An Eye for an Eye and Sarah G on the side

I'm trying to finish Spring Break before my parents get in tomorrow, so I will get the Louvre out of the way right now. Friday after Versaille we decided to do the obligatory Louvre trip - the thing that everyone in the world does after they finish the Eiffel tower. We got in the museum at about noon and argued are way in for free again. We decided to split up for two hours so we could each see what we wanted in the massive complex. The Louvre is basically four museums in one, making a huge square with a courtyard in the middle where the famous triangle of glass is (I've never seen or read the Da Vinci code, but I think something important happened here with Mary Magdalen that a bunch of gullible Christian's took too literally). I decided to go do the Greek and Roman stuff first, and headed towards the Venus de Milo. They had maps with all of the important touristy stuff labeled so you knew where to go. This statue was very interesting in that I never realized it is made in two pieces. Her legs are separate from the rest of her body, and they don't know whether this statue was Minerva or Venus, or something like that. My mythological characters are all running together four years out of Latin. But anyway I mulled around here for a bit and read up on the statue from a little placard on the wall. It was very crowded so I only got to walk up once, but it was easier to look at her from afar anyway. After the statue I went and saw the Etruscan couch people - a famous Etruscan statue of a couple reclining on a couch. Whenever they talk about the Etruscans, the people who predated the Romans and sortof ruled the area for a bit and gave them some culture, you normally see a picture of these folks. I was excited and remembered all of my old Latin books.

I then went to the Grand Gallery of Italian painters to see the infamous Mona Lisa. Basically, there's not much to say about this little postage stamp of a painting besides the fact that it was really small and looks just like it does on the internet. I was more impressed with the sheer size of the crowds surrounding the painting. It was a packed Friday at the museum and it was hard to look at anything without being elbowed out of the way a few seconds later. I took my pictures and moved on. In the same room was the also famous Wedding at Cana picture, which is ginormous, taking up the entire wall of the gallery. I stared with my back to the mona lisa and took in this painting instead. Veronesse painted himself and his other favorite painters in the picture as members of the band in the wedding. The painting is famous for telling the whole story of Jesus' first miracle in one picture frame.

Since we only had two hours, I moved on quickly to the crown jewel gallery and saw a bunch of old French royal cups and bowls and stuff and the former crown of the French Monarchy (not Napolean's crown - you have to pay to see that). It was still impressive though. After getting the obligatory stuff out of the way, I moved on to what I really wanted to see - Hammurabi's Code. I was excited to learn it was actually at the museum and had budgeted plenty of time to get across the Museum to its place of residence. After getting lost, I made it to the room and saw this big black monolith with the code scrawled in cuneiform on the stone. It was one of the first ever laws to be written down by mankind - right in front of my eyes. I tried to read about it on a little placard they keep in bins, but the English one was missing, so I bluffed through reading about it in Spanish. This was definitely my favorite part of the museum, as the gallery was empty and I could actually get close up to the pillar, which sort of remined me of the stone in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I sort of half expected monkeys to come out of the corridors and start jumping around and making noises while a symphony plays in the background. If you don't know what I'm talking about here, go watch some Kubrick and get back to me.

We met back in the center of the museum and ate a long lunch. We were all exhausted from running around the museum to see the stuff we wanted. Just like the British Museum, I could have spent like 15 hours in this place. My legs and back were very sore - I guess there's something about intellectualness that just exhausts your body. We spent so much time recuperating at lunch that we missed our next stop - Invalides, the war museum. I was frustrated we took too much time and worried we wouldn't have enough time to do it tomorrow. We audibled to the Eiffel Tower to take pictures we neglected to take the first day because it was cold and dark. After spending a few minutes at the tower and turning down about a million salesmen trying to sell us 3 for 1 euro tower key chains (No, merci), we made our way up to the Arc de Triumph and the Champs Elysees.

The girls were getting cranky so we stopped at a random statue to break for a bit. Turns out the statue was dedicated to the Americans who died in the French resistance movement. So that was cool. Too bad there was graffiti on it. We marched on to the Arc de Triumph, ripping French jokes along the way. The Arc was actually pretty cool looking, and I bet it would be nice if a French army could march through there once instead of a German one, but that's just me. As we were about to move on from the Arc and down the Champs Elysees, I noticed two American kids taking pictures on the sidewalk near us. The girl and guy were both wearing North Faces, a very Notre Damey thing to do. Next thing I know, the chick is turning around to ask us to take a picture and "Charlie Landis!!!!?" What the hell, it's Sarah Gennette. We were all giddy with excitement, as my group knew the guy with Sarah too. Sarah was on spring break back on campus, so she gave me updates on the progress of The Shirt and we gossiped for a little bit about friends. It was very cool seeing someone from home, not just an ND abroad program, while overseas. This was truly a small world moment, and it cheered all of us up when we were getting tired. Now I will have another story to tell people when I come home. I ran into Sarah on the Champs Elysees, No Big Deal or anything.

After that we got some coffee on the champs elysees, which is not that impressive, we bought Claire a gift and made it back to the apartment. Fondue for dinner and to bed early again for our busiest day of the trip and our last full day in the City of Light.

219-212

My last two days at Parliament were very interesting. On Monday I went in for a half day of work before Politics class at 12:45. I got in and was handed a gigantic stack of mail from the past few days. It took me about 30 minutes to get through opening everything and sorting it into piles for Alun to read, piles of newsletters and other pamphlets, and piles of policy correspondence for my office managers and I to tackle. Just as I planned out how to tackle the lovely stack of papers, my boss suggested that I come with him to a meeting with college students from his constituency in a committee room in the palace. We walked over and met about thirty Welsh students, all of them my age, sitting in the committee room waiting to speak with my boss. He sat in the chair and gave a brief introduction to the stuff that he does and how Parliament works. Most of the students looked bored. Simon leaned over to me and whispered that my boss has no idea how to talk to young people. I thought it was interesting.

The professor of the class asked several questions, which my boss answered in long politician-esque answers. He then introduced Simon and gave his background, and Simon got up and had a slightly more entertaining speech about careers in policy and Parliament. Alun then introduced me as his American intern and asked me to give my perspective as a college student intern. I was really nervous talking to people my own age. I got up and introduced myself as an American student from Missouri, "in the middle of the country" and said I go to school in Northern Indiana "near Chicago." I told them about what I do in the office, basically the boring stuff that my bosses don't want to do, and that I was having fun and learning a lot about the differences between the US and UK systems. My boss prompted me and asked me to explain some of the differences between our democracies. I explained how US democracy is based on compromise while UK democracy is based on adversarial, one-party rule. Even the layout of our legislative chambers reflects this. My boss nodded in agreement and mentioned that it was a big day in American politics with the passage of the healthcare bill. On the spot, I said it was indeed an "exciting" day in America (exciting can be interpreted in several ways), and used the bill as an example of how sometimes there is little compromise in our politics. I was also asked about college tuition in the states and my career goals, and most of the students were shocked to hear how much we pay to go to ND and graduate school. I talked with the professor after the meeting about tuition costs to clarify that I dont actually pay 50k to go to school because most people are on scholarships, and there are cheaper state schools. I think I came off as arrogant when I was talking to the group, as I wasn't sure how much they knew about the states or healthcare or Westminster. Simon said I did a pretty good job, and the professor knew who the Fighting Irish were, which made me happy.

