New Years

I think this is a record - three blog posts in one day AND I'm all of a sudden back on track. It is amazing what you can accomplish when you have work you don't want to do. I apologize in advance that there will not be any pictures yet, I need to get my camera back from a friend and then upload, plus track down Mary Ellen's pictures as well.

This past week was a mishmash of me not accomplishing very much and just hanging around avoiding doing work, occasionally forcing myself to do work and intermittently doing fun touristy stuff with my visitors. The day after Christmas is Boxing Day in England. I don't know why it is called that or what it means, but in effect it is Black Friday and post-Christmas shopping all rolled into one. I avoided the madness for the most part by staying at home and semi-doing school work while hoping it would die down. There was a transportation strike conveniently planned for a day when no one wanted to go to work anyway and so the Tube was severely compromised but I was able to catch the bus up to Oxford street without much trouble. It was still insanely crowded, the sidewalks even more impassable than usual because so many people were waiting at each bus stop. I window shopped and even stopped into a couple of stores but couldn't get too excited over what I saw and figured that since the sales last for at least a week I had time to come back later. The truth is that there isn't too much I need and good reasons for me to not spend my money on clothing I'm just going to have to send back to the US somehow.

It got even more crowded as I reached Oxford Circus. I pushed my way into the crowd and realized they were gathered around the corner not because they were waiting to cross the street, but because they were
staring at the man who had been stabbed and was lying in the middle of Oxford Street. He had been stabbed in the upper thigh and I got there just as they were wrapping up his wound, which was bleeding heavily all over the street. The poor man was stuck there, without his pants on, and about 150 strangers were taking pictures of him. This is why your mom always told you to wear clean underwear! I kept walking down Oxford Street on my way to Forever 21 and I came upon yet another crime scene. The whole street was shut down and there was a white tent set up a block down and people in hazmat suits. Apparently I had missed the fatal stabbing outside of Foot Locker by a couple of hours. This was when I decided it might be a smart idea to turn tail and head home. I stopped on the way and picked up a pair of discount trainers at Sports Direct a particularly practical purchase for a day that is about excessive shopping mania.

Tuesday morning I woke up before dawn (6 am) so I could wait outside Harrod's for a free Florence + the Machine acoustic set. My flatmate Marissa, our friend Gunperi and I took the Tube to Sloan Square then walked through the pre-dawn darkness, past two mysterious groups of horsemen mounted and ponying untacked horses through the streets (possibly from the Queen's Mews?) and grabbed breakfast and coffee before camping out by the red carpet. Compared to how awesome Florence is there were almost no people there. We were right at the barrier to the red carpet and within eye sight of the small stage that had been set up. We waited for a little over an hour while they played Florence over the speakers and PETA protestors gathered and chanted against Fur. The Harrod's people served us coffee and tea while we waited and we got to take pictures with the guys dressed up as Harrod's door men. Finally finally finally she arrived! On a double decker Harrod's bus of course. Florence took her time to shake almost everyone's hand, sign autographs and take pictures with the fans before belting out What the Water Gave Me and Shake it Out. She has the most powerful incredible voice I've heard live. Then she declared the sale officially begun and we decided to go inside and check it out.

I had never been in Harrod's before, it was an eye-opener. They sell EVERYTHING there! We started at the Harry Potter section, then worked our way through the sale dresses, up to the puppies (most of whom were with staff for the holidays), to the equestrian section, through the home gym and vespa areas, then down to the food halls and past the designer purses. The designer purses was where the madness was really in full swing. Otherwise the store is so large it managed to swallow up most of the "bargain" hunters. I stayed in the Kensington area for the next few hours to get some reading done, then rode a Boris bike back to my flat for a change of scenery and some good old fashioned time wasting. That night I had planned to meet Mary Ellen and her mother for a ghost walk, but wires were crossed and we missed it. Instead, I used it as a chance to bike through the still relatively empty London streets and discovered a few pedestrian shopping streets I hadn't known were there before.

