When in Rome...ITALIA - Fall Break Part II

ROME DAY 4
So Brett and I hopped a plane in the early afternoon for Rome. We were up in Barcelona early in the morning and out the door from our wonderful hostel toward the airport, no problemo. Basically, airport food is expensive…I’m sure everyone already knew this, but when you are on the go a lot, sometimes it’s the only alternative though. So whether it was a sandwich here, a coke there, basically I was replenished enough, and we boarded our plane, wrote in our journals, and caught an hour shut eye, then touched down in the Roma Fucimini airport by about 4ish.

We took a train to the central station in Rome, and walked 4-5 blocks, and checked in at the Yellow Hostel, and Brett and I straight away decided we were going to get authentic Italian food. So by about 5 or 6 o’clock, we walked all the way down the stairs and next door to a pizzeria and I ordered the lasagna. It was scrumptulescent. Afterwards, Brett and I decided that we had a little time to do some explore for our first night, so we walked about 20 minutes through new Rome down to the Coliseum to see it at night. That was epic. It’s gorgeous at night, and people just drive by it along the road, as if it’s in their way to their destination, that’s crazy, it’s the freakin’ Coliseum we’re talking about here, a huge chunk of history, centuries old, and it’s just another right turn for the crazy Italian drivers…oh well, as a history buff and true tourist, I can appreciate it for what it is though.

Anyhow, we were wiped out for sure, so we caught a metro back to our hostel and called it an early night, we had to get up early for our adventures in the next few days for sure!

ROME/FLORENCE DAY 5
Up early again, Brett and I got ready, and we checked out of the Yellow Hostel. We caught a metro to the Vatican City, and were going to climb to the top of St. Pauls Basilica, but there was a huge crowd of a thousand or so there, and the church was closed, so we decided to go see the Vatican Museum instead, and the Sistine Chapel, but oh wait, of course, long line there too. So Brett and I were in a conundrum…what to do? So we walked back into the crowd of 1000 some people in the center of Vatican City, pushed our way to the front of the crowd, and find some chairs. We randomly run into our friend Jen Scotto, who’s actually studying with us in London from Elon, but she happened to be in Italia, and Rome at the same time as us, so that was crazy to see a familiar face without planning it ahead of time, but it was still very comforting…small world eh?

Well the reason of course there was a crowd…in case you haven’t seen the photos already, was because the POPE was speaking! Crazy right? Basically three times a week, the Pope speaks, and delivers a short sermon to all of the pilgrims that travel to see him there. He speaks 5 different languages fluently, and it’s pretty incredible, not gonna lie. Even if you’re not very religious, it’s still pretty cool to be that close to someone who is titled “his holiness.” Anyhow, when he enters the city, he rides in this car, something like the Pope-Mobile or something, and gets to get close to the crowd. Of course Brett, Jen, and I all jumped on our chairs, moved forward, and were about 10 feet from the guy, so that was at least a once in a lifetime experience I suppose, not bad for a group of 3 poor college kids who got in and somehow found front row seats.

Anyhow, after the Pope’s speech in English (I got it all on tape)…Brett and I grabbed paninis on the go, and bolted for the train station.

We hopped a train for Florence, and journaled some more along the way, it’s a great time to write in your journal if you normally aren’t the “journaling” type like myself, but anyhow, the Italian countryside is so scenic and beautiful, it’s quite the trip. But I’ll fast forward you into our first steps in Florence itself.

Welcome to the birthplace of the Renaissance, Florence, Italy. Artists thrive here, photographers envy it, and sculpters…well they do whatever they do best. Regardless, Brett and I wandered the streets with all our bags for quite some time looking for our hostel that was called “the Eurostudent Hostel”…fitting eh? Anyways, we walk past this restaurant that is supposed to be next door to our place, and we find this small little door, by itself, with a number of buzzers on the side of it. One small buzzer says “Eurostudent” and I look at Brett, and wonder what kinda place we actually set ourselves up with, but either way, we climb 5 flights of stairs, and a guy opens the door to the Eurostudent, he’s short, very Italian, has a half buttoned shirt with a super hairy chest, and introduces himself with a thick accent as “Franco.” Little did I know this character was probably going to be one of the best parts of my experience for Fall Break.

The Eurostudent was actually an amazing hostel, it was small and intimate, but the rooms were large, each with about 6-7 beds, and we had a nice bathroom, and kitchen area as well. Franco checked us in, gave us keys, and then pointed out all the places to go in Florence if we only had one day to do so. It was awesome, we really lucked out by picking friendly places with a lot of very helpful people that owned them. So Brett and I decided to waste no time, so we threw our stuff down and peaced out down onto the Florence streets to explore. We first went to the museum where Michelangelo’s “David” is…which was 10 Euro ($15), but it was so worth it. Michelangelo had so much of an impact on Italy and all of its artwork, it was unreal, and David is actually like probably some 15ft tall, with the base included, and so perfectly sculpted. It sounds cliché to say something like that, but until you’re there, walking around the base and just admiring the fact that anyone could put so much detail into a depiction of someone, is incredible. So that was worth the cost. The other artwork in the museum wasn’t quite as extravagant as we expected, but seeing the David was so unbelievably great.

Next, we hit up the cathedral of Santa Maria (familiar right?) which is also known for its dome…or the “Duomo”. Brett and I took on the 436 some steps to the top (steps was also a very reoccurring theme for our trip) where we stayed for about 45 minutes to catch the sunset over Florence. Romantic huh? Haha, anyways, Florence is absolutely GORGEOUS. The capitals were necessary there because there really isn’t another way to describe the splendor of the city of Florence, from the mountain line on the horizon perfectly fading into the river that sinks into the middle of the city that sits still in a freeze frame of beauty. (That was probably a little overkill, but it sounded really good at the time). Even so, I’m not sure if my pictures will truly do it justice, but at sunset, the city just lights up. It’s so unlike other cities, where there is an older part from the past, and then an industrial side, everything in Florence has been kept the same, similar architecture, style, everything is just beautiful, and even that doesn’t do it complete justice. You really CAN understand why artists and sculptors fell in love with a place like Florence centuries ago.

So after that experience, Brett and I headed back to our hostel and the Eurostudent, and Franco was cooking the hostel dinner. It was included in our price, which was unreal, and Franco sent us on a trip to the store for wine, where he gave us 10 empty bottles, and told us to fill them up. In Italy, Florence especially, the wine is on tap from gargantuan bottles, I’d never seen something like that before, but it was a pretty cool site to see regardless. So the other guys that came with us, all took our bottles back to Franco, where he had finished cooking an amazing pasta dish in mozzarella with meatballs mixed in. It was absolutely epic. The food was so good and we tried Franco’s favorite wine, which was delicious as well. Then, Franco wanted to go out for a night on the town in Florence, so our entire hostel (mind you there were about 15 of us, crammed around one small dinner table designed for 6 getting to know each other and laughing and sharing stories) followed Franco and Tommy, the other owner of the Eurostudent to their favorite pub, and then later to a techno club.

I sat at the bar talking to Tommy, who was 50 years old, lived in Italy for 30 years and speaks 3 different languages. He was a native of Sweeden, and goes back every month to visit his family there, as he is still a bachelor in Florence. I’ve never met a more genuine person that was so thoroughly interested in hearing about me and my stories, and I was so amazed by a person who works in a hostel for a living, cooks for himself, is multilingual and just meets so many interesting characters for a living. It was great. So after a lot of laughs, jokes, and a little bit of the local football highlights, we headed to a club that had the typical light up dance floor and smoke machines, we met some more friends through our Australian roommates and we even ran into a few of our Elon friends that study with us in London, and happened to be in Florence for the night! How crazy is that? Once again, small world. Then we called it a night after a while, because of course, I still had quite the trip ahead of me.