In the committee room willingly put on a happy face about the passage of the healthcare bill, as I sort of had to and did not want to embarrass myself or my boss by saying something disagreeable. But I feel like I made a decent enough point to the group in saying that a 219-212 vote clearly is not a representation of the compromise that should be inherent in our system. I said that usually compromise is the name of the game, except for the recent bill. We discussed this vote again at lunch today, and I expressed my concern to my bosses about how the bill cannot possibly reflect the will of the American people if even factions of democrats voted against the bill. Even so, Obama and Nancy claim this as a victory for the American people that the people wanted all along. 219 members of the house and 60 people in the senate, a total of 279 members of congress just sent America on a 900 billion dollar experiment - an experiment that has no proof it will work, and experiment that most people did not sign up for, an experiment that shakes the foundations of the principles of our country. When I turn 25, I am required by the federal government to buy an insurance plan that I don't want. I am also required to pay too much for it. Thanks. Either way, that's the law now, and hopefully government will do its best to impliment it correctly. For some reason I am skeptical though.

Our conversation was contentious but respectful. My managers, especially Peter, always look for an agreeable middle ground to argue from, instead of migrating to an extreme position that cannot be put into dialouge with the other side. I appreciated this conversation very much. I wish Obama could take a lesson in the art of respectful dialogue. Instead of impressing his audience with flowery language on compromise while resorting to extremist positions behind closed doors (read: Notre Dame Commencement), maybe he should try accepting, or, God forbid, agreeing with an opposing principle. I don't think that will happen, unfortunately (read:healthcare). We all laughed about the gigantic punchline that was his awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize. I'm glad the Brits realize that was a farce as well.

After lunch I continued working on the huge stack of mail, drafting letters about various policy positions from the digital economy bill to reducing carbon emissions to video game tax breaks. I organized the various letters on the desk, proud of my day long battle with the bottomless folder of policy correspondence. I also sent my first emails from my parliament account, with my official signature line saying I was an intern. All three of us proofread the letters and pamphlets to be sent out in the constituency when the election is called, and Simon and I discussed polling data and the segmentation strategy for delivering the postcards. We talked about the budget debate that will happen tomorrow when Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, who just looks like an ideal financial guru, opens the secret red box and unveils the Budget 2010, with almost every line to be debated the next few days in Parliament. Should be a good way for both parties to jockey for position before the election. I wish the US debated the budget more openly like they do here. Would make for some awesome realizations if all the non-poli sci majors of the world heard on the news how much waste goes through our government. Food for thought. Either way, tomorrow should be an interesting day in the House. I am sad that I probably only have two more days left in the place before they dissolve. With any luck I may be able to go out to Cardiff to campaign. Only if I play my cards right.

Absinthe Party at the Versailles Honey Warehouse

We decided on Thursday of Spring Break to go out to Versailles, the estate of the French royals, for a little day-trip. Although the estates are very different, we immediately began comparing Versailles to our Windsor Castle trip, given that they are both royal castles based in the distant suburbs of capital cities. Although we paid for Windsor without complaint, we attempted to get in to Versailles for free, posing as EU students who were living in the EU. This worked at the Orsay, and Lizzie attempted to talk the snooty cashier at Verailles to admit us as EU students. He arrogantly explained to her that "This is not the Louvre or the D'Orsay, this is Versailles!" in a throaty French accent. Point for Windsor right off the bat.

The Versailles castle is a sprawling estate where the kings would house their entire court to keep an eye on them. The Parisians marched on Versailles and tore down the golden gates when they overthrew then monarchy ... at some point. I'm not as well versed on the French monarchs as I am on the British. We toured the King and Dauphin's state apartments. The tour began with a glimpse of the royal chapel built by Louis XIV, more ornate than St. George's chapel, but less historical it seemed. There was a gigantic hallway with statues of all of the French kings dating back from Clovis and Charlemagne. We then turned the corner, expecting to see the spectacular state apartments, only to run into a gigantic photo exhibit of the photographic history of Versailles. Confused and mumbling about how much we were paying to see this place, we hurried through this exhibit and entered the state apartments. The state apartments were very similar to Windsor. Fancy furniture and drapery, but less weapons than the English monarchy, apparently. The most notable thing about the state apartments was the hall of mirrors, a huge passageway between the King's bedroom and his offices. It was quite impressive and would knock your socks off if you were a visitor to the King's Court. We also learned that the Queen used to always give birth in public to legitimize her heirs. Give birth like a champion today. Kindof a weird idea but I guess it worked.

We also went through the Dauphin's apartments, the places beneath the King's chambers where the princes and princesses lived. I was excited that I knew what Dauphin meant, since SLUH's former mascot before the Billiken was the Dauphin. These apartments were less ornate than the upstairs versions, and are worth seeing, but not worth attempting to describe in any minute detail. There was a huge globe in one of the offices which was pretty cool. After the apartments we went outside to the gardens, which are supposedly the most beautiful gardens in the world. Too bad it was March and blistery cold and everything was dead. We walked the grounds for a bit and viewed the massive backyard the Bourbons enjoyed. Mowing this lawn must have been a full time job. At least a half mile long promenade with fountains, statues, and shrubbery up and down the line. We tried to walk to the houses of Marie Antoinette, the spoiled princess who got lost in Versailles, so she ordered a smaller house to be built for her on the grounds.

Unfortunately for us, our 15 euro ticket didn't cover the other buildings on the grounds, only the chateau, so they wanted us to pay extra . No dice. We grumbled again about the French and their undeserved arrogance about how awesome they are - which they're not. We all know this. Anyway, we were getting tired of walking around, so we decided to call it a day and head back into Paris. All in all, Versailles lost horribly when compared to Windsor. I guess there is a reason why the English monarchy still exists and the French one doesn't. Versailles was cool, don't get me wrong, but not worth the money. No guns, too much furniture, and the audio guide had NO historical context as to what we were looking at. That's great that this is the King's old desk, but why do I care? I also still coulnd't find a french royal standard for my flag collection. For shame Versailles, for shame. There were also two huge treaties signed here to end the Revolutionary War and WWI. Not a peep from the audio guide or mention on the tour. Maybe a plaque or something would have been nice. Oh well. It was still a lovely day-trip and good to get out of the cramped, dirty Parisian neighborhoods and into a very pretty suburb.

Thursday night we had quiche for dinner and drank significant amounts of wine. We decided to go out to an absinthe bar with our friends who were in the hostel nearby. The bar was close to Claire's apartment and we thought we could get there with two quick turns. Unfortunately, we somehow got lost and were wandering around the Parisian streets by ourselves. We finally found the bar, with a sort of spanish satanic feel to it, and got a table. Lizzie ordered us shots of absinthe for 5 euro apiece - not bad at all. She asked someone at the bar if this place had good absinthe, and they said Bar Cantata was the oldest absinthe place in Paris, and they still took the time to do it the right way by dissolving it in sugar and letting it drip through a bowl into a glass. I watched the bartender prepare the drinks. They were legit and tasted like black licorice. Two biker-dudes at the bar were sort of flirting with Lizzie - not in a creepy way, although that's how they looked. Lizzie didn't look phased but asked me to pretend to be her boyfriend. I stood behind her and nodded along with whatever French she was saying. The absinthe didn't cause us hallucinations or any of the horror stories people talk about. It did get us drunk enough to get lost on the way home again, but overall it was quite a pleasant experience. Probably not worth doing again, but at least now I can say I tried absinthe in a legal context. I was thinking of the song by Minus the Bear, again, called Absinthe Party at the Fly Honey Warehouse, where they drink a lot of wine and do "absinthe after dinner." I think this song matches the last 4 days of our Spring Break almost to a t, but I didn't realize it until the Rodin museum on Saturday. It might become apparent after I post the lyrics.

