Operatic adventures!

Thursday, Sep 6. 2007

Pretty slow day. It is still quite rainy and cold, which doesn’t really motivate one to be active and do a lot of sightseeing. German class was cancelled for the morning and so we didn’t have class until 2:00. In the morning I went to the institute and basically hung out there until class. I did some reading, finished some homework for history class and caught up on the latest college football happenings. After history class I finally was able to catch Mom online and we chatted for about 20-30 minutes. That was nice. We didn’t get the audio working but that’s ok. I was in a public room and I’m not sure they would have appreciated the conversation anyhow. (of course, in a similar situation I was able to listen to a girl talk mushy-talk with her fiancée for about 20 minutes…wanted to stab myself with my pencil to end the madness. Seriously, they spent 5 minutes arguing about who missed the others’ voice more. Bleh!)

Last night the big plan was for a group to get together and go to the Opera to see Carmen. We are, of course, cheapo students, and opt for the standing room tickets in the nether regions of the opera hall. Do grab these hot pieces of real estate you basically just have to get in line 2-3 hours early. So, we jumped in line at 4:30. I was assured that we could just get through the line quickly, grab some tickets, mark our spots and then head back out into town until the opera started at 7. Good thing, too, because I was getting pretty hungry. Well, it wasn’t until I read the opera ticket manual that I found out that the standing room (stehplatz) tickets wouldn’t even start selling until 5:45. Egad. So, over an hour later, the line started to move slowly and sometime around 6 we finally got our tickets. I was absolutely famished and excited to get out and find some food but…nope. Turns out once you get your tickets you have to show them to get your standing room spot and then there’s no turning back. “The point of no return”, to quote an operatic tale. So I just slowly starved to death in my spot for an hour until the show started. Beautiful building, by the way.

Anyhow, the performance started and it was indeed marvelous. We enjoyed the first two acts immensely. We found some of the other kids from our program across the hall from us and talked to them for a bit. Amusingly, they thought Carmen only had two acts and left after the second. Whoops. It has four. We stayed for the whole thing (3.5 hours of standing got a bit old after all that time in line…). Really quite enjoyable, especially towards the end when people start going insane and there are stabbings. There were several famous songs that I had no idea were in Carmen. Having just been to southern spain, which is the setting for the Opera, I especially enjoyed watching it with my background experience on Flamenco, bullfighting and Spanish culture. Good stuff. Oh, and did I mention that the performance only cost 2 euros ($2.70)? Pretty good bargain!

Drowned in a rat-like fashion!

Random journal excerpts masquerading as a Blog entry:

Tuesday Sep. 4 - Finished the Bertrand Russell book last night, started the Merleau-Ponty book “Phenomenology of Perception” today. Much denser than Russell but so far fairly rewarding (still in the preface….hahahaha). This morning had German class, my skills are still coming back well. I am pleased about that. Went to an Italian place for lunch…there are absolutely LOADS of Italian places here. I had a pizza with bacon and corn on it. Not great cuisine but still pretty tasty. After that headed to the outreach center (LDS institute) and attended our “experiencing Vienna” class and the german conversation class. I’m not sure I’ll continue in the German convo class as I don’t really want to have a certain number of required hours of German to achieve a particular grade. Seems a bit oppressive. On the other hand, I do need the German practice and this would be a good way to make sure I do it, but hey, I am here partially to have a stress-free good time, right? Hmmmm…..

Dinner consisted of a fruit-yogurt drink and some bread with Liverwurst. Not bad fare for a few euros. We went to the Opera to get in line for the Barber of Seville but it wasn’t taking people for the standing room tonight. Private performance or some such nonsense. So we tried to find a plan “B”. I found one, and a darn good one if I may be so bold. We got lost a bit but finally found the concert house where we attended a performance of the Weiner Kammerphilharmonker. It was simply incredible. They performed a Mozart piece, a Mendelssohn piece and finished it off with Beethoven’s Symphony no. 7. Beethoven is amazing. He plays with emotions more than any other composer I’ve ever heard. I loved it. Got ahold of a schedule for the concert and some people that want to go fairly often so I’ll probably try to take advantage of that and continue to expand my knowledge of classical music.

