys helps me out and I screw that fin back in. We pick up the boards and head down to the water. I'm behind everyone because I stop to put on my gloves. The wind is blowing so hard that it's whipping the moisture out of my mouth and spreading it across my face, as I try to breath. At one point I literally come to a standstill, I can't pick up my feet because it's so fierce. I jump in and try to battle my way outside. But there isn't any outside. I'm down the beach from the rest and stuck in this nasty rip that won't let me over to them or outside. I give up and get out and try again down the beach where the rest are surfing. I take six inch steps to get there. But I make it outside this time and actually catch a cute little wave. But that's it. The tide changes and we lose the waves. We jump out and head back to the car, the wind is dying down a bit and at least it's pushing us in the direction we want to go.
We throw the boards and ourselves, still in wetsuits in the car and go looking for more waves.
We find them at the Marina (apparently the largest in Europe!).
I'm sorry again this blog is so very very late, but I am also thrilled that it's done! It's late now, so I don't have time to do my photo dump but I will get that up here sometime in the next week if I can. The good news is this week looks like it might be pretty boring, so next week's blog will hopefully be mercifully short. Until then, much love from London.