Go find another playground

Alright so I'm jumping back and forth between Spring Break and London, trying to make sure I cover everything before I forget. Last time I journalled about London was Tuesday, so I'll go from there.

Wednesday was St. Patty's. Being college students and proud Fighting Irish, we celebrated the day in style. Class was ... interesting to say the least. Everyone was clad in green, to the confusion of some of our English professors. After class we headed to Waxy O'Connors, an Irish pub next to O'Neill's in Chinatown for a drink. It was packed, and they didn't have any more free hats, so we left there looking for another pub. A guy on the street handed us a flyer coupon for a free pint at a list of pubs on Piccadilly, so we went to the first one we could find and got a free Guinness. There were more revelers than I thought there would be in the pubs. I guess American culture is starting to seep in over in England.

We pub hopped to a trendy place called Verve for another drink, and Coleen, Alexis, Danny, and I went back for some dinner at an Italian place near the flats. We went to The Green and Exmouth Arms and called it an early night, seeing as it had been a long day of drinking.

Thursday I was told to go into Parliament late, since Simon was sick and Peter would be at a conference until two. I was supposed to go in at 11 and answer the mail and work on letters. I arrived at 11 to find the office empty ... and locked. Since I don't have a key, I was pretty much stranded. I texted Peter and went downstairs for some coffee. I periodically checked the office to see if my boss had returned from committee, and after about a half hour of wandering Portcullis I decided to take advantage of my free time. I went into the Palace and up into the public gallery to watch Parliament in action. It was Business Question time, and the opposition was grilling Harriet Harmon, Gordon's deputy, about EDMs and vulture funds and attacking Gordon for apologizing about his mistaken Iraq inquiry testimony (he claimed that defense spending in real terms had increased every year he was chancellor, which is not true). The house was half empty, and at times the opposition deputy leader looked like he was taking a nap. There were a lot of younger students and tourists in the gallery, and I felt smart knowing exactly what was going on in the debates below.

At noon I went back to Portcullis and found my boss alone in the office working on a campaign pamphlet. He let me in and I tackled the mail and answered a few phone calls. Alun reviewed the stuff I had worked on last Tuesday - correspondence with several of his colleagues about environmental and religious hate crime issues, and he made a few changes and gave me the ok to send them out. He went to lunch and I had the office to myself. I organized the mail and updated the invitations in the diary. I made a few phone calls Alun told me to make and got the office in order for when Peter would return. As I was about to leave for Church Music class, a picture on Simon's desk caught my eye. It was a picture of my boss repelling off of a tower, with someone's handwriting on a note posted on the frame: "Sure, Tony, I'll tackle the hunting bill!" I am glad my boss has a sense of humor about the controversy over his support of the Hunting Act of 2004, which changed some fox hunting laws to protect the foxes and dogs used in the sport. Peter arrived as I was leaving, and I updated him on the state of the office and hurried in to the London Center for my first new fine arts section.

Church music should be fun, as we get to go to Westminster Abbey for evensong and we are seeing Handel's Messiah this Wednesday. After class I went back to Parliament to give Coleen, Danny, and Alexis a tour of the palace. I bluffed my way through some of the tour, but the cool parts like the Norman Porch and the rooms adjacent to the Lords chamber were closed for the night. The guards let us go into the Lords chamber and the House of Commons, even though I technically wasn't allowed to take them since I am not an MP. The tour was adequate, and I worked out some chinks for when I give others tours. We went back for dinner in Coleen's room and called it an early night, as we were all exhausted from St. Patty's the day before.

On Friday I went for a nice run and stayed in most of the day to catch up on some work and my blog. Emily was in from Rome for the weekend on her spring break, so I cleaned up the flat, which was still a disaster area from Wednesday. I hung out in the flat for a long time waiting for Emily or TJ to get in touch with me. In the meantime, Peter and I had planned on going to Manchester on Sunday for the Man U v. Liverpool match. Peter bought tickets from a guy in Scotland for 90 pounds apiece over the internet, and we withdrew the cash and sent it to him via money order. Wait, we sent money in a money order for an internet purchase? Peter was checking through his emails and suddenly realized he had been completely scammed. Freaking out, we checked our bases and realized we had indeed been duped into sending money to Manchester without ever receiving tickets. We ran to the post office to cancel the money order, and, thank God, the post office guy gave us a stern "you guys are idiots" speech and refunded us the money. Whew. Peter took me out to dinner at a tapas bar in Exmouth Market because he felt bad for almost losing a lot of our money. Getting impatient later in the night, Coleen and I went to Exmouth, where Peter was tending bar for the night. The owner had told him he could have free beer if he cleaned up glasses and tended bar for the night. We went up and heckled his pours with the other locals, who seemed to enjoy his presence.

We went back past the flats to our other local, the City Pride, and I found Emily and TJ there for Karaoke night. We hung out for a bit and took a picture to make our friends back home jealous. I was still relieved I had saved almost 200 pounds in a scam, so I spent money like a drunken democrat this weekend. Ok, I didn't spend THAT much, but I bought a few more pints than usual. We went to bed fairly early again in anticipation of a busy day on Saturday. We woke up in the late morning and decided to go to Portobello Road market, a massive market in Notting Hill with antiques, jewelry, and clothes.

While it was much more of a female oriented market, I still had fun looking at old stuff, especially in one store with WWII memorabilia and some old hand stitched British flags for sale. I was very close to buying a Scottish royal standard, the yellow one with a red lion, for 25 pounds, but I conveniently took cash out of my wallet so that I couldn't buy anything. We met up with Emily for lunch at an Italian place that served pizza on gigantic meter long boards. It was right near the Travel Bookstore from the movie Notting Hill. I was much less excited about that than the girls were. We also passed George Orwell's old house on the way in, which made me happy. It was a fun day at the market, despite my boredom at some of the shops. I even got kicked out of one stand by a fat, slug-like gypsy looking woman who got mad at Kate for pretending like she wanted me to try on a crappy trinket earring. She told us to "go find another playground," and I thought she was joking until she said "did you hear me? Go find somewhere else to play around." Kate and Lizzie were going to buy something until she kicked us out. You make more flies with honey than with vinegar, sweetie. Last night we hung out in TJ's room and watched Kansas get whipped by Northern Iowa on our computers, which made me very happy. Emily left in a hurry, and we went back downstairs to watch Life of Brian. We were drunk and very tired, so we quit halfway through and went to bed.

Today Coleen and I went to mass and then a bunch of us went to the Pride to watch the Man U match that Peter, TJ, and I were supposed to be at. Man U won 2-1, and I splurged on a pint and lunch, given that I had saved almost 100 pounds that afternoon by not going to the game. Tonight I will try to finish my SB journal as well as catch up on other work and plan for my family visit next weekend!