Wednesday, Sep 5: Bratislava Day

We arrived in Bratislava at about 10:30 and I tried to feel out a decent group to visit the city with. I wound up with Andrew and some girls (with a 7 to 1 ration of girls to guys, we're always outnumbered). The group went to the Primate’s palace, which has nothing to do with monkeys or apes, and then split off for individual activities for 6 hours. Did I mention that it had been raining lightly all day? Well, once we split off, it started to get REAL nasty. Wind, rain, cold, the whole shebang. First stop was lunch, as we were all famished. We went to a Spanish (In Slovakia?) restaurant and I had rabbit. It was a total rip-off. The food wasn’t bad, but it cost waaaay more than advertised and wasn’t quite worth it. We visited a castle on the hill that was actually quite a letdown, as we really didn’t see anything of note except an 85-meter deep well.

We went into St. Martin’s church, where most of the big names in Hapsburg history were crowned and saw a few cool things in there. There was an area dug up with glass over it in which there were skeletons in the ground and a crypt with coffins and the like. Definitely worth the 25 crowns (roughly 1 dollar). We continued to slog through the rain, stopping in a lovely old orthodox church to dry off. The church was just starting a mass so we stayed and watched/listened for a while. It was very cool to see the mass in Slovakian and hear their sermon, service and prayers. One of the most enjoyable parts of the day.

Finally we wandered around, found a grocery store to use the last of our crowns (dinner was about 1/10^th the price of lunch. Ouch.) and finally found a street car to take us back to the train station. At this point we were freezing, wet and exhausted. I crashed on the train, sleeping all the way back. Then it was merely a matter of David and I taking our usual 45-minute journey home, walking through the rain a bit and finally getting back to our nice little German house. Long day but well worth the effort!

Bratislava was cool. Much rougher than Vienna...lots of graffiti and a bit more run down. It was interesting but I think the next few trips (Salzburg, Budapest, Italy) will be much longer and more eventful.

Today: Raining all day, very dreary. I am pretty much hanging out doing homework, reading philosophy books and using the internet at AAIE. I have history class at 2:00 and then perhaps the opera or something else amusing. I'll get some pictures up on here at some point...

Out of order

I may, eventually, get around to continuing my sordid tale of the trip around Europe, but I thought everyone would appreciate a little update about Vienna. This from Friday:

We arrived in Vienna yesterday at 8:30ish. We arrived in the Westbahnhof train station, which was actually different than we had told our group director. We were supposed to arrive in the Sudbahnhof station, which explained why we waited for an hour for someone to pick us up to no avail. Turns out they wouldn’t have picked us up either way, as we were supposed to just make our way to the institute to meet everyone by about 12:00. Finally we got into the metro system (we’d become pros at the metros in Europe by this point and found our way to the AAIE. Took a minute to find, but it wasn’t difficult as it was right next to the StaatOpera in downtown Vienna. We arrived and slowly a few other students started to straggle in. Most of the group came from the US together and so they all showed up at the same time with Dr. Hansen. To be perfectly frank, I appreciated the entire group showing up. I had enjoyed my trip and time with Andrew, Ellen and Kimberlee but I was definitely ready to expand my social circle a bit. The nice part is that the 4 of us are still great friends but probably get along better now that we don’t have to be around each other 24/7.

Vienna is very nice. It’s a bit like Paris with the architecture and style but seems a little smaller and cleaner. Thus far I’ve been VERY impressed with the cleanliness and apparent safety of the city. Of course you can still do stupid stuff and get into a lot of trouble but frankly, if you’re smart, you’ll be ok.

After the entire group arrived I looked around and was a bit shocked. 4 guys, 27 girls. Talk about weird. It’s strange to think that guys are in that much of a minority. I’m no ladies man, but with that many females I think I may actually do all right in that department for the first time in my life. Hahahahahaha….. We have one guy in our group who is rapidly becoming the ladies’ favorite (Ty) but I imagine as soon as they all settle down and stop fighting over him like a bunch of starving animals on the Serengeti us other guys will start looking better and better. Other than Ty the big suave guy there is Andrew the hyperactive film freak and David the tall quiet dude. As I told the other guys, we each get 7 girls so no one get greedy. That should be plenty.