FLORENCE/ROME DAY 6
Brett and I were up in the morning, and went adventuring through the rest of Florence, we went to Ponche Vechio (spelling?) which is essentially “Old Bridge” I’m pretty sure, because it’s one of the oldest and most beautiful bridges that goes through Florence. We hit a few more of the amazing plazas, saw more statues and art, and then we knew we needed to get back to Rome, so we were soon enough back on a train by lunch time toward Rome again. After our journal time, and a recap of our wonderful time with Franco and the gang we met at the Eurostudent (we got a photo-op with Franco, I’m sure you’ll be able to tell which one he is) we finally arrived back in Roma and were back checking in again at the Yellow Hostel.

We quickly dropped our bags, locked up our stuff and actually jumped back on the metro toward Vatican city again, because we still needed to conquer St. Paul’s Basilica. So, about 30 minutes later, and 500+ steps later (reoccurring theme remember?) we were at the top of the Basilica and overlooking the amazing site of Rome as it stands today, and guess what…another sunset to top it all off. The weather was absolutely impeccable our entire trip, we got super lucky. We took in the sites for a while, I got my typical 450 pictures I take every time we go anywhere with a view, and then we toured the inside of the church for a while as well. We saw more of Michelangelo’s sculptures, including the Virgin Mary and Jesus, which FUN FACT: that’s the only statue that he actually inscribed his name on…I think that’s cool. And at about six o’clock, we got some more paninis and headed back to the hostel to regroup.

That night, Brett and I met up at the Coliseum with two of our Elon friends from London, Chelsea Anderson and Tiffany Giannandrea for dinner (Brett and I just had this absolutely delicious dessert which was basically a waffle bowl, with crème/ice cream-esk stuff in it, and filled with strawberries…ahhhhhh so amazing) and then headed back to their flat for the night. Tiff and Chels, had this unreal Spanish-looking Flat to themselves that was very modern, but it overlooked the Coliseum!!!!! I was so jealous, but we just shared our life stories, talked about religion, life, politics, the whole shebang, and then Brett and I headed back to our hostel for the evening. It was a great low-key evening filled with friends, and we had a blast doing it.

ROME DAY 7
So Brett and I once again hit up Vatican City on our third official day in Rome. We still had to check off the Vatican Museum/Sistine Chapel from our list of tourist spots, so we were sped through the line and straight to the student ticket window within a matter of a few minutes. The Vatican museum is huge, it has plenty of galleries to look at, from a gallery of muses (basically mugshots, but statues and such), gallery of tapestries, and a gallery of ancient maps. Of course there are a ton of religious paintings and such, and I got the pleasure of seeing Rafael’s “Transfiguration” which was pretty incredible as well. (Kelsey: you can Wikipedia it to see what it looks like). After about 30 straight minutes of speed walking the place, we finally came to the end of the museum, which as a finale, is Michelangelo’s Sistine chapel. I don’t really know what I thought it was going to be like, but the actual place is incredible, it’s so intricate, detailed, and there’s definitely a reason it took Mikey 15 years to actually complete it. FUN FACT: Michelangelo was actually not originally supposed to be the painter of the Sistine Chapel, the Pope consulted Rafael and other top-notch painters of the day to do it, but they were all too busy with their own works that as a joke all of the painters suggested Michelangelo to do it…because they thought it would ruin his career, since he was a sculptor, and had never painted before, but if the Pope asked him to do something, he’d have to do it…Surprisingly enough, even though it took him 15 years, it’s obviously one of Michelangelo’s most famous works, all because of some stuck up other painters who tried to ruin him.

Anyways, after our trip to the Vatican for the final time (PS: the Vatican is actually is own country…governs itself and is recognized in Italy as a separate nation), Brett and I found a local sandwich shop and we had Pork and Herb paninis that were quite heavenly. Then we made our way to the Plaza Novella, which is where we were meeting up with our tour guide, to take a walking tour of Ancient Rome.

There was a student rally/protest outside one of the government buildings while we were eating our gelato ice cream and listening to street musicians and waiting on our tour, which was an interesting site to see, because it was something different, but there were lots of kids chanting and yelling and fighting for change, basically because I think the government had shifted power and were going to be putting a damper on Education policy.

Anyways, when our tour started, we definitely were in for a treat. Our tour guide started off taking us past of course all the major sites, but the amount of information she had was just unreal. For instance, the Plaza Novella that we started in, which is now a plaza with lots of stores, shops, restaurants etc, was actually in Ancient Rome, a giant stadium used for military training and entertainment as well, but later converted after ancient times, to the plaza that is now there today.

We then made our way through the streets of Rome, saw one of the intact column structures that used to hold up a temple, but now is partially the side of the Bank of Rome. It’s interesting to see how old and new collide, and how much history is preserved in the city that is so rich and has so many centuries of it all around. Of course, our first big stop, was absolutely crazy though, and was the Pantheon. Now, the Pantheon, in Ancient Rome was used as essentially a Universal Place of Worship, kinda like a non-denominational or universal church today. It was designed for people of all shapes, sizes, backgrounds, to freely come and worship whoever or whatever they wanted to. FUN FACT: Surprisingly enough, the Pantheon’s dome is actually larger than St. Paul’s Basilica, although it’s not as tall. The dimensions of the Pantheon are perfect. It is exactly 127 ft from each side of the dome to the other, and the dome is also perfectly 127ft from the floor to the top of the dome, making it a “perfect” sanctuary to worship the Gods in. It has a large hole in the ceiling as a window to the heavens and when it rains, it has holes in the floor that help to drain out the precipitation that comes in. Crazy stuff.

So after the Pantheon, we headed for Trevi fountain, which is the largest fountain in Rome, and one of its famous. It’s a tribute to Neptune, God of the Sea, and is absolutely HUGE! It is an urban legend that those who throw a coin in the fountain someday will return to Rome, so I did anyways. Plus Fun Fact: all the money that goes into the fountain a year (Trevi Fountain usually accumulates something crazy like 500,000 Euros (A million US dollars a year)) is actually donated to the Red Cross, so it’s a good cause regardless. Anyhow, after our photo-ops there, we passed the Church of the Apostles, which is where St. Philip and St. James are buried (underneath the main alter, before the church was constructed). Which was so cool for me because once again, I found myself in the precise spot that so much of ancient history just thrived centuries ago.

After that, we saw one of the oldest columns in Rome, which has a statue of St. Peter upon it, and we also saw another large monument, that tributes a number of the Gods, and is called by many different names, of which I can’t remember any right now, but it essentially looked like a bigger and a lot cooler version of the white house, except on an epic scale, and minus the fence. But on the backside of this monument, was one of my favorite of Michelangelo’s pieces, his statue of Marcus Aurelius. Who’s on horseback, and overlooking all of new Rome. Marcus Aurelius was Rome’s longest ruling emperor and Michelangelo actually had so much respect for this leader that he made him face toward what is now “new Rome” today, because he wanted him to always be remembered as the leader who truly ruled over all of Rome. (Don’t you just love my pointless anecdotes?)

Of course, I’m not getting to my favorite and most monumental part of the trip (as far as Rome’s concerned), because on the backside of Marcus Aurelius, was the view that stunned me, put me in a state of shock and awe, and also made my trip to Rome, so worthwhile. Essentially, right as you pass the steps behind Marcus Aurelius, you’re overlooking all of the ruins of Ancient Rome. It’s called the Roman Forum (The Roman word “Forum” meant “Market”), and it’s the remains of the oldest portion of ancient Rome, which is for the most part still completely intact like it was centuries ago.
The greatest part about all of this, was the fact that we had the opportunity to take our tour through the entire Roman Forum, and walk the same streets that Julius Caesar used during his reign. It’s unreal. The remnants and columns of the oldest temple in Rome date back to approximately 497 BC! That’s absolutely outrageous to me, and also extremely epic. We passed the old temple of Venus (now only a few pillars), built during Caesar’s rule, and even saw another temple that if I’m not mistaken has the oldest pair of bronze doors in the world that are completely still intact. Additionally, Fun Fact: The doors on the temple (green in the picture), were the first ever bronze doors built with a self-locking mechanism in them. AND, archeologists recovered the lock to the door, and key, all crafted in Roman times, and get this, the original key, and lock STILL WORK TODAY! That blows my mind.