Pretty pictures.

On Wednesday of Spring Break we headed to Claire's apartment, where we would be staying the rest of the time. We met Peter there and he gave us the ground rules: don't touch or break anything. Check. The apartment is a small one bedroom with a small living room and smaller kitchen - but we made it work and the price was right. It was about a fifteen minute tube ride into the heart of Paris. Not a bad deal at all. Hooray for meeting people at the Rocket.

We used Peter's last full day in the city of lights to do something he hadn't done - the Musee D'Orsay. We left a little before noon and played those tricky mind games that have a simple rule that you are supposed to figure out (ie - the name of the game is pedals around the rose, the name of the game is important ... ) on the tube on the way down. We enjoyed the semi-agreeable weather and took a long walk along the river into the museum. The building is gorgeous with a large great hall and galleries on either side and massive vaulted windows and ceilings. It is a rather new museum, only about 20 years old, but it houses a collection of Renoit, Van Gogh, and Monet, as well as other impressionists and realists. We convinced the people to let us in free, saying we were EU residents under the age of 25 (even though the rule is you have to be living here for more than 6 months). This trick worked at every museum except Versailles. More about that later.

We did our traditional museum strategy - split up and meet back at the beginning at a set time. That way we could all tackle the stuff we wanted to see at our own pace. I did the center aisle first, seeing most of the sculptures. One of the most striking was a bust of an ethiopian woman with two types of stone - black marble for her skin and white for her robes. I was amazed at the combination of stone and the skill it took to make that statue. The right wing of the gallery is primarily impressionists and realists, including the famous crowd picture of Renoit and the Water Lily pond by Monet. I stared at the pictures for a long time and marveled at their often simplistic beauty. I knew my sister would have appreciated this gallery more than I did, so I took some pics of the Monet. I knew she read a book about Monet and liked this bridge picture. After seeing it up close, I know why.

I wandered around the upstairs galleries for a while and spent too much time in some of the more mundane rooms with furniture in them. There were some impressive realist paintings of battlefields upstairs which were quite striking and a gigantic room of mirrors and brilliant chandelliers. By the time I made it back down to the impressionist galleries I was rushed and tired for the Van Gogh exhibit. I read a little of the descriptions on the walls to catch up on my art history before I went into the Van Gogh rooms. His and the impressionists paintings are known for their broad strokes and swirls, especially Van Gogh. Even his self portrait, in which he looks kindof pissed, has random swirls in the background. I didn't pretend to bluff through knowing about what I was looking at, so I just stood back and revelled in the beauty without trying to analyze anything. I can only stand so many paintings at one time, but the Orsay was a great little museum that took about two hours to do. Lots of notable stuff, but not as overwhelming as the Louvre or British Museum. Definitely my most favorite art museum this semester. Quite an enjoyable time.

After the museum we tubed it back so Peter could leave for Perpignon, back near Montpellier in the south, to meet Claire's parents, leaving us alone to squat in Claire's apartment. On the way through Montpellier, Peter ran off of the train and spit on the train staiton in which we had so many stressful hours. Although team Hot Route had been split up, leaving me alone with three girls, we were still together in spirit. That night we had cheap pasta for dinner and Coleen and I went out near the other ND kids' hostel , which was nearby, for a drink. Unfortunately, the only girl in our group who spoke any french was decently drunk at the time, so we had to bluff our way through ordering our 4 euro half pints. The French aren't good at beer, that's for sure. Our first full day in France was a relaxing one. Not having to cram what we wanted into four days enabled us to have a much easier time of hitting the museums. By the end, I also felt like we lived there a little bit, since we cooked by ourselves and traveled into town every day. You cannot really experience a city until you immerse yourself there for a few days, and staying there for a considerable period of time enabled us to at least experience sort of what it is like to be a Parisian. While it was fun, I wouldn't have wanted to be in France any longer. But that's just me.

Reppin the Show Me State

Ok I took a quick facebook tagging break to cleanse me of my bad RyanAir energy, but now I'm ready to keep blogging. Thank God for no class on Fridays.

We arose at about 630 to head to the train station to check trains to Barcelona. While we are in line we hear that the trains are stuck in the mountains to Barcelona (there was this annoying chime sound every time they would make an announcement. It still sends chills down my spine). Even though the other three girls are still stranded, we made the decision that it was in our best interest to go to Paris instead, seeing that the morning train to Spain was going nowhere. We frantically tried to buy tickets to the 7:30 am train to Paris, but we missed by a few minutes. We waited in line and bout 80 euro tickets up North where it was warmer. Thanks RyanAir. Thanks.

Since we had some time to kill, we went a close to spain as we could - a tapas bar in the train station. We ordered coffee and croissants in french for breakfast, a far shot from Barcelona. Coleen and I, the ones with the most Spanish experience, were probably the most disappointed in not being able to make it to Spain. It was the one leg of the trip that we had some built in relaxation in our itinerary, which had already been torn to shreds, and I was looking forward to trying some Spanish and seeing some museums at a leisurley pace. Oh well. Life sucks, Get a helmet. Unless you are Ryan Air, who likes to run away from their problems. But I digress.

After breakfast we went where else but McDonalds! Free wifi and heat. We looked for hostels in Paris for the night and I checked the internet for info on the wine statue to Missouri wine growers in Montpellier. This was the one thing I remembered form my sister staying here a few years ago, and I figured I might as well try to see it if I was stuck in the city for a few hours. I found the statue and looked at its location on a map, only to realize it was in a plaza right next to the McDonalds. I looked out the window and saw the statue. Score one for Charlie, finally. After I ordered chicken nuggets Coleen and I walked across the street to look at it. It is basically a monument to some scientist dude from Missouri who figured out the Missouri's grape stalks were similar to the South of France, so he sent some stems over and they grafted them onto the French ones to make them resistant to a disease that was killing them off. Again, America to the rescue. I took a pic with my Mizzou shirt to tell Montpellier who was boss. You're Welcome, France.

We got onto the train, and Peter was stranded in a seat by myself. I passed out of exhaustion before the train left the station, and, before I knew it, we were 45 minutes outside of Paris. The French countryside was surprisingly barren. I was expecting wine terraces and some other arrogant sounding stuff, but it was just snow and dead trees. We pulled into Paris at noonish and tried to find Claire, Peter's girlfriend who had booked a hostel for us and who would be lending us her apartment for four nights. It took us forever to find her - Claire speaking rapid french into the phone to Lizzie and all five of us wandering around the station in a city we don't know. We finally got a hold of her, bought expensive five days tube passes (two extra days of travel, thanks again, Ryan Air), and headed off to our crappy hostel, preyy far away from the center of town. We got some food and turned right back around to head in to see the Eiffel Tower at sunset.

Our first tower visit was so blistery cold it wasn't funny. Having forgot gloves, my hands were numb before we even got to the steps. The climb up was frightening due to my usually dormant fear of hieights, but the first level, about 50 m up, was worth the scary climb. Although not as impressive as the good ole Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (for all you non St. Louisans out there - its the Arch, the tallest monument in the world), the Eiffel Tower was pretty awesome. We wandered around the first deck for a bit and read some history of the building and Lizzie showed us different landmarks in Paris. Kate and Peter were impatient to take the elevator all the way to the top to see the sunset, but we missed the last car up. We settled for a climb higher to the second deck to watch the sunset.