After we arrived we went on a little walk aroud the city to keep all of the plane folks awake until nighttime (to combat jetlag) and got some dessert. My first taste of Vienna was an apple strudel. Definitely impressive. I’m going to like this town. The girls, of course, are all freaking out about the gelato, but let’s face it: you don’t come to Vienna for ice cream. Baked treats, my friends. Baked treats.

We stopped by Stefansdom, the large cathedral in the middle of Wien and looked around for abit and proceeded on to Peter’s something-or-other, another church. We arrived at 3:00 which happened to be the exact time they were starting an organ concert, which sounded very good. Sadly the group left after one piece and I had no choice but to follow. Blasted. I am EXTREMELY excited about the music in this town. Everybody talks about the upcoming concerts, there are ticket vendors for operas and ballets on every corner; basically these people are freaks for classical and that’s awesome. Mozart is basically the city’s patron saint at this point. Between that and the food I feel like I’ve finally found a town slightly more suited to my interests. Now if only I could find a well-populated basketball court…

We grabbed little luggage and headed to our hotel, the pension baronesse. Nice place. All the amenities. All four of the guys stayed in the same room with our own bathroom and that worked out well. Andrew and I hopped into the shower immediately, as an unfortunate side effect of out three day night train and Switzerland experience was no showers for 72 hours. Lots of interesting odors. The shower water was actually brown and filmy as it drained. Not a pretty site. I also shaved for the first time in weeks. That took a while…

The AAIE took us out to dinner to a very nice Italian place with quite authentic food. I got a Bella Napoli pizza which basically was a crust with tomato sauce baked and then they throw on fresh cherry tomatoes, some kind of light spinach, spices, chunks of buffalo mozzarella and cured ham. The whole thing was beautiful and tasted even better. One of the best meals I’ve had to date. (That’s saying quite a bit, mind you) After dinner we returned to the hotel, played around on the internet and eventually crashed into our beds.

This morning we woke at about 8ish, dressed, and headed down for a continental breakfast provided by the hotel in the basement. The breakfast was significantly better than expected. There were several kinds of juices, breads, jams, cheeses, meats, fancy cereals, toast, hot chocolate, fruit….on and on. I ate a ton (for the first time ever in Europe. In fact, this was probably the first time I’d had two decently large meals in a row in my entire trip)

We left for the institute and sat around there for a few hours listening to orientation stuff. Pretty boring, really, but important information was mixed in and it was worthwhile to wade through all the easy garbage to get the crucial info for our stay here. One of the directors of the program took us on a practical tour of the area, showing us grocery stores and post offices and the like followed by a stop for lunch at the local market, Kunsmarkt. There we sampled some eastern cuisine (a sort of gyro style falafel sandwich). We returned to the institute like a herd of cattle and sat through more boring orientation information before going upstairs to meet our families. David Scoville and I are staying with a woman named Hedy Drapal in the 17^th bizirk. She is a widow of a philharmonic clarinet soloist who lives by herself. Very nice lady, probably in her 70s. We had a tour of the house, talked about the house rules and she left us to unpack. Had a good dinner of schnitzel and talked (half in broken English and half in bad german) for an hour or so. We gave her the gifts we’d brought and headed to the third floor which is sort of our domain. That’s where I am now, sitting here at 8:40 and wondering what on earth I’ll do with myself tonight. I’m not entirely used to going to bed before midnight.

------------------Back to reality---------------------

Ok, so here I am in the present. I am currently sitting in the lovely little building that is the LDS institute, enjoying their free internet, snacks provided by kind senior missionaries and air conditioning. It really is a great place to call home in the city since my "home" is 45 minutes away from the city center and really only where I sleep.

I went to church on Sunday. It was a cool little building in the suburb area. The people were super nice but the fact of the matter is I was completely and utterly lost for 3 hours. It's VERY hard to stay awake when you don't understand much of anything. Occasionally an American would speak "gringo" german and I caught a little bit but usually I just stared and wondered. Things can only go up in that department.

