Music: We Made You- EminemMood: BummingI apologize to all my readers (the whole handful) for not updating for more than three weeks. After going to Europe and having a blast, I've been sitting at home, wasting time, watching youtube, uploading photos on facebook, and just wasting time. It's been horrible. I hate waking up late and wasting time all day on the internet. Going to Europe and having limited internet access made me realize how I really don't need to depend on the internet. Yes, it provides me with email and gives me the ability to connect with others (and pay my bills online), but other than that, I have lately realized that the internet is a HUGE waste of time. I spent 3 weeks without the internet while in Europe, survived, and left with an understanding that I can better spend my time doing other things than constantly being plugged in. (The irony in all of this is that I type this revelation all while being logged into facebook with iTunes playing in the background and the nightly news playing on my TV. I admit, it's hard to escape, but when you do get a chance to escape, savour it!)
So let me get back on topic and talk about my three week trip to Europe. It was my first time in Europe, so be prepared for a pretty long blog entry that I've been putting off since I landed back in Houston last Thursday.
I left Houston on Tuesday, May 12th and landed in London on Wednesday, May 13th in the morning. The reason I even got the idea to go to Europe was because my mom had a 3 week business trip in London. She flew out the same day but on British Airways, and I was on Continental (because I wanted the miles on Continental rather than for American Airlines). Her flight landed a bit earlier than mine but was in Heathrow Terminal 5 and I landed in Terminal 4. Because there's no efficient way to transfer between Terminal 5 and 4, we decided it would be best to meet at the hotel. Fortunately, I'd consider myself a pretty efficient and seasoned traveler, so I charged up an Oyster card and hopped on the Picidilly Tube line for Hammersmith, where our hotel was. My mom got through immigration an hour before I did and was wondering where I was, but luckily, she ran into me when I was walking out of the tube station.
London, overall, was pretty amazing. I reminded a lot of Hong Kong. Like A LOT! I suppose that makes sense because Britain colonized Hong Kong for so long... the double decker busses, the funny spelling of some words (which has rubbed off on me... favourite, colour, behaviour), driving on the wrong side of the road and the driver's seat is on the wrong side as well. The Oyster card is very similar to the Octopus card in Hong Kong excpet that you can't use the Oyster to pay at McDonalds or 7-11 and using the Tube is a lot more expensive than using Hong Kong's MTR.
So rather than recap day-by-day of what I did in London, I'll simply make a list my likes and dislikes of the city.
London Likes:- Museums are free
- Tube is easy to use
- Tesco, Mark and Spencer, and other on the go stores are EVERYWHERE
- English is spoken!
- The Victoria and Albert Museum
- The British Museum (home to the Rosetta Stone, Black Obelisk, among other things)
- The Natural History Museum
- Fish and Chips
- Pubs! (They're everywhere.. more pubs than there are starbucks and mcdonalds)
- Cider (Apple and Pear Cider, Bulmers and Mangers)
- Pasties (I got sick of them after a while, but they were still enjoyable)
- H&M! (there were about 3 in Oxford Circus
- strong jaw lines ;-)
- the weather (a lot cooler than Houston!!)
- cheap cell phones (I bought a pay as you go phone for 5 pounds! and paid about 4 pence to call interntionaly and about 15 pence to make local calls... and now I can use that GSM phone anywhere if I just get a SIM card)
- Leicester Square- so close to Chinatown, Picadilly Circus, Covent Garden, and the West End
- West End- for plays and musicals! (I saw Spring Awakening!!!!)
- Probably the highest per capita concentration of Bentley's, Aston Martin's, and Land Rovers
-Trafalgar Square
- Oxford Circus (great shopping and very active)
- Harrod's (the mega-huge department store with food halls!)
London Dislikes:- Their credit card's have chips but ours don't so it take longer for US credit cards
- They actually compare your signature to the one on the back of your card before giving your card back to you
- Getting from Gatwick airport to the city is expensive!
