I’m on the bus to Oxford returning from the 4^th of July weekend in London and I have to say this has probably been my favorite city so far; not exactly as quaint as Venice but enchanting nonetheless. I’m not sure if it was the company (Patrick is here!) or the fact that I got to plan my own itinerary, which included waking up at 10 am rather than 7 am.

 

How we packed so much into three days is beyond me. I think my favorite thing we did was probably watching a trial at the Old Bailey, now called the Central Criminal Courts. It was entirely un-touristy but that’s probably because it’s just too boring for most tourists to care to see…regardless, I thought the entertainment abounded. We sat in bleacher like wooden seats above the courtroom, situated to protect the anonymity of the witnesses but with a full view of the judge, attorneys, and defendant. The attorneys, who have to wear sweeping black robes and powdered white wigs, were a little archaic. The case we saw was outrageous to say the least and hearing the old men, in their full get-ups, reading some of the defendant's statements was beyond hilarious, especially with the British accents. 

Friday we took advantage of the theater-deprived youth of London, who have apparently caused the government to implement free theater tickets to anyone under 26. Hoping to entice the boys to join, I chose a WWI play at Hampstead Theater. Little did I know that Act II would take an decisive twist when two of the soldiers suddenly locked into a passionate kiss…..

 

Continuing the weekend’s theme, I forced a couple people to join me in my own “Independence Day” parade on Saturday…London’s Pride 2009. Photos to come.

 

Nerd Alert:

We also crammed in the National Gallery as well as the London Museum and the British Library. The Library is 2^nd in the world only to the Library of Congress in the US and contained two original Gutenberg bibles, the original Alice in Wonderland, Jane Eyre, Beowulf, Canterbury Tales, and Magna Carta. I was in heaven. 

Today, we went to a hidden gem known as Roxy Bar and Screen. I found it online and am so glad we decided to try it out. It turned out to be amazing. It’s a “movie theater” aka posh bar with giant projection screen complete with leather couches, candles, and low coffee tables. They had a free showing of the Wimbledon finals today and we had so much fun watching it with the locals. 

Wishing I had BBQ to top it all off, 

Kaitlyn 

Vienna

We're in Vienna! 

Our hotel is fantastic and right beside Vienna's version of 6 flags or Lake Winnie but with no admission fee. However it is apparently only for business people who rather dislike loud college students. We've gotten so many complaints and Jill and I were cornered in the elevator and yelled at for our group waking someone up in the middle of the night. 

Regardless, Vienna is clean and the weather is just like September in Georgia. We also found a Subway which is a cure-all. 

Venice/Padua was incredible. We saw a Vivaldi concert, toured museums, and explored the city. I still think Rome is my favorite city so far.  

My lack of musical knowledge is really showing these days. After Dr. Hadyn played a song in class I raised my hand and asked if it was a hymn, "I feel like I've heard it before."

Turns out it was Ode to Joy. 

Welcome to Roma!

Florence was fantastic. The city is beautiful, the people were friendly, and just about everything except our hotel was amazing. When we got there we explored the 2nd toilet? (bideau?) And tore off the "comforters" from our beds. They were so gross because we ended up in a smoking room somehow. 

We got to see the Duomo, Michelangelo's David, Donatello's David, the Birth of Venus, etc. We climbed to the top of the Duomo and got to see all of Florence. They had tons of tents selling strange knockoffs but we got some ties and scarves for literally nothing. 

One morning I convinced a group of about 12 that it would be a great idea to use the break between two of our museums to get breakfast at McDonalds...I had the perfect sausage biscuit dancing in my head like a sugar plum and thought our 9:45 break before breakfast would be the perfect time to make it a reality before they stopped serving at 10:30. Oh the naivete of the American college student. After our 20 min trek, we arrived to discover Big Macs and Croissants were just about the only thing on the menu. 

I felt so bad. Not only for my stomach but for everyone else I had bribed to come with taunts of, "DONT YOU WANT A MCGRIDDLE!?" 

Now we're in Rome and are staying in quite literally the ghetto. We bought pizza tonight and ate it on the side of the street. The only redeeming characteristic is free internet in our hotel. 

Jill and I took our laundry to a local laundrymat where little did we realize that the older man who owned it would personally be folding each and every one of our lacy panties. We're fairly creeped out. 

On the same note, back in Florence we went to a bar/club called Twice. The first night was really fun, just a lot of Oxford people and other young Americans. The next night however, they were apparently filming a Taken remake because the sketchy Italians were out in herds. It actually got pretty scary at one point because there were more girls than guys with us and the older locals kept grabbing us and trying to pull us away from our group. 

We had girls in the middle and the boys in a circle around us trying to keep them away from us and they would come up and literally break through the guys to try to dance with us, pull us away, etc. 

Austria!

I never realized how beautiful Austria is! Today is a national german holiday so everything was closed. We ended up taking about an hour busride out to Salzberg, Austria and doing the sound of music tour. It was absolutely breath-taking. I think we saw the museum/tour that mom mentioned Angela and Tom doing, the one with the surpise, secret fountains. Salzberg is in a valley surrounded by gigantic mountains with snow on the peaks. We got to see nearly all the places they filmed for the movie and we took another hour busride to see the church from the marriage scene. There were huge crystal clear glacier lakes that apparently are so clean you can drink from them.

Tomorrow we have several museums and a concentration camp on the agenda and then Wednesday we leave for Florence!

After a 13 hour bus ride...

We finally arrived in Munich! 

Yesterday was our last day in France and it couldn't have been better weather. We took a tour of the Opera House, shopped in a ridiculous mall, and went to the Pompidou Museum. 

Mom/whoever- I'll be online tomorrow night (here) and afternoon (there) if you have internet access and want to skype. It will probably be around 3 in the afternoon. 

Au Revoir Paris!

Today is our last day in Paris! 

I really feel like we've gotten to do almost everything I know of that is really "touristy." This morning we took a tour of the Opera House (that Phantom of the Opera is from!) and it was incredible. Our tour guide had the entire tour memorized in english but not a word more. We tried asking her a couple questions and she would just repeat a line verbatim. 

Last night we went to a jazz concert in a really cute part of town and then like 30 of us took over the bar next door. It was the first time a bunch of people from our group had gone out together so it was really fun.

We leave for Munich tomorrow morning at 8 am, just as we've finally gotten the hang of how to sneak onto the metro without buying a ticket. 

On Thursday we figured out the hard way not to split up and try to meet again later. Chris and I went back to the hotel while everyone else finished up at the Louvre and we were all going to meet at the Eiffel Tower...which unfortunately never happened. Chris and I ended up on an 8 hour "date" all day in Paris just wandering around mostly lost. We had fun though and got to see the Eiffel Tower, the Arch de Triumph, the Champs de Elysees, and try delicious nutella and banana crepes. 

I think its the curse of blonde hair to be creeped on by random Europeans. An old man in the D'Orsay yesterday took a liking to it and walked up beside me, slipping his arm through mine. He stood there for a while and finally and unhooked my arm and kind of stepped away. He stepped back and blew me a kiss. Everyone in our whole group was with me because we were about to tour the museum and was staring at him. He started following our group and finally left when a field trip of 5 year olds going the other way passed us. Sooo creepy. 

The weather here has been absolutely fantastic for the past 3 days. Gorgeous and sunny but not too hot. We had a Subway picnic yesterday in a park by the Notre Dame. It was delicious but I made the mistake of assuming French mustard was similar to ours. I ended up with my nose runny, seaty, and nearly choking from the spiciness of the mustard. 

Until Munich, 

Kaitlyn 

Stanley vs. the Mona Lisa

 Paris is wet/cold and amazing. 

Our hotel is literally right on the Seine and it is gorgeous at night. (It is the one on the right hand side) 

We're staying in a Holiday Inn and thought this would be a great advantage when asking for directions but who knew there were actually 2 Holiday Inns in Paris...

France has been entertaining to say the least. Yesterday in the market a man came up to me and was gesturing talking to me in French. I tried to tell him I only spoke English and finally he just stuck out his hand like he wanted to shake mine. I stuck mine out and then he pulled me in a kissed me on both cheeks! 

Today we went to the Louvre and it was incredible. Taking a tour with you own personal art historian is awesome. One thing Professor Medina didn't count on though was right as we entered the room to see the Mona Lisa someone noticed that Stanley from the Office was sitting off to the side with his wife just nonchalantly people watching. I'm sure they thought that they had found a perfectly secluded hideaway from fans... until 44 American college students discovered them. After pro-conning the situation we decided that looking at the Mona Lisa from 40 feet away did not compare to shaking Stanley's hand so we took several group photos and ignored Medina's futile art pleas. 

Stanley 1. -- Mona Lisa 0. 

I'll put more pictures on facebook. 

Au Revoire!