Classes started today. We had our first german class followed by a bit more orientation, me wandering around Vienna looking for a grocery store (Lunch: an apple-swiss sandwich. Interesting!) and then european history. Not sure what I'll do for the rest of the afternoon. Perhaps read my new Bertrand Russell book I picked up and wait for institute? More wandering around Vienna? The nicest part about this trip is the lack of work/responsibilities and the opportunity I have to do whatever I want and pursue my interests. So far very refreshing!

Next stop: France

So, I knew we had to catch the chunnel for Paris at 7:09 AM. Not so difficult, unless you consider that we were supposed to be at the train station at least 30 minutes early and we had to take several metro lines to get there. Add all that together and you end up with a wakey time much, much earlier than I particularly wanted to consider. We hit the sack somewhat early, hoping to get a good night’s sleep. That didn’t happen. This whole trip I’ve been without an alarm clock. I simply cannot find the clock tat I packed. Either I didn’t pack it or I packed it too well, but in either case I don’t have it to use. I must have woken up 5 times that night, panicked that we had overslept our 5:15 goal. First time was at midnight. I woke up all in a fix and had to check my computer to see what time it was. It said 12:00 but I didn’t believe it, so I go wandering around the hotel, looking for a clock. I finally wound up at the front desk and asked the very confused clerk what time it is. I think he thought I was abusing some substance as there was a large, very readable clock directly behind his head. He looked at me funny, turned around and read the clock to me – 12:00. I was both relieved and frustrated at my early jumping the gun on waking up and staggered back to bed.

1:30 – repeat

2:15 – repeat

3:30 – repeat

4:00 – repeat

AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!! Not a good night.

Finally it was actually time to get up and we all got ready and made it to the chunnel with plenty of time, settled into our seats and started off for Paris.

On the chunnel we enjoyed our first taste of Paris, a lovely croissant from the train cafeteria that only cost the equivalent of roughly $7.50. Don’t you just love European tourist prices?

The French countryside was absolutely lovely. The morning we arrived everything was very green. We seemed to have left the rain behind in London at it was replaced by a light mist that settled picturesquely over the French farms and hills. Granted, I was sleeping for most of the train trip due to my less-than stellar night, but the parts I did catch sure were nice!

We arrived in Paris around noonish and immediately set to deciphering the instructions to our hotel. They were a tad cryptic and it took us a while to find it but after going to the absolute last metro stop on the line and carrying our bags for what seemed like 50 miles we chanced upon our hotel. It was simple but nice. We unpacked our bags and headed back out into the city.

Our first stop was probably the most daunting: the Louvre. We popped out of the metro right next to the big beast and were floored. It was similar to the feeling that we had seeing Big Ben for the first time. The Louvre is HUGE! These kings in Europe had absolutely no shame in building disgustingly ostentatious buildings. It did fulfill it’s goal (inspiring awe) I suppose.

The other issue with the Louvre is the sheer number of people inside. We were stuffed in there like sardines. There must have been 500 people in the mosh pit by the Mona Lisa. We saw some pretty famous stuff, but I’ve never known a whole lot about art so I probably didn’t appreciate it as I should have.

About 20 minutes into the museum I got hit by some nasty cramps and gas. I could barely breathe. That made the oppressive crowds and heat all the much more pleasant to deal with. At one point I found a bathroom but quickly discovered that there was someone taking their (and everyone else’s, apparently) sweet time. There were 4 men in line for the only stall and they all spoke different languages. The older Japanese guy who kept patting his midsection was squabbling it out with the young, well-dressed French (possibly gay) guy. I decided to skip that idea and looked for an easier way to find a toilet.

Anyway, I staggered my way around the museum ripping some nasty ones, probably damaging priceless artwork with the fumes. I think it may have killed one of the guards. We finally left the Louvre (which had become my idea of a personal hell) and went looking for some food. We found a neat little café down the road a bit and stopped. I immediately sought out their facilities while my compadres ordered. When I got back I found a lovely little set of sandwiches waiting. I had half of two different baguette sandwiches, one of them some kind of fancy ham and the other sausage pate. I was immediately feeling better about this Paris place. If they could produce food like this they must not be all bad, right?