Regardless, I stood on the place that was Julius Caesar’s final funeral pyre, after his assassination and when he was burned in front of his palace for all of Rome to see. I also saw the remnants of the floors and ruins of his palace, and it’s just so wild to imagine yourself really understanding how amazing of a place and how busy of a city it became in its day. After that, we saw the Arch of Titus (Arc Tito), which tributes Titus when he conquered Jerusalem, and it one of the first times that in Roman architecture a menorah is actually sculpted, because Judaism was still forming at that point in time. Another fun fact: the cobblestone used in the forum is worn on either side of many of the stones, that was due to the amount of carts that used to travel along the paths so frequently in Roman times. Our tour guide said that to have that much wear on large cobblestone rocks like the ones we were walking on, would have taken 10 million carts frequently traveling through back and forth. Pretty enormous numbers for even that day, but further reiterates the fact that Rome was really a centralized and travel oriented point in its time.

Of course, we had to tour the Coliseum for the conclusion of our tour, which was also unbelievable. We walked in, and stood right underneath the ruins of the Emperor’s box, which is just stunning to see the view. We climbed the large stairs to the second level, and spent some time here on our own, because Brett and I were still taking in all of the sites we’d just witnessed, and also the magnitude of the Coliseum inside itself. You can watch movies like Gladiator, or documentaries on the Romans, or anything of the like, but it’s truly amazing to stand on the dirt filled stones that started it all and just imagine what it would have been like to be a part of a culture so vivacious as the Roman one. Now I’m a super nerd and history buff, so I’m probably exaggerating a little too much for many of you, if you’ve even made it to this part of the blog, but either way, the view is unreal, and was the perfect closing ceremony for our adventure through Ancient Rome.

At last, we decided to catch the metro back to our hostel after grabbing a quick dinner at a local restaurant. We wished that we could have stayed longer, but it was time to get back and start preparing for the way home. In our hostel though we were rooming with two girls that actually were on our original flight from Barcelona to Rome on Tuesday, which was wild because they were also students studying abroad from the states (in Copenhagen though) and had been taking a similar fall break like Brett and I. So on our last evening, Brett and I played cards with these girls and few another friend we had met along the way, and once again, shared cool experiences from all the travels we’ve already had, plus the excitement of where we might go in the future portion of our time here in Europe. It’s always interesting to hear different points of view about studying abroad, and traveling, only because I feel that in America, it’s not as encouraged as it is in for instance the Australian culture, where individuals are expected to dive into the world and experience so many more different cultures and people before they come back home and have a better understanding of who they are and what they want to be. But we stayed up late talking, listening to music, laughing, and overall making some more new friends to hopefully run into later in life and have a moment where we can say…”remember in Rome…” I look forward to that for sure.

So it finally had come to Saturday, the last day of our trip, and we packed up and headed to the airport for our afternoon flight. We got on a British Airways flight at about 1pm, and started the journey home. I journaled a bit and recapped my past few days, and listened to music, just as lunch was being served by the flight attendants. However, right as it’s happening, I look out my window view to see our bird’s eye view of Europe from 34,000 feet up. I was overlooking the Alps as they towered through the cloud line in the afternoon sun and just can’t describe how beautiful this site was. I took some pictures from my window, of the lakes and snow from the peaks that you could see from our view, and how crazy it was to see the clouds just being sliced through by this enormous mountain range, but I must say, it was probably the perfect view to end my fall break experience on. I wanted to just freeze time, stop, and reflect on how gorgeous of a site I just got to experience.

I’m blown away by now at what I’ve seen. I started my fall break with a 30 minute sunset, ended with a view of the Alps, met so many people, had so much good food, had a great time, and had seven of the most sunny days to adventure in. Now, back in London Town, and in my routine, where the clouds seem to overcast the sun more often than not, I just think about how lucky I am to be here. I can’t really explain my gratitude, or like how fortunate I am to be able to talk about these experiences for a lifetime, but I’m excited to keep doing it, and finding new ways to explore and push forward, and maybe tell someone else one day about my time in the middle of nowhere in Florence, where Franco cooked the best food this side of Sicily and that’ll be a story worth telling over and over again.

To wrap up. Finally, you can breathe. Monday/Wednesday were Interning days at Xtreme Information. On one day, I called 200+ companies to verify their contact details and update an old database that hadn’t been touched since probably 1998, so I’m glad that my work is getting put to good use. On the other day, I worked on “The Reel” again, and edited, formatted, and resized hi-resolution photographs that will be used in next month’s edition of our product, as well as formatted the entire template of the brochure as well. It feels really really good to say that I’ve been published multiple times, just as a 20 year old intern with a bit of comm. Experience, and to have tangible results and love what I’m doing. Classes are going well, I’m looking to try to celebrate Halloween over here tomorrow, and although it’s not a huge holiday here, I think our group of Elon kids will make the best of it, if not I’ll dress up as something funny, and find some candy corn or something. I hope that everyone is doing well, will send me updates about their lives, and keep thinkin about me as I travel. It’s getting cold here in London, and snowed the other night, which was the first snow in October in London in about 10 years, so it’s been a monumental, record-breaking experience here thus far, I hope that continues for the duration of my trip for sure.

Next up in my travels include Athens, Greece, Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and I’m considering a trip into Switzerland/Germany as part of a backpacking expedition at the end of my semester. Guy Fawkes day is on November 5th here, which is a huge celebration, and just so everyone knows, on last Monday I sent in my absentee ballot through the overnight mail, so when I complain about politics, it’ll be justified, since I actually voted . Anyways, I’m off to get groceries, clean up the Penthouse, and am looking forward to a great weekend. Ciao, Adios, and Cheers! Peace!

Fall Break Phase I - Viva La Barcelona!

Hola! Ciao! And Hello from Jolly Ol’ London town!

I just touched down two days ago back in the great cloudy city of London, England, after a 7 day fall break adventure that took me through Barcelona, Spain, Florence and Rome in Italy, and kicked me back home here. I have so many stories and experience to share in the next blog, so what I decided to do was explain my experiences in a number of installments, broken down, so hopefully it’s easier to read and understand my rambling of the crazy time that I had the past week of my life.

BARCELONA SPAIN – FALL BREAK DAYS 1 – 3

Take off from London was around 5:30pm London-Time or so, and we were airborne out of Heathrow airport soon after. To give you an idea of my trip, basically my friend Brett Scuiletti and I were a dynamic duo of adventurers for 7 days and we started our trip off right. Right after we hit probably 20,000-30,000 feet, we were far above the cloud lines, and watching an immensely amazing sunset over Europe, as the sun traveled quickly over the horizon over the northern hemisphere for a good 30 minutes. I took my first pictures of the trip from the window-seat of the plane, because the view was absolutely incredible. I think you’ll find that many times, I’m going to run out of adjectives to describe the sites I’ve seen in the past 7 days, but the opening view of my trip over the European skyline was more than majestic for sure.

We arrived in Barcelona fairly late, probably around 7 or 8, and after we picked up Brett’s baggage, we went through immigration and took a train and then a quick metro ride to our hostel location, in the heart of the city. Our hostel, “The Sound” was about a 10 minute walk from the beach, and we had rooms that each had small Spanish balconies overlooking the busy streets of Barca. We met up with another Elon mate of ours, Scott Van Dorn, down in the basement lounge of the Sound, who introduced us to the friends he met during the day there since he arrived earlier than us. Brett and I got acquainted with a trio of Australians, two brothers – Eugene and Raoul Renard, and Chris, who were all on the “stereotypical” Aussie traveling experience throughout Europe. We also met a group of guys that live out in Seattle, Washington who had graduated and now work for Amazon.com, and who wanted to take a three week vacation in Europe. Additionally, a few girls that originally were studying in London also were at the table of travelers that Brett and I joined, so we all shared stories, played cards, and decided to go out for an official Barcelona fiesta experience. Our night started at about 12:00am, which is typical of Barcelona time, because everything there is about 4 hours later than other parts around the world, from lunch at 2-5pm, to dinner at 9-10, they’re on their own time: Barcelona-time.

