Thoughts from Places: Oh, Canada

I seem to be shockingly good at forgetting that it's Tuesday. All the days have sort of started bleeding together a little bit. Never fear, good blog readers - pending some phone calls to make sure that I am not a serial killer, I am gainfully employed as a hotel front desk receptionist, so that should force me to remember what day of the week it is a little more often.

And now: I don't believe I told you about my recent trip to Toronto, did I?

You know those crazy plans that your friends come up with sometimes? And often they're not even so crazy - I suppose plans of this nature could really range from "hey, I never see you anymore, we should hang out," to "let's go back to London!!"

Toronto started out as one of those plans. Except we actually did it. My roommate extraordinaire Lisa drove me, her boyfriend Toby, and our two friends Brandon and Jillian up into the wilds of Canada (and by wilds I mostly mean completely mental highways where the speed limit signs are suddenly in kilometers per hour) to have a weekend of adventuring in Toronto.

While we were there, Jillian said something along the lines that all cities remind her of other cities, and it is very much the case with Toronto. Lisa and I decided that if you mashed up Philadelphia, Newark, and Dublin, you'd get Toronto, architecturally speaking at least. Culturally speaking it leans more towards the Dublin/small British city vibe - we found ourselves in this really fantastic pub in the entertainment district that had All the British Things on the walls, bowler hat light fixtures, and really good macaroni and cheese.

I suspect that Lisa and I may have driven our traveling companions slightly insane over the course of the weekend by bringing up our adventures in Europe pretty much every twelve seconds, but we couldn't really help it. This semi-spontanous trip was especially great - or just especially nostalgic - for me because it felt so much like our trips from last year. We felt like going to Cardiff one weekend, so we did. We felt like taking a trip to Camden Markets another weekend, so we did that too. And a couple of months ago, we felt like driving to Toronto and having another adventure in another country, so we made sure it actually happened. And then we jabbered about past adventures nonstop. Lisa told the story of our disastrous day of traveling over spring break. I talked about that time I became a random tour guide in Paris and the WWII bomb shelter in Cardiff Castle. There was a lot of reminiscing, a lot of nostalgia, which stung a bit for me on the first day, at least. And we maaaaybe prattled on a little TOO much about our adventures to our poor captive companions. (... sorrynotsorry)

Our adventure was brief, and probably lacking in things that would stereotypically be called adventurous. We didn't really go to any museums (we did go to a place called Casa Loma, which I keep calling Castle Loma because, well, it's a castle), didn't really get horribly lost (well, Jillian and I got minorly turned around, which was entirely my fault, but we got un-lost again rather quickly), didn't climb any Arthurian-named mountains or visit any cathedrals.

Instead, we found ourselves in a sports bar right when the Toronto Maple Leafs beat whatever Boston's hockey team is in a Stanley Cup playoff game. The entire bar erupted in cheers, and we sort of watched and soaked it all in. We went to a very delicious dinner at Toby's grandparents' house, which meant figuring out public transportation on the way there and stuffing Brandon into the trunk of Toby's step-grandmother's car on the way back (and no, Brandon, we will never ever let you forget that. Or that you volunteered quite happily for the position). We didn't climb any mountains, but we did climb the crazy stairs of doom from the Scott Pilgrim movie. Our first night there, we wandered into a restaurant that had a live jazz band playing. And our second night there, the boys went out without us and the girls stayed in our hostel room just chatting. So, perhaps a smaller-scale adventure than ones I've been on previously, but a grand adventure nonetheless. It was a kind of a last hurrah with friends - a last crazy college student thing to do before Senior Week and all its fun, and graduation sending us on our separate ways. I'm so glad that our random late night exclamation of "let's go to Canada!!!" actually became a real adventure that we really went on.

Especially since, on the way back, before the speed limit signs changed back into miles per hour, pennies came into existence once again, and hockey stopped being a big deal, we stopped to look at Niagara Falls for a little while.

From left to right: Toby, Lisa, Jillian, me, Brandon. Also a seriously giant waterfall.

Thoughts from Places: Pomp and Circumstance

On Sunday morning, this happened:

That's me on the left of the sign. They emailed me and said "hi there, you are a smart person and we like you. Want to carry a thing at graduation?" And I said "yeah, sure, why not?" They also gave me a wooden baton I get to keep, which my roommate (standing on my left) and I will use to bludgeon potential home intruders.

I marched into the football field - the one and only time I have BEEN to Ithaca College's football field - at the head of my school, sat with my very best friends (except the one who sat with the School of Music), stood with those friends when they asked those graduating Summa Cum Laude and Magna Cum Laude to stand, listened to David Boreanaz tell us not to get stuck on your sister's uncomfortable green couch and go out and DO the thing that you're meant to be doing, and flipped my tassel from the right side of my exceedingly stupid hat to the left.

I graduated.

To quote the brilliant John Green, because, as I have mentioned half a zillion times before, he says all the things I want to say, except more succinctly and more cleverly, "My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations." I can't quite wrap my head around the whole thing yet. It hasn't really hit me, in spite of the fact that I've got all the graduation paraphernalia stuffed in my suitcase in my room in the new sublet I'll be living in for the summer. It feels, right now, that it's just over for the summer, like always. It feels like I'll be heading right back to classes in August. I wonder how long it'll take me to realize that that's not the case.  

There are some not-so-nice things about graduating. Things like having your gown not fit AT ALL and having people ask eight hundred times what all your cords are for (Summa Cum Laude cords, history honor cords, Italian honor cords), being annoyed that you didn't get to throw your hat, getting frustrated to the point of tears when your lunch plans refuse to coordinate nicely, getting a raccoon-face sunburn so that everyone knows you've been crying FOR THE REST OF THE DAY.

Things like that.

But there are also some awesome things about graduating. (And the week before, which for Ithacans is Senior Week, in which every day is Friday. And then Friday is Friday to the power of Friday, which makes it EVEN BETTER.)

Things like getting to jump into Ithaca's famous fountain. It was freezing, but so very very worth it. It felt even more like a culmination of the last four years of hard work than actual graduation.

My roommate Lisa and I also went to pick up our honor cords from the registrar right after Senior Splash, in spite of the fact that we were soaking wet. It was the best idea ever.

Things like getting to spend every day doing exactly what *I* wanted to do. I read some books *I* wanted to read, I napped, I cooked, I sometimes got dressed up and went to senior events, and, most importantly, I hung out with my friends. I used my too-big graduation gown as a cape and made airplane noises swooping around in the gusts of Ithacan wind, and also as wizard robes in a chopstick wand duel with my roommates. (How nerdy is it that I've been planning that for four years?)

The whole thing is surreal. I keep waiting for a sense of accomplishment to hit me, a sense of "LOOK AT ME, I DID IT, I GRADUATED, WITH EXCESSIVE AMOUNTS OF HONOR CORDS TO BOOT!" But that hasn't arrived yet. I don't really know if it will. School is, at this point, really the only thing I know how to do. So, you know, I just did it.

And now I have to figure out how to do something else. How to be an adult.

It's weird, but I'll do that too.

For now, though, I think I'll revel a little longer in what just was. The hard part of all this is knowing that I'll never again be in the same place with ALL of my friends, those friends who provided a support network for all four years of college.

There really are no words to encompass everything my friends have done for me over the past four years. Whether it was forcing me to buy clothing that actually fit, making me dinner on my birthday, commiserating about terrible novels our thirteen-year-old selves wrote, going on European adventures, or simply talking very late into the night, the friends I made here at IC have really shaped who I am today. They took a shy, gawky, hellishly awkward high schooler and turned her into a (more) confidant girl who can at least pretend she knows how to talk to strangers and is capable of wandering around foreign cities on her own and can (sometimes) simply let herself relax and have fun and not care what other people think.

That, my friends, is entirely your doing, and I am so grateful. Sitting here in this sweltering Waffle Frolic (which has delicious food and free internet but, alas, no air conditioning), I miss you already, even though I only said goodbye to you yesterday. I WILL pester you all into keeping in touch if need be, and you may hereby kick me if for some inexplicable reason you do not end up on the acknowledgements page of my future novel.

I feel like this post is rather rambling and nonsensical, and for that I apologize. I wanted to say something Grand and Important and All-Encompassing, but I think my mind is still reeling from the shock of it all, and I can't quite find the words I want. Really, the most important words are: thank you. To everyone who helped me get to the point where I flipped my tassel from one side of my hat to the other, and left a football stadium an Ithaca College alum, you are the best. My family and my friends and my wonderful professors and my writer friends and you, dear blog readers: thank you. You helped me, in big ways and small ways, to get to the point where I could jump into a freezing cold fountain, have a chopstick wizard duel in overlarge robes, and write "graduated Summa Cum Laude" on my resume.

Here's to the next four years, then, hmmm?