After our dinner we wandered around the Champs Elysee, stopping to gawk at the Arc d’Triomph.

Much bigger than I expected. No wonder all the many countries that have invaded france have felt it necessary to stomp around outside the arc. Very majestic. Then we wandered around some Parisian back roads (wandering is rapidly becoming one of our favorite activities here in Europe) until we bumped into the Eiffel Tower. Again, much larger and cooler than I anticipated. Really seems like an engineering feat when you get right up next to it. We found a cool little park that was relatively people-free and hung out there for a few minutes until the lights came on the tower and hung around until 9:00 when the whole thing went up in sparkles. Looked pretty dang cool.

Did some more wandering until we bumped into a metro station, walked the distance back to our hotel, showered and hit the sack. Paris was shaping up to be a good time after all!

London part deux

Slept well, woke up in good ol’ Chiswick (pronounced Chisick, no W)

We stopped at a market on the way to the metro for our breakfast. The little markets here are considerably better quality than the ones back home, you can actually get a decent meal that doesn’t leave you slightly queasy! I picked up some little pasties called “chelseas” and some juice. The chelseas were like little pastries shaped liked cinnamon rolls with currants instead of cinnamon. I like the pastries in Europe waaay better than America because they’re not all sweet. No nasty frosting, just a little glaze and some fruit, usually. Or a little butter. Mmmmm…..

Being Sunday morning, we decided to do what any good little Mormon kids would do and go to church. Only we decided to do it Europe style and attend the morning service at Westminster Abbey.

We went to a Matins service that involved a lot of singing from the choir, a sermon and some good ol’ fashioned creed recitations. The Abbey is beautiful, the sermon was quite good and it really was nice all around. The cathedrals were built to draw your eyes and thoughts to heaven
and they fulfill their role quite well. You end up looking up and pondering a lot.

Westminster Abbey is beautiful. I love the architecture here in Europe. I’ve realized that I prefer architecture to many of the other forms of art (painting, etc.) In fact, painting is probably my leats favorite. I enjoy sketches, sculptures and other things more than paintings. But back to the point, I prefer just wandering around London looking at the buildings and seeing the city to going to crowded museums and taking tours. Maybe that’s just me.

After the service we walked to Trafalgar Square, taking in the sights along the way. Big Ben, Parliament, countless churches and old government buildings went before our eyes. Interestingly, one almost becomes immune to magnificent spectacles. I caught myself several times dismissing absolutely beautiful buildings as “Oh, there’s another one”. You almost expect grandeur on every corner. And you’re rarely disappointed.

In Trafalgar we hopped on a red double-decker bus for a “hop-on hop-off” tour that would basically allow us to roam around London, grabbing a bus whenever we felt so moved. That worked out well, as we didn’t have to follow any certain schedule but could enjoy whatever we wanted for as long as we wanted. Again, more sights. St. Paul’s Cathedral, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, Tower of London.

Our guide, a little English gal with a thick London accent and a very poor grasp on humor explained them all in a passing manner as if they were just buildings. She spent more time gossiping about English celebrities like Diana, David Beckham and Prince Henry or whoever than talking about the actual city (Maybe I need to read more tabloids?)

One of the girls in our group was desperately looking for a book by one of her favorite authors that is only published in England and that led us on a tour of London’s finest book establishments. Interestingly, there is one road through town that houses nearly all of the bookstores. You have the regulars like Borders and Barnes & Nobles in addition to countless cramped little used bookstores. I loved going through these little trashy stores and seeing what they had, although I was disappointed in their sections on Philosophy. Who woulda thought that obscure philosophy books aren’t a hot item for used bookstores to carry? Hahahahahaha…

We wandered into an area of town called Covent Garden, known for its gardens and dining options. We were looking for somewhere to get some “authentic” English cuisine. What better place than a pub? We found a suitably seedy looking establishment full of English chaps getting smashed and roaring at a football game going on. We were planning on getting fish and chips (the classic) but when the menu came I saw an item I couldn’t resist:

Toad-in-the-hole.