Wednesday I was scheduled to meet Mary Ellen and her mother at the Doctor Who experience. There was no reasonable way to get there from Borough via public transportation so I decided to use a Boris bike. This was the first time it really failed me. It turns out that from where I live to Kensington is just slightly uphill the entire way. It was brutal. And I ran late. And that annoyed me because I hate being late and should have known better and left earlier. It was also surprisingly difficult to find, google maps didn't exactly know where it was and kept trying to convince me it was on a different road. Eventually I did get there and everything worked out. I didn't really know anything much in advance about Doctor Who, but the "experience" part was fun, one of those things where you watch a movie that sets up the situation and then the "Doctor" follows you via video screen through multiple rooms yelling advice and encouragement for your survival. After you come out in an exhibition where there are all sorts of props and costumes from the series. When we were done with the exhibition we headed for Shoreditch to the Geffrye museum. This took way longer than it should have because the closest Tube station was closed, the second station Tube station was only running lines in the opposite direction of where we needed to go, so we took the bus to the third station that was also not running the line we were looking for. We finally made it via roundabout Tube method and walked the last mile or so into Shoreditch while the sidewalk tried to kill me multiple times.

The Geffrye museum specializes in the history of the English domestic interior. It is laid out as a series of rooms with an explanation of the decade or time period and then the next room is a display of the furniture found in a typical dining room/drawing room/living room of the period. Because it was the Christmas season all the rooms were decorated for the season. We made our way through the museum and then I walked down the street to meet up with Jardena for some vintage shopping. I knew that Shoreditch was a hispter area but I have NEVER seen so many vintage stores clustered in one place before. We went to four or five before both finding dresses at the Beyond Retro warehouse. I ended up with a beaded black dress with gentle v-neck neckline and beaded/lace short sleeves and a rope of pearls. We kept shopping to see if I could find anything more 20s appropriate for the Prohibition themed New Years party. I didn't find any other dresses but I did pick up a pair of beaded/sequined gold shoes for 5 pounds in the vintage accessories store.

Thursday I spent at Hampton Court palace with Mary Ellen and her mother. It was my first visit to a palace in London! It is huuuuuge. We got the free audio guides and wore courtier's clocks and watched the jester perform in the courtyard and watched the actors re-enact the Henry VIII's fourth Queen's court and watched Henry himself (kind of) stalk up and down the halls yelling. We also visited the gardens, which house the world's largest and oldest (grape) vine. We saw the kitchens, the quarters of William of Orange (which I loved because I love anytime you can peer into a dead famous' ruler's private rooms) and learned about Henry VIII's major mid-life crisis. On the way back to London I got the best hot chocolate I have ever had in my entire life. It was so good that it is worth immortalizing in a blog. I followed Mary Ellen and her mother back to their hotel where they were kind enough to load me up with their leftover groceries. I had a quiet night finishing up some work and then meeting Marissa and Gunperi at the pub across the street. Valerie and I walked the block there huddled under umbrella as it went from light sprinkle to total downpour in the time it took us to get there.

Friday was the day I had to say goodbye to both Mary Ellen and her mother, I met them at their hotel for one last breakfast and to give them thank you for visiting me presents. We had a couple of hours together and then once they were back to the airport I spent the rest of the day running mundane errands and reacquainting myself with the joys of living near Borough Market. I also spent the entire afternoon searching high and low for a scone, in Merry Olde England and finding one nowhere. I looked seven or eight places and found nothing. I finally gave up and spent a quiet night in reading, saving up my strength for New Year's Eve.

Shabbos was yet another quiet day spent at home, when it ended I joined Valerie at her flat for nail painting and getting ready for the night. We even managed to leave the residence hall relatively on time. Of course as we were running to catch the bus one of my pretty gold shoes self-destructed. I walked back and changed and then we tried again. Luckily the delay meant we all got to the restaurant at the same time. Valerie and I met Alison, Jardena and her boyfriend Dave for a dinner with lots of prosecco and then went back to Alison's to drink and listen to the top tunes of 2011. This being London we walked in the rain to the Prohibition New Year's Eve party. It was a full house and everyone got into the spirit, full-on flapper costumes, fake gangsters, and a 20s swing band. It was a fun time but I would have paid gold for a chair to sit in after a couple of hours. Sadly Jardena's camera fell victim to the exact same thing mine did in Brussels. We switched to using my camera to capture the night and pictures will follow when I get it back tomorrow. I stayed a few hours past the countdown and then found my way home. The public transportation ran all night long and was free but infrequent. I took a bus to London Bridge and then decided I would stick my arm out and try to hail a cab until either one stopped or the bus came. I spent a very very long time waiting and almost started the New Year in a fist fight when a girl leaning drukenly on a fence told me the next cab was HERS and I replied that the next cab went to the person who took the time to hail it. Eventually one stopped and I got home without having to catfight for it.

I spent the New Year's day mostly in bed. It was, as they say here, pissing rain the entire day. So I stayed in and watched Puss in Boots and napped. Yes, I am embarrassed that I typed that sentence. In the afternoon I skyped with some of my college friends and got caught up on their lives as well as mine as I also spent hours blogging. You are all welcome.

I wish you all a wonderful 2012 and I can't wait to tell you about my family's upcoming visit (they get here on Thursday) and our trip to Israel! 

Love, 

Southern Italy and a visit from a friend

Sorry for the really weird blog title. The two are unrelated, but both happened in the same week. I'm determined to belated start this year off right by getting my blogging all up to speed. This may be on of those resolutions that is doomed to fail or maybe I will just have to start living a really boring life so that all my entries can just be copied and pasted from week to week? Only time will tell.

So, Italy! Yup, still talking about my trip to Italy. I left off when I was in Naples for the night. Monday morning I woke up early, took a luxurious shower in my hostel (my shower in the UK is so terrible that a good shower is noteworthy to me), and caught the Circumvesuviana train to Herculeneum. Herculenuem is a town that was buried in the same eruption as Pompeii. The site is significantly smaller because there is a town sitting on top of it so excavation has been somewhat limited. It was preserved in a different manner than Pompeii, so there are pieces of the original wood frames and steps still there today. Apparently even organic materials like food were preserved, but when the excavations started in the late 1700s they destroyed a lot of what was there because the technology and understanding didn't exist for preservation.

I couldn't resist the approximately 2 euro saving so I bought a double-ticket to both Pompeii and Herculeneum and paid for an audio guide for the first time in my life. Then I got to work, methodically making my way through the entirety of the site. It took approximately 3 hours and it was exhausting. Likely because it is the offseason a number of the houses were closed to the public for restoration work, so I guess I should be happy because otherwise I would have spent even more time there. The audio guide definitely meant that I spent more time there than I would have otherwise, since you have to hear it out at length (or you do if you are me and slightly OCD) and it was a little frustrating because it would use words I didn't understand like telling me to step through onto the "peristyle," or it would tell me to walk into the "atrium" when none of the buildings in the compound had roofs so you couldn't tell which one was the atrium. Below I'll share the picture highlights.

Site in the foreground Vesuvius in the background:

Closed Roman baths:

I liked this building, but looked a little shaky:

Chilling with my audio guide

In a private house

Skeletons!

And maybe this is a peristyle?

Hope you enjoyed the tour, anyone that was planning to do that in the future can just cross it off their list now! I left Herculeneum and decided to do double duty and see Pompeii, since it was on the way to Sorrento, where I was planning to spend the night. I spent so much time at Herculeneum that I only had a couple of hours for Pompeii which really isn't enough to do it justice, but I tried my best. I decided against the audio guide and instead just toured it with an eye to speed and cursory inspection rather than deep study. Pompeii itself is HUGE. It is just really really really a lot all in one place. But again, it's just ruins, so there are a lot of foundations and things that don't even necessarily look like buildings and lots of foundations scattered everywhere. The things that are left intact are very interesting, but I think I was a little disappointed because I can literally still remember when I first learned about Pompeii as a child and it was "an ENTIRE CITY discovered under lava ENTIRELY intact!" And although I know in my adult head that a city that is "intact" by archeological standards is not the same as a city intact by living standards, my expectations were invariably colored by my childish ideals. Below I'll highlight some of my favorite pictures.

Mural:

Amphitheater which is still in use today:

An ancient pub

Communal water fountain!

My favorite part of Pompeii - the local cafe

And the view from the bathroom window

Bakery with millstones in the yard 

And street with Vesuvius in the background

Before I left Pompeii I was treated so a very beautiful sunset as the surrounding mountains turned a soft delicate purple as the sun went down over the ocean.

My final destination that night was in Sorrento. From Pompeii I continued on the Circumvesuviana to Sorrento and then from there needed to catch the bus up to my B&B. A very very nice bus driver (who didn't really speak any English but was so kind to me anyway) helped me figure out where I could buy a ticket and then made sure I got off at the right stop. I called the B&B owner asking where to go from the bus stop and he directed me up a steep road. I walked up the road and it turned into steps right where the lights ended. I had no idea where I was supposed to go and I wasn't planning to just walk up into the equivalent of a dark alley trying to use my cell phone as a flashlight without more information. I called the B&B probably five or six times asking WHERE I was supposed to be going, asking WHY there weren't any lights on and he kept assuring me I was doing the right thing (standing there?) and then hanging up on me. By the time he turned the lights on and I had hiked up the 300 metres or so to the entrance at the top of the steps I was in a foul mood. The owner tried to make nice and didn't get the hint when I declined to talk about the weather and he eventually said something along the lines of "I turned the lights on for you" and I completely, charmingly LOST IT. I was shaking I was so angry and practically yelling that he had also left me out there, by myself, at night, completely lost IN THE DARK etc. etc. etc. Probably not how you are supposed to react when dealing with the owner of the house you are staying in. Ironically, once I was settled in a fuse blew and I was plunged back into darkness for about five minutes. The WiFi was extremely spotty but with enough patience I was able to write down the directions I needed for the hike I was planning for the next day, then, since I couldn't figure out how to work the TV, I went to sleep.

My last full day in Italy was probably my favorite day of the whole trip. The weather was perfect and I wasn't sick anymore, just stopped being sick as suddenly as I started. I got ready and walked the kilometer down the dangerous winding road with no sidewalk from the B&B into Sorrento. The views were worth it.

I stopped at a grocery store for provisions for my hike and then moseyed past the Christmas market to the bus stop. I bought a painfully expensive 24 hour bus pass, even though half the time they don't even care if you validate or have a ticket. I rode the bus down the Amalfi coast to the city of Amalfi. It was as incredibly scenic as it's reputation would have you believe it is. Very similar to driving along PCH to Big Sur, but on a giant coach bus.

While the bus was surviving the twistys I realized that I had brilliantly misplaced the directions that I had painstakingly copied down the night before and was not going to be able to do the hike without them. This meant that when I finally reached Amalfi my first stop was the tourist office to find out if they had a map (they did not) and then the Internet "Hotspot" so that I could once again write down the directions. I think I must have missed the bus while I was doing this because when I got back to the bus station I found out the next bus I needed wasn't going to leave for over an hour. To pass the time I had a picnic on the pier and then walked around Amalfi, which climbs up this narrow canyon into the the mountains. It is utterly charming and insanely expensive.

I spent my last half hour or so waiting with a huge crowd of teenagers for the bus. This one was another coach bus and the drive was as twisty if not more so than the one to Amalfi. Except instead of the first ride, which took me along the edge of the coast, this one led up the mountain. We switched backed higher and higher and higher. It was honestly ridiculous, each time I thought to myself we could not possibly still be gaining altitude, the bus would round another switchback and up we went. The pictures do not do it justice. The driver spent most of the time talking to an off duty driver in the front seat next to me and occasionally took his hands off the wheel to make his point.

We finally made it to the top of the mountain, to a plateau/valley plain (I say plateau because it's at the top of a freaking mountain, and valley because it is ringed by still higher peaks.). The bus driver let me off in the village of Bomerano and I made a wild guess that I found the correct church from which my directions to the walk, the Path of the Gods started and was luckily right! There were also super helpful signs that I had not expected to help me find my way.

My starting elevation:

Medieval animal pens:

The beginning of the hike:

The hike was well marked and easy to follow. The day continued to be beautiful and I hiked with this silly foolish grin that I could not wipe off my face. The hike wasn't particularly difficult, the first hour or so is mostly level. There is one spot that you walk on the edge of a cliff, which made me slightly height sick, but the path was a good four feet or five feet wide so there was no danger of falling, unless you had some freak tripping accident. There was almost no one else out there but me, herds of goats grazing, and their shepherds. The goats had bells on their necks so as I walked it was as though I was accompanied by wind-chimes.

And the scenery knocked my socks off.

About 1/3 of the way into the hike I was overtaken by two men with rifles (hunters?) who stopped to give me directions when I reached a fork in the road. The  next phase I just took my time and soaked in my surroundings.

The last bit of the hike was probably the most difficult. I had spied Nocelle, but the mountain inconveniently folded in on itself right before and not only doubled the amount of ground I needed to cover, but also required that the trail drop down and then climb back up in a rather irritating way since I had my destination in sight. I walked through Nocelle, which clings to the side of the mountain in a way that dictates that  no cars could possibly be of use there. It was here that I deviated from my directions and followed this sign down to Positano.

I personally counted over 1300 steps, but I also started counting late, so this is likely very very accurate. It was also very stupid for me to think I could hike down that many steps unscathed. My knee did not take it very well and I had to take the last 500 or so quite slowly. In due time I reached the road and made my way to Positano to catch the bus.

The bus took its sweet time coming, but I passed the time with an American family on vacation who were waiting at the same stop. I was dropped off in Sorrento and had to bus back to the B&B. Happily the lights were on this time, but the fuse, like clockwork, blew once again and had to be reset.


Wednesday I woke up and got ready to go. Packed carefully and tried the shower but couldn't figure out how to turn on the hot water. I asked the owner for help and he assured me "it worked now." It did not. I took a miserably cold shower and then as I was planning my day the fuse blew again and took the WiFi with it. I figured this was a sign that it was time for me to go. I shouldered Bessie and walked down into Sorrento.

I had no real desire to spend much time in Naples, which was the city I was flying out of, so I stopped in Sorrento to peruse the Christmas market but didn't see anything worth buying. I rode the Circumvesuviana to Naples and left Bessie at the train station. And then, for the last time, I wandered. I wandered through tiny little market streets.

I admired the big castle up on the very steep hill in the center of the city. I found this incredible building by accident

 I looked through the open-air christmas/farmers market and considered and ultimately rejected the idea of buying things for myself. I found myself in a gorgeous open air shopping mall

I took my guidebook's suggestion and visited the Piazza Plebescito

Then I walked down to the waterfront and along it, taking pictures of Naples

 My last stop was Castel d'Ovo, the oldest castle in Naples.

Inside, the canons point towards the city

I saw one last stunning sunset

And then started my walk back to the train station, past yet another random castle

I grabbed my bag, boarded the bus to the airport and got out of Dodge.

The flight back was uneventful, but I thoroughly appreciated the use of my nickname on my luggage claim ticket

I flew into Stansted, which was the usual nightmare at immigration, this time it was only a 30 minute wait, but it was still unnecessarily slow, considering how few people there were in line ahead of me and how many officers they had working. I just missed the coach and had to wait until midnight for the next bus. From Liverpool Street station I caught a cab home and then unpacked as much as possible while catching up with my flatmate.

Thursday both Marissa and Daniel, my flatmates, left for the holidays so the apartment was quiet and I spent the day settling back in, doing school work, unpacking, and catching up on all the TV I had missed. My friend Mary Ellen and her mother flew in that day to London, but were exhausted and so we made plans to get together bright and early on Friday. I lit the Chanukah candles for the first time (since I didn't have a menorah in Italy) and opened my sweet new external CD drive from my parents!

As for the next portion of the blog, Mary Ellen's visit I don't have any pictures yet, so I'll have to update this once I get my camera back from my friend and Mary Ellen has a chance to send me some of hers, but hopefully your thirst for pictures was slaked by the Italy portion above.

We started her trip with a visit to the British museum, the first time I have been there even though I've been in London for months now. I'm glad I waited though because Mary Ellen majored in history and classics (correct me if I'm wrong), so it was like having a personal tour guide and she was able to add a lot to the exhibits that I wouldn't have known if I had just gone through there on my own. We started with the Rosetta stone and worked our way through the Eqyptian rooms, parts of the Assyrian rooms (boo! hiss!) and then regrouped with a snack and headed upstairs to see the mummies. Once we conquered Eqypt we turned our attention to the Romans, and passed through the Roman section and then back downstairs to the Elgian marbles. They were incredible and accompanied by a really amusing defensive pamphlet explaining why the British Museum will never give them back to Greece (some BS about how they are part of "world heritage" and some valid things about legal possession and Greece's conservation failures). 

We spent most of the day in the British Museum, then had a late lunch/early dinner and I went back to spend a quiet night at home.

The next day they went on the London Eye while I ran errands and tried to find latke mix at Tesco, failed, and then decided on latkes from scratch instead. I met Mary Ellen and her mother at the Eye and we meandered through the Southbank Christmas market before hopping the Tube up to Oxford Street to enjoy an Alice in Wonderland themed afternoon tea. Refreshed, we walked down Oxford Street to admire the Christmas lights and then through the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. There was an even larger Christmas market there (although with many of the same merchants) and this time we stopped for some serious present shopping. I picked up a crocheted shawl for Mary Ellen and we split this incredibly unique needlework necklace for her mother.

Then it was back to my apartment with a quick side trip for some food shopping and then hours and hours of latke making. They were a little on the falling apart side, but I think that was because I didn't have matzah meal and substituted oats and needed to add more to make up the difference. What was important was that they tasted delicious. AND I had come away from Tesco with applesauce which is apparently a rarity here in the UK, it took me forever to find it and it was hidden by the preserves in a very small jar masquerading as jam.

After dinner I went to Camden to meet my friends Jardena and Alison for a Jewish Christmas Eve charity party bar night event thing. It was crowded but fun. The bar/club is in an old stables, which is awesome, but the footing is uneven brick which is treacherous in heels. The downside to the timing was that public transportation stopped running at midnight so I had to spend an arm, a leg and sign away rights to my first born child for a taxi home when the night ended.

On Christmas day I slept late and spent the day lazing around and accomplishing nothing. The city completely shuts down on Christmas, nothing is open except for the odd convenience store and all public transportation stops. So I walked to Mary Ellen's hotel over in Kensington. The weather was nice and I got to walk through some areas I had never been before, including past Buckingham palace and the Queen's Mews (stables!). I got there around 4pm and we all hung out in the hotel room and opened our stockings. Mary Ellen and her mother ridiculously generously gave me my own stocking, blue for Chanukah! And filled it with Chanukah cookies! Real gelt! a top! A dancing snowman! A mini flashlight that would have been so useful in Italy! A bracelet! more candy! It was just the nicest sweetest thing ever. Around 6 we got dressed up and they treated me to Christmas dinner. There was champagne and poppers and paper crowns to wear and little jokes (allegedly jokes, some didn't actually make any sense) and a good time was had by all. To get home I took the advice of Londonist and rode a Boris bike (the bike share service, nicknamed after the mayor of London, Boris Johnson). It took me 20 minutes to get home versus the 1 hour and 45 minutes it had taken me to walk.

And with that I finish up another week! I can't believe I'm only one week behind now! And you lucky ducks got two updates in one day. Sorry the second half didn't have any pictures, I'll update when I can, promise. I belatedly hope everyone had a lovely holiday, whatever you were celebrating.

Much love,