As we were heading up to the second level, we ran into another ND group of girls, most of whom are good friends with Coleen, Kate, and Lizzie. Small world again. We all trekked up to the second level and too pretty pictures on the top. They gave Coleen and I some romantic time alone, and I took advantage. Coleen promised earlier in the week that the only place where she would let us be photographed kissing was on the Eiffel Tower, so we obliged our friends and let them be paparazzi while we kissed. It was kind of weird being photographed kissing, but it is one of the most romantic places in the world. When we are all famous later I guess we will get used to being photographed all the time. We watched the sunset and all sang the ND fight song and Alma Mater for some reason. As we were about to leave, the lights on the side of the tower came on, and it was cool. One thing Mr. Eiffel has on Mr. Saarinen (for all you non St. Louisans - the guy that designed the arch), is that the tower looks kickass at night. I bought a postcard with the three levels of the tower in red, white, and blue lights to symbolize the French flag. It looked way cool (although some would say they only needed white lights - hahaha).

We walked around downtown Paris for a bit and wandered into a restaurant Peter had been to before - el Royal cafe. Three courses and wine for 12.50 euro. It was excellent. Lizze had to order for us in French. I had choux, some sort of layered spinach and meat ... thing that was really really good. We were all thoroughly satisfied with our meal and happy we actually had happy French people instead of the pissed off people in Montpellier. It was a satisfying first day in France, even though we should have been touring Barcelona at that point. In honor of our plan changes, we dubbed ourselves team Hot Route, after the football play where the QB audibles at the line of scrimmage. In order to explain what a hot route is, Peter and I had to use a scene from Wedding Crashers to describe it to the girls. Our official symbol became the earmuffs, when Jimmy Clausen used to put his hands over his ear holes to signal his receivers that he was changing the play. Again, more explanation for the girls. We went to bed early to start Paris anew tomorrow. Plans changed, but our group adapted accordingly and kept on truckin. Hot Route for the win.

Hail, Hail, to Ryan Air, the assholes of the world ..

I don't have too many pictures from Monday of Spring Break, since it is a day all of us would rather forget. We woke up extremely early in Lucca for our trip back to Galileo Airport in Pisa. We got a little lost looking for the airport, but Peter's and my Eagle Scout senses of direction got us there in plenty of time. We got some breakfast, hung out in the duty free store (apparently duty free doesn't count when traveling within the EU. I guess they need all the taxes they can get though), and fell asleep waiting for the plane to arrive. Three American girls were also in the terminal, and "totally judged" us when Peter fell asleep on my shoulder. Bromance for the win. We got on the plane sad to leave Tuscany, but I was excited to see Barcelona, which most people say is the most fun city in Europe. I broke out my Spanish phrase printout and began practicing how to order food and ask for directions.

Unfortunately, that was the only Spanish I would use that day, since the flight crew got on the radio about 20 minutes away form landing time and said they had to circle to wait for the runways to clear. Apparently it snowed like 2 feet in Catalonia and the south of France. After about 5 minutes the captain got on the radio and said we were diverting to Montpellier, which is about 5 hours from Girona, the city we were flying into. They promised they would refuel and fly back into Girona that day. We chalked this day up to a lost travel day, and began making plans for what we would do in Barcelona late that night. Circling Montpellier, the captain says that they are arranging a bus for us to get to Girona, a far cry from getting us there on time, but still with the realms of legality. Finally, the last announcement in the air before we land in Montpellier is that the crew is "working on something" and someone in the airport will "take care of us." We wait about 20 more minutes on the tarmac in Montpellier for the regional airport, which RyanAir does not fly out of, to give us entry clearance. They announce that we should go talk to the RyanAir representative in the airport and they will take care of us. No promise of a bus or plane to Girona.

We went into the airport and I immediately began looking for someone in RyanAir's disgusting, Michigan-esque royal blue and piss-yellow outfits. There is no-one to be found. Most of the 150 or so passengers are mulling around trying to figure out something to do, and eventually people began queuing up at the tourist information desk to ask questions. Since the line was long, we decided to eat lunch in France. Croque Monsieuer (fancy word for expensive grilled ham and cheese sandwich) and Amstel light to celebrate another twist in our Spring break trip. After the line died down, Peter and I went up to the tourist desk and politely asked the obviously flustered women about the Ryan Air flight and what was going on. Their response: RyanAir isn't here, we don't know why you are here, there is no way to get to Girona from here, we can't help you, go to the train station to figure it out.

So basically, the bastards at RyanAir deserted us in the south of France instead of fulfilling their legal obligation to provide us a way to get to our destination. Most of the people on the plane were Italian or American and didn't speak a lick of French. Montpellier also happens to be the racial hate crime hotbed of Western Europe, and the US state department has put a travel advisory on this shithole of a place (it's even bad for France, and that's saying something). Not to mention, there was six inches of snow on the ground, and it's supposed to be a beach town. Thank you RyanAir for abandoning us in this place. You really acted like a decent, law abiding corporation with your actions today. I knew something was up when the flight attendants didn't look me in the eye, smile, or say anything as we left the plane. They locked the door behind us as we entered the airport and peaced out. CLASSY.

The severity of our situation didn't really hit home for me until we found three American girls at the tram stop on the way to the train station. Lizzie spoke fluent French, which allowed us to figure out where we were going, but these girls didn't know French at all and were wandering, asking conductors in English where they should go. Not a good idea. We told them to tag along with us until we could figure something out. The train station, where we spent a lot of time in line looking for trips to Barca, was useless. All the trains were canceled due to the unseasonal snow. We decided that our chances of getting to Barcelona that night were nil, so we went to a McDonald's to use their free wi-fi and look for a hostel. It's sad that the safest place in this city is the McD's in the central square. We warmed up and tried to cheer up and make the best of our situation. For our group, it was Spring Break, so we didn't really comprehend how screwed we were by RyanAir until we learned how the other girls had to get back to Spain for class or to visit friends and were on a much tighter schedule than we were. Not to mention all of the people who have real jobs who were stranded in the WRONG COUNTRY. Seriously, geography lessons for the captain might be in order. We checked the website at McD's, and RyanAir calmly reported that our plane had landed safely in Reus, Spain, and they had bussed us safely into Barcelona already. Cold-blooded, deliberate dishonesty.

We found a cheap hostel that was my responsibility to pay for, since I was in charge of the Barca hostel. I called the Barca hostel and told them that we had to cancel, and they waived the cancellation fee, or so I thought. Our hostel in MontP was pretty nice and run by a young person who sympathized with us and bashed RyanAir along with us for a few minutes. We met some Italians on the flight at McDonalds, and we went back their at 7 for dinner and to discuss options. Some of the Italians were a little overzealous, and we walked through Montpellier to their hostel to call RyanAir's service line and the airport (you have to pay for service calls to Ryan Air, btw). Lizzie got cursed out on the phone by an angry woman at Montpellier airport, thinking Lizzie was a Ryan Air rep. The woman said the airport had already filed its own complaint for the airline leaving 150 head of cattle, oh sorry, people, for the airport to sort out. The Italian folks wanted to go to the police to file a report. Peter and I tried to talk one person out of walking to the police station, seeing as we had a bunch of females and not a lot of men walking through a dangerous French city at night. We agreed to walk to one cop station near our hostel and then to go home because we felt unsafe and unwelcome.