Wow. Can it get ANY more English than that? Let me tell you! When I got my food, it was a large scone thing with limp veggies, mashed potatoes and a curled beef sausage in it. Oh, and the whole thing was absolutely DROWNING in gravy. I was floored. Anyhow, a picture is attached.

It tasted EXACTLY like you’re imagining right now. Doused in gravy.

After dinner we jumped back on the Tube (which we had completely mastered by this point) and headed back to Chiswick. We decided to go out and search down an internet place so we could tell out parents and friends we were alive. We found one, a little joint operated by two middle-eastern gentlemen that was closing just as we arrived. We gave them out best poor-students-in-dire-need-of-an-internet-fix routine and they allowed us 10 minutes to do our stuff. We all fired off really short letters (much to the ire of our parents) and hurried out so they could close.

Oh, did I mention the weather? This whole time it had been raining. Not any kind of downpour, mind you, but seattle drizzly rain. It actually made sightseeing quite pleasant as it wasn’t too hot and kept the lines down. We never really had to wear a coat so we weren’t held back at all by the water. And, frankly, I think drizzly is a much more fitting backdrop for London than sunny and warm.

Back to the hotel, crawled into bed and prepared for a big day. Off to Paris in the morning!

Luuuun-done!

After all the hugs and kisses and generally making a sentimental fool of myself, I was finally off to London. Only one obstacle remained in my way, looming before me like some specter of doom. Suspicious looking men prowled around me, brandishing their weapons and sizing me up. I prepared for the worst as I entered airport security, sure that they could do their worst but that I could pass through unscathed, clinging to my dream of boarding a plane bound for Europe. As I stepped towards the metal detector, I removed my backpack. The guy at the counter looked at me, slightly amused and said “Laptop?” I took my laptop out. “Camera?” I removed my camera. “Shoes?” Off came the shoes. “Pockets?” I emptied them on command. “Belt?” …….. OH COME ON! This was getting ridiculous. Honestly, I think the guy was just having a good time. That job probably gets just a smidge boring and sometimes he chooses poor, hapless college students to torments. Twisted.

I survived security fairly well. I’ve actually been surprised so far that it’s been quite easy to get in and out of airports and train stations. I think, six years later, the transit people have finally gotten the hang of tighter security.

Interesting side note: I saw Dan Albright in the airport, dressed up in his pilot stuff and heading off to copilot…we talked a bit.

I met up with one of the girls in our little group, Kimberlee Sirstins, in the SLC airport and we flew all the way to London together. We met the other girl, Ellen Lloyd, in Cincinnati during our layover. I spent nearly the entire flight stuffing Mom’s homemade cookies in my face. Let me tell you about disgusting airplane food. The “dinner” they served was most certainly the nastiest pile of poo I’ve ever tasted. I stuck each of the dishes in my mouth and nearly gagged each time. Stunning. I still shudder at the thought.

We arrived in London at about 8:45 on Saturday morning. We were to meet our final group member, Andrew Frick, there when his flight at 9:15. And wouldn’t you know, his flight was late! So, of course, we wait. The board says 10:05. Then 10:20. Finally, at 10:45, the plane arrives. We look anxiously for Andrew to emerge. And wait. And wait some more. He rolled out of the baggage area at about 12:30. Unbelievable! Turns out the planes were so backlogged from a storm in New York that it was taking everyone 2 hours to get their baggage. So, in essence, we spent a happy 3.5 hours sitting in the airport in London. What better way could you possibly spend your hard-earned time in England? Thrill of a lifetime! We were looking for a way to page him over the intercom of find where he was, but the information desk was inexplicably closed for a loooong brunch and noone seemed to know why. Everyone we asked anything to responded with “ask the information desk” and when I told them it was vacant, they’d say “well, someone should open that up!” assertively. Of course, nothing ever happened. Well done, information people!

I’m convinced airports hate me.

It’s a conspiracy.

The coolest things I’ve seen in Europe so far are the hand dryers in the men’s bathroom of Gatwick airport. Words don’t suffice to describe, but be assured that they are the pinnacle of human engineering. They actually dry your hands. Quickly.

