Hamlet: it was excellent

Stratford is my favourite place

At Iberia lounge

I'm at the airport on much too little sleep (and the flight is at 1:45pm). Mistakes were made. Really looking forward to being with Marcia again though.

Wolf elaboration and random tidbits

Yesterday we went to the French Alps which is incredibly similar to Rockies. They have re-introduced wolves into the area, and they have glass/window areas for tourists to see them. One of them came right up to the window. It was rather cool, but it would have probably been better for the wolves if they were just left alone, because they have to be fed. Although I don't know what they would hunt if they weren't fed. Next to the International House there's this shop that everyone has been talking about that has some really cheap clothes including 3 euro shoes, so I ofcourse could not pass up on this offer so I went in and got myself a pair. Also we went to Beau Lieu today and Emmara pointed out a little thing on the ground under a tree. Turns out its like a baby squirrel or something that is still completely blind and deaf, but furry enough to be cute. They said we would leave before we get too attached, but I was already attached. I named him Joe, and said we couldnt leave him now that he had a name. We ended up abandoning him. 

It was sad.

Currently really excited to go to Italy and London though.

Day 2 in Madrid

Yesterday I did nothing. I had been planning on going out at night, get some dinner, stroll around, but the landlady asked me if I could stay here and wait for the other student who was coming, and let her in. I waited all night, and she didn't come. I was pretty worried, but turns out she was coming today.

Anywho, today I figured I should go see Madrid. I had done very little research on Madrid, so I didn't know much about the touristy spots. I thought, perhaps I should go to a park, so I searched on the map for any green areas. The nearest metro station to the Jardin Botanico was Plaza del Sol, which apparently is THE touristy place. I think watching the tourists was more amusing than the sights they were awing at. After passing by them, I got to a park. (I'm still not entirely sure which park it was, after I left the metro station, I lost my bearings, and if you walk west you go to the Jardin Botanico, and east it's the Campo del Moro). I also I realized I really don't like sight seeing. It got me in this mood of thinking that the world is unimpressive and mediocre. Which is strange given how often my mood is in the opposite direction. I lay on the grass in the park to reflect about it and decided I should go do something about it, go out and buy a book (the one I brought from home was pretty stupid), and enjoy reading on the grass. On the way out the park, I started noticing all these species of birds I'd never seen before and it got me back into a good mood. I kept exploring the park, laid down to reflect, although later a guard came up to me and told me I wasn't allowed to go on the grass (which is stupid, what's the point of a park if you're not allowed to interact with nature?).

Anywho, I decided to go home and have a siesta. Now I'm finally in a country whose sleep schedule resembles mine: afternoon nap and then no sleep until 1 or 2 am (although I hear the siesta is going out of style in larger cities like Madrid because of the demands of a globalized economy). According to my Swiss culture prof, swiss people go to bed pretty early. As a result, almost everything is closed by 7pm. Here, people start going out at 10pm.

I followed suit and went out for dinner around 9(although I had forgotten that lunch was the main meal). I went to Plaza del Sol, but it was too touristy. I decided to go home thinking, given my tendency to get lost finding the apartment, maybe I should go back before it becomes completely dark. I didn't get back before dark, and I did get lost. But I got to see real Madrid life. Everyone was out. I'm not entirely sure what they do when they're going out at night, in that I could only see the people on the streets, not where they were going. What I did see, was people taking strolls with their families, or hanging out with friends on benches or at the park. Lacking the requirements here for those activities, I decided to go back home.

I met the girl who'll be living here with me. She's a girl from Germany, seemed really nice. Anywho, should sleep now.

Saw wolves today

About 3 Weeks Worth of Pictures I Finally Got Around to Posting

Europe

Lunch

This is like Brazil. I went out to have lunch today and had mixto quente and real orange juice (you know how I feel about real orange juice). It was about 7 times more expensive than it would likely be in Brazil, but nonetheless.

Madrid

Flew to Madrid today. The customs part of security is the most lax I've ever seen. I wait about half an hour in line (there's only one guy attending), when I go up, I hand him my passport, he doesn't even touch it, he just glanced at the cover and point for me to go ahead and go through.

Mom: sorry I didn't post immediately, but didn't know the password for the wireless.

I really wish the language school had given me more information about the accommodations. All they did was give me an address. I went to it, but had no idea who to ring up, whether the entire building was student housing. I rung up 5D, which I thought was my room number. In very broken spanish I say I have reservation, unsure whether I'm talking to another student with whom I'll be sharing the apartment with or what. I'm buzzed in without any instructions. I come in and am not sure if I'm supposed to stay in the lobby or come upstairs. Eventually I go upstairs. I rung the doorbell. There was some loud music coming from within, so I figured it had been just another student, and I'd have to try elsewhere. Turns out its the landlady. She owns a 3 bedroom apartment and rents out 2 of the rooms to students. I don't think she speaks English. Communication for me was strained in that I have no vocabulary in Spanish (I never know whether I'm just saying a portuguese/english/french/italian word with an accent or I'm using a word that I recall from what little Spanish I studied way back in gr.9) and I had no idea what was going on. I did understand what she said though. But it makes me wonder what that silly Lingua School would expect if I was a complete novice. I mean, surely they should've provided me with a bit more information.

Brief impressions of Madrid (which may be entirely inaccurate in that all I've seen is the walk from the metro station to here): reminds me of Brazil again. At first I was thinking that it reminded me of Rio, but then as I was going through the side streets, it was reminding me of Sao Joao, but that's too small of a town to be an apt description. It's much less busy or crowded than I would've expected. (But then again, I had been talking to Rosa from my french course and when I told her I was going to Madrid next when week she seemed surprised. She said I'd be the only one there. All the locals would be traveling, trying to escape the heat.) It seems like a nice place, although my expectations weren't particularly high.

Vendredi

Yesterday we went to a confiserie, and their specialty is flower petal candies, and we were able to try them. They only had the mint leaves out for us to try, but I thought they were too sweet so I didn't buy them. They also make flower jams. I liked rose and violet, but for some reason the violet jam was more expensive than rose, so I bought that one and got some violet lolipops too.

Rien de rien

I haven't been writing much which reflects what I've been doing.

I stopped caring to go out and randomly explore after the first week and a half. Lausanne is nice, but far from exciting. We went to the Musee Olympique yesterday, I suppose that's something... The depiction of China was interesting to see. 

Also, seeing the museum made me very jaded. I learned how a lot of the games are funded by the marketing (selling TV rights, merchandise, etc) and the IOC keeps about 8% of the profit (leaving the municipality and other levels of government of the host place to foot the bills of getting ready for the Olympics). It made their message about how it's "celebrating humanity" seem kinda silly. Their little visual presentation they had about the games made me think what a useless endevour it is to become the fastest/strongest/most skilled in an obscure set of motions which don't come up particularly often. I mean, at least with striving to be more intelligent, you can perhaps come up with a new idea or link obscure concepts together in a way that generates more knowledge for humanity. But what's the use to society knowing that a human being is capable (possibly via the aid of illicit substances) go x distance in t seconds. And they spend so much resources trying to become better, but in 5, maybe 10 years, they'll just get injured or start to get older, then what do they have?

In other news, I'm about 70% sure I should go to Dalhousie. I don't know how much I want to though.

Mercredi & Jeudi

Wednesday we went to Antibes and  today we went to Eze. They are both smaller, older towns, and both quite pretty. In Eze we went to a perfum factory. It smelt quite strongly but it was quite nice. They sell real perfume, which as we learned, unlike eau de toillette and eau de something I've forgotten the name of, isn't distilled with water, only some oil so it will stay on all day.

I've realized I havent really mentioned going to the beach yet

Nice's beaches are shingle beaches, so there isn't any sand, but the waves are very strong so they have all been rounded off. You can actually hear the waves dragging the " galets"  back with them. The depth increases exponentially. The water is incredibly blue and surprisingly cold and salty. 

 I've also realized Mariana has stopped writing. Is she dead yet....

Lundi et Mardi

Monday we went to the international house and we did placement tests. i got into a pretty good class (I think its the top one of our group even though my oral mark translated into a 71-80%, so i guess they are pretty tough with their marking?). I dont think we're really learning anything new in the class, just some occasional vocab that pops up and just practicing speaking because out in the streets we don't get much practice. Even if we do try to speak french with the shop ppl they just answer back in english. I did however ask a real live french couple if they knew when the last tram was, although not very well, but they understood me. I also asked someone if they knew where to get crepes, but answered back that they don't have crepes in Nice, that it is a Britagne thing, so he must have thought we were really silly tourists that think that crepes are a Nicois specialty, because they actually do sell crepes at tonnes of places. We've had some really good gelato at Le Palais de Justice and also we're going to school at like France's third largest high school and its really like castle/palace-y.

Chegai

So I'm at the homestay now.

On the way to London the pilot said " We will endeavour to keep you updated on the weather" 

British people are so funny. I've never heard someone say endeavour before.

Also, I dont think I can live in England, because whenever I opened my mouth at the airport I felt so conspicuous.

Nice reminds me a ridiculously alot of Rio. From the rocky sides of the road with random trees and vegitation, the highway bridges that barely skim the balconies of old fashioned houses, the general hilly-ness, to the tacky 80's coloured buildings.

My foundation burst in my pack of toiletries so everything was covered. I had the brilliant idea of just taking the shampoo and conditioner in the shower to rinse it off there, but ended up just covering the woman's shower in foundation and spent the next few hours on-and-off trying to wipe it off. 

I have discovered I probably need to buy lots of stuff.

But I have been able to pretty much understand everything Isabella (homestay lady) says, and make myself understood.

Overall, its all good.

La Vie est si Belle

When I finished class this afternoon, I thought I had nothing to do today. I figured I'd just go home and waste some time on the computer. 

As I was heading out to the metro I met up with Krishna (a brazilian friend who's going to start his masters at UNIL). He was with one of his Tandem partner, Renato (Tandem is a program where 2 people who speak different languages fluently get together to teach each other their respective languages). He was a half Japanase, half swiss german guy who's around my age. He's had about 2 lessons in Portuguese and with the tendrils of vocabulary he cobbles together the sentence "voce e muita bonita". European guys are very compliment-y.

Anywho, we ride the metro and once Renato leaves Krishna offers for me to accompany him to his next Tandem meeting which will be at Rue de St. Francois. Having nothing better to do, I comply. 

 This Tandem partner was a Lausanne native who wanted to learn Portuguese, although on this particular day, they'd be talking in French so Krishna could learn. He told us to meet him at the Cathedral. Once he gets there, he points to the top and tells us that's where we're going today.

We enter and some lovely classical music is emanating from within (it was a free concert as part of the Festival de la Cite), filling the Cathedral and making it seem much grander than it probably is. We then ascend several flights of a stone spiraling staircase. First stop was the bell tower, which coincidentally started to ring whilst we were there, scaring Krishna to death.

We kept ascending higher and higher and getting a better view of the city. All the while the guy from Lausanne (I forgot his name) was telling us in French about the history of the Cathedral and the surrounding areas, telling us what certain buildings are or used to be, and answering our questions about vocabulary and pronunciation. At the top there was an amazing view of the Alps, the lake, France on the other side of the lake, all the ornate old buildings around the Cathedral, the countryside off in the distance, and another mountain chain (whose name also escapes me) behind it. 

I was getting that feeling I have all the time at UBC (but hadn't been having here) of being thrilled at how fantastic life is. How great it is that you can be under the assumption that this is going to be a quiet, uneventful day, and then suddenly unexpected surprising things happen which are much better than you could've planned. And not only has today been a fantastic day, yesterday was too. In my joviality, I naively extrapolate those 2 data points and take it as evidence that life is always surprising and marvelous.

A Post where I Finally Talk About People Instead of Solitary Excursions

So it seems like I'm making friends in spite of myself.

Since the first day, I've been mostly avoiding people. I've been missing solitude this year and was preferring getting reacquainted with it rather than making an effort via hanging out with someone and feeling an obligation to fill the silence with awkward small talk instead of just enjoying being by a brooke with one's thoughts.

And despite my almost systematic efforts to be antisocial, it would appear I have been making many friends (well, friendly acquaintances... see MC for a more in depth discussion on the distinction) in various circles. It's one of those I meet a couple people, and then they introduce me to their friends and we hang out with their friends, and so forth thus becoming friends by extension.

Just now I arrived from a lovely barbeque by the lake. I met a really affable guy on exchange from UBC. There was a large group of us. They drank (wine is less expensive than pop: one bottle of wine is $2.50, a 375mL bottle of coke is $3), we played volleyball, ate a lot, and joked around. Tim (guy from UBC) and I exchanged notes about the similarities between Lausanne and Vancouver and he gave me suggestions on what classes to take (he's a psych major and is graduating next december). We stayed there until about 11pm whence it was getting quite dark and caught one of the last trains out. 

So it would appear I've stumbled upon friends despite efforts to the contrary.

In other news, I've decided to go to Italy this weekend. 

Also, Beth: don't worry about Spain. I found a very convenient spanish course in Madrid which will make my stay there educational. It's almost exactly the same length of time that I'll be staying there and they also provide accommodations. And god knows I'm really out of practice with my spanish to the point where I'm uncomfortable answering back in that language when someone says something to me (as happened today and yesterday).

Also, did my registration. My schedule is pretty messed up. (e.g. I have a class that's 8am three times per week during second semester, I found out just yesterday I don't have the pre-reqs for the bio classes I wanted to take (which in turn are the pre-reqs for the genetics class I wanted take for next year), all third year english classes are full, I wasn't able to fit in enough useful credits, I have no break between 9:30am and 2pm on Fridays). Also, thinking of transferring third year. This is still pretty hypothetical, but I just found out that as of this year, they're no longer offering a B.Sc. Honours in psychology. I have to do more research to find out the importance of having a honours degree vs. regular major in terms of going into grad school, but it seems that though not completely necessary, it helps to have one. I'd like to finish my undergrad at UBC, but not if it compromises my ability to go on to whichever grad school I want once I graduate. For now, I guess I should work under the presumption that I'm staying at UBC but I have a lot of research yet to do (e.g. what grad school do I want to go to? what are their requirements? if not UBC, where? what are their transfer requirements? how well will my credits transfer?) Also, if I'm staying at UBC, I'll rethink my credits plan, and maybe reconsider going on exchange.

Lac Leman

So, most of this week after class I've been busing to the downtown areaish where there's all the old streets and buildings which are filled with shops and whatnot. I'd walk around aimlessly and take random turns to explore.

Today, aside from deciding to not go to class, I decided I wanted something different. The past 3 days I've been really missing Vancouver (well, it's a little more specific than that, but I don't feel like getting into that). So once arriving at the downtown areaish, I had lunch, pulled out my map and looked for any green areas and to bus there. I had been told that the Olympic Museum was really beautiful (in his words "it's really the outside though, you don't have to bother going in it"), so I settled on there. 

Once I got there I realized that it's actually because it's adjacent to a park. Once I started going inside, I immediately felt better. The air was so much more breathable. I went and sat on a bench by a fountain and started writing a cathartic letter (which I likely won't send since I'm too lazy to transcribe it as an e-mail). Then I continued to follow the trail to Lac Leman. It was really nice, reminded me of the seawall at Stanley Park minus the giant mound of sulphur on one side and the acres of gorgeous park on the other. It made me wish I was at Stanley Park.

Anywho, off in the distance I spotted what I believe to be Roman aquaducts. In quest to get a better picture I started heading east, following the lake.

Next thing I know I'm in Pully (the town beside Lausanne). So, without noticing it, I walked about 3/4 of the way across of Lausanne.

Also, when I was walking back to my place, I noticed how much better I was feeling compared to when I left this morning. Being surrounded by nature did me a lot of good.

In other news, I just found out, I can't go to Edinburgh. My flight to Madrid is set and they won't let me cancel that leg of the trip unless I pay $150. If I just don't show up (as I was planning on doing) they'll cancel my London-Vancouver flight.

My Alarm Sucks

So, yesterday, I was supposed to wake up at least by 9am, so I could catch the train meet up with David in Basel at noon, as I had told him. I set my alarm for 8:30am, figuring that'd be best. I woke up on my own at 8am, but went back to sleep figuring I'd be woken up in half an hour.

Next time I look at my watch, it's 11:49. Shit.

I hurriedly got dressed and ran to the nearest pay phone to call David's cell. It took several attempts for me to figure out how to dial to a cellphone with a German area code. I'd told him that I'd be at the very least 2 hrs late.

I wait around for the bus going towards the train station and eventually give up, and decide to walk instead.

Once I get to the train station, I missed the last train by 1min, so I have to wait half an hour to get the next one.

I end up getting to Basel around 3:40, ridiculously late. I call David, and we meet up by a church. Basel was a cute little old town, but pretty dead on a Sunday (european shops aren't open sundays). It was nice catching up with David, but I didn't get to spend that much time with him since I was so late and he had to leave around 6pm.

Also, today, I set my alarm for 8am. I woke up at 10am, which means I'd be at least an hour and a half late for class, but then I just came online and started writing an e-mail and this post instead of getting dressed. I'm feeling a "moleza" and feeling that it's not like I'm learning that much from class, and this is a vacation.

Also, I'm realizing that it hasn't been my alarm clock that's been waking me up all week. I was just "jetlagged" in a way that made my sleep schedule like normal people's (sleep at 11pm or earlier, wake up around 8am or earlier). Now I've gotten rid of it (probably that night I stayed up till 4am since I was talking to a mom, Marcia, and Robin on MSN), I'm in my "normal" sleep schedule of waking up at noon. I'm thinking I should get a travel clock or something that beeps because this waking up late and missing a train or a class isn't that big of a deal, but if at some point I miss a flight, that would suck.

Why I Haven't Been Updating

Yeah, I haven't really been posting particularly frequently or with particular detail. Sorry.

There's about 5 days of this trip which have opened up, and I'm trying to decide what to do with them, weighing my options, comparing prices, looking at destinations, hotels, etc. So most of my time on the Internet is being consumed by looking this stuff up. 

I think I'm settled on the U.K. (I could still be persuaded otherwise, if you guys have any suggestions?). I'm leaning towards Edinburgh. Getting there might make it more expensive than if I just stick to the southern part of England. So, more research to do. But if I do stay in Edinburgh, at least I know what hotel I'd go to.

"Getting to know Lausanne"

Yesterday after class I went to go try to find the transport office to buy a bus pass. I couldn't find it, so I decided to walk around, then to start taking turns in random directions. I decided to label this activity "getting to know downtown Lausanne" rather than "getting lost". (it was lovely, btw... these cool old buildings, but are filled with stores like Claire's and Louis Vitton, things not befitting their grandeur and character). Whence I decided to go home, I took the bus going the wrong direction, which was more "getting to know Lausanne". We went uphill so there was this bridge with a really nice view of the mountains (they're picturesque, although I prefer the ones in BC).

Anywho, did some more of this whole "getting to know Lausanne" today. (That damn transport lausanne office is ridiculously difficult to find). I went into H & M which I heard was Joelle's favourite store. As I headed into it, I started to have doubts (would I be able to afford anything in Joelle's favourite store?). They were having a sale so things were actually pretty cheap. When I came here I intended to not buy anything, but it's been so hot (about 30 degrees in the shade), I can't stand it anymore, so I bought $5 flip flops. Though chosen on a purely comfort scale (some of them were surprisingly hard), they're also kinda nice aesthetically as well.