The cop station was closed (of course), so the 8 Americans went our own way. I felt safe traveling in a large group, but several of the girls were beginning to freak out. We got funny looks from people around every corner, and I had my hands clamped over my wallet and passport the whole time. Earlier in the day I thought I had been pickpocket and lost my ipod. Turns out it was in Peter's backpack. We simply were not welcome in that city that night. Thanks again, you pathetic excuse for an airline RyanAir. Even better, I had to pay for this lovely experience, and overdrew my account in doing so. We went back to the hostel and decided to call it an early night. We owuld try to make it to Barcelona early tomorrow morning, and if the trains were canceled, we would screw Barcelona and head to Paris early. We were in a better situation than most, since we could alter our plans at any point. Had it been a different context, I probably would have stormed to the police just like the Italians and tried to get answers. Either way, we put our names on an email list the next morning and have been receiving Italian and Spanish emails regarding the complaint process, legal actions, contacting the press and trying to recover from this nightmare of a day. To cheer up, we pushed our beds together in the hostel and had a team slumber party. Somehow I convinced the girls to have a pillow fight, which completely made my trip. I got like four pictures. Something about girls waling on each other that makes any man happy I guess. We went to bed frustrated but happy we were all safe, making fun of RyanAir the whole way. My next RyanAir flight to Rome will be my last, and if I am not reimbursed by then, I will do as much to disrupt their procedures as I can without getting kicked off of the plane. I will get my reimbursement by taking up the flight crew's man hours if I have to.

Examples: I just wanted to check with the pilot to make sure he knew what country we were flying to. Could you ask him for me? Is there a corporate representative here that I can speak with, or should I just go to Montpellier, and will you take care of me there? No I don't want to buy any food today, but if you don't mind, I'm going to go up and down the aisles and try to peddle my own crap, would that be okay? Nice uniform, btw. I think this all goes back to the fact that RyanAir has the same colors as Michigan. Some colors just aren't meant to be put together.

How we Operate.

After a long and arduous St. Patrick's day and another day in Parliament, frought with my first guided tour of the palace, I finally have time to catch up on Spring Break since I don;t have class tomorrow. On the first sunday of break, our last full day in Tuscany, we headed out to Florence (or Firenze, which is a much cooler name), for the most touristy part of our Italian leg. I fulfilled my job and woke up the crew fairly early, getting some angry looks from the team as we got ready in the freezing house. We were all pretty cranky for the train ride in, and I fell asleep for most of the way. Apprently we got fined for not validating our tickets, and a gypsy came by and cursed us because we didnt give her money. You miss so much by sleeping on trains.

We got into Florence in time for 10am mass at the Duomo, the gigantic cathedral in the center of town. Mass was in Italian and sparsely populated with the faithful, so we got front row seats under the dome. The interior of the church was pretty bland, except for the spectacular dome which was decorated with pictures and mosaics. Mass was interesting from what I could make out, except it was entirely too cold in there. We ran into some other ND girls from the London program inside. Leave it to ND kids to find each other at Masses around the world. We didn't climb to the top, since we were on a time crunch. All in all, the mass in the Duomo was a fairly forgettable experience, but that does not take away form the grand austerity of the cathedral in the central square.

After mass we walked around for a bit and stumbled on a fairly tourist looking cafe for lunch. Having eaten in the entire time so far, we wanted to get the traditional pizza experience out of the way. We all ordered different flavors and tried each others. I had sausage and onion. To be honest, I'd prefer Imo's or Knott Food Sales over the stuff we paid for in Italy. Americans tend to do things like this better. It was cool to say we ate real pizza in Italy, though (even though I think I heard that pizza was invented in the middle east or china or something like that and then brought to America. whatever).

After lunch we headed towards the Academia, the museum housing the infamous David statue. There are two museums in Florence that are must sees - the Academia and the Uffizi. The Academia has the David and the Uffizi has everything else. Seeing as we are not Art history majors and most of the stuff in the Uffizi would be lost on us, we opted for the Academia and were not dissapointed in the least by seeing this outstanding replica of my body with the head of David on top. The girls got in free since it was women's day, and Peter and I paid 6 euro, so about 9-10 bucks to see the statue and sneak a few pictures. Besides a few interesting paintings, there was really nothing else interesting in the small, non-descript (really, we walked past the building before knowing what it was. it looks like a warehouse) Academia besides David. It was well worth it to see the real thing, however. The statue is enormous, and every inch is perfectly sculpted, from the tone of his thigh muscles to the veins in his arms. It was marvelous to look at - it was like I was looking in a marble mirror of myself! But in all seriousness, I did not realize that the David had become such a symbol of civiv pride for Renaissance Florence. They adopted the statue as a symbol of their city being an intellectual leader, and he used to live in one of their main squares. I am glad we went to see the Academia, as it was a quick, 45 minute stop for a great memory, while the Uffizi would have worn us down with an onslaught of Italian painters. I got enough paintings at the Louvre later in the week anyway.

We departed the Academia and walked back across town to the Ponte Veccio, a gorgeous bridge over the river with spectacular views of the city. On the way, Peter and I got into a fake fight in front of the Duomo when he touched Coleen. You don't don't touch my woman, Peter. We drew some heads in our stage combat extravaganza, but we made up quickly. We stopped in the famous leather markets and I examined some leather jackets. I really wanted to get one, but only for 100 euro or less. Some guy tried to sell me a high quality one for 140, but I couldn't talk him down. All of the salesmen their used the same tactic - saying that the product is real Italian and not made in China like the other stuff. I guess that works on most American tourists. I settled for a burgundy silk tie for 7 euro that Lizzie and Coleen helped me pick out. We made it to the bridge and took some good picks and continued walking. Peter and I bought a Florentine flag for our rooms next year. I wanted to get a flag from every country I went to, but France failed me (a white table cloth should count for them though, right?)

We were starting to get tired and cranky again, but we decided to go to the Piazza Michelangelo, a plaza overlooking the city and mountains with gorgeous views. The climb up the stairs was tiring, and Lizzie bought us gelato to thank us for following her, since she was the only one who really wanted to go. The views on top were well worth it. You could see the Duomo in all of its awesomeness as well as the shops and squares. We ran into another Saint Mary's girl on the plaza. Another small world moment. We took pictures of Peter jumping off of the ledge, in keeping with our tradition of getting pictures of him jumping over Europe. We made the decision on top that we would head home - since the day had already gone long.

It was dark on the way back from Lucca and we got lost looking for a place to eat dinner. We finally stumbled on a restaurant called il gattina bianco and went inside to one of the best restaurant meals I have ever eaten. The menu was three courses and hit us about 30 euro a person. In for a penny, in for a pound, right? Peter couldn't read the menu, so we needed the server to translate everything for us. Apparently I missed something when he read us the menu, because I ordered boar. Twice. The first dish I had was an excellent chicken salad. Peter, Kate, and Lizzie had sampler plates with delicious fish and meat dishes. Lizzie didn't like the calamari because it had suckers. The second course was the pasta, and I had flat noodles with boar meat in a delicious sauce. We were all stuffed by the time the "main" course came. Boar again, this time in slices with a different glaze. It was spectacular. Peter had a truffle filet minon. We were all enthralled with our means, except coleen because her steak was too rare. We splurged for desert, too, and thanked the waiter for helping us decihper (somewhat) the menu. He even let us take a copy home, against the wishes of his boss. Best. Meal. Ever.

Our last night in the house had us attempting to finish 1.5 jugs of chianti, which, thanks to our Fighting Irish seasoning, was not too difficult (Peter helped a lot). We threw a load of laundry in the washer to have some clean clothes for Barcelona when Kate stepped out of the shower to 2 inches of cold water on the floor. The washing machine broke, so the girls hand washed our clothes while the boys wrung them dry and hung them up. Gender roles to the rescue. We laughed off the setback, not even having realized that it would pale in comparison to the circus that would happen the next day. We wrote a heartfelt inaugural note in the guest book we bought for the house and went to bed early. In a few days we had gone from five sort of random college kids to a tight knit family. We bonded over wine, honey, bread, and coffee, as well as taking in the gorgeous sights of Tuscany while learning about each other. It could not have been a more perfect three days. Even the frustrating parts -- the laundry, waking up early, getting lost, the cold house, made the good parts even better. As Coleen mentioned in the airport as we got on the plane "No good story begins with 'we got to the airport two hours early and everything went fine.'" Our break was fraught with mishaps, but they just brought us all closer together. As a favorite band of mine says: "Calm down, come right on over. And when we collide, we'll see what get's left over." Put five kids in a cold Tuscan villa for three days and see what happens -- I'll have plenty of stories for my kids, and plenty of memories to share years from now when I look back on this break. Tune in tomorrow for Charlie's Roast of Ryan Air.

So Bill Gates, God, and the Devil walk into a bar ...

I'll take a quick break from Spring Break to blog about my day at work, since I want to write it down for my journal I have to turn in.

I got into work a bit early and found the usual stack of papers on my desk with postcards and a few letters from constituents. I also had mail addressed to me about training in the House of Commons Library. I was really excited to see my name printed on HOC letterhead. I cranked out a couple of new responses regarding dog meat in the Philippines and some other stuff fairly quickly. It used to take me forever to research the issues in these letters, but I am getting much better and understanding the feel and tone I need to present in the letters. After taking care of the diary business, I looked up some jokes for a speech my boss was doing at a dinner later that night.

Since the dinner was for IT professionals, an interest of my boss, we looked up jokes concerning government and computers and the Internet. It was actually hard looking up relevant jokes that would be funny to IT professionals in this context. We came up with a few one-liners about Bill Gates and then went to lunch. We talked about my trip to Europe and our RyanAir debacle. Everyone seems to have their own two cents about how we should react to our despicable treatment last Monday. My poli sci professor seemed to like Ryan Air since theu lower the market, forcing other airline prices down and opening up travel to a whole new customer base. I must say this is true, but I found it funny that one of my bosses was sure to note that the Airline is based in Dublin and has nothing to do with the UK. Seems like it's good that RyanAir is there, for other people to use. We also talked about St. Patrick's Day in England -- apparently it's not really a holiday here. I gently explained the different Notre Dame activities we usually partake in on St. Patty's, given that we are the Fighting Irish and all. Thankfully I do not have to be in Parliament tomorrow, if you know what I mean.

After lunch I moved through a folder of papers my manager asked me to do discreetly, since it was work he was supposed to finish the week before. Most of it was policy correspondence on various issues like tree protection and encouraging sustainable driving or something liek that. I tackled most of the work fairly efficiently. I also finally got my own Parliamentary email and password, so I can send stuff from a fancy account now. Until the election is called, I will be going in three days a week, for less time on Monday and Thursday, since my class schedule has changed with the fine arts switchover. Hopefulyl I will be more engrossed in the work buy going in more often.

After work I went home and made dinner for Peter, Colin, and Matt, and Coleen and I went back to the Old Cheshire Cheese to have dinner with some of her friends from New York who were in to visit. I learned a lot of gossip about her high school days, and her friends seemed to enjoy the quintessential English pub atmosphere of the Cheese. The bartender poured her beer the wrong way, so we got an extra pint of Sam Smith's Organic Wheat. I passed the first friend test for Coleen, which is good I guess. I can only imagine if my friends from home came to visit London. We would light the place up I am sure. But I guess they will have to live vicariously through me byreading my blog. Happy St. Patrick's Day! Tomorrow should be fun.

Quite a Paintbrush He's Got

It's hard to describe the Cinque Terre in words, so I will let the pictures do most of the talking, even though they don't give it nearly enough justice either.

We made it in to Cinque Terre around noon at the southern most of the five isolated, coastal towns. Peter and I stopped in a small butcher shop and bought bread, meat and cheese for lunch, and we took in the amazing view of Riomaggiore, a very steep town that leads you down to sea level. The buildings and houses are all bright pastel colors, which add to the ambiance of the place. We had gorgeous weather too, and were able to take off our jackets for the only time all week. After several oohs and ahhs, to the point of obnoxiousness, we set off on the first hike along the ocean to the next town. On the way to Manarola, we found a little stairway down to the Mediterranean and ate lunch on the water on some slanted rocks. We watched the waves for a bit and dipped our feet in the ocean - surprisingly warm for March. I've been to my fair share of beaches around, and the only thing that can rival this beauty is the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. A lot of the scenery was strikingly similar, except for some reason the rocks and jagged cliffs of the seaside made the Cinque Terre feel a lot older than any of the other places I have been. I felt like we were hiking through an ancient paradise that only a priviliged few get to see.


We arrived in the second town, which was even more beaturiful than the first. I would love to live in one of these places for a few years and just watch people go by, reading a lot of good books along the way. That's the good life. I bet all of the people in those houses are supported by tourism, although there were several wine orchards on the cliffsides on our walk. The hike to the third town was long and semi-arduous, but my training at HH in the boy scouts made it go by easy. The trek up the long switchback, overlooking terraces of grape vines, was well worth it, and the view form the top of Corniglia was unbelievable. It's one of those moments where you realize that God exists. From a point at the top of the hill, the two sides of the mountains make a perfect V shaped picture frame for viewing the ocean with the valley beneath. You could see the sun reflecting off the ripples in the ocean for miles out as it drifted between the puffy clouds in the sky. I kept thinking of the line from the Truman Show when Jim Carey and his friend are watching the sunset, and Marlon says "That's the big guy. Quite a paintbrush he's got." Quite a paintbrush, indeed. It's hard to think that some people deny the existence of a universal power, a universal beauty, when all living things can come to this place and be just as awed as we were. Conveniently, there was a restaurant on top of the hill, so we went in and shared a bottle of house wine overlooking the ocean. We drank mostly in silence, with a view interruptions from a cat and an overzealous owner, and enjoyed the experience together.

The trails to the fourth and fifth towns were closed, so we took a train over to Manarola for what would be our final stop. Manorola probably had the best city center of all of the towns, with shops and cafes to eat on the walk down to the ocean. We stopped in for some gelato, and Peter found somebody that knew his family members from La Spezia, the big town nearest to the Cinque Terre. One of the art shop owners was from California and had married an Italian. We walked along to the little bay on the sea, where there was a boulder jetty out into the ocean. Just like Frances and I used to play on the rocks in Door County, we all climbed over the boulders and watched the sun set over the Mediterranean. There were jellyfish floating in the water, and we learned the Italian word for jellyfish - Medusa. After some relaxing on the rocks we headed back to the train station and waited for the train. I wrote some postcards in the station and read my book while everyone else looked at pictures. The day was as close to perfect as we could get, and the fact that we never made it to Vernazza, the fifth town, leaves just enough to make me want to come back. I feel like all of these trips have been thorough enough to get the experience, but short enough to leave you wanting more, just like our Howth trip in Dublin. I would love to come back to the Cinque Terre and hike the more strenuous higher paths and stay the night in a little B and B here. Either that or I will open up a cafe here and sell gelato to tourists all day and read books at night.

We took pictured atop the hill as the night grew darker and headed back into Lucca for the night. The girls slept while Peter and I went into the little store next to our house and bought dinner. It took Peter a while to explain that we wanted cream for carbonara sauce, which for some reason they didnt get. He did have a ten minute conversation with the folks in the store, who were very skeptical of us when we arrived the day before. We cooked dinner and had Enrica's daughter, who also lives on the property in a different home come over with her boyfriend Luca for drinks. We talked and shared wine, bread, cheese, and honey for three hours with these folks in broken English and Italian, talking about differences in our languages and cultures. Peter had an amazing time chatting with the two younger Italians and was even making jokes with them in the language. It was another great non-touristy experience, and I felt like a real adult hosting a real dinner party and not a college booze-fest. We drank Chianti like adults all night. Day two of break was just as gorgeous as day 1, and our group had quickly become galvanized into a mini-family. We joked about our different roles in the group, but in all seriousness, our personalities meshed well enough that we could depend on each other for ten days without wanting to slit anybody's throats at the end. I guess that is the sign of a true family.

A fitting start ...

Ok Spring Break. Here we go. I'm gonna do this in small, manageable chunks so I can get all I want on paper without glossing over my experiences for the week. So I'll try to journal about one or two days at a time so I can recapture some of the feel I guess.

Thursday night, 11 days ago, began the most epic 10 days of my entire life. It began with my trip into Parliament, which would have been a blog-worthy post in itself. I arrived to find one of my bosses off for his wedding, so I had a pile of mail and invitations to sort through, which is usually Simon's job. I felt like a real intern going through all the papers and doing secretary work for once. This didn't last long, though, as my MP had a meeting with some of his constituents about incorporating more audio description television captioning for blind people. He took us along for backup support as he explained the workings of Parliament to the group of visually impaired people and answered questions about Audio Description. I felt like an isider for once, standing behind him and basically just looking official while he talked with them. After the meeting he took them into the Gallery of the Commons so they could watch questions, and Peter and I snuck out back to the office to do some work. I left the office early in order to catch our flight to Pisa in time, leaving Peter to finish the pile of paperwork we had left.

I huffed it back to the flats and was exhausted from the 1.5 mile jog in my suit before I realized I had my MPs camera in my pocket. I called my office manager and told him I could come back to deliver it to Portcullis before I flew out. I threw my bag together, thank God I packed early, and ran right back down to Parliament, with heavy backpack in tow. I panted up to Big Ben from the Embankment, handed off the digital camera, and continued jogging to Victoria station for our bus out to Stansted.

Here is where the adventure begins. I arrive at the coach station and none of my travel buddies are there yet. The bus from the flats was stuck in traffic, and Coleen had gone to a different coach station (the genius English have two "Victoria Coach Station"s, thanks guys). I buy two tickets for Coleen and I with the expectation she will find me. She doesn't, and as I go to leave her ticket at will call so she can take a later bus, the bus leaves without me. It's about 2:30 pm, and we are still 90 minutes away from the airport from our 5:00 flight. Not panicking yet, I find Coleen and we hop on the 3:00 bus, hoping to get to Stansted by 4:15. Exhausted from running up and down Whitehall, I fell asleep on the bus, and wake up at about 4:30 and we are about 10 minutes away. Eek. Coleen and I book it into the airport and find the check in desk is about 50 people deep. I thought we were screwed until Peter called me and said to go to the far desk to get our paper stamped. Peter, Lizzie, and Kate had taken a 100 pound cab in order to get to the airport on time. We snuck through security, and about another half mile sprint, a few elbows, lots of excuse me's, and a middle finger, I made it to the last gate as the last passenger was boarding the plane. I stalled for a bit while Coleen caught up, and we were the last people on the plane before the doors shut, to the cheers of the other three in the back of the plane. Whew. A fitting beginning to the audible laden spring break to follow.

We landed in Pisa and exchanged hugs and high fives. Immediately I was happy we all experienced a stressful episode together in almost missing the flight so I could see how we would adapt under pressure. For the most part we all did very well, which came into play a few days later. We were all smiles when we were waiting outside Galilei for the bus. We took the bus to Piazza Miracolli and found the leaning tower in its empty, serene plaza at night. It was gorgeous walking down the plaza by ourselves and taking in the centuries old plaza together. We took some obligatory pictures and headed out to our hostel, which, conveniently, was about 100 yards away form the tower.

The place was really a bed and breakfast, and our five beds were extremely comfortable. We met some nice aussies in the kitchen, including a kid our age named Robbie. He was traveling alone, so we invited him out with us. Pisa is a college town, so we headed to the Piazza Garibaldi for a delicious kebab and some bar hoppin. We stopped in a bar called Blue China, a vodka bar run by asians, for our first Italian shots. We drank a bit at two bars and then called it a night. We walked back, quoting the Italian phrases from Inglorious Basterds a lot ("Dominic DeCocco") and the girls went to bed. Not done having fun yet, Peter, Robbie, and I took some booze from the honor fridge and walked to the tower for some boy time. We took some pretty sweet pictures of us and the tower at night, all of which I will not publish here so my Mom won't get mad at me. Let's just say that I got tempted by the perfect grass in the plaza and ran around the grass yelling stuff, when I may or may not have been allowed to. Either way the night ended with us running from the police back to our hostel.

The next morning we woke up early for our touristy tower pics and our trip to Lucca. We all took the standard holding up the tower pics, and I took one of me kicking it over, cause I'm awesome. I kept making the joke and saying "Hey, someone should tell the Italians that this tower is LEANING. I mean it looks like it's gonna fall over!" I thought it was funny. Although it was cold and raining, and I had a slight headache, the half hour or so we spent at the tower was amazing. I couldn't get over the pristine serenity of it all. The Cathedral, Duomo, and Tower all together made for a perfect 12th century setting. I remembered seeing pictures of people in front of the tower years and years ago when I was a kid and thinking I would never make it to that place. But here we were. We spent the perfect amount of time in Pisa -- one night of partying and a total of about an hour in the plaza with the tower. Apparently there is nothing else in Pisa. We headed back to the airport for our trip to Lucca and the next leg of our adventure. I'll show more pictures of Pisa and the tower upon request, but I really like this one:

After the bus to the airport we headed out to our house in Lucca, winding through Pisa and the backroads of Tuscany, singing American pop (baby I can see your Halo ...), getting lost frequently. We finally found Massa Macinaia, the little village outside of Lucca, a little past noon. Our Tuscan villa was gorgeