Random Middle of the School Week.

Hey all,
So, I decided to post a random one up here with random information on it [smile].

For anyone coming to London: Watch out for the cars....[smile], you think I'm joking and laugh now but once you come over here you will know that your life is very much in danger when you simply attempt to cross the street and get 4 horns honking at you. And a few might say "girl, it's just 'cause you're american and you're used to cars driving on the other side of the street!" But this is NOT true! It has nothing to do with being american...okay, well maybe a little...but even the true Londoners have issues crossing the street. Drivers here are just cruel!

In London, drivers have the right of way: Pedestrians watch out!

London shoes beat Paris shoes hands down!

One of our first adventures in Scotland was eating at McDonalds. Whit and I decided to take our food up stairs and enjoy some peace and quiet [away from the crazy goth teeny-boppers]. So we sit there for like, 5 min. [maybe], and what do you know, a group of like, 8 follow us up there and sit the next table over. So I'm rolling my eyes because they're loud and obnoxious and I was enjoying the quietness of the upstairs of McDonalds and Whit looks over to me and in a louder whisper [she still hasn't gotten the whole quiet whisper down yet:] she says to me "Do you know what language they're speaking?" And I kinda smirk and answer "English." She stares at me and says "No Way!" and then we laugh and listen....and just like I said, it was English, but wow! Totally hard to understand it. My neighbor back home told Mom that I wouldn't be able to understand, and I was like: Puh-leese, if I can make it in Paris not knowing French then Scotland won't be nothing!....wow though, I was sorta wrong! We could understand mostly, but there were a bunch of times where we looked at the Scotsman/woman in a state of "I have no idea what you just said".

There is a song playing through my head over and over again [well, at least the part that I can remember] and it goes like this: "Baby-cakes... you're the one, that I love...." it's kind of a dorky song, but catchy [smile].

There are a bunch of songs here that are remakes, but a lot of them are really good.

I'm going to buy a pair of stilletoe's eventually [and just an fyi, I still can't spell (thank you Mom for pointing this out last time:).]

I miss Mountain Dew, but luckily [grin!], there is a place that is going to be getting a shipment in the next week or so of it...so I'm going to stock up! [apparently this place is for all of us americans:), I'm so lucky!:].

I will have calfs of steel by the time I get back to the states.

Scratch that, I will have legs and buns of steel!

For those that I haven't explained this to, I have 4 classes to go to during the week. 2 are with Professor Brady, who has been taking us on fieldtrips [I feel like a fourth grader when I say it that way], but they're really great. The school pays for us to get into these great buildings [many of which cost £10 or more to get it (about $20)], and we walk all the way around them standing and talking about their architectural elements and then we go in them and up stairs and stand for a while and down stairs and stand and up some more to stand and then down some more..... So we walk all over in those 2 classes.
Then I have a class at the National Gallery, and I have to walk a ways to get to the underground station [to zip off to trafalgar square] and then again to walk to the gallery and then walking around in the gallery and then back to the underground to get back to school. Again, much walking.
The last class I have is Contemporary London Theatre where we see plays almost every Monday night. The group of guys that I have this class with loves to walk and wander the city [smile]...so guess what we get to do!? yeah, instead of riding the tube to get to trafalgar square [about 20 min on the tube or about 45-55 min away walking fast!], we choose to walk!
I'm not complaining, but I will be one fit girl by the time this semester is over [this is why Regents does not have a gym, because if you take the right classes you don't need to do any more working out].

There are a bunch of crazy females here that wear stilletoes all day and walk all over in them...I don't understand how they do it! [but maybe I'll learn:].

There are some really ugly fuzzy boots that are all the trend here...hopefully I'll get a picture to send sometime this semester.

Okay, I'm done with randomness for now:). If tomorow I don't feel like doing any of the research I'm suposed to be doing though....[grin] I will be back with useless information!

LOVE<><,
*maike rinaye*

Scotland: "Be happy while you're living...."

"Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead." -Scottish Proverb

So Scotland! It was great....cold, really cold. Like, the first thing I bought on Friday morning was a pair of warm white gloves [smile], but really lovely all the same.

Whit and I took this adventure by ourselves for no particular reason [well, maybe it was that others we've been traveling with I think might have been a little worn out:].

We started our trip on Thursday, since Whit’s Thursday class was cancelled. So we woke up early to catch the tube over to Victoria station where we got on an early bus to Glasgow (9:30am).

I’d like to add in here a little ditty about thieves. I hate them! So Whit and I get sandwiches at the refectory [commons] along with cookies, drinks and other random food items, and since we have a small fridge on our floor we thought there would be little chance that some grubby little hands would chief our food. But don’t you know, the next morning I go to find the food, and yup…our Gatorades were left [apparently the bandit doesn’t like those]. But they ate both our sandwiches, half of my bagel [the other half was thrown carelessly in the trash], and my Oreos! So we had to stop by and get some more sandwiches on the way to the bus [mine turned out to be a horrible egg sandwich and I couldn’t eat it].

Anyway, besides that…We were rather spoiled on our way there because we were each able to sprawl across two seats and nap. As we made more stops, however, the bus grew to be more and more crowded so we eventually [for the last hour and a half of the trip] crammed ourselves into one chair each.
We finally got to Glasgow around 5:30pm [yeah, that’s right…it was a long freakin bus ride!], and we piled on our bags and headed towards the hostel. After successfully finding the hostel, we unloaded our bags and headed out to find some grub. Of coarse, you have no idea what the first place we see to eat is. McDonalds! [grin]. And do not think for a second that we didn’t eat there either. I had a Big Mac [which was smaller than the US’s Big Mac, but really great!].

Anyway, Glasgow is full goth teenagers…crazy. But it was neat.

So Friday we went to Edenburough [I don’t remember how to spell it, but whatever]. Once again we got the early start, this time leaving at 8:15am. In Edenburough toured the castle, and then went on a whiskey tour [wow, they started it off with a shot of whiskey, eewww….I do NOT like whiskey…wow]. Then we did touristy shops, I got a great sticker [I might try to scan that in and post it on here somewhere later], and did random things until our bus left at 6:30pm. Oh yeah, and we ate some really great food. We then went back to the hostel to retire at like, 9:30pm, we were exhausted.

Saturday we started by going shopping J. It was super! Then we found a pub for lunch [also pretty great], and then walked to the Glasgow cathedral [really great gothic style architecture]. We stayed pretty busy and then went to a play [which was really weird], and then caught the last bus back to London at 10:30pm.

The bus ride was again long, and we were pretty squished [one person to a seat unless you were lucky or reeked…lol]. We got into London at 6:30am on Sunday only to find the tube to not open until 7:20 on Sundays. So we ended up taking a bus and then walking a long ways home. Then we got here and napped till 11:30 [typical, huh?].

All in all it was a great trip. Well, the stupid IT center [computer lab] is closing in 10 min. so I have to finish this up.

LOVE TO ALL<><,
*maike rinaye*

Paris: "The true traveler..."

"The true traveler is he who goes on foot, and even then, he sits down a lot of the time."
-Colette(1873 - 1954), Paris From My Window, 1944

Paris was incredible, and wow…my feet have never walked so much in my life! So I am going to outline my weekend travels because I find it the easiest way to post what we were up to.

Thursday: Andrew, Robi and I leave campus at 9:20am to catch a train to take us to Lutton [a small airport outside of London]. Our plane leaves at 12:15. We arrive in Paris and make our way through the RER system and the Metro to our hostel, called “Aloha” [which ends up being filled with mostly Americans]. We drop off our luggage and then wander around before Whitney and Kamani arrive [they had to take a later flight because both had class on Thursday morning]. Around 7 we make it back to the hostel, meet the girls, and then go in search of a restaurant. We venture into a Creperie, and of coarse eat crepes! [They were great]. Then we (thinking that Paris can’t be that hard to navigate), attempt to venture towards the river; we end up at the Eiffel Tower [we have great navigational skills, can you tell?]. We see the tower in the dark and see it do its twinkle show [beautiful] but decided that we don’t want to go up it until tomorrow. We then get lost trying to find our way back to the hostel and it takes us three hours to walk back [ouch].

Friday: First to the catacombs, see a bunch of bones; walk forever [97 stairs spiralling down into them and then 83 stairs coming back out].
Then went to the Cathedral de Notre Dame (Huge and wonderful!).
Went to a supermarket and bought baguettes (bread), and cheese, meat, yogurt and grapes; took all to a park and ate a nice relaxing lunch. After lunch we went to the Musee du Louvre and spent a good amount of time there. I saw the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory, and the Mona Lisa [among other art items, obviously]….all of it was really cool.
Back to the hostel, we grabbed dinner on the way at a supermarket, and ate in the kitchen area of the hostel and wrote post cards. Go to sleep early, ‘cause we’re all tired.

Saturday: Go to the Flea Market [disappointing, because there is only used stuff there, no neat booths of crafts or jewellery or anything else]. Hop on to the metro visit the Moulin Rouge which turns out to be really cool. We pass a bunch of sex shops [eeeek!]. Find “Tati”, the best/cheapest store in Paris for clothes. [I got 2 items: cute purple-ish turtle neck sweater, and red pants (they’re hot!), both for €6].
We take the metro to Arc de Triumph. Found lunch as before.
At this point I think that we went back to the Eiffel Tower [in the daylight]. Finding the tower, however, to not be as exciting as it was during the night, we decided to get some ice cream and take a short river cruise thing. [There was also Jazz playing across the river, ‘cause every Fri. and Sat. night in September are jazz nights apparently]. So we get on the boat going all the way down the Seine and back. This was great ‘cause it got us all off our feet [Kamani even fell asleep on Robi’s shoulder]. By the time we got off the boat and found some water it was getting dark so we got in line to go up the Eiffel tower. We went all the way to the top floor and were up there when it did it’s little twinkle show. Then it started to rain and we decided that we did not want to be caught in it, so we made for the metro again. We crash in bed again.

Sunday: Wake up at 5:45am [ugg], to catch our plane which doesn’t leave until 9:20am [we were there way early, but better that than late!]. We arrive safely back in London get some lunch and then take well deserved naps [smile].

Love to all, I’m going off to take another nap [grin]…just simply because I can.

Post a note, I have it so you can post anonymously now [you don’t have to have a blog address]. So leave me a postJ.

<><,
*maike rinaye*

fun facts in England.

Things I've learned about:

when someone says this______ it means _________:

give way = yield
way out = exit
underground = subway
chips = french fries
biscuits = cookies
loo = toilet
quid = bucks [as in money, but only if it's more than one pound]
que = line
nappy = diaper
dodgy = sketchy

See, I'm learning a lot!

The other night we were sitting in the lobby in the evening watching dirty dancing with a bigger group of people when we got to the end of the movie. During the last scene, the resort owner makes the quote something like:
"Kid's don't want fox trot lessons in the country with their parents; they want trips to Europe!"....we all sorta cheered and then one girl added on "With out thier parents!" we all then clapped and laughed [grin]. It was a bonding moment :).

<><,
*maike rinaye*

to the Klink!

For those of you that don't know, the Klink was a dungeon in central london where they torchered prisoners in the...let's say the 15th century [I'm just making that up, yes....I don't really remember what the time period was, but it was when they burned women who might have been witches and crap like that].

Well, I went there on Sat. with the boys [Robi, Andrew and Mark] Kamani and Whit. It was a waist of money really, but there were some freaky things up in there. When you approach this place you see this mummified looking body in a cage like thing hanging in the alley way [Andrew assures me that it was a manequin wrapped to look like a real body, but Greg (the one that saved my computer in his boxers and towel) told everyone that it was a real body up there:].

Anyway, there's no real story from the Klink, just that that's one of the things that we did on Sat. Before that, however, is a fairly interesting story!

We start out our journey by getting on the bus; the cheapest form of transportation unless you want to wear out your legs walking all over [which, I think I've explained that we have already done like 12,000 times already]. So, typically, we don't get on the bus that will take us all the way up to the Klink [or anywhere really close]. So we get off right in front of the London Eye [the huge ferris wheel in central london that takes like an hour to get all the way around once]. And so we're sitting there joking and messing around waiting for the next bus to take us to the Klink. So while we're sitting there I look over and see the paparatzi [I can't spell], pointing his camera with the super zoom up to the top of the London ferris wheel. So logically I look up there....and wouldn't you know that there was a man up there! I'd heard on the radio earlier that it was shut down because of security issues but I had no clue that it ment there was a man up there! So then I get the whole group to gawk with me at this man [which turned out to really be one man, and then 3 bobbies (police)]. And one man standing near us explained that this man had been up there since about 6:30 this morning and he was dressed in a spiderman outfit! I was like, "That's ridiculous, why?" And this guy explains that he's part of an orginization called....Fathers 4 Justice. This group is full of fathers that say they don't get to spend enough time with their children because of the government divorce rules and whatever that has banned them from spending time with the kids.
Turns out this guy [who stayed up there untill 10:30pm], did the same thing last year on the Tower Bridge for like, 6 days, in the same spiderman suit.
Today, another member of Fathers 4 Justice dressed up as batman and got up onto a ledge at Buckingham Palace. His accomplice, Robin of corse, didn't make it up to the ledge but did talk to tv people [smile].

Exciting, huh!? It's cool to say, "ha, I saw that guy up there and have pictures" [yeah, he'll be a small dot, but whatever!]

Anyway, that was fun. We went to the Klink, then to the Tate Modern Museum [that was cool] and then shopped a bit and ate at this place in china town [which was also good].

Sunday Whit and I went to this church that we saw playing music at the Notting Hill carnival that we went to the first weekend we were here. The church was really cool [all the way on the other side of town, but none the less great]. It had contemporary music and the sermon was on judging others...it was really good.

After that we went to this black and white film showing on a big screen in Trafalgar Square. That was really cool. It was all historical and stuff, and there weren't words to go along with it [there was music that was specially written to accompany the film], so I'm not sure how much I really understand....but it was really cool [even though we stood, yes stood! for like 3 hours...no lie!].

So that brings me to today, and I went to class and saw the Tower of London with my class and that's really it [smile]. I have completed homework though! I hope everythings great at home.

LOVE<><,
*maike rinaye*

questions for you!

Hey guys.
So we're going to Paris next weekend! [yah!]. But we have two questions:

A: When in France, what is the REAL french food that we should eat? [besides crepes]. and
B: Besides the museums [louvre, musee'd'orasay, ect], and the Eiffle tower, what do people going to Paris do? Is there something that we HAVE TO do while we're there?

Write and let me know [add a post].
I'm going with Whitney, Kamani [the roomate], Robi, and Andrew. It's going to be great [even with the language barrier thing]. But give me some ideas or suggestions [esp. if you've been there already].

Thanx<><,
*maike rinaye*

loo, chips, biscuits!!!

Wow, I don't believe how much I've done in the last two or three days; it's increadible. Okay, I started writing this and then I realized that I have a very hard time recapturing everything in the right order. So here's what I'm going to do: OUTLINE! [laugh].

Tues: have class, attempt to find the half price theater to see a flick in the evening....end up watching the outer circle [smirk]....2 times in a row!!! [ie: we go around Regents Park 2 times! [sheesh, sometimes we are not the brightest (lol)].]
Wed: wake up and go read in the rose garden before class with Whit [wow!]
Went to Wagamama's [great food and free with Drury peps visiting:]. Ate jellato. Looked in at shops [didn't buy anything].
Thurs: no class :), met Whit and Robi at 10:30am to go to Puma store and Doc Martin store; end up taking James and Amanda with too. Puma store is disapointing; not enough selection. Doc Martin store: the same:(.
End up finding info about shows playing.
Shop a little more, find cheap shopping on Oxford St. [ooh, X-mas presents commin from here maybe].
End up going to see THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA!!! [with Whit and Mark, Robi and Andrews room mate from Boston].
Come back exhilarated! [sigh; super great production].
Fri: Wake up earlier than the room mates [first time ever!], go on a field trip with my "Age of Elegance" class [Megan and James are in this class too]. See 2 "country homes" which one is a huge palace!!! wow, incredible [I'll have to find someone to give me a picture to put on here]. Good times, came back around 6 and that brings me to now! [sorta].

Yeah, it's absolutely increadible all that I have done. Whit and I are taking it easy this weekend, I'm catching up on homework and then we're going to the Tate Modern museum and a war museum.

Weatherwise: it's the first day that has really been nasty since we've been here. Remarkably, it has been really sunny and warm and nice here in London. Really rather unbelievable. My hair is a bit huge today [but it's been doing okay so far, not as bad and fuzzy as I thought it would be]. {Whit has had good hair too:}.

Hmm, okay so I have been on here entirely too long [I have a hard time concentrating in places where there are so many people talking and watching tv and whatevering].....if you could see me you'd see it just happened again. I'll try to write more details later this weekend [we'll see how that goes:].

LOVE TO ALL [post some more notes!]<><,
*maike rinaye*

more

Hey all.
Whit has just shown me how this all works, so I decided that I should write up a little about what's going on.

So, really funny story. We have a lobby [that's where I am now], and it has like, 10 computers, right? Well, some of you know Greg, he's actually studying in Greece this semester, but he's here with Kelly and Meganne [whatever, not really needed to here the story]. But anyway, he's a friendly guy, and by that I mean that he has more friends here than I have; So I'm on the computer trying to figure this all out, and he comes out and looks around, and then is like, "maike, could you do me a favor?", and I'm like "maybe" and so then [all I see is that he doesn't have a shirt on], he's like "can you go find Kelly or Andrew to let me in the room, 'cause I'm locked out again, and [here he points to himself] as you can see, I just got out of the shower and...." [trails off]. I laugh, and then...thinking 'crap, I don't want to loose my turn at the computer' I'm like "Okay, you sit here and save my computer and I'll go find them". So he has to sit there, in his boxers wrapped in a towel at my computer while I go off laughing to find one of the boys. LOL....yeah....it's great...lol.

So we went to Brighton this past weekend. It was so great. I got a tan! Yeah, in England!!! And we shopped, and ate, and we toured this wonderful palace [see whit's for all the real info on the wonderful palace]. Travel was relatively cheap. We spent like 15£ on the bus ticket [like $30, and if we had booked on line before it would have only been like 6£], and then we stayed in a hostil [first hostil experience was good] 31£ for 2 nights. So it was relatively cheap.

This weekend we're going to stay in England and check out some of the museums and stuff like that around town. Then the weekend after we're going to go to Paris [if we can work out the underwater train....hmm, chunnell (smile)]. Then the weekend after that we're going to Stonehenge and then on a weekend field trip with my class, and then to Venice [yeah!!!].

Well, there's a wait for the computers so I should go. Hopefully you all can figure this out and stuff.

LUV<><,
*maike rinaye*

this is the first

the first.