Side note: if you are related to me and would like to keep in touch (or if you are not related to me and would like to keep in touch) send an email to coconne2 (at) ithaca (dot) edu and I'll send you my new address and all that jazz. :)

Thoughts from Places: Oh Ithaca, My Ithaca

I tend to refer to my college's town as "the frozen north," and it is never so appropriate as when nature fittingly gives us an April Fool's Day dusting of snow that's still clinging to the ground in the face of the next day's sun. And let's face it, it's probably going to snow again today. It precipitates so much in Ithaca, and often of such an indeterminate manner of precipitation, that my roommate's freshman year RA started calling it "Ithacation" and the term's stuck.

But for a place that is grey and dreary for about nine months of the year, it sure is gorgeous when the sun comes out.

This is the view from my apartment window. I'm spoiled forever.

My family stopped in Ithaca when we were on vacation in Watkins Glen, a few years before I was applying to colleges. We walked around the Commons - Ithaca's downtown area for pedestrians - and got delicious smoothies at Collegetown Bagels. (By the way, if you are ever in Ithaca, GET THEE TO COLLEGETOWN BAGELS POST HASTE.) I liked the vibe of this place, this strange little city essentially in the middle of nowhere. "There's a college here," my mom said. "We could look into it."

And now here I am.

I have a tendency to refer to Ithaca as "Hippieville USA," and it is. But I like that. I like that I can compost my plate in pretty much every cafe and that so many interesting people can be found here. I like that it's a little microcosm of a town set in between Ithaca College and Cornell University.

For most of my time here at IC, I was basically a hermit. I didn't really go much of anywhere. I stayed inside on weekends, watching Disney movies and doing laundry with my roommate. And now there's so much I have to catch up on before the great and terrible diaspora of graduation - things that technically speaking I'd have time to do later, but not with the people I want to do those things with. I have to go to the gorges and waterfalls that Ithaca is so famous for (we have t-shirts that say "Ithaca is Gorges," as well as various spoofs; my favorite is "Ithaca is Cold"). I have to go to Waffle Frolic (seriously, what a great name for a restaurant). That lake in the picture above? I've been staring down at it for four years and never been.

I've had so many adventures in places that are not here, and I think it's time to fix that.

I never really thought that I'd stay here after I graduated; I'd always thought that my chosen college town would be the place where I went to college and that would be that. But here I am, making plans to stay. And I like that. This town is giving me the chance, or at least, I hope will be giving me the chance, to make my transition from "student" to "real actual adult person" a little easier. I'll be able to tear off the Band-Aid slowly here. This is a place that is safe and familiar for me, a place I've spent four years tucked cozily away between cinder block walls and cocooned by textbooks. It's a place where I have friends - my roommate who will be staying here with me and who is kind of my best friend, as well as some other friends who won't be graduating yet. It's a place where I can navigate all the scary things adulthood brings - paying rent, buying groceries not on my parents' credit card, owning a car, paying off student loans - with some sense of solid, familiar ground.

I'm looking forward to discovering this place I halfway know. I'm looking forward to turning Ithaca into more than just South Hill and the IC campus. I'm looking forward to really claiming this place as mine, for a little while longer at least.

And, let's face it, I actually really like snow.

Research vs. Experience

Recently, John and Hank Green were on tour in the UK for the first anniversary of The Fault in Our Stars, and John made this video in which he basically broke my heart by going on my favorite walk along the Thames - the one that goes past Parliament and the London Eye and the Globe and eventually winds its way to Tower Bridge and the Tower of London - as well as mentioning getting a drink at Eat to be rebellious and calling Caffe Nero "Caffe Nerd" because the font does kinda make it look like that, and all sorts of other London-y things that made me viscerally miss that place I once called home. (Not like I don't do that enough as it is, thanks John.)

But he was also, kind of, in an uncertain way, making an argument that virtual narratives are now so real and compelling as to stand up to physical narratives. He was looking at an object in the British Museum that was actually on loan to a museum in Toronto, but the space had been filled by such a convincing 3-D photo that it took him a minute to notice it wasn't real. So, he says, does that matter? Is it important to be looking at the real thing?

I'm a history minor; I do a rather ridiculous amount of research like it's my job. So there's something to be said for that - I do not have a time machine. I cannot find out, in a personal, physical way, everything about daily life in World War II or the French Revolution or Victorian London. I just can't. I have to turn to official documents and personal narratives and paintings and photos and maps; I can piece together my own truth based on the snippets I've been given.

And I obviously did enough research to create a landscape for my characters before I went to Europe. I'd written A TERROR OF DARKNESS completely when I finally went to Paris, and I think the only thing I wanted to change after having gone was noting how damp the catacombs actually are - it looks pretty dry and dusty down there in all the pictures I'd seen.

But even though the research I'd done was enough, I wouldn't have traded that semester abroad for the world. There are some things you simply cannot learn from books - sometimes you have to buy a drink at Eat and get stuck in the snow at Piccadilly Circus and eat pub food and discover places not listed on the maps. Sometimes you have to touch the stones of Notre Dame and breathe the dank air of the catacombs and dance through the gilded halls of the Palais Garnier.

I don't think John is arguing that everyone should always stay inside 100% of the time and be glued to their computer screens. That would be silly. And I think the question he's raised is interesting: is it sufficient to look at a picture of a thing? How much is there to be said for looking at the thing itself? How important, for example, was it for me to see the actual Mona Lisa when we went to the Louvre, versus looking at a picture of the Mona Lisa in my textbooks and online?  

Maybe the virtual experience is so detailed now as to be enough. But the real experience just adds something more. It allows you to create something more than what's merely "enough."

So Last Night Turned into Dreams Coming True, AWESOME.

Last night, I went to Carnegie Hall to see An Evening of Awesome with John and Hank Green and their various special guests. If you would like an article about it that's a little (okay a lot) more coherent than this blog post might be (I'm going to try and keep the tumblr speak to a minimum here guys, but seriously I have lost the ability to even) I suggest reading this one.

I love the Green brothers. They are both simply amazing human beings. And John Green is my hero. Hank is amazing too, of course, and he writes funny songs that I love and says insightful things in funny ways, but John is the novelist, and I am an aspiring novelist, so there you go. (Friends who know me in real life should also be aware that quite literally ALL of my relationship advice and a lot of my general life advice is stolen from John Green. So now you know my secret. If ever you are upset, irl friends, and cannot reach me, just watch some John Green videos and everything'll be okay!)

I have been trying to meet the Green brothers for about three years now, ever since my lovely roommate introduced me to Nerdfighteria, and I keep getting thwarted. For instance, last year when The Fault in Our Stars came out, there was a release party in New York City, which I would have gone to in a heartbeat if the plane taking me to study in London for five months hadn't left ONE DAY beforehand. And technically I still have yet to meet them, in spite of waiting for over an hour by the stage door (I gave up because my toes were freezing and I wanted to catch the bus back to New Jersey). But that's okay - hopefully I will someday be a published author and I can be at BEA and meet him or something. And the fact that I was in a room with nearly 3,000 other people, sitting about 20 yards away from the stage, didn't stop me from almost crying when John and Hank walked on stage in their tuxes. (I didn't cry: I told myself that I couldn't, because I had to take a terrible-quality cell phone picture and then be a good little theatre kid and put my phone away.)

The evening was about ten thousand different kinds of amazing. Ashley Clements and Daniel Gordh (aka Lizzie and Darcy from the Lizzie Bennet Diaries) read a scene from The Fault in Our Stars, which was a wonderful, sweet, poignant performance. The Mountain Goats and Kimya Dawson played some songs I didn't know but thought were pretty cool anyway. Hank Green played a lot of songs I did know. Hannah Hart and Neil Gaiman (NEIL FREAKING GAIMAN) asked some questions and later helped do a dramatic reading of a scene from Paper Towns. It was hilarious and fun and the crowd was screaming the whole time and my nerdy heart exploded with joy.

And while I love the Green brothers for their nerdy jokes and funny songs and beautiful novels, what I really love is the sense of collaboration and acceptance that they've spread across the internet. John gave a talk about the genesis of TFiOS and how Nerdfighteria became a thing and he said that the community of Nerdfighters "helped him to fall in love with the world." And that is why I think John and Hank are so remarkable - because it's true. And not in a weird, mushy, sort of way. They acknowledge that there is so much that is wrong about the world, and that nothing is perfect and everyone has some sort of sadness that they must deal with - and yet, humanity is inherently good. People can make things better. And not necessarily in huge ways. People can make the world a better place just by being themselves, by doing little things to make themselves and their friends and family a little bit happier, by doing the things they love - whether that is writing books or making music or posting videos on YouTube or taking cute pictures of cats - with the people that they love.

That means so much to me. It's sort of a way of saying that yes, your dreams matter. You have to work to make them happen, of course, but they can happen, they are real and they ARE important. YOU are important, because YOU DO MATTER. You matter to your friends and your family and your pet and your teachers and your students and the people you pass by in the hallway.

My world would be a little bit darker if I had never discovered John and Hank. I would have so many fewer songs to sing and books to read, and I would not understand that idea of mattering. John and Hank spent so much of last night saying thank you to us, to the community who has formed around them, and now it is my turn. Thank you, John and Hank, for showing me what it is to matter. Thank you for making me laugh and making me cry and making me think, and yes, making me fall in love with the world a little bit more.




(Side note: if anyone has a .gif of Neil Gaiman saying "It's not my fault that my parents own the world's largest collection of black Santas," I would be extremely grateful if they could send it to me.) 

(Side note to the side note: if you get the reference in this blogpost title, here is a high five for you. *high five*)

Thoughts from Places: Lost in Central Park

I'm sitting on my couch in my living room at home right now, drinking a cup of tea that my dad made me and hoping my cat will appear from somewhere in the near future. And I am incredibly glad to be home. This semester, so far, has been kind of a rough one for me - I've taken on far too many things to do, and I am getting them all done, hopefully in a satisfactory manner, but it's exhausting. I'm getting tired of being tired, of staring at the mountain of work in front of me and wanting to give up before I start because there's just so much of it, of feeling like no matter how hard I'm trying it's never enough. It's been sort of an emotional rollercoaster as well - some really awesome things have happened that have made me an incredibly happy camper, but some terrible things have happened to people I care about as well. It's like I can never catch up, really.

So what did I do last weekend, when I was feeling so completely overwhelmed that I could hardly stand it, when I had midterms this week and a show to direct?

I asked my made-of-awesome roommate Lisa to drive me and my other made-of-awesome roommate Sarah to Binghamton, and then Sarah and I took a bus to New York City so that we could meet Stefan Bachmann at his book signing.

After a long bus ride in which I was reminded of all my fantastic adventures in Europe and countered the wildly depressing reading I was doing for my history class by listening to this song, quite literally, on repeat for four hours, Sarah and I arrived at the Port Authority and met up with her friend Ryan. It was ComicCon last weekend, so Sarah and I were quite amused by all the costumed people wandering about the city. The three of us got some one dollar NYC pizza for dinner and then headed up to Ryan's office to eat it, because there was nobody else there, so why not? Ryan told us all about ComicCon, since he'd been there for work (lucky) and then after a little while of swapping stories we went and got some seriously amazing cupcakes from a place called Crumbs and stood at a table in Times Square, eating the cupcakes and watching people cosplay as the Ghostbusters. I think that is the one thing I like more about Manhattan than London; London shuts down surprisingly early for a big city, and it settles into a sleepy, shadowy sort of quiet that is really quite comforting. But New York comes alive at night, when all the lights are blaring almost as bright as daylight and there are still hundreds of people wandering the streets in search of something to do. It's invigorating, to be in that mass of milling people buzzing through the city under the glow of artificial light. It means you have places to go, people to see - or you can just stand in Times Square and eat a cupcake.

After that, Sarah and I hopped on another bus, this one about a forty-five minute ride to my house in New Jersey. I've been feeling a little lost, as I said, and so stepping off this bus gave me an almost overwhelming rush of being home. Walking up my driveway to hug my mom (and later, my dad and sister - they were at a marching band competition, of course), tackling my cat with affection he probably wasn't terribly interested in - this was exactly what I needed.

We weren't home for very long, of course - just long enough to have a lazy breakfast of home-made cinnamon buns the next morning before getting back on the bus to NYC to head to Books of Wonder and Stefan's book signing.

Since I've been telling people that I was going to go see my friend whose book had just come out, everyone has been asking me how I know Stefan. People from school ask if he's a friend of mine from home; people from home ask if I know him from school (he lives in Switzerland, so...). I feel like I get funny looks whenever I answer, "well... the internet?" But that is the case. My intern buddy Ari was lucky enough to go to BEA this summer, where she snagged an ARC of Stefan's wonderful book The Peculiar. She then lent it to me, and we started chatting with Stefan on Twitter. He's a really nice guy, and I was so glad that I got to meet him in person - since I doubt he'll be in the States again for quite a while.

Our bus got stuck in traffic on the way in, so Sarah and I managed to sprint into Books of Wonder (which is, by the way, the world's most amazing bookstore EVER) exactly as Stefan started reading. We snuck into the back of the reading and I waved at him, and when he'd finished and passed the microphone over to the next author on the panel, he waved back at me. It was quite a good panel - lots of interesting books were presented (I'm probably biased, but I liked Stefan's best) and the authors were all pretty cool guys (Gordon Korman was there - I still have the copy of No More Dead Dogs he signed for me back when I was in middle school, and I told him so later, even though I didn't buy his new book). After the signing, I creeped a bit on a really cool agent I follow on Twitter and who is a former writing major at Ithaca College... I don't think I weirded her out too much by saying hello. And then Sarah and I went up to see Stefan, and we got our books signed and got t-shirts and buttons and Swiss chocolate (oh my!), to which I responded "I brought you some cookies! My dad made them. They're awesome."

Stefan signed stock for the store for a while, and Sarah and I wandered around looking at all the books, wishing we could take them all home (I think bookstores and animal shelters are the two most dangerous places to put me. Give me books or kittens and I will want to adopt them all), and then Stefan and his brother asked if we wanted to go on an adventure to the Met.

This is where the story gets a bit funny, because you have two people who are originally from Colorado and now live in Switzerland and so don't know New York at all, one person who is in the city fairly regularly to visit friends and family, and one person who mostly knows how to navigate the city... but not quite. Sounds like the start of a bad joke, right? We got off the subway at Columbus Circle and started walking, chatting pleasantly about writing the whole way (writer friends are just so great to talk to; they really just get all the idiosyncrasies of a writer's brain, because theirs works similarly), but of course we were walking up the wrong side of Central Park. We arrived at the Museum of Natural History, groaned a bit, and turned into the park to get to the other side. We meandered through the park for a while, and it really was very pretty - quite rocky and adventurous for a park in the middle of a huge city. Sarah and I both had all of our stuff with us, however - stuff that, for me, included a backpack full of my 17-inch laptop, my pajamas, three books for my history paper, a binder, my Italian folder that was stuffed full of things to study for my midterm the next day, various chargers, etc etc etc. This was also the part of the day in which my estimation of how much said backpack weighed started to go up in my mind.

The backpacks also played a strange role when we finally did reach the Met. Sarah and I were declared over-baggaged, and so we had to check some of our things. But the guys at security had told us that we needed to keep our laptops with us the whole time. The eventual result of this was that Sarah kept her netbook in her purse, we both checked our backpacks and coats, and I took my purse as well and carried my aforementioned 17-inch laptop in my arms the entire time we were in the museum. I must have looked ridiculous, but hey, I had a little yellow security slip saying I was just following the rules.

We checked out some Vermeer and some musical instruments (that was fun, because Stefan plays All of the Things, and we saw some really cool carved details on various harps and pianos and discussed how this is the sort of thing that is great to include in books), and then went downstairs to look at the armory (because jousting is awesome). And then the museum was closing, so we wandered off, Stefan and his brother to their hotel, and Sarah and I to the Argo Tea across the street from where I worked this summer. There, we sat down very happily for two hours and had some tea that was very good but sadly lacking in milk, and I pounded out my history paper and Sarah worked on her presentation before we trekked back to the Port Authority and got on yet another bus.

After another long bus ride in which I studied for Italian and sent out a rehearsal schedule via text message, our truly made-of-awesome roommates came and picked us up, and when we opened the car door Other Caitlin squealed "WE MISSED YOU GUYS SO MUCH WE BROUGHT YOU CUPCAKES." On the hour-long drive back to Ithaca, we told them of our adventures, and then we turned up the music on Lisa's iPod, singing along loudly to N'Sync and Panic! at the Disco and the Fratellis and I don't even know who else.

The next night, Lisa and I were up late doing homework and watching movies and talking. We were saying that it would be nice to fall in love, and Lisa explained that she thinks you matter in life because of the people you matter to. And I think she's right, but not just about boyfriends. Last Sunday, I saw very clearly that I mattered to a lot of different people. I saw my family and got to curl up in the warmth of my couch and revel in that homey comfort. I met an awesome writer-friend and went on an adventure in a big, exciting city. And I came back to Ithaca to find roommates who'd missed us so much after just one night that they brought along cupcakes for the car ride back. As we drove, with the music blasting and the mountains rolling past us in dark black smudges against a charcoal-grey sky and the glare from Lisa's highbeams turning the leafless trees on the side of the road into white skeleton sketches, I couldn't help but feel happier than I have in quite a while. I mattered to these people, to all of the people I'd seen that day, and they all matter to me - more than words can truly express. It is, I think, the best way to end an adventure - to feel that in whatever place you stop, the people there will care about you. If that's the case, then wherever you stop is going to feel like home.

It Was Bound to Happen Eventually...

So last Sunday, I moved into my lovely new apartment on campus. We have a great view of Cayuga Lake out the living room window (and also my bedroom window), and there's lots of space and a full-sized fridge and more drawers than I know what to do with, which is unusual but cool.

There is also a spiral staircase leading from the kitchen/living room area to the bedrooms-and-bathroom area.

Said spiral staircase looks like this:

This spiral staircase is made out of black-painted metal, which has those little cross shaped things imprinted into it, supposedly to give some measure of traction, although really it doesn't work particularly well. Why a college would put such a thing into apartments lived in mostly by people who are now old enough to legally purchase alcohol is beyond me. Basically, this thing is the Spiral Staircase of Death.

And yes. That's right. I fell down it.

I live with three other girls: Lisa, Sarah, and Other Caitlin (so called because, well, I'm Caitlin too, although she also answers to Molly Weasley). Lisa, Sarah, and I were sitting downstairs doing homework or puttering about the internet or some such thing, when Other Caitlin came halfway down the stairs and asked where might be the best place to find some new nail clippers at 7 or 8 in the evening. I replied "my desk..." which sparked a conversation about whether or not that was weird, which maybe it should be but really I didn't care very much (it wasn't as though she had just been gardening or making mud pies or something). So Other Caitlin thanked me profusely and went into my room to find the nail clippers. Twelve seconds later, she called down the stairs "where do I find them again?" whereupon I went up the stairs, grabbed my nail kit from my desk, opened it, and handed her my nail clippers. And then I went to go back down the stairs.

What I was wearing plays a small part in this story: I had on a tank top, a skirt, and socks. The socks were because I was inside and my feet get cold, and when they get cold they get sweaty and gross and so do my hands for some reason, but anyway, I had socks on. The Spiral Staircase of Death, as previously mentioned, has little to no traction, and I was hurrying down the stairs. I think I was even holding on to the railing, actually. I was on the second or third step up from the bottom, when I registered two things in very quick succession.

The first was: Oh snap, I'm slipping!

The second was: OH SNAP GROUND.

I threw my hands out and then I was on the ground, sort of kneeling weirdly in front of the staircase. I sat there a bit stunned for a second.

Then all hell broke loose.

Sarah shouted "oh no!" from across the room. Lisa, who was sitting in the armchair directly next to the stairs, looked up from her reading and frantically asked if I was all right. I said I was fine, shifting carefully so I could look at my knees, which were quite red. Sarah then told me that I'd fallen incredibly gracefully, like a ballerina dying onstage (so, thanks, I think?). The rug burn on my knees was getting redder by the second, which was a bit concerning, and Lisa said something to that effect, and I protested that I was fine. Other Caitlin, however, shouted from upstairs "OH MY GOD IS SHE BLEEDING?!?" and came running downstairs to see. I kept protesting that I was fine, and Lisa and Caitlin began (intentionally) overreacting. I was still sitting at the foot of the staircase, so I said that I'd relocate to the couch five feet away, and Lisa shouted at me to stay put and that I should elevate my legs before they fell off (even stuffing a pillow under my knees). I was given some ice. Other Caitlin and Lisa then hurried up the stairs (over me) to get polysporin and band-aids, which was when I ninja-ed my way over to the couch, where Sarah was sitting, really just being amused by the whole thing.

Lisa and Other Caitlin came back with their medical supplies. I was expecting to get yelled at for getting up and moving to the couch, but I didn't, fortunately. Lisa then proceeded to open her polysporin; when I held out my hand for some she said "I'm not putting it on your hand, I'm putting it on your knee!" whereupon I grabbed it from her and did it myself, thanks very much. I was unable to escape Lisa and Caitlin putting the band-aids on my knees, however, which tickled a LOT. Other Caitlin then handed me a piece of chocolate, because apparently falling down the stairs and coming close to dementors have the same remedy (hey, I wasn't going to say no to that one!).

This entire time, their incredibly comic and extreme overreaction had me laughing hysterically, so much so that when Lisa made a joke about me asphyxiating from falling down I said it'd be more probable that I'd do that from laughing too much. I'm not sure if I've done this episode justice writing about it - it was a complete flurry of running up and down stairs and shouting and general ridiculousness. Kind of like one of those goofy chase scenes where everyone is running frantically in and out of a set number of doors.

I suppose, then, that the moral of this story is twofold: one, be incredibly careful when wearing socks on metal staircases. And two, if you have to fall, do it gracefully, and make sure you've got some awesome friends around to cheer you up after you hit the ground. 

Thoughts from Places: Basically the Best Job Ever

Every Wednesday and Thursday since I've gotten back from London, my alarm has gone off at 7:30 am, and for a few minutes I have cowered in the warmth and comfort and dark of my bed, not really wanting to get up, because it's summertime and it's 7:30. But, nevertheless, I get up, grab some tea, get dressed, and head out to catch the 8:50 bus into New York City.

I live somewhere between half an hour and an hour and fifteen minutes away from the city, depending upon the level of traffic and the mode of transportation - the bus takes longer, because it has to pick people up. (Also, my parents dispute this, but I SWEAR we got into the city by car in half an hour.) The bus ride is usually about an hour. Sometimes I am a good person and I do some writing on the commute - because of this the handwriting in my notebook has gotten hilariously poor in the last few entries - but a lot of the time I muse over things to write or things to do instead, or simply stare out the window (or, in the case of yesterday, take a nap). I then get in to the Port Authority, a place I've decided that I have a love-hate relationship with. I love the fact that it is so easy for me to commute into the city, even though bus tickets are rather expensive. I love that it's rather centrally located and that I can walk to my internship. However, I hate the massive lines of commuters on my way home, and I hate that they put the Cinnabon right by the entrance and exit for my bus. (OH THE SMELL OF GOOEY CINNAMONY DELICIOUSNESS. HOW YOU TORTURE ME SO.)

In any case, I hurry past the Cinnabon and then start my ten-block walk down Seventh Avenue to my internship-of-awesome. I am greeted by the very friendly doorman (who finally told me his name yesterday and I am now horrified to discover that I have forgotten. Gosh, for a writer I am truly terrible at remembering people's names) and wait for the slow, cranky elevator in a lobby that is small, but must have a twelve-foot ceiling complete with painted and gilded rosettes (my own slice of London historic decoration in New York, perhaps?). But the elevator finally takes me to the twentieth floor, where I slide into an office that is much more modern looking than the lobby's ceiling might suggest.

There are three literary agencies sharing this office, which means that there are a lot of people who really love books all in one room. It also means that, unlike my internship in London, I am not the only intern! There is always one other intern working with me from my literary agency, and at least one other from one of the other agencies (sometimes I'm not really sure which one). Oftentimes there are four interns crowded around the "intern table," the table used for conferences (in which case we are relocated to abandoned offices) that sits between the door and the coffee maker. I try and sit in the chair on the short end of the table closest to the door, because that way, I can still mostly read my computer screen when the sun comes blaring into our window at about four in the afternoon. It is very nice to take a break from queries and look out over the tops of buildings to the little hint of the Hudson River I can see through the roofs, but it is rather difficult to read in such bright sunlight. (Some of the other interns bring their sunglasses for this purpose. It is kind of awesome and hilarious.)

After I arrive, I spend the next seven and a half hours reading. I read queries, I read submitted manuscripts. Reading the slush pile is actually kind of fun - there are of course a great many completely out-there queries, which make me somewhere between amused and sad, and lots that really don't have anything "wrong" with them, they're just not thrilling, which does make me feel badly (because boy have I been in that writer's shoes). There are also occasionally those shining gems of OMG WOW REQUEST THIS IMMEDIATELY, which are great. Those are the ones I get excited about, that I remember when I get home and my mom asks me what I did that day. There was one that had spot-on historical voice the other day, and I was practically flailing in my chair as I urged the agent I work for to request it.

Reading manuscripts is also basically the best thing ever. Let me remind you: I read ALL DAY LONG, and it is my JOB to do so. WINNING. I do read a lot of romance novels, since this agency represents a lot of romance writers; they might not be specifically my cup of tea, but they're by no means hateful, and I do get to tell people that I read romance novels for work, which is just fun. I really enjoy reading the manuscripts and making comments along the way. I like writing up little "edit letters" at the end of things I liked and things I'd fix (and sometimes how I'd fix them, which is really exciting). 

I also have fun with my fellow interns. They're a bunch of lovely ladies (everyone who works in this office, by the way, is female. Why am I getting the sense that the publishing industry and theatre are not all that different? :P ). Fellow-intern Ari and I frequently chuckle over malapropisms and queries that have appeared on Slush Pile Hell, discuss the weirdness of reading queries at the same time we're sending out our own, and geek out over Nerdfighteria.

But then it's six pm and it's time for me to hurry through the busy streets* and brave the long lines at Port Authority and possibly a standing-room-only bus so that I can head home for the day. And excitedly tell my family about that awesome query letter that I read.

------------------------------------------

*You think I'd be used to crowds after living in a big city for almost five months. I think that London holds some ridiculously high percentage of England's population, but honestly, you wouldn't know it unless you were on Bond Street, in Piccadilly Circus, or on the Tube at rush hour. Whereas New York (especially at rush hour) is like being in Piccadilly Circus all the time. So many people!!

Thoughts from Places: A Pilgrimage to Stratford

I'm taking a Shakespeare class here at the ICLC, and there are two other theatre classes offered here, Drama in the London Theatre and Interrelationships. These classes are fantastic for us because we get to go see all kinds of different performances (obviously mostly Shakespeare, for me) and what's not to love about live theatre? But of course, a theatre class (especially a Shakespeare class) in England would not be complete without taking a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of the Bard.

Our trip last weekend started at actually a fairly decent hour of the morning. We walked over to school and hopped on the coaches (which is what long-distance buses seem to be called here) and headed off to the first stop on our trip, Warwick.

Although Matt and Lisa and I headed into the town itself in search of some lunch a bit later on, the main reason we were in Warwick was to look around Warwick Castle. William the Conqueror ordered a castle built in Warwick in 1068; I'm not entirely sure when the castle was finished, but even so, it was very cool to be clambering around in a building that old. I'm also not sure if it's been restored at any point, because it is quite intact; it was also one of the coolest castles we've been to, as it's set up as half a historical site and half a Renaissance Faire. They have people in costume giving demonstrations at different points around the castle - we had someone tell us about longbows (and rude English hand gestures), and we saw them fire their trebuchet, and inside the castle itself we saw a falconry demonstration. There is also one hallway in the castle that has wax figures (which are almost alarmingly realistic) and props all set up to look like the castle would have done in the 12th century. Tory also bought a wooden sword (which is now hanging above our mantle, of course), and I must admit I did enjoy gesturing dramatically with it as we went from one part of the castle to another.

After exploring the castle and having lunch in a very nice little fish and chip shop that proclaimed itself to be a diner (Lisa and I, as we are both from New Jersey, Land of the Diners, begged to differ, but it was a nice lunch all the same), we got back onto the bus and headed off towards Stratford.

(I ought to clarify slightly; Stratford-upon-Avon is Shakespeare's birthplace; Stratford is a part of London that apparently isn't very nice, although there's an Olympic stadium there now, so that might be better. In the interests of time, however, when I say Stratford, I mean the one that is upon the Avon.)

When we arrived in Stratford, we checked into our bed-and-breakfast (I suppose because we were only there for one night, and because I don't think there is a hostel in the town, we got to pretend to be fancy for the day), which was a really charming place with amazingly comfortable beds that Lisa and Tory quite quickly made use of. While they catnapped, I borrowed Lisa's internet and talked to my dad a bit about the trip we're trying to plan to Florence after my term here finishes (something I'm quite excited about, of course!!). When they woke up, we wandered around the town for a little bit, and I ogled the long rows of half-timbered houses up and down every street (I love Tudor houses), and we discussed how Stratford is really the definition of "quaint," before grabbing a bite to eat at a pub and then heading over to the Royal Shakespeare Company to see a production of Twelfth Night.

Twelfth Night, I think, is my favorite Shakespeare play; at the very least, it's my favorite of his comedies, as I'm also quite fond of Macbeth. I love the mistaken identities and general chaos of Twelfth Night; I like that it's funny, but it has much more to it than sheer comedy; and of course I love that everything works out all right in the end. A lot of people on the trip don't seem to have enjoyed the production that we saw, but I absolutely adored it. I loved the set, the costumes, the lighting, Feste's songs. I thought all but one of the actors, and certainly the main four, were amazing - Viola and Olivia especially impressed me. And I thought the ending, when everything has been sorted out and mistaken identities revealed and each person has wound up with their true love, was just so sweet and heartwarming and perfect. I must admit I got a bit choked up, and it put me in an excellent mood for the rest of the night. We've been seeing quite a lot of dark and dreary stuff, and it was nice to see something that, while certainly not frivolous, was more on the lighthearted side, and was less about how much people can destroy one another and much more about how wonderful love can be.

The next day, we met in the graveyard at Holy Trinity church for a lecture on Shakespeare's life in Stratford (a note: all professors should lecture on sunny days in graveyards beside rivers), and then we went inside the church to see Shakespeare's grave. I was of course reminded of my high school English teacher (on the very off chance you're reading this, Mrs. Young, hello! Thanks for being awesome!), who has a rubbing of his gravestone over her whiteboard. It reads: "Good Friend, for Jesus' sake forebear / To dig the dust enclosed here / Blessed be the man who spares these stones / And curst be he who moves my bones." Pretty good reason that Will remains in Stratford, rather than in the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, hmm?

After that, we went on a short Shakespeare walk through the town, where we saw the building where Shakespeare attended school and the foundations of the house he bought with the money he earned in London. After that, we were set free for a few hours, and we eventually made our way down to the Avon and, after avoiding the typical Avon swans, we rented a rowboat. Lisa's friend Stephen volunteered to row, and Lisa, Tory and I had a good time trying to warn him about things he shouldn't run into. It was a very enjoyable hour (although I think the sun on the water is why I got a sunburn that day), and after that, it was back on the bus to make our way to Oxford.

We only had two hours in Oxford, and I definitely want to go back. All of the buildings are so old and ornate, and it's a very pretty place. We walked through a chocolate festival (this same festival is in London this weekend... methinks we will go visit it) on our way to the Botanic Gardens. Because if you only have two hours in Oxford, you have to go and find Will and Lyra's bench. It was actually surprisingly easy to locate; luckily no one was sitting on it at the time. It's just an ordinary bench, but it has Lyra's name carved into it and a card next to it with Philip Pullman's name on it. Lisa hasn't yet read the last two books in the His Dark Materials trilogy, so we did our best to assure her that the bench was important without giving anything at all away.

After that, it was back on the bus, this time headed back to home-sweet-London. Our adventure wasn't quite over, however; that night, Lisa, Matt and I went to the British Film Institute's all-night showing of all three Lord of the Rings films, in a row, starting at midnight (thank goodness they had free tea in the intervals!). I'd never seen any of them in theatres before, so it was fantastic for me (even though I did doze off during the Shelob scene and a few other bits late in The Two Towers and early in Return of the King. It was 7am by that point!!). It wasn't in IMAX, but it was on the IMAX screen, so it was HUGE - seeing it in that format made the helicopter landscape shots that much more breathtaking, and the battle scenes that much more epic. The charge of the Rohirrim at Pelennor fields, quite possibly my favorite scene (aside from perhaps the "I am no man" bit of Eowyn awesomeness), is just astounding on the big screen, with the music in surround sound. It was so much fun, but needless to say, we got home and very quickly passed out. It was yet another most excellent - and exhausting! - weekend of adventures.

Thoughts from Places: Lots of Geeking Out

So my internet is being an entirely new brand of cranky right now; hopefully I'll be able to slap this post online tomorrow morning before I start my work for the day.

Our journey to Paris, naturally, started at an ungodly hour of the morning. We all got up, grumbling, scrambling around and blinking in the too-early, too-bright lights in our flat, getting dressed and throwing toothbrushes into already packed suitcases before heading out the door to the tube, King's Cross, and then the Eurostar. I now know, from the journey home, that the Chunnel is rather unexciting - it's simply twenty minutes of dark, rather than the flat fields of France or the rolling hills of England - but on the way there, I slept through just about everything, which was probably a good thing, as two very full days were ahead of me.

If any of you are ever planning to go to Paris, do yourself a favor - spend more than two days there. I loved it there, and it's on top of my list of places to return to when I'm rich and famous (ha) someday. (The second is Venice, during Carnival.) We did an awful lot, as you shall see, but there's certainly more that I would have liked to see, given the chance.

Once we had arrived in Paris, found the hostel, and dropped off our bags, my French Revolution professor took us back onto the Metro and we began our French Revolution walk, starting, naturally, at the Place de la Bastille. We saw, among other things, the site of La Force prison and the oldest cafe in Paris and the Conciergerie and Notre Dame and the Palais Royale. The Conciergerie and Notre Dame especially were the first of many instances in Paris where I was utterly overwhelmed with amazement at the simple fact that I was standing where I was and seeing what I was seeing. I've done so much research and written so much about the Conciergerie, and there I was, standing right in front of it. I've seen so many pictures of and read books about Notre Dame, and there I was walking through it; I even touched one of the many Gothic columns. (That's one thing I like about old architechture; it feels like walking inside a work of art, and yet you can reach out and touch it to remind ! !yourself that it's real, that someone once made the thing you are marveling at.) In simpler terms: I did an awful lot of geeking out in Paris.

After the walk, we returned to the hostel to check in properly and put our things in our room; we were quite pleased to find that there was a lot of floorspace (more on that later) and that our beds each had curtains on them, rather like sleeper cars in a train. It felt very fancy.

Lisa and I then had a snack (mmm, Croque Monsieur), and then a group of us headed back to the Metro (the Metro, by the way, is very efficient and very easy to use, but feels a bit like people have been put onto a train, and then the train placed in a box, and then the box shaken by a very eager small child) to go to the Louvre, which is free for under-26s on Friday nights (the student discounts in Paris, by the way, are epic). We of course went right to the Mona Lisa - we were, after all, there, and could hardly pass it up - and then we spent another few hours wandering around the Greek and Roman statues and the Egyptian section before our feet decided they had had quite enough. We stopped for some dessert (mmmm, chocolate mousse), and then attempted to complete our plan for the evening, but we quickly discovered that while the Eiffel Tower LOOKS like it is quite close to the Louvre, it most definitely is NOT close, and as we were quite certain we would not make it all the w! !ay there before the last elevator at 10:30, we went back to the hostel and collapsed for the night.

The next morning, Lisa, Tory and I were joined by our friend Bonnie, and the four of us jam-packed our day. We started off with a visit to the Catacombs; after having a bit of difficulty initially finding the entrance, we descended the twenty-six meter spiral staircase (with every step, I gained a new appreciation for just how much my characters must hate me for putting them through that) and headed off into the dark tunnels. There is quite a long walk in the tunnels to get to the actual ossuary, but that was fine with me; the whole time, I was taking mental notes, glad to see that I'd gotten the approximate size and general feel of the tunnels right, telling myself that I ought to write the dampness of the air down there into my manuscript, and again thinking that Rose must hate me so very much for making her walk down there without any light. Finally, we reached the entrance to the catacombs themselves (I might have freaked out a bit upon seeing the "Arrete! C'est ici l'em! !pire de la mort" sign over the entranceway; I asked the others if it was morbid of me to think of the catacombs as one of those places where I could hardly believe I was actually there, and some other American tourists seemed to get a kick out of that. Hopefully they also heard the impromptu history lesson on the catacombs that I gave, so they know I'm not a complete weirdo... just a little bit of a weirdo). The catacombs are kind of unreal. I almost could not process what I was seeing as anything other than, say, a movie set. I could not believe that there were really six million skeletons all arranged down there, and that six million skulls were watching me as I walked past them. The bones go on forever, with the skulls sometimes arranged into hearts or crosses, with plaques on some pillars or propped up by more skulls explaining where the bones had originally been buried or presenting a quotation on the nature of death. It was extremely eerie, but absolutely fascinating.! !

After the catacombs, we stopped for lunch (because seeing six million dead bodies naturally makes you hungry, right?) and then we headed off to the next stop on our itinerary - the Opera Garnier. There, of course, I geeked out quite a bit more, although I refrained from the impromptu history lesson this time. I was thrilled by this place not because I had written about it, but of course because Phantom of the Opera is one of my favorite musicals, and there I was, in the Phantom's opera house, looking at the real chandelier and the real Box 5. The building is stunningly beautiful, with every hallway filled with chandeliers and mirrors and gilt woodwork. I could easily have spent hours there poring over every room, wishing we could have visited the cellars, and imagining Faust being performed on the stage or the staircase filled with people at the Masquerade.

We had to be off to our next stop, however; we went back to the Ile-de-la-Cite, crossing the Pont Neuf and walking alongside the Conciergerie (which was sadly covered in scaffolding) to stop in at Shakespeare and Company, a really neat English-language bookstore across the street from Notre Dame. It was a really neat little shop, if a bit crowded for its size, and I had a good time poking around before we got back on the Metro for our last stop of the day - the Eiffel Tower.

The Eiffel Tower involved an awful lot of standing in line - first, there was the line for the tickets, and then the line for the elevator to the second floor, and then the elevator all the way to the top, and then again for both elevators on the way down - and while the weather was sunny and gorgeous on our first day in Paris, it was cold and a bit drizzly that evening while we were standing beneath the tower and waiting. I do think however that the view from the top, the way that the rain looked like golden glitter in the lights on the tower on the way down, and the fact that I can in fact say that I've been to the top of the Eiffel Tower all made the long lines worth it.

We left Paris late enough the next morning that I was able to stay awake on the train, but early enough that we couldn't really do anything much other than visit a boulangerie. Even though every time I return to London from an adventure, it feels more and more like home, I definitely felt that I had not had quite enough time in Paris, and I will definitely be going back there someday.

Thoughts from Places: Venezia

Hello blog! I've missed you!! I'm sorry I've been absent; my internet in the flat has lately decided to hate me with a vengeance. It's a bit better at the moment (although not quite good enough that it'll let me put pictures into this post; apologies), so hopefully I will be able to tell you the last installment of my spring break saga, and then I have the adventures of the last two weekends in Paris and Stratford-upon-Avon! (I promise I will get back to the writing stuff soon as well.)

So. When I left off, we had arrived in Venice under less than ideal circumstances, but we had finally found our hotel and gone to sleep. We got up around 10 the next morning, as it had been too stressful of a night to do our usual "get up early-ish and seize the day!" thing. We decided that our plan was to explore Venice a bit and get our bearings, but to get back to our hotel before dark, because we had had quite enough of wandering around Venetian alleyways in the dark with no idea of where we were going. We found a cafe around the corner from our hotel and had the first of several days of cake for breakfast. The food in Italy, by the way, is outstanding.

We wandered around a bit after breakfast, without really having too strong of an idea of where it was we wanted to go. We finally did manage to find the Grand Canal and we sat on the edge and watched the boats go by for a little while. I hadn't thought of it beforehand, but Venice smells like the ocean, and sitting there in the sun watching the gondolas and vaporetti, and the wake of the boats splashing up against the edge of the canals, really felt like a proper vacation. Once we'd gotten there, our time in Venice was very relaxed and pleasant - I'd love to go back someday.

After watching the boats for a while, we followed the signs on the sides of various buildings towards the Rialto bridge, and then from there we made our way to the Piazza San Marco. The square is beautiful, and while it is full of pigeons we did not have any of them clambering over us this time (always nice). It also has the famous Venetian winged lions - much more fun than pigeons, even if these don't move. We went into the Basilica San Marco as well, and marveled at the mosaic work inside. Everything, from floor to ceiling, is done in intricate mosaic tiles. As I walked around staring at the gilded ceiling, probably with my mouth hanging open, all I could think, aside from general awe, was "how did they get that up there?!"

My favorite part of the Piazza San Marco, however, was the view out to the sea from the square.

I'm not quite sure exactly what it is, but there really is something about the quality of the sunlight in Italy that makes it seem different from everywhere else. While we were in Venice, the weather was gorgeous - blue skies as far as we could see, in this case stretching out over the water for what seemed forever. The buildings are all very close together in Venice and reach up about three stories, which leaves you wandering through small, dim alleyways most of the time, until you stumble out into the brilliant sunlight of a little piazza or a bridge. It's somewhat blinding, but it's beautiful; the light just seems so clear and warm, so inviting; everything in Venice seems awash in this lovely golden glow, varying in shades from the dimmest alleys to the brightest squares. Even a few weeks later, just thinking about it makes me feel much warmer than the darkness outside the window of my London flat would suggest.

After the Piazza, we wandered back to our hotel for a nap, and then, after going in search of a (very delicious, naturally) dinner, we came back to our hotel and played cards and talked until late into the night. We never went out in the evening after dinner in Venice, for fear of getting hopelessly lost in the dark again, but I don't think any of us minded in the slightest, and for me, those evenings of chatting together, all sitting curled up on the same bed, with me losing dreadfully at cards, were even some of the highlights of the trip. I've become such good friends with Lisa and Tory, and they're a lot of fun to talk to. Our late night conversations really run the gamut of frivolous to quite meaningful, with just about everything in between, and I've really come to value them.

Also, our last two evenings in Venice involved such conversation, delicious Italian pastries, and some wine (not that much, I promise), so that was also fun. ;)

The next day, we got on a vaporetto and took the ten-minute trip over to Murano, the island near Venice famous for its blown glass. We found a glass-blowing demonstration almost immediately after landing on the island, which was really cool. I also had a good time trying to work out what the man explaining the glass-blowing trade to us was saying to us in Italian before he translated it into English (I got some of it). We made our way to the glass museum then, which was really beautiful - they had samples of glass from Roman times to modern day, which was incredibly impressive; it was amazing to see such an extensive and old collection of such fragile things. We then spent quite a lot of time wandering into the zillions of glassware shops in Murano - some of them quite touristy, some of them, like the blown-glass chandelier shop we found on one street, almost like art museums in their own right. My reaction to a lot of the glass was similar to my reaction to the mosaic ceiling in the basilica - I wanted to know how someone could make such a thing. Some of the stuff was a bit kitschy, of course, but a lot of it was rather impossibly lovely - it seemed so strange to think that someone could really create such delicate sculptures or beautiful jewelry.

Our last day was spent in wandering yet again, going in search of postcards and gifts for friends and family, and of course more gelato and other delicious food. (I miss Italian gelato already.) My Italian professor suggested that we find a pasticceria called Tonnolo, and if any of you are planning on going to Venice, I highly recommend finding it! The pastries there were absolutely delicious. We actually wound up going twice that day, once for breakfast and again in the evening, to get provisions for our evening of pastries and card games and fun conversation. On the way back, we finally encountered that all-too-true Italian stereotype: we passed a gelateria with two men standing behind the counter, and from both of them we received a two-syllable "ciao" - basically the Italian equivalent of the American two-syllable "damn." We were all pretty amused by it; even now Tory says we missed a prime opportunity for free gelato.

And of course, on our last day there, we took a ride in a gondola. It was a short ride, but still quite expensive - even so, I think the fact that I can now say that I've ridden in a gondola down the Grand Canal, with the gondolier singing to us as he pushed the boat along and the setting sun glittering on the water, was absolutely worth it.

Thoughts from Places: How Not to Travel in Europe

A European adventure, it seems, simply would not be complete without some mishaps. Our mishaps were, naturally, all combined into one day - really, it was kind, as it got all of the stress out of the way and allowed us to enjoy the rest of our vacation without any trouble! So, allow me to tell you a little about how not to travel in Europe.

On Tuesday morning, we got up at an ungodly hour, got dressed, and shuffled out of our hostel and towards the airport. The day, in spite of the hour, started well enough; we'd purchased our metro and bus tickets the day before, so we got to the airport without any trouble. The bus, however, told us that all departing flights to countries outside of *muffled sound* should leave from terminal 1. That sounded like Italy to us, so we got off at the terminal 1 stop, found the departures section, and got in the security line.

... we thought.

Lisa was ahead of Tory and I, and she showed her passport and her ticket and got stamped through to the other side. Tory, however, was stopped by the guard she spoke to, and was told that we were in the wrong terminal. But Lisa was already on the other side. We waved to her to come back, but of course she couldn't; you aren't allowed to go *back* through security. I then talked to the guard, asked if he was sure that we were in the wrong place, and then told him that our friend had mistakenly been let through, and could he please help us get her back? He left his box to go get her, but as soon as he turned around, Lisa had vanished. I told her what she looked like (or really, what her coat looked like, as it's pretty distinctive) but he couldn't see her anywhere, so I told Tory to wait and NOT MOVE, and the security guard took me through to the other side to look for Lisa. We couldn't find her anywhere. All the while, I was trying to text Lisa and find out where she'd gone, but texting takes half a million years on my dinky little British phone in the best of circumstances, and it seems to take that much longer when your friend is lost on the wrong side of customs. Eventually, I did reach her; she'd managed to get let through to the other side. The guard escorted me back and took Lisa's passport; there were a few panicked minutes when we all thought we'd be held there for hours and interrogated and miss our flight, but in the end the guard just brought back her correctly stamped passport and told us where we needed to go, and off we went. Lisa told us how she'd gotten back into the country: she found a janitor who spoke almost no English, but managed to convey her situation to him through sheer desperation, and he was nice enough to take her to the other side of customs and get her stamped back into the country (which she'd technically never left). We got through the right part of security and found a place to sit down, and Lisa had carrot cake for breakfast. She needed it.

We boarded a plane for Milan - this plane ride was actually the easiest on me, in terms of ear-popping misery, perhaps because it was the shortest. On the plane, we got tickets to the train station in Milan, where we intended to drop off our bags while we explored for the day before getting on the train to Venice.

When we got off the plane in Milan, however, we were once again confused. We followed the exit signs, like in all other airports, but unlike other airports, this one led directly to... the exit. No customs. No passport stamp. Nothing. Just doors to the outside. We were very confused. We wandered around for a bit before I asked a man at a bus ticket booth about it (he was pretty much the only one to ask) and either because my Italian was terrible or because I was gesturing to my American passport, he explained nicely in English that we'd get stamped on the way OUT. Well, all right then. We boarded the bus to the train station, beginning to worry a bit about whether they'd let us out of the country a few days later.

The train station in Milan is said to be one of the most beautiful in Europe, and I can totally see why. I did not take any pictures of it, however, for reasons which will become apparent. We spent a while trying to find a place to leave our bags (I still don't know the Italian word for "locker," sadly), but once we did, we headed down to the Metro (I got to wow my friends for the first time by asking for three metro tickets in a tabaccheria. Sooooo very impressive. :P )and we hopped on the train towards the Duomo.

The steps out of the Metro stop lead right up to the square in front of the Duomo, which looks like this:



The church is absolutely breathtaking, both inside and out, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. Unfortunately, because it is so striking, it is very easy to spot tourists coming out of the Metro station; the awestruck attitude is hard to miss. So we were immediately accosted by three African guys asking for donations. They shoved some corn into our hands and had us feed the pigeons (for rather more than tuppence a bag).



Lisa utterly despises pigeons.

We finally got free of them, and we went off in search of lunch. This part of the day was, in fact, quite enjoyable. We had some delicious pizza and the first of many amazing gelatos (Italian gelato is, in fact, the most delicious thing ever), and we visited a castle and the museum inside it and we saw the inside of the Duomo and walked through the world's prettiest "mall" and saw the outside of La Scala.



Castles are awesome.

At around 5:30, we returned to the train station, retrieved our bags, and found a cafe for dinner. Lisa and Tory had some more pizza, and I had a panino (yes, panino. If I had a panini, that'd be more than one sandwich), and I pulled my map of Venice out of my bag so that we could find the street our hostel was on for that night.

Now, Venice is a very small place, but it's very dense, with lots of very small, crooked streets that don't all connect to each other. Tory and I were looking at this map for a very long time, thinking we just couldn't find the street. But then I glanced at Tory's iPod screen, where she'd written the full address of our hostel. And I saw that the hostel was, in fact, in Lido.

And Lido is not in Venice.

Well. This is a problem.

Never fear! Tory's Kindle has 3G on it! We can get on the internet and fix the problem! Only... Tory's overpacked her bag... and her Kindle screen is now broken... She can get wifi on her iPod! Only... there is no wifi in all of Milan... I speak Italian! We'll just go to the information desk right here and beg for help! Only... the information desk closes at 5, because apparently no one ever needs information in a train station after business hours.

Well then.

Lisa finally called her parents, and they booked us a new hostel, IN VENICE, from America (Lisa's parents: you are awesome). At last, we got on the train and napped for two and a half hours, trying to forget the misadventures of the day. But the misadventures were not yet over.

Our train arrived in Venice at 10:40 pm. Some advice to you all: Never arrive in Venice for the first time in the dark. Ever. It's not that it's dangerous; I didn't feel threatened, or like I'd fall into a canal by accident. We were just so. Hideously. Lost. Venetian streets make little to no sense in the dark. We'd finally figure out where we were, start going in what seems like the right direction... and then be totally lost again after just one turn. We asked for directions, and then almost immediately got lost again. At last, we found the address we were looking for... only to be told that it was not, in fact, the right address, and that we needed to "go down the street to the other one." Eep. Finally, the man at the hotel's front desk called us and came and found us - we were literally around the corner from where we needed to be, and had been for the last hour or so. Uy.

At last, we were shown up to our room, and we got to sit down and put down our bags and shut the door on all the madness of the day. It was only then that it hit me how completely insane the whole experience had been. The whole time, I'd been the one saying "it's okay, we'll make it work, we'll ask for help, we'll find a new place to stay, we'll ask for directions, I speak Italian, we can figure this out guys, it'll be okay" (I guess I am kind of the mom of the flat). But when I sat down on that bed, everything just slammed into me. Being that lost, without a place to stay, in a foreign country is kind of terrifying. The whole time I've been abroad, I've been loving it, to the extent that if I didn't have a degree to finish and people I'd really, really miss, I would try my best to never go home, but Tuesday night, I wanted to go home so very badly. I wanted to curl up in my house with my parents and my sister and my cat and a lot of tea. I wanted nothing more than to forget about the crazy scary thing that had just happened to me.

The thing is, though (which I realized as I slowly uncurled from my tiny little ball), I did it. I was right - we did figure it out. We did find a new place to stay, I did ask for directions in Italian, we did make it in spite of being lost and confused. That was quite possibly the scariest thing I've ever done, but I did it, and a year ago, I would have been a complete wreck. I wouldn't have known how to begin handling a situation like that. But I did it. Looking back on it, even just a week later, I feel so accomplished, and I'm so glad we managed to vanquish that situation.

And besides, it makes one heck of a story. :P

Thoughts from Places: Prague

For once, this travel story does not start with "I woke up at a ridiculous hour of the morning to go somewhere." Instead, it begins in a leisurely fashion, waking up at a normal hour last Saturday, packing, exchanging money, and hopping on the Tube, thus beginning our spring break adventures and our survey of European public transportation (after this one-week trip we had traveled on the underground of three different cities, two trains, three (!!!) airplanes, four buses, one tram, one vaporetto (water taxi) and one gondola. The gondola was, of course, the most fun).

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I am really, really not a fan of flying. I think my irrational, historically-minded self simply refuses to believe that it is safe or possible for me to be several thousand feet in the air without plummeting to my death. The more rational side of me, of course, severely dislikes it because it really affects my ears quite badly; for hours after a flight, I still feel like I'm underwater, and when it's really bad, I get all dizzy and miserable. Sigh. But the flight to Prague was uneventful, and we stumbled into the city by bus and then by metro. My first experience of Prague was in the dark, in that unpleasant underwater-can't-hear-anything bubble, but I could already tell that our stay there was going to be lovely.

We found our hostel and had a nice chat with the girl at the front desk - who, like pretty much everyone in Prague, thank heavens, spoke very good English - and we signed up for breakfast in the morning and a walking tour the next day before going up the stairs to our room.

Guys. This was the most glorious hostel room I have ever been in. I have stayed in HOTELS that were not as nice as this place. The breakfast was also amazingly delicious; they had a buffet of fruit and bread and cereal and they'd also make you whatever you wanted in terms of eggs or crepes or pancakes. Oh so very tasty.

After breakfast, we napped for about half an hour (what? It was morning and we're college students) and then we trooped down to the lobby in order to meet our walking tour group at 10. Except... there was no one else in the lobby. Well, okay, fine, there are other hostels on this walking tour, perhaps they're just late picking up another batch of people. At about 10:15, we asked the receptionist, and she looked all worried and called the tour people and started speaking rapid-fire Czech (Czech, by the way, is an impossible language. There was a list of helpful phrases on the map from the hostel and none of us could manage any of them). She then told us that somehow, they'd forgotten to stop by Miss Sophie's (our hostel) and that someone would be coming to get us if we could wait another five minutes. Hooray!

We finally met up with the tour group, and we talked a bit with two other American girls from Chicago and an Australian guy, as well as Aoife, our lovely Irish tour guide (yes I asked her how to pronounce her name). We spent four hours walking around the city, listening to Aoife as she told us what seemed like everything: this monastery was built in such-and-such a year by these people, and this castle was refurbished by this woman, and this is one of the three locations of the defenestrations of Prague.



The location of the third and (so far) final Defenestration of Prague, in 1948. They sure do like to defenestrate people in Prague.

Other than being a place where people are thrown out of windows and speak a language where the letters don't make any sense, Prague is just an amazingly beautiful city. What I've told everyone about it is that it feels like walking through a fairytale, and it really does. Everywhere the streets are a little bit narrow and all paved with cobblestones and every street, especially in Old Town and the Castle District, is just filled with beautiful old buildings. It's a city so lovely that neither Hitler nor the Communists wanted to destroy it, so from a historical standpoint it's probably the most intact of all Eastern European cities.

This is an average street in the Castle District:


And this is the view from near the monastery (complete with our lovely faces, of course):



And this is a bit of St. Vitus' Cathedral, which is inside Prague Castle:



On Sunday afternoon, after the walking tour let out, we walked over to the National Theatre and, even though we simply walked into the box office three hours before the performance, we got tickets to see that evening's production of Benjamin Britten's Gloriana. We meandered our way back to the hostel then and got a bit fancier (it was the opera, after all), and then headed back towards the theatre. We ate dinner across the street and then went up to discover that our seats, even though they came to about twelve dollars, were fantastic, and that the theatre looked like this:



Gosh I love old theatres.

Gloriana, which is about Elizabeth I and was written for Elizabeth II's coronation, will probably never be my favorite opera - there's too much recitative and not enough aria for my liking. It was, however, incredibly fun to go to this production. The singers were all excellent, and the music is very pretty, if not particularly catchy. It was also quite visually stunning, with period costumes and stark, modern sets, with lots of excellent visual symbolism and the oddest ballet I've ever seen before. I was really happy that we got to go and do that - it isn't everywhere that you can walk into a theatre that late in the day and get such good seats, and I've never really been to an opera on that scale before, so it was a lot of fun to see that.

Monday was spent doing a lot of wandering. Our plans for the morning were thwarted, as we discovered that the National Gallery is closed for five years for renovations. So instead, we spent our time meandering through the streets, stopping in stores or touristy shops or street markets now and again, and finally finding a museum to visit - an exhibition on Alphonse Mucha's art nouveau posters and sketches (very cool!) and an exhibition of Salvador Dali (very weird). We also went back to visit Charles Bridge, one of the places we'd been on our tour and one of the most iconic of Prague's landmarks, at night, which is quite lovely, with lots of dimmer-than-you'd-think streetlamps and shadowy statues hovering over you in the dark.



After that, continuing in our newfound tradition of eating in places where famous people have eaten, we had dinner at the Cafe Louvre, where Einstein and Kafka apparently ate (presumably not together :P), and then, even though Tory wanted to go on a pub crawl, we headed back to the hostel and packed our things and went to bed because the next morning, we had to, of course, get up at a ridiculous hour to start the next leg of our wonderful European journey.

I hope everyone in the blogosphere had a good week last week! I'll be posting again tomorrow as well, as the tales of spring break will take up three posts, I think. Talk to you soon, blog!

Cardiff and Nerdy Things!

Hello, all! I'm sorry I didn't post anything on Thursday, but my internet decided to fritz out, and also I didn't really have too much to talk about but today I do because I went to Cardiff!! It was a very awesome and very educational day.

Lisa (my flatmate) and I got up at 6:30 and then went on an epic journey to find the Victoria Coach Station (thing 1 learned: the difference between the term "bus" and the term "coach" is that buses are the red double-decker things that go around London or other short term trips and coaches are things that take you cross-country. So don't go to Victoria Station (for trains, buses, and the underground) and expect to find your coach). We got there in plenty of time, watched the pigeons that had gotten inside flap around and sit up on the ceiling fans and such, and then got on a nice warm bus to Cardiff.

Bus travel is extremely uncomfortable if you are tall and have a long neck. Like me. I think my shoulders are still mad at me. But after many hours of dozing off and jerking awake and looking out the window and dozing off again, we arrived in Wales. Wales is a terribly pretty country - there was snow on the mountains as we drove in, and lots more rolling hills and sheep and birch trees. Also, all of the road signs are twice as long, because they are in both English and Welsh. I had no idea that Welsh was as prevalent as it seems to be, but it's absolutely everywhere. According to Wikipedia, approximately 21% of the Welsh population speaks Welsh, with over half of those Welsh speakers claiming to speak it every day. Kinda neat! Welsh is cool - it looks completely incomprehensible to me, and it sounds somewhere between Gaelic and German, I think. It's quite intriguing.

After getting extremely lost for a good half hour at least, Lisa and I found the National Museum and decided to go in. This seems to be a museum of everything - they have art and natural history and all sorts of things. We went and looked at the natural history things first, of course - we saw rocks from space and some interesting videos in Welsh and some dinosaurs, and then we walked through the weird modern art and saw an exhibition of teacups and other beautifully decorated china and then we found the Impressionists wing. It was amazing to find all sorts of really rather famous art in this tiny little museum in Wales - Lisa, who studied French in high school, was really happy to see all of the Rodin things they had there especially. It was really cool!

After lunch, we went into Cardiff Castle (Castell Caerdydd). It was absolutely incredible. The castle itself and the keep were built in the 1100s, I believe, but over the centuries of people living there, things kept getting added and changed to suit the comfort of the family and the decorative style of the time period. One of the things I'm loving most about living in England is that it is an absolutely amazing feeling to be walking somewhere where people have walked for centuries - to be climbing (incredibly steep) steps that Oliver Cromwell might have climbed, to walk along the tunnels under the keep that were turned into air raid shelters during World War II and feel what it might have been like to hear German planes overhead. It's just so exciting to be in a place where history seems so very alive.



Yeah, we climbed to the top of that. :D

After the castle, Lisa and I walked down to Cardiff Bay (Bae Caerdydd) because we are both massive Doctor Who fans and we could not pass up the opportunity to walk down to Roald Dahl Plass and see this:



It's the rift! Unfortunately, we saw no sign of the Doctor while we were there. Alas.

At this point, we were rather frozen, and we walked back to Cardiff Central and had some dinner and waited around for the bus. Another fun fact: sometimes, Megabuses are not Megabuses. We sat at the bus stop for a good forty-five minutes, unaware that our bus was right in front of us. Fortunately, a nice British lady pointed this out to us and we hopped on the bus, dozed off, and made it back to London in time to catch the tube back home. It was a most excellent day. :D