So we went to a number of local pubs, met some more travelers along the way, and kept traveling until we finally reached the beach. Barcelona has many different night time clubs and bars, and because there were no cover charges for any of us, we decided to try as many as possible on Saturday night. So we covered I’d say somewhere between 10-15 clubs before we got tired of dancing (we went to clubs with old rock, techno, new school music, alternative, everything!) and decided to go sit on the beach for a while. So the 10 of us sat on the beach, continued our life talks, and figured it must have been something like 3am by now, when I looked at my watch though, turns out it was actually 6:00AM in the morning! Well, regardless, of the time, we were having such a great time getting to know all of our new friends, that we decided it was early, we hadn’t showered in a while, so we all decided to go swimming in the Mediterranean, right on the beach! It was hilarious, but a great closing moment of the evening for sure, and a nice kick off to our trip. I must say, I’ve never swam in the Mediterranean before, so I can now successfully check that off of things to do on my bucket list.

Anyways, we got back to our hostel at 7:30am, and all crashed, and woke up around 1:30 in the afternoon, this may seem crazy, but in Barcelona, this of course is nothing because the normal wake up time is about that early in the afternoon anyhow! So Brett, Scott, and myself all decided to get ready and we headed down to a local restaurant to try the authentic Spanish cuisine of Barcelona. I shared a giant plate of mixed seafood Paella with Scott, and Brett tried a huge dish of pork, sausage, and beans. The food was so good! It was a lot though for sure, so we had to take some back with us, but I got to also use some of my Spanish skills to converse with the waitress, so I felt good to be able to communicate effectively, especially since I haven’t taken a formal class in a foreign language in a number of semesters.

After lunch, our trio decided to get some serious site seeing done. We traveled up and down “La Rambla” which is the main street through Barcelona that has all of the main shops, stores, restaurants etc on it. Since it was a Sunday, there was a huge mass of people in the open market areas (much of Spain is Roman Catholic, so a lot of the smaller shops were closed for religious reasons). Of course, this also meant that there were hundreds of street performers everywhere, trying to make a living and entertain all the tourists and locals. Everything from living statues (I’ve never seen so many!), to artists, to musicians (we saw an Indian group playing native American music, a Spanish trio jamming, and a group of Australians playing didgeridoos too!), to guys juggling soccer balls on their heads for hours on end. I got plenty of pictures, video, and snapshots of these people, but also some of the major sites along La Rambla. We went to la Placa de Reial which is a major square in Barca, and we also saw one of the large open parks at the top of La Rambla as well. We walked up the streets more and saw a lot of the Gaudi architecture that is very prevalent in the city of Barcelona, and also very unique and crazy too! (I’m sure he was on a lot of drugs when he created his masterpieces, but the actual structures are pretty wild though)

After that, we continued to follow our map around the city. I was of course dubbed the map-holder/guide wherever we went somewhere, so that I guess I could be blamed if we got lost, but I didn’t mind, I spoke Spanish, which helped a lot. Additionally, (for my sister mainly), our map of Barcelona, was sponsored and made by McDonalds, so it noted every single Micky-D’s in the entire city of Barca, which was not only helpful, but whenever we got lost, it’s because we weren’t seeing a McD’s and too far out of reach for McFlurries.

Anyways, we saw La Temple de la Sangrada Familia, which is a huge unfinished temple/cathedral in the center of Barca, as well as the Cathedral of Barcelona itself too, which of course, is also unfinished. They really don’t like to finish many of their large religious structures I guess, but either way they were pretty darn impressive. Later we walked down to the marina overlooking Barcelona and Brett, Scott and I recapped our break so far. We got back to our hostel, and we went a picked up kebabs at a local kebab shop (they’re delicious in Europe) with the Aussies, and went to a local pub to talk to some more locals. I ended up talking with two of the guys from Seattle (Dave and Kinsley) about politics, the youth generation, and the election. Lol, I know very dull stuff I thought too, but it was a conversation nonetheless. Then for the most part we called it an early night in the city and got some shut eye for the next day.

The next morning, (Monday) I got up early, and decided to explore parts of the city I hadn’t yet on my own. I first traveled up La Rambla a bit more, and took a metro to the far north of the city to a park called “Parc Guell” which is a park that has tons of Gaudi architecture everywhere. I also climbed to the top of the peak here, to overlook the city toward the sea and saw all of the previous monuments I saw the day before towering above the city. There are pictures posted of the Gaudi works though which look kinda like ginger bread houses and very far out curvy and crazy buildings, those are all Guadi-style. It looks a lot like mosaics, but entire buildings made out of miniature pieces of ceramic tiles. There’s a picture of me as well with the famous salamander animal that is outside part of the park, which is a fountain, and also pretty cool.

After Parc Guell, I caught another metro south, and got out and walked to the Cathedral Santa Maria by the Sea (la Catedral Santa Maria del Mar), which is the oldest cathedral in Barcelona. It’s a small church in comparison to the other large temples I’d seen previously in the past two days, but it’s absolutely gorgeous inside, and a very humbling place to spend time in. I took some photos, and also realized how important religion is to the Roman Catholics in Spain, due to the many devout people taking time off of their lunch breaks to come and pray at the alters there. After I finished there, I traveled to another park, “Parc de la Ciutadella” which is another main hot spot and beautiful park on the side of the city with a luxurious fountain (also unfinished architecture) and a mammoth, and the local zoo, as well as the natural history museum. I wandered for a while, saw the Catalayan Parliament (because Barcelona is basically an autonomous area that governs itself inside of Spain), and then I headed back toward La Rambla, grabbed a pita to eat, and met up with my friend Kristy to go on a tour of a monastery outside Barcelona, but unfortunately tickets were sold out, so we decided to go on a cable car ride above Port Vell (the port on Barcelona’s ocean front) and we found Brett and Scott, so the four of us took the cable car across the top of Barcelona, overlooking the entire city, and ended up climbing the rest of the way up the mountain to overlook the city from the military museum/fortress at the pinnacle. It was great to have the four of us all together on top of Barcelona overlooking the city and just relaxing and taking in the sites, since it’s such a beautiful place.

After we got down the mountain, and walked back to our hostel, we took showers, got ready, and actually met up with some other Elon kids that visited us earlier in our semester in London. Our Perugia friends! Katherine Merrill, Emily Sanner, and Sharon Rice, were all on their respective Fall Breaks, and happened to be in Barcelona one of the same nights that we were. So we all went to a restaurant by the water, ate actually fairly American food (but it was a great deal), had tapas (Spanish appetizers), and burgers which were wonderful. Afterwards, we all went back to our hostels, met up with our Australian friends and once again went to a few local pubs to catch up and hang out for the evening. Overall, this was my Barcelona experience to the max, and in my next entry (hopefully posted sooner than this one…) I’ll explain my adventures with Brett to Italia, land of the Romans, birthplace of the Renaissance, and a site with exquisite cuisine!

Another Week Down in Londontown

Alright, so this is going to be my last post from London for a week or so, because I’m heading on my Fall Break tomorrow, and going to be traveling all over Europe, so hopefully my entries will be from Spain, or Italy etc. But anyways, let me go ahead and update you about this past week and catch you up to speed on my life.

Alright, Monday was another exciting day at Xtreme Information, and I finished doing my research early, and actually took a half day, because I had a number of projects and papers to complete. So, I wrote a paper for my theater class, finished a project for my culture class, grabbed a meal, and then I went to a show entitled “The Disappearing Number,” which is a traveling show that came back to London, which is loosely based off a true story, about an Indian man who essentially discovered much of the math and theories that led to quantum physics and string theory that we have today. I know what you’re thinking, that sounds like the most ridiculous and boring show you’ve ever heard of, but it was actually quite compelling. It had a love story in it, used a lot of very cool visual and special effects, and was actually very entertaining, I loved it. You really didn’t get caught up too much in the math, because it was crucial to the plot, but not so crucial that you understood it. Some of the main themes of the show revolved around the fact that the only thing real in the entire show, was the math, the rest was just entertainment. Anyways, cool idea and cool show.