Andrew managed to lose one of his bags immediately upon arrival in the metro station. We’re standing in line and we here his name called out over the intercom. I was certain we’d gotten busted for unknowingly smuggling some illicit materials into England, but it turned out that he’d just walked off without a bag. Whoops! We got through the line for metro tickets and placed our order and voila! Our credit cards don’t work. Why? Turns out, as we were later told by an attendant, that the machine “doesn’t like our type of cards”. We inquired into the “type” of our cards and were met by a blank stare. (Maybe it doesn’t like Yankee plastic?)

Finally, we arrived at our hotel at 3:00 PM. We checked into the cozy little establishment and lo and behold, cozy is certainly the apt describing word. The rooms are roughly 347 times smaller than the pictures on the website. Apparently the English have mastered adobe photoshop to a degree far beyond our own skill. The rooms were clean enough had functioning locks and came with and had fresh towels. What more could you want for 90 bucks a night? More, you say? Well, maybe you haven’t been to London. I’ll let you in on a little secret.

London is absurdly expensive.

Wow.

Basically take all prices in the US, replace the dollar sign with a pound sign and multiply what you thought the cost was time 2.09. That’ll about do it. Reasonably cheap dinner? 25 bucks. One-way metro pass? 8 dollah. Pitifully tiny water bottle? 3-4 buckaroos. I’ll be broke in a matter of a week.

(Speaking of small, everything here in Europe seems to come in 2 sizes: “small” and “rationed out for the London blitz”. No wonder there aren’t any fat people in London. Nothing to eat!)

When we came out of the tube we were right next to Big Ben and we had our “holy crud, we’re actually in London!” moment. There we were, in front of the actual big ben. Not a post card, not a movie, the real thing.

We had the opportunity to visit the British Library. Not a real big tourist attraction, but easily one of the best in my mind. They have originals of some farly famous documents like, oh, the magna carta. You know, obscure stuff. They also had originals from Shakespeare, Chaucer (eat your heart out, Marty), Jane Austen, Leonardo Da Vinci, Rachmaninoff, Mozart, Darwin and tons more famous people. Oh, and a great religious section highlighted by an original Gutenberg Bible and several copies of the Qu’ran from a loooong time ago.

Andrew is a real fim/theater freak, so he convinced our group to attend a musical in the theater section of London, Picadilly. We decided on Spamalot, an award-winning musical based on Monty Python. After wandering around, we saw a discount ticket booth and Andrew rushed over to buy some tickets. They had two left at 25 pounds and promised that we could go to the theater and that they would give us a few more (“the last ones available”) for this great price. Oh, but right before Andrew and Ellen bought, the tickets magically went up to 30 pounds apiece. I was a bit suspicious of our over-zealous and slightly creepy ticket-selling friends, to say the least. Anyhow, we found a really good Italian place and grabbed some dinner before heading up for the concert…

Dinner: Rigatoni in a Marscapone, Tarragon, Red Onion and Pecorinno sauce. The stuff of dreams.

…when we arrived at the concert, I found it distressing but oddly hilarious that we’d been had. There were plenty of tickets left for the show at the full price of 22.50. Andrew and Ellen were given a wonderful “discount” of an extra 15 bucks! Hahahahahaha….I don’t know why it strikes me as funny but it is. Probably because I didn’t get ripped for 15 big ones. Anyway, that’ll teach you to be rushed into a sale with seedy people that change their prices, eh? Hahahaha…

Anyhow, Spamalot exceeded my expectations and ended up being freakin’ hilarious. Very funny, incorporating all of the highlights of Monty Python. I think it was particularly good here in London because of the genuine accents and british humor. Oh, and the large teeth. That helps.

Thoughts on London so far: I absolutely LOVE it. The city is clean, the people are fairly nice, the british girls are far better looking than generally reported. The architecture is amazing, the candy bars fantastic and the slightly cool and very light drizzle a nice change from surface-of-the-sun Provo. Many more adventures await!

(I’m writing this a few days later, so it’s not exactly current events. Hopefully I’ll catch up sometime.)

Europe! Finally!

Ok, so I finally got free wireless in one of our hostels, so the blogs should come fast and furiously.


Ok, maybe not fast and furiously but at least every once in a while?