I've always hated New York winters and I'm fairly convinced that you won't find worse ones unless you mistakenly wander into the Arctic circle, or perhaps Siberia, and my theory is proving stronger every winter that I pass in other, more northern climates-which has only been one so far, but hey, northern Germ' is nothing to scoff at- and then people want to know why I decided to go to Virginia for school.
My dear father, an extremely competent and intelligent man, had the right idea and decided to take a nice reprieve from a few meters of the fluffy white stuff and came to visit me in January. It really has been a long time since I posted! Anyways, I will start the recap of these last 2/3 months with our epic European journey.
Soo. We started off flying from Hamburg to London. The idea of London has always appealed to me. I think that started around the time I started thinking that British accents were sexy, and when I saw the Amanda Bynes movie "What a Girl Wants," in which she flies to London in search of her long lost father (who ends up living in a palace) and ends up meeting a sexy British guy with said sexy British accent. In the end, we stayed in a nice hotel, not a palace, and I met no sexy British guy with a sexy British accent, and unfortunately I didn't get a chance to ride on the back of his motorcycle and we didn't fall in sexy British love, but in spite of all of that, we had a really fantastic time in London. Armed with our Oyster Cards, we cruised the London metro (thanks to my now amazing public transportation skills) and visited all the must-sees. My dad's favorite was the Tower of London: "the most feared spot in the world for 900 years," right dad?! ;) If any of you are curious about the Tower, please contact my father, his name is Gary, and he will be more than willing to explain in detail that what you would like to know. We saw Parliament, the Big Ben, the London Bridge (fun fact of the day: that bridge burned [hence "London bridge is falling down..." right? eh?] and the one I thought was cool was actually a whole different one, the Tower Bridge, which is super cool all lit up at night), Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace and the Changing of the Guard, South Bank, a ride on the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, the Borough Market and my personal favorite, and which I therefore recommend to any aspiring London visitor, the Tate Museum.
...just so you don't waste your time, that last bit was complete sarcasm. Don't go.
We stayed in Victoria, right next to the Victoria station-which is really a sight all in itself- right next to WICKED! Ah, Wicked...
So the background to this little bit here goes back to my previous short term exchange to Spain. That was almost three years ago now, which is freaky...I was at a 40th birthday party today and I was like, 'scheisse, I'm almost twenty, which means I'm almost thirty, and then..oh man..this is going to be my birthday party...' but I'm rambling. In Spain I met someone with the name -surprise, surprise- Jesús, who ended up being one of my best friends there. Anyways, Jesús has quite the voice and is, in fact, studying theater in London. We spent a day with him. The point is that Jesús has been telling me for yearsssss now "Sieeerraaaa, you haahhve to go see WICKED! It's ahhmaazing" (although he's Spanish he speaks perfect British English). He's seen it not once, not twice, not five times, but NINE times- and that was the last I heard. It might be more now. So, since we were right next to the WICKED! theater, we went to see it; and that, my friends, was probably the best decision we made the whole trip. The play was AHHHMAAZZZINGG indeed. I now understand the years of nagging that Jesús put me through. If you ever go to London, please, do yourself the favor of seeing that play. We saw Stomp too, which was just as good in its own way. Of course, we had a few rounds of fish n' chips, because you can't go to England and not eat fish n' chips. What you can avoid, though, are "mushy peas." These are regularly served with fish n' chips so we ordered them as a side one day. I don't know what I really expected, but mushy peas are literally just mushy peas: overcooked and smushed together. Yuuuummmm...not.
I could go on and on about London, but I must move on. Before I do, though, I have a very important update about the Bus Driver Nod.
We flew RyanAir from Hamburg to London which means that the airport was slightly outside of the city, and we had to take a bus into the center. So we're in this coach bus which was operated by some company-I can't remember the name- driving down a six lane highway (on the left side, weird) and, believe it or not, I see the bus driver throw the nod/hand wave to the driver of another bus of the same company going back in the direction of the airport. I was amazed. Who knew that this Bus Driver Nod was such a worldwide thing? Not I, that is for sure. This repeated another good three or four times, proving that it wasn't just a random occurrence.
WAIT! Because, if that isn't crazy enough, I have more.
I was back in Germany a few weeks later and sitting in the very front of a train. The little, what do you call it, cabin? for the train operator is closed off and tinted, but, lift your jaw off the floor, it was sunny yet again, and I could see the back of the driver through the tint. And I bet you can guess what happened: we passed another train, and yes, they did the Nod. Therefore, I can no longer call this the Bus Driver Nod. I must rename it, so hence, from this moment on, I will refer to it as the Public Transportation Operator Nod.
Jesús and I
Dad and I chillin' outside our palace
Dad in front of the Apollo
From London we flew down to the Canary Islands. We started on Lanzarote, which is a rocky island with few beaches. It's best known for its volcanoes. We rented a open topped Jeep and literally went from the top to bottom of the island. The Canaries lie off the coast of Africa and have a perpetual spring climate, so for most of the time we had rather nice weather. Papagayo was my favorite beach:
Driving along one day we stopped at a little beach side town for dinner and ate at a restaurant right next to the ocean. The fish was freshly caught that day and was deeeliciouss
We went to the National Volcano Park and did a tour. The restaurant in the park uses the natural steam from the volcano to cook all of their food.
The tour was in a bus throughout the volcanoes. Lanzarote is, in the grand scheme of things, a young island, so its really barren. I just pretended we were on Mars.
From Lanzarote we went on to Fuerteventura, which was my favorite of the two: mainly because Fuereventura is all beaches :) Here we just relaxed. And we ate. Lots. At the hotel we had a private French chef named Dominique, and he was nothing less than a master in the kitchen. We quickly fell into a comfortable routine: wake up, breakfast. Sunbathe, lunch. Shower, dinner. Sleep, breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. I did make a valiant effort one day and made it to the gym. Then I went to dinner.
My dad did get in a few walks along the beach when I was in the sun. He's more the hiking type, while I'm the get-as-tan-as-possible type; hence, lounge chair. And what he reported back to me was no less than disturbing. Apparently, spread all over the beaches, were Germans. Naked Germans. And lots of them. I can contest to the fact that there were tonsss of Germans on both islands; both of our hotels were actually German, and although the Canary Islands are a part of Spain, more German is spoken than Spanish. Anyways, these Germans had no qualms about baring it all; I guess they're even more hardcore about the even tan than I am.
From Fuerteventura we headed off to Valencia, Spain, to visit our people there. Spain is like my second home and I love love loveee it. We continued our eating theme- but then again, I expect no less from the Spanish. Dad helped my host dad make the arroz one night:
And this is the finished product, along with the host fam:
What really makes me frustrated is that we get to Spain in the beginning of February and it's 70 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny. We are lucky to get that in NY in summer. The Spanish have no tolerance for anything remotely cold. They're hesitant to go outside when it's 10 degrees Celsius- 50 Fahrenheit. I, a native New Yorker, am chillin in capris and a North Face and they, wrapped up with gloves, hats, and scarfs, tell me I'm out of my mind. Just sayiin'.
Next we headed off to Cremona, Italy, to visit my host family from my short term Italy exchange. We were only there two days, which, in typical Italian fashion, were filled with food. In fact, the only pictures that I have from Italy are of pizza. Whattup
A calzone..for one
:)
A good few pounds and few weeks later, we flew back to the 'Burg and wrapped up dad's stay. The next weekend I headed off to Berlin with the exchange students for an orientation. The four hour bus ride from Hamburg to Berlin gave me a small taste of what the Eurotour is going to be like...and I can't even start to fathom. 18 days with all 50+ kids is going to be...how should I put this...quite the experience.
The Berlin Wall
After that, the main highlight was the Usher concert I attended. I waited outside for three hours before the doors opened so I could get as close as possible, and there were still a fair amount of people in front of me. However, when you've got this in front of you, it's easy to understand why thousands of people waited hours in cold weather to get in front.
Heellloooo. 2nd fun fact of the day: he's single, ladies
And now, as we come upon April, the days are getting longer (thank God) and sunnier (hopefully?). I counted and I only have 79 days left here; I actually have even less in Germany itself, due to some travelling I'll be doing. Time has flown. I know the next thing that I know, I'll be in the airport on the morning of June 14th saying goodbye, and that's even harder to comprehend than German.
