Ireland

Ireland was a blast. I went to Dublin and also to Cork. Dublin was very cosmopolitan, and reminded me of Amsterdam (mainly the river running through the middle of town). Cork is in the South of Ireland, and is a college town, yet is smaller than Dublin. Close to Cork is Blarney, home to Blarney castle and the Blarney stone. I ventured there and kissed the stone. All in all I had a good time and I will put pictures up when my computer is out of the shop.

Paris


Maren had planned to visit me in London on her spring break. One day she emailed saying that since she was coming all the way to London, we might as well go to Paris. So we did. We spent 3.5 days in the city of lights. We did the tourist things (Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, Arc d'Triomphe) but our favorite part was just walking around the city, especially through the Latin quarter. We ate good food (even though we had some issues as we didn't know all of the food names in French, yet some restuarants didn't have English menus or speak English... it was an adventure). We tried to speak French (well I did, horribly might I add). We took pictures (once again this was me). It was fun, but made both of us appreciate traveling to countries where we speak the language. The one thing we were most surprised by is that more people didn't try to speak English to us. We had been told that if you try to speak French, and the person detects your poor accent/you speak English, they will start speaking in English. This simply didn't happen with us. I don't know if we just hit all of the lcal hotspot, or what (it wasn't that the people were being mean, as they were all still very nice and friendly). Another surprise was how nice everyone was. And a third was how much Paris resembles Madrid, just more tourism and hence tourists. And its bigger.

Now the pictures!


Arc d'Triomphe

Paris

Maren surveying Paris

Maren and the Eiffel

Clint + crepe = happy

Where am I?

Maren by the Louvre

The Louvre and one of its pyramids

Us in front of Notre Dame

Notre-DAMN!

Polar bear at the Musée d'Orsay

Sacre Coeur

Moulin Rouge... we stayed very close to here

So as many of you know (because you all follow London weather conditions), it snowed! Last Thursday I awoke to a blanket of powder covering everything. This was good, except I had to go to class that is a 20 minute walk away at another campus. And I was stupid and didn't take the bus. By the time I arrived, I was freezing because my feet were soaked. The sidewalks were slush and it was horrible. After I came home and ate lunch I took these beautiful pictures for you, the readers of my blog. You should feel loved.


The snowy stairs of Regent's canal


A view of a church


I call it a snow-bush-flower-plant


The snowy bench (it looks so inviting... but no)


travels


mind the bird...


tulips love the snow

Saturdays lend themselves for excursions into the realm of central London. This is like a far away world compared to the reality of life in the East End. Central London is the things of postcards: Big Ben, Parliament, and the London Eye. The East End is home to the many different ethnicities that make London such a diverse place. Its like they are two different cities, yet all in one. Last Saturday I traveled into central for a day hopping museums and in search of St. George's Gardens. I first ventured to the British Museum. This is a collection of artifacts from all the places that have been conquered by the British empire at some time. This includes Roman sculpture, African artwork, and Egyptian mummies. The museum is vast, and more importantly, free, so it is always packed with tourists and Londoners alike. Here are a few highlights from my visit:


Attesting to the multicultural visitors (and tourism in general), the Egyptian guide is printed in 8 languages.


A view of the inner courtyard.


The lion in the courtyard... yeah the Brits stole it from somewhere... I would guess Italy


On to the Egyptians... Some statues made of???


Mummified cats... and the sign assured that they were real.


On to stealing from Rome! And doesn't this bust look like Will Ferrell?



And this was stolen from... somewhere happy.


More in an upcoming post about St. George's Gardens...

The lost posts: Granada

In late October/ early November (I really don't remember) Maren and I traveled to Granada in the south of Spain. This is a town renowned for its Alhambra, an ancient Moorish fortress that is stunning. It is odd that Spain now exploits its Moorish past for tourism dollars, when long ago they kicked all of the Moors out of Spain because they hated them, but I digress. We took a 6 hour train to Granada, arriving late Friday night. The next day we went to the Alhambra, which took all morning. After that we shopped a bit, but really there wasn't much to do in Granada, other than the Alhambra.Sunday morning we walked around the old Jewish quarter and then caught a train back to Madrid. This is really more of a photo post, as the Alhamra was too pretty to limit myself to only 5 pictures...


Me on the train, while the Spaniards took their smoke break (yes the train stopped for a smoke break)


A Rose


Ceiling of an Arab Bath


Which is bigger, Clint or the Archway?


Coolest thing ever: Lion Head Mailbox


Maren + Granada = Smiles


The cat wanted to run away, but I gave him little choice in the matter...


Something old... like all of Granada


Beautiful ceiling - the blue specks are all that remains of the original painting


Patio of the Lions


I don't actually know what they are, but I am going to put forth the guess of old Moorish submarines


Another courtyard...


The leaves fall down, and Maren becomes artsy


The white buildings of Granada


Ruins of former houses?


Fountains in the gardens


Maren wanted the pic to herself, so she pushed me out


The Alhambra from a distance

The wind here is outrageous. Now you may be thinking, but Clint, isn't England known for its rain? The answer is yes, it rains almost everyday here, but many times that rain is a light drizzle or only last for less than an hour (at least so far). The factor that makes the rain unbearable is the wind. It seems as anytime that it is raining hard enough to warrant the use of an umbrella, the wind is blowing so hard that the rain comes in near sideways, and your umbrella is made semi-useless as it pops inside-out with frequency. That or the wind is strong enough to almost blow the thing out of your hand. I have had to grip the umbrella with both hands just to walk about. Yesterday the wind was 45 mph. I literally saw a woman get blown over. She just fell right over when the gust hit her (now this is a bit extreme, as we had a heavy storm come through Europe, but it illustrates the point.) So the moral of this story is when in London, plan to get wet.

I have been in London for a bit over two weeks, and much has happened. Above all I have moved into my flat (aka my apartment) and started classes at Queen Mary University of London. My flat is really nice. I share it with 5 other people, 2 Americans and 3 Brits. I have my own room, complete with a private bathroom. (OK, as you can see from the picture, the bathroom is a little lacking. The shower is technically just the corner of the bathroom, and I don't know why there is an actual shower curtain, because the water still goes everywhere, but its my very own crappy bathroom.) I have also been enjoying our kitchen, and being able to make my own food. My flatmates were really happy when they learned I could "properly cook." I am taking Basic Biochemistry, a Spanish literature class titled "The Boom of the Latin American Novel", a Brazilian Culture class, and a Beginning French class. So far I am really liking the British system of education. It involves me going to class about 8 hours a week for 16 hours of credit. It is a teach yourself system, which is fine for me. I have also noticed that the students here don't appear particularly happy to be in the little class they have, so maybe its a good system for them. I have also been taken by some of the quirks of British life. I find myself really enjoying tea (with milk and sugar, as a good Brit drinks) with digestives (little cookies to eat with tea that taste kinda like graham crackers - they also come in a chocolate dipped version - superb)

As for things for you readers to look forward to, I have many trips from my time in Spain to add, including my holiday-time trek through the North and stays in Barcelona and Mallorca, in addition to all the odd and interesting things that occur in London.

Until the next post, I leave you all with some pictures...