fandango!

sorry i haven’t written in a while, it’s been nearly impossible to get internets. most recently, our hostel claimed that the internets were all broken, but he also said that i had to return the key to the front desk when i went to bed, but when i went back and asked how i was to lock the door for the night, he gave me the key and told me to keep it. i refuse to attribute this to my poor french.

but before i continue – i MUST talk about the jameson distillery. apparently it wasn’t actually a working distillery, but rather a restored old factory with replicas of processes. this was minimally important, because i was the first person to volunteer for the whiskey-tasting at the end. incidentally, i didn’t have much competition, but i think my enthusiasm was appreciated.

this is me preparing for the five shots. unfortunately, as the scotchman sitting across from me suggested, the object was not to see who would finish their shots the quickest, but rather to discover what was indeed the best whiskey.

look at that concentration.

i believe the competitors for jameson were paddy and powers, both irish, some scottish blend that tasted like smoke (because of the way they germinate their barley using burning peat moss!), and jack daniel’s. shockingly, i found that jameson really was the best. i’m fairly certain it was rigged. but, the point is simply this:

I WON A CERTIFICATE HOW COOL AM I I HAVE A PINT OF GUINNESS IN ONE HAND AND MY WHISKEY AWARD IN THE OTHER AND I’M SITTING IN AN IRISH PUB PREPARING TO GO ON A PUB CRAWL DUBLIN W0000000T.

on the pub crawl, we met two friends. tina, an australian girl traveling alone who attained my friendship by remarking that we were waiting in a very long line and seamlessly transitioning to asking to hang out with us. i aspire to be her. our other friend was a guy that sat down across from us at a table, who was from virginia beach? how does this happen. charlotte took this fantastically arty picture of me with the two; charlotte is regrettably not featured:

i look haggard.

anyway.

the next day (friday) we left for london. the morning pretty much sucked, as my bag was too heavy and my daypack exploded and i had to buy a new one and the lunch in the airport was disgusting and we queued up for our flight two hours before it took off then we were delayed on the runway and stuff and junk and things. but our hostel in london was really cute, and that night we went to the volunteer pub near regent’s park where we met up with some kids from uva doing the same summer program charlotte did last year. they were fun, and afterwards we went back to their dorm to hang out for a few hours. good, wholesome fun. lol.

on saturday i got to sleep in until 10.15, which has come to seem really late. we went to westminster abbey, which was really pretty.

"get one of me and the abbey!"


i really enjoy gothic architecture and all its linear-ness and points. here we have big ben, a large building to its left, and in the background, the london eye. both the world’s largest and probably most ridiculously overpriced ferris wheel!

then we went and grabbed lunch in tesco (<3!)>
i’m a princess!

i then forced charlotte to spin around in circles with her arms flailing about à la sound of music, but i forgot to steal those pictures from her so you’re just going to have to bank on her posting them. it was just a really pretty picnic.

we then spent an HOUR looking for a new battery for my phone, which died, fuck you whatever company we rented from. apparently only one store in all of london sells phone batteries – he was a specialist, after all.

later that evening we went to see spamalot, because charlotte really wanted to. i find monty python generally unamusing, but the show was flashy and therefore mildly entertaining, even though we had restricted seats and could only see about half of the stage.

we got into trouble for taking this in the theater, but look at our cute scarves!

we walked home along the thames, which took about an hour and was beautiful. i have no images of this because i didn’t bring my camera out and charlotte already knew what it looked like, but rivers and cities are always gorgeous at night, so visualize.

we also encountered a spartan war hero statue, and i attempted to emulate:

i think i did a damn good job. i was trying to do the over-the-shoulder job of the shawl that they do, but i’m not sure that i mastered all that.

also, southwark (pronounced suthuck, wtf) cathedral looks like a lego castle. check out those turrets.

yesterday morning we checked out and had time to go to the tate modern, where there was a fantastic exhibit on the growth of cities. did you know that the population of bombay has grown over 1100% in the past century, and london’s only 10%?! probably not! zomg! really though, it was kind of scary.

then we took the train into paris.

this is charlotte being REALLY excited about our new hostel where we don’t get to keep our keys when we leave the building. LOL!

we had dinner in a café then met up with her friend mica afterwards to go up the eiffel tower.

this is what the eiffel tower looks like.

but the place was completely mobbed, so instead we went to a grocery store and grabbed some snaxxx and sat out on the lawn on the opposite side. did you know that for the millennium paris installed lots of flashing lights but didn’t feel like taking them down, so now they go off every hour for ten minutes and will continue to do so until they burn out? it was pretty. the pictures are no good, so they will not be posted. there is, however, a brief video. which you also may not see. srry.

and then back to the hostel – charlotte was seepies, and i conceded. tonight, i hope, we will go out, and have lots of crazy paris adventures.

sorry about the obscene length of this post, even i’m bored, and unless you’re related to me, you’re not required to read it all. and speaking of people related to me, how about a phone call every once in a while? KTHX. <3