So that brings me to Tuesday, where of course I went to class, heard a speaker on international journalism which was enlightening. Then went to theater class, talked about the show we saw the night before, and then of course, in between classes I ate lunch with Vic, because it was his last day in London, so that was very cool to be able to see him once more before he headed back to India. I made sure he had a facebook set up and go all his details once more so that we could stay in communication wherever we are in the world, which was definitely nice.

Tuesday night was a night of rest and recuperation from all the stress levels of assignments, and Wednesday was another full day working at Xtreme on all sorts of various tasks, from going to meetings, to administrative stuff, to just basically working on the next edition of The Reel, that will come out next month. Also! I saw the latest edition of The Reel that came out for last month, and I was even credited in the overall production, there’s a nice spot for my name at the bottom of the brochure, since all of my photos were used in the final product, so that was awesome to finally see all my work come together into a finished product.

Thursday was great because instead of class in our classroom, we did an officially guided walking tour of the lower parts of London. Mom, you would have absolutely loved our tour guide, he was an older man, who knew absolutely EVERYTHING about London literature. We spent time traveling to the places where Charles Dickens used to work, stand, find inspiration for, even the exact locations that he talks about in all his works. We stood at the original temple that was built by the Knights Templar before the Crusades, which is now a law school, but we saw the oldest church/building in all of London that dates back centuries ago. We talked about Shakespeare, saw the original location of where the Globe stood, saw the ally way that is supposedly the spot for where Sweeny Todd was based, and even had the opportunity to see the publishing house where Dickens first caught the eye of Dr. Johnson (I can’t remember his first name) but he’s the individual that wrote the first British dictionary, and the pub that they used to sit and drink at after work. Lastly, we saw the church that inspired the first “tiered” wedding cake, as we are so accustomed to today and much more, basically it was a great walk through literary history, as well as see some great side streets and back “off the beaten path” parts of the city.

That brings me to Friday, and boy do I have another awesome story! Friday morning I had the pleasure of getting up early, and traveling down to Leichester Square, which is more or less like your "Broadway" big area, or Times Square in New York. But I didn't go to see a musical this time, I actually got to see another private screening of a movie that won't hit the states until January of 2009. It was a Ron Howard film entitled "Frost/Nixon" and is a movie about David Frost, the British entertainer, and his monumental interviews with Former president Richard Nixon, and all of the struggles that it took to actually uncover and get Nixon to admit his faults with the Watergate scandal. The movie was absolutely amazing, breathtaking, phenomenal, it was absolutely awesome, if you get a chance in January to go see it, please do, I was so into it, and loved it quite a lot. The acting is great, (Kevin Bacon's in it), and Ron Howard is quite the genius of a director, so I give it a 5 stars, two thumbs up, gold medal on the Josh Tate movie-critic scale.

However, the rest of Friday I basically devoted my life to packing. I’m currently still in that process today, because I leave for fall break this afternoon. I’m going to be traveling over the next 7 days to Barcelona in Spain, as well as Rome and Florence in Italy, before returning to the great city of London. I’m super excited to have this experience, and opportunity to travel so much, and cannot wait to see the Coliseum and other great landmarks of the ancient world. I’m hopefully going to keep you posted as I go to these places, but if I don’t I’m sure you’ll understand and there will just be a ridiculously long blog entry next time I get around to it, but that’s normal, so what do you care? Anyhow, as always, I hope everyone is doing well, please keep the update emails coming to my inbox and make sure to take care of yourself. I will catch ya on the other side of the world, so Cheers, Hasta la Vista, and Ciao!

Sneak Peaks, Nobility, Kilts, Bagpipes, and of Course My Newest Accent

Wow! Just when you think my adventures can’t get anymore epic than the previous post…THEY DO! Haha, alright well that was a bit facetious, but either way, the point is, I can’t really still believe I’m here and all the many things I get myself into. Every day I’m here I have to wake up and pinch myself to make me realize that I’m actually experiencing life day by day, ups and downs, but the roller coaster that’s over here is absolutely a blast, and I’m always seeking new thrill rides.

So I know it’s been a week since I last posted, but to be honest, it’s only because I enjoy writing ridiculously long blog entries that take you forever to read, and it’s pretty accurate to having one of my signature heart-to-hearts, because they take hours on end, ramble on and on, and sometimes don’t really have a point. I’m just going for authenticity so that you think I’m still with you, even though I’m of course, doing a lot cooler things than you are right now :-P Haha, okay, so let me catch you up to speed on my life.

Basically, Tuesday the 7th was a bit of a drag, because of course I had class and from time to time, class definitely gets long, tedious, and redundant. I enjoyed my theatre class that I was in though, because we got to discuss our viewing of A Midsummer Night’s Dream which I of course absolutely loved, so that was fun to share vantage points on the production, but after class I’m sure I did something to the effect of getting groceries, going to the bank, doing the dishes, or something really really cultural like that (insert your laughter here). Anyways, that night our class went to a movie entitled “Brideshead Revisited” which was more or less this chick flick that our professor picked out for us to see (I would have definitely voted for the new James Bond Premiere, but who am I to judge good movies?) and it had an actor that we previously saw in a show this semester, but despite seeing a remotely familiar face, I thought the flick sucked. It wasn’t too exciting, kinda lame, very long, and oh, the only hilarious portion of the night, was that there were thirty of us in a giant group to go see it, and the theater was completely empty (no one wanted to see it, duh, cause it was terrible), but the crazy movie attendant lady made us all sit in the very back right of the theater, so that we were all together. So needless to say, it was a humorous time having to be squished all together in a completely vacant theater just to see a terrible movie, but whatever, it’s over. After the movie, a number of the guys and a few of our friends went to a place called the Sports Café (I may have mentioned it before) where Tuesday nights are Student Night, and so I got my groove on and got to know some people in my program a bit more, those times are always pretty hilarious and a good time for sure.

Wednesday the 8th was a great day in Josh’s history, because I worked again at Xtreme, always a great time of course, and not only that, but I worked with some of my favorite guys from the Xtreme Team, the guys from “The Reel.” I was in charge of editing up our blogsite for The Reel, and labeling it and making it more “searchable” if you will. After that, I took some new press releases and “Xtreme-ified” them, by more or less putting my creative flare on them and jazzing them up a bit so that we could post them on The Reel’s Blog itself. (I don’t have the site right on me, and couldn’t google it, but either way, it does exist lol) Of course, that wasn’t just the extent of work, I did some administrative stuff, accredited some companies in our database, and also did some minuscule tasks as well. BUT, that’s not the kicker of the day. In the afternoon, my co-worker Sam asked me if I wanted to go see some shorts, and no, I’m not talking about checking out a pair of good-looking knickers, but Film Shorts. The one huge perk that comes along with working in the Xtreme Information/Press industry is that you get press passes and VIP tickets to premiers and such. Well, because of this, Sam got me a ticket to the afternoon showing of the Raindance Film Festival’s short films series. Essentially the Raindance Film Festival is a play on words (mocked off of America’s “Sundance Film Festival”) but London’s biggest film festival every year, and of course, it’s going on right now! So Sam and I went to the cinema and watched some of the new short flicks that are going to be judged at this year’s festival, for…FREE! That was monumental, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Of course, that wasn’t the end of my Wednesday, that only takes you to about 6:30pm my time (1:30pm Eastern Standard Time), after that, I had my first authentic experience with a full meal at a London McDonalds and I must say, it’s a lot better than the states version of fast food. I had a big mac and fries, and there was virtually no grease on any of it! It ruled. Not that I endorse fast-food consumption, but I was in a hurry, and it appeared healthier than the State-side, version I grew up on. Anyways, after a quick bite, I was on the move again because my flatmate Mike and I went to the Palace Theater on Wednesday night to see SPAMALOT! If you don’t know, it’s of course the Monty Python and the Holy Grail inspired musical, and the British version was hilarious to say the least. I thoroughly enjoyed it and to be honest, if there was any show I could choose to ever perform in again, it’d probably be my pick without a doubt. Mike is also an avid Python follower, and I’m positive he loved it as well, and not only that, but we were second row on the first balcony, so we had exceptional seats for the whole show.