- I used to thinkg their accents were cute, but now I found that they over pronouce their words too mch and it sounds way too funny
- Pounds are too expensive
- Royalty... =p
- Expensive Eurostar tickets (when you buy them at the last minute)
You can view my facebook album for more London photos and detailed captions to go along. Overall, I really enjoyed London. The Tube was easy to manage, and I really could see myself working in London for a year or so! After 12 days in London, on Monday, May 25th, I took the Eurostar to Paris, getting to Paris at about 1pm in the afternoon.
Paris was a lot different than London, and a huge culture-shock for me. The city was a bit ditier and harder to mange than London because Parisians don't really like speaking English. Again, likes and dislikes:
Paris Likes:- The Palace of Versailles
- The Louvre
- Notre Dame
- French Combo meals at sandwich shops come with sandwich, dessert, and water (dessert > chips)
- Macaroons!!! <3 style="font-weight: bold;">Paris Dislikes:
- the RATP is EXPENSIVE and the little ticket system is annoying (very much like New York's)
- Parisians don't speak English
- the weather was moody (hot, and then cold)
- The streets are not well labeled at all so it's almost impossible to find anything
- Large tour groups
- Orly Airport (I was supposed to take the Orlyval train from Antony after riding the RER C line so I could sleep in the airport and catch my 6am flight to Rome, however, Orlyval stops running at 11 and I got there at 11:30, so I rode back into city, waiting for a night bus to the airport (but the bus drivers were on strike) so I had to wait on a dark Paris street for like 45mins in the middle of the night until the bus informant guy brought me information and helped me transfer onto a different bus to take a different bus, filled with drunk, smelly, scary people, to the the airport and finally getting at Orly at 3am-ish.)
- Smelly, drunk Parisians
- EasyJet (it's cheap and really reliable, but customer service is not at the top of their list)
Again, you can view pictures online on my Facebook under the Paris album. So after the whole bus ordeal and being scared out of my mind, I finally got to the Orly Airport and slept about 2 hours before getting through security and catching a 6am flight to Rome on Thursday, May 28th. After landing around 8:20am at the Campiano Rome airport, took a 1.20 euro bus to the Anginia metro stop to ride the metro for 1 euro to the Barbarini metro. From there, I walked to Via Rasella where I was supposed to meet up Ishanee, who landed at the other Rome airport (FCO) at 8am as well. It turns out, no one was answering the apartment doorbell except someone who said Pronto (and then I would say I'm meeting exchange students from Texas, and then she hung up..) So I was pretty sure I had the right street, so like a hobo, I sat on the street and just waited. I was already sleep deprived and sick of traveling because of my Paris airport ordeal. After waiting for 2 hours, Ishanee comes walking up the street, sees me, and we have a pleasant reunion. It turns out that the apartments weren't ready until the afternoon, so her driver took her to the study abroad headquarters and she was trying to call my London phone (which wasn't working) and didn't even know how to get to the apartment. Through some act of a higher being, Ishanee found me. It was a rough traveling day full of horrible experiences, but overall, Rome ended up being amazing! Especially since I got to travel and explore Rome with Shyam, Vicki, Ishanee, and Apu!
Likes and Dislikes of Rome.
Rome Likes:- Ruins EVERYWHERE
- A new gelato flavour to try every day
- House Wine
- SPQR Water
- St. Peter's Basilica and St. Peter's Square
- The Vatican
- Piazza Navona
- Piazza del Popolo
- Trevi Fountain
- Victor Emmanuel II Monument
- Coloseum
- "staying" at the Yellow Hostel ;-)
- the Supermercato! (and fresh fruit!)
- Tivoli
- cool Roman nights
- Gappa, Melloncello, Fior de Latte, and wine tasting
Rome Dislikes:- So many steps = good work out but extremely tiring
- Everything is in Italian, which looks a lot like spanish but isn't
- Being jetlagged/tired in a Vodaphone store
- My London cell phone working in paris but not in Rome until the last day
- Cobble stone is so hard to walk on
- after the 3rd or 4th day, Pizza and pasta got annoying but I couldn't afford the 2nd course veal or meatball dishes.. but i had some pretty good pizza
- hot roman days
- the rain
After 7 days in Rome, I had to fly back to London on June 3rd. Catching my afternoon flight from FCO to LGW (Gatwick), I got back to Hammersmith where I met my mom around 8pm. We went to the local pub that serves really good food (Queen's Head in Hammersmith), and I had my last meal in London-- Fish and Chips with some apple cider. I regret never trying Fullers but cider was really good. The next morning, I took the tube to Heathrow, and flew to New York, Newark, and then connected to Houston.
All in all, it was a great, affordable trip. I spent about 530 on the airfare to London, some more on the Eurostar to Paris, and then got a pretty good deal on Easyjet from Paris to Rome and back to London. My housing expense was almost nil because I only had to pay for housing in Paris. Everything I spent money on food and drink and only one souvenir from Rome. I couldn't have asked for a better way to end a horrible semester. Surprisingly, despite all the stress of grades and internships, I ended this semester with all A's! (A in plan II physics!!! Respect that.) And I got a pretty solid internship in Seattle with a major US bank doing commercial banking, and I got to go to Europe for three weeks! It's starting off to be an amazing summer.
Now, after a week here at home, I'm flying off to Seattle tomorrow evening to begin my internship on Monday. I'll be living with my brother, and his place is about 15 blocks (or 1.15 miles, according mapmyrun.com) from my office! I'm really excited and can't wait to start. I'm a bit nervous because this is my first internship where I actually know some stuff about finance and will now be applying it to the "real world." I'm confident that I'll learn a lot from the internship and also be able to accomplish a lot! I'm also excited about being in Seattle for the summer. My goal was to lose 10 pounds this summer. I've already lost about 5 or 6 in Europe! Haha. Only 5 more pounds to go! I also want to jog a lot more (my brother said he'd buy me nice running shoes), so I can start preparing for the Austin Distance Challenge. I also am excited about being so close to Vancouver, Canada! I've also got a conference in Chicago in mid-July for Mortar Board, so that'll be excited to meet other Mortar Board people. I don't know if I'll have a chance to explore Chicago at all, but hopefully I'll get to see a couple friends while I'm there. After that, I'll be flying back from Seattle on August 22nd and moving into my house in Austin soon after.
If you've read this entire blog, Kudos to you. Leave a comment saying you have! If you want any pictures, please see my facebook. With that, I need to shower and start packing! Here's to a great summer!
I went to London for 1.5 wks right after school let out! (I had no finals.)
Then I went to Paris for 3 days!
I then spent a week in Rome and visited some friends who were studying abroad.
After that, I began my internship in Seattle in mid-June. (This was the view of the space needle from my brother's apartment!)
I celebrated July 4th at Alki Beach in Seattle, grilling and enjoying the sunset.
I made a trip to Whistler in Vancouver, Canada to see how gorgeous it was during the summer! (I went to Whistler for spring break too, so it was cool seeing how green it was.)
We ended up hiking up some of the slopes and got some great shots of Whistler and the surrounding mountains!
I got a lot of sun this summer, not only from jogging but also from rowing and just reading outside. This was a relaxing weekend in Gasworks Park with Lake Union in the foreground and the Seattle Skyline and the Space Needle in the background. (I took a learn-to-row course 3 days a wk for 4 weeks on lake union. I also managed to read 11 books during my 10 wk internship, though my goal was 12 books.)
I also managed to squeeze in some camping in Wenatchee National Forest at the Owhi Campground right along Cooper Lake. It was a great camping adventure!
I flew back from Seattle this past Saturday, Aug 22nd and moved into my house in Austin on Monday. This is a view of Mt. Rainier from the plane.
Lastly, I know in my last post, I mentioned my goal to hit 2000 txt messages.. Well, I hit it! I think I was at 2100 or so when my billing cycle ended.