Of course, I’m sure you’re now asking yourself something to the effect of “Now Josh, how could you possibly top free tickets to the Raindance Film Festival, and Spamalot at all? Well, I was of course thinking the exact thing…until Thursday happened! Essentially, let me spell a few things out. First off, Thursday typically means, I have classes, life’s a little bland, and then I have to probably do laundry, because it’s almost the weekend and my underwear is running out. However, after classes on Thursday, which weren’t too bad because we had a late start time for class and I got to sleep in a bit, I went about my normal homework and daily routine, as well as slowly preparing myself for my trip to Scotland that I took during the weekend (more details to come momentarily) I then ended up heading to The Rex, which is a theater, to see the premier viewing of “All Together Now” which is a documentary released all about the creation of the brand new Cirque du Soleil performance of Love which is based all on The Beatles and their music. So, I’m sitting in the theater watching this amazing documentary, filled with great information, wonderful Beatles tracks, and not only that, but by the end of the film, I realize that Sir George Martin is sitting behind me. For anyone who isn’t familiar with Sir George himself (yeah we’re on first name basis lol) he’s the legendary composer that many times is known as “The Fifth Beatle” because he was the man attributed to discovering the Beatles, as well as producing many of their original works. After realizing this, and after the premiere finished afterwards, I tracked down Sir Martin and got a photo-op with a friend who happened to have a camera, right before he darted away with Mrs. Martin in their cab. Imagine that huh? Meeting not only an honorary Knight, but the original producer of a band I grew up listening to!!! I mean, sure, I kinda felt like a big deal, but that was definitely my first true experience meeting a celebrity for sure, and without a doubt, I was star-struck for the rest of the night.

But anyways, so Friday morning I got up at 4:30am or so, for my 4:45 taxi to Kings Cross Train Station. I was out and on my way, early morning, to the same station, that is “famous” thanks to Harry Potter, so at 5:30, I took pictures as Platform 9 and ¾, but unfortunately I didn’t go to Hogwarts, because I’m a muggle, contrary to popular belief. But I didn’t need to go Hogwarts anyways, because my destination was Edinburgh, Scotland, on a mission to experience bagpipes, kilts, and perfect my Scottish accent. This was also my first big experience with a train, so I was like a kid in a candy store getting on the train, cracked out, at 5:45am, before the sun even rose, and excited as ever. I caught up on my own journaling a bit, and was awake basically almost the entire ride, watched the sun rise over the UK, saw many towns north of London, and our train took us along the English coast, so I got to see a great view of the English Channel running into the North Sea in the inlet towns.

We arrived in Edinburgh at approximately 11am and hopped on a coach for a driving tour of the city with our very own blue badge tour guide. Rebbin, as he was called, was an authentic kilt-wearing, bagpipe playing, tour guide, who told us all about the history of Edinburgh since its founding (which started with Edinburgh castle) and all about the type of buildings, sites to see, and where to go. Despite already being awake for so many hours previously, I tried to take in as much information as possible, and really didn’t realize beforehand actually how historic Scotland really is. For instance, the real person that the Sherlock Holmes stories are based off of, was a Scotsman, and Alexander Graham Bell was Scottish too, but then moved to the states when he was a bit older, so much for my history classes in the past where I was preached he was an American. Anyways, after that, the girls and I (I forgot to mention I went traveling with five girls…Ashley Noval, Katie Burtzalaff, Andrea Smith, Jenny Cupero, and Kelsey Gwilt) went to get something to eat at a local pub and then headed straight to the heart of Edinburgh to explore.

We started with Edinburgh Castle, bought audio tours, and Ashley and I took our time exploring every nook of the historic landmark. The view over top of the city was incredible, and the weather held out just long enough for our tours to wrap us, allow us to see the “Scottish Honours” which are basically the Scottish “Crown Jewels” and head back down The Royal Mile (the main street in Edinburgh, it leads from the Castle down to the Hollyrood Palace, which is the residence of the Queen once a year, and also was the home of Mary Queen of Scots back in the day) to grab an early dinner as well. The rain picked up in the early evening during our dinner, but Ashley and I also tried the Scottish meal of Haddis, which essentially is minced lamb mixed with oatmeal, served with mashed potatoes and mashed swedes. Now, I must say, I’m a lamb fan, and the Haddis was amazing, as were the potatoes, but the swedes I’m not so sure about. I’m still not exactly positive what they were, but they had a mashed potato-like consistency but at the same time had chunks in them that had almost like a peanut-like crunchiness. Oh well, it was all worth it and part of the overall experience. However, since it wasn’t very late, Katie, Ashley and I went to another pub and talked to some of the locals until we decided to get a late night pizza from a middle-eastern restaurant called the Bodrum Express and call it a night. When I got back to our Bed & Breakfast, I got to know my two roommates for the weekend a bit better, Vic Raghunath (Vic for short), a 23 year old Indian guy who had been studying in the UK for a year, and Chaum, a student from Arizona State University, who was also studying abroad. After talking to them a few, I went to sleep because we had an early morning ahead of us.

Saturday I was up by 7:30am, and had breakfast at 7:45. The breakfast served was actually quite delicious, a mixture of lots of fruit, cereals, and croissants/breads, but still filling, no doubt. The whole group then hopped on our coach, and met our tour guide for the day, Fred Stuart (also an authentic kilt-wearing gent) who was going to be driving us to the Scottish Highlands and Loch Ness. So we traveled out of Edinburgh, I got about an hour of sleep extra on the coach, and we stopped first in the Scottish lowlands to make a pit stop and also see Hamish, the Highland Cow. Hamish is the most famous highland cow of them all, and has a very ginger orange coat, is very furry, and has large horns. He basically eats all day, drools, and poses for photo-ops, which of course, we took generously. Then after a bathroom break and coca-cola, I was back on the bus and we were off for the Highlands. Now the rest of this blog entry may get really redundant, only because I don’t have enough adjectives to properly describe the sights, but let me say, overall, the Scottish Highlands are by far, absolutely phenomenal, and incredible sights to behold. I’ve never seen scenery so beautiful in my lifetime. For an hour, I constantly glued to my window or behind my camera lens snapping pictures of the mountain tops, the lochs, and the surrounding areas. We stopped once more during the mid-morning for a quick photo-op at the Glencoe Mountains, but more informally known as “The Three Sisters” because of the three side-by-side peaks of the mountains. This was absolutely wonderful to see, and our weather was also gorgeous, so it was great to be able to fully take in the sights to the fullest degree. We only passed through a few small spots of rain throughout the journey through the highlands, but that actually created for a great time too, because I probably saw 20 some rainbows throughout my journey, they were always climbing a peak or falling into our lap as our cameras continually snapped, well at least mine did anyways.

Finally we arrived at the Urquhart Castle, which sits along Loch Ness. We had a chance to explore the ruins of the castle built in approximately the 1500-1600’s or before. Not only did we have a chance to climb around the towers, and courtyard areas, but additionally, it was in the early afternoon, and we were at a peak time for pictures, once again, so I got plenty of beautiful shots of the Scottish Highlands flanked by a castle on one side and the infamous Loch Ness on the other. We also took a quick ferry ride around the outside of the bank of the castle, and traveled across the Loch a further ways, to search for the Loch Ness Monster and also pick up some more fun facts about the Loch itself. Loch Ness is actually the largest body of fresh water in the world, and if Scotland had to rely solely on Loch Ness for the rest of its water supply, it could last 66 years without drawing from another source. There are many other boring and uninteresting facts that I learned, but I suppose I’ll spare you those details, since this is already a lengthy entry by far.

Nevertheless, when we returned by coach from the Loch, the sun had set and the moon had chosen it’s place in the sky by the time we reached Edinburgh’s lights. We of course, had to eat again, so we once again chose Bodrum Express as our place of choice, because of it’s amazing food selection (I got a chicken chili wrap…fabulous) and afterward it was about 9pm, so we headed to the local pub to celebrate our friend Ashley’s birthday. Of course, while we were there at the pub sharing stories and laughing, we ran into four Scotsmen in kilts and authentic garb. They had just got back from Scotland’s football (soccer) match which had resulted in a 0-0 tie, so they were just looking to have a fun Saturday night and meet people. Well it turns out, we were the right people to meet, because they carried on with us for a good few hours, and when all the girls were thinking about heading home to call it a night, Ashley wanted to continue her birthday in style, Scottish style that is, so Vic and myself decided we’d also accompany the merry band of Scotsmen to another pub to share more life stories and such. I found it truly remarkable too, because of the men, Andy, who is the head of his own Scottish tourism agency, is 36 and was having a heart to heart with Vic and I, and kept telling us how jealous he was of our youth, and that we had the incredible opportunity to travel to so many places at this age in our lives. We also all concluded that it was very remarkable that a young man from the Far East, (Vic being from India), and the Far West (myself), would somehow meet in Scotland, and enjoy themselves and get to be such good friends in literally 24 hours in the UK. Especially in such a connected world, it was epic to really find someone with so many similar values, thoughts, beliefs, and just experiences, despite being from half way around the other side of the world. So as Andy, Vic, and Andy I all shared stories of our pasts and lives, Ashley and the other guys continued to get to know each other, and we all ended up finding another pub to house our conversation, and then later went to a nightclub that had a live Scottish cover band that played everything from old rock ‘n roll, to new age music, so the six or so of us all sang our favorite tunes and had a grand ol’ time most of the evening. We ended up returning after a monumental evening at 5:30am to our B&B to call it a night, but as Andy said, “No matter what, twenty years from now, we’ll always remember the night that the far east and west met in one place and had the absolutely best night of our lives.” If there was one image I had in my head, of what I guess I wanted to get out of my study abroad experience, or what I wanted to experience while I was abroad, Saturday night summed up that for me. To not only meet locals, have an authentic cultural experience, but to meet a life-long friend in less than 24 hours and truly connect to someone in a way that I think only traveling can create for me.

Anyways, continuing on, I woke up by 8:30am, had another complimentary breakfast at the B&B and all the girls and Vic and I were on our way through Edinburgh again, but this time we were on a mission, and that mission was to climb to Arthurs Seat, which is the name given to the top of a mountain that is beside Edinburgh called the Sheffield Crags. So, by 9:30-10am, we were on our way ascending up this mountain, on at least a 2-3mile trek around and up, climbing until we reached the summit, 450ft above sea level, and were overlooking all of Edinburgh and Scotland. I can’t express how accomplished I felt to reach the pinnacle of Arthur’s Seat and gaze out in all directions across Scotland. The view was immense, clear, spanned for miles, and was absolutely gorgeous. I looked out across the North Sea, imagining the sights that Norway and Finland must provide from their side, and then I looked over the city of Edinburgh and saw the castle I stood in yesterday, and then in the other directions saw the port of Edinburgh, looked toward the Southern Side of the UK, and again to the Highlands in another direction. I took video, photos, sat on top of the mountain and just reflected on life. It was a tranquil and peaceful place at the summit of Arthur’s Seat, and was well worth the climb, and not to mention a nice little calf workout too! But regardless, after that, it was about 12 or so, and once I had taken enough documentation of the view (so much for a fear of heights anymore right?) we descended back down the mountain and got lunch at a local restaurant, and prepared for the train-ride back to London. We had a six hour train ride back, and had to switch lines on the way home, but it was nice to be back after so much travel. Either way, I must say that the time I spent in Edinburgh and Scotland was one of the most incredible experiences I’ve definitely had yet, and a must-see for anyone thinking about traveling to Europe at all.

I slept well on Sunday night, and Monday brought on internship time at Xtreme and a lot of homework to also catch up on. When all of that was finished and taken care of, I took care of some last minute preparations for this coming weekend, which is my fall break, and of course I’ll be spending a lot of that time traveling to many places in Europe as well. So hopefully I can blog a bit more frequently there or along the way for sure! I also saw a show on Monday night called “the Disappearing Number” which was loosely based off a true story about a mathematician who discovered countless theories and theorems that modern physics and math are based off of, but probably that no credit was ever truly given to him. It was a drama, and a lot of technology and special effects were used very artistically to create a great production. I know that’s not a lot of detail, but compared to the rest of my weekend, last night’s show, wasn’t in much comparison to the 700+ pictures that I took in Scotland (about 150 or something pictures are posted at http://picasaweb.google.com/taternater2046) and needless to say, I need to clear up some more space on my camera before I do anymore traveling.

Alrighty, well that’s going to sum up today’s entry, and I hope you enjoyed the full account of one of the best weekend’s I’ve experienced thus far in my abroad-time. I hope you’re all still trying to find a small bit of time to email me and update me on all of your lives because I want to hear all about them and keep the facebook posts/updates flowing, I truly miss you all and hope you’re doing well! Everyone take care, enjoy the photos and keep me posted on your lives!!! And as always…Cheers! (PS: I tried out my Scottish accent last weekend for Andy, Dave, Pete, and “Finney” – the four guys we hung out with…and they felt as though it was very authentic, believable and the funniest thing ever, so I’m fully immersing myself to whatever culture I get exposed to!)

Elonians Visit London Town!

So I decided to make a more hastily updated blog this week, and only waited four days since my last entry to post up some more news. Since last Thursday, lots has gone in London, as many things happen everyday, but particularly in my life I’m quite busy here. First off, on Friday I went through my daily routine of waking up, cleaning up the penthouse, doing dishes, making lunch, going for a run along the canals of Little Venice, and prepping for the day. Friday was particularly exciting because some of my friends from Elon actually were coming to visit us for the weekend! This was especially exciting, since they’ve spent their semester in Perugia, Italy and haven’t ever come to London before either!

So in the afternoon, I went down to Westminster Abbey/Big Ben and picked up the girls. Kat Merrill, Abbey Remein, Emily Sanner, and Sharon Rice were all tired from flying, but arrived safely, and I wasted no time but to take their pictures in front of the church and clock tower as they stepped off the tube. After escorting the lovely ladies back to our flat so they could meet up with their sorority sisters, everyone dropped off their bags, rested a few, and caught up, since it’s basically been about 6 months since I’ve seen many other Elon students at all! Nevertheless, Friday we all got to hang out and eventually showed the girls some of London’s nightlife, and did the Josh Tate All-In-One-Supreme-London-Tour (trademarked J) in one day on Saturday. Basically, Saturday was a great time because not only did we get up early, but I myself got to experience a number of different things that I hadn’t even done in London in the past month. We started the morning with a “Traditional English Breakfast,” which consists of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and tons of toast…all of which I hadn’t gotten before while I was here and then we took a quick walk (10 minutes from our flat) to the famous Abbey Road, where the Beatles had their cover photo taken, and proceeded to take 45 minutes trying to recreate the album cover, just during lunchtime traffic hour, so despite the honking and angry cab drivers, the photos turned out pretty well. Fun Fact: You can google “visit abbey road” and actually look at a webcam of the street/zebra crosswalk, and watch people try to get the right stance for a picture lol.

Anyways, after Abbey Road, we found a tube and took the girls to Buckingham Palace, there they got more traditional Londoner Photo Ops, and we also walked down toward famous Trafalgar Square so that the girls could see the National Gallery and another great view of Big Ben. Along the way, we stopped and had our photos taken with some of the British Royal Guards, in traditional red uniforms with black hats, which was amusing (I hadn’t done that yet either), and then we all sort of split up and did a number of different things. Some went into the National Gallery for a bit, some went to Camden Market, and Kat and I ended up taking a walk along the Thames to catch up on our life stories, which was a personal highlight for me. After packing back up and resting a bit, all of the Elon students hung out in the Penthouse for the evening and then went their separate ways throughout the city.

On Sunday, my flatmates and I had a lazy and relaxing day. A day of laundry, cleaning, homework, resting, and to end the evening a huge game of Phase 10 (my grandparents would be proud). I’ve more or less got my flatmates and some of the other students addicted to the card game, so it’s pretty amusing that we played a number of times since it was a rather muggy and rainy day yesterday. Nevertheless, we all had internships this morning, so we all went to bed eventually and are back in the workforce of course. This week should be pretty exciting, I hope to not only finish a lot of my homework, with intentions of getting ahead, but also finish up interning for the week, and this weekend I’ll be heading with a group of friends to Edinburgh, Scotland for a weekend of bag piping and kilt-wearing. Hopefully there will be plenty of pictures after this weekend of course, more than enough to probably make a mother proud of her Scottish son, but regardless, I’m really excited to see the Scottish highlands, the infamous Loch Ness, and also of course, see beautiful Edinburgh. I’m travelling by train this time, so hopefully I’ll see a big of the lovely London countryside as well, since I’ve seen basically just a bit of it, and more of the big city instead. Nevertheless, keep the updates coming from the states, I love to hear about what’s going on, but this is Tater signing out and saying, Cheers!

"Billy Shakespeare Wrote A Whole Buncha Sonnets..."-LFO

Ello' Gents, and Gentle Ladies!

I fear it hast been far to longeth for thoust to blog, but shalt fill thus mortals in.

Haha, so that was a pathetic attempt at being as witty as my boy William Shakespeare, but either way, I have so much to catch up on from the past few days/week since I blogged last! I hope in that long time period, you actually had enough time to read the last post, because I'm pretty sure I used up 5352 internet hours to write it all.

Nevertheless! To update!

Last time you checked in, I had seen Paris/France, been apart of a live Radio Broadcast BBC studio audience and other many fun excursions. If you can imagine all of that excitement, I was pretty tired by the time Thursday/Friday came around last weekend. So when I went to The Guardian which is one of London's 8ish large newspapers to speak with one of the long-running Ombudsman for my class, I was a bit wiped out. For everyone who is not my mother and an English major, an Ombudsman is more or less an independent party or person, who regulates what type of media or news journalism that is fit to be printed in a paper or source, as to keep the product as fair and balanced as possible. Anyways, after a lecture and visiting a newspaper's center on Thursday, I went for a run with my roomate Nick along the Canals in Little Venice. I must say, the area we live in here is absolutely gorgeous, filled with all the small gondala-like boaters, and lovely small parks and scenery. Then, later on Thursday night, a number of the people from our program all went out to a nightclub called "Tiger Tiger." This place was really interesting though, because in addition to having an interesting name, it had a huge dancefloor, and multiple floors of course, all of which were like themed kinda. So that was a fun time, dancing and getting to know people on the trip that I had previously not met yet.

Friday was relax day for our flat. In addition to doing the daily tasks of cleaning up, laundry, and grocery shopping, for once the guys in our flat just had a day to relax, which was something we haven't done basically since our arrival in London. Saturday was also low-key, as it was a day to get homework finished up, and another day to watch a movie here and there, travel to a park to read and people watch. And of course, I've been trying my best to keep my photography skillz all primed and up to speed. And since I took so many pictures in Paris, I had really lacked the rest of the week, so I've been doing my best to keep them coming. Hopefully everyone saw them posted the other week.

Hmm, lets see what else can I update you on. I've been trying my best to eat right while I'm here, even on a budget. The guys in the penthouse this past week cooked breaded chicken and breaded mashed potatoes for dinner one night. Topped with of course tobasco and ketchup haha, but the entire meal for each person in our 4-man flat was 1.5 pounds. That's 3 american dollars, so we've been doing our best to budget, but also eat decently, and not just pasta, every single waking moment of our time here.

I must say, on the school side, since many of my readers may feel I don't ever do homework, is VERY INTENSE. Let me reiterate, SCHOOL IS VERY INTENSE here. Basically, despite the fact that I have "school days" only two days a week. The amount of homework I have from my classes, keep me occupied many nights, weekends, and daylight hours in between my real passion, which is of course, the work I do at Xtreme Information. Speaking of which, I'll touch on my internship just a bit from the beginning of this past week, because it was a very very epic week for me in the working world.

Last week, when I worked at Xtreme, I worked on a project called "The Reel" which essentially is a one-of-a-kind product in the world, that is basically a DVD that can be sent to Media Agencies, Large Corporations, Creatives, Post-Production companies, or anyone in the video/corporate comm world to keep them up to speed on the best directors/editors/producers as well as the top-of-the-line advertisements of the day. What all that means is that every month, the people at Xtreme, release a DVD and Brochure/package that highlights this month's top 30 some advertisements, and gives all the contact information of the people that created them. Now to do this, in addition to compiling the ads, selecting them, and harnassing contact info, when they create the package, they need images for each of the adverts, to entice our consumers to view them. So my job last week, was to view over 150 advertisements (many that you might even be watching on your television right now), freeze-frame them in an artistic or particularly point, and take hi-resolution photos of them. To which, will be used in next month's copy of The Reel. So even as an unpaid intern, essentially my work will be published immediately at the release of October's Reel Edition, and I'll have a hardcopy of some of my work for a company. How cool is that right?

Well this week, I had a similar experience, because when I worked on the Reel this week. We also provide an up-to-date website that highlights a brand new ad, everyday called a "hotspot" that is selected by The Reel team, and then described in length, so consumers can check out the latest and greatest we have to offer. Well every one of those hotspot selections, needs a detailed description, with a nice fun, tagline and such, and yours truly wrote up a description, details, and hooked it in, so that I got posted on the net yesterday on our website. It doesn't make me feel famous or anything, just another day at the job, but it is a really important feeling to have a sense that my own work is actually contributing as an asset to a company I'm working with. It's awesome.

Enough about that though, let me get back to Shakespeare, since by now you've forgotten how poorly I started this blog entry. Last night, I had the amazing opportunity with my theater class to see Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in of course...THE GLOBE!?!?!! What an incredible experience. I've never laughed so hard at a Shakespheare production in my life. The actors were phenomenal, the atmosphere amazing, I stood just like all the other peasants would have in the olden days front and center, right at all the action...alongside of the smelly drunks and artsy people that needed a shower, but nevertheless, that's also an experience to have in one's lifetime I suppose too haha. But nothing by a standing ovation from me, literally, for 2.5 hours while we watched one of the last performances of the season in the globe. It's just really amazing that no matter how much I try to put my head around it, London has just so much rich history, that I really appreciate being able to walk along cobblestone streets and just imagine myself in a Dickens novel or to say that, I stood where I know the Queen shops.

Speaking of history though, it's just awesome, our classroom, is a block from the British Museum, and so on my lunch break last week, in between classes, I just went back to the Museum a second time and hit all of the Roman/Egyptian/Asian exhibits that I missed the first time I visited. It's awesome to me, how like two weekends ago barely, I was in the Louvre, staring at Hammurabi's code, the Mona Lisa, and this past Tuesday, I walked back and saw scores of mummies, roman gear, and Viking helmets. Just so epic for a history buff like myself.

Anyways, this weekend, I have some friends from Elon coming to visit from the Italy program, and it should be a great time to see some familiar faces for sure. I'm stoked to show them a bit of the city and act like a tour guide in a city that I've barely conquered, but either way, just for everyone else's sake, I've begun to pick up my accent, worked the word Cheers permanently into the vocabulary, and no mom, I haven't found anyone of royalty that wants to marry me yet, but I think it's because they think my teeth are too straight, yeah, I'm sure that's it. Nevertheless, this coming week, I hope to hit the London Eye up, Go to St. Pauls for a service, Maybe see the Tower of London, get Knighted when the Queen gets back in town, and of course, ride more double decker busses. But the cool thing also is Next weekend I'll be in Jolly' Good Scotland for the weekend, filled with the Loch Ness, Hadrian's Wall, and lavish green scenery, yea, I'll probably purchase a kilt/bagpipes just for the story, but who wouldn't? You only live once.

Anyways, I love you all and hope everything's going well in the States/wherever you might be reading this from. Take care, keep the updates coming, and as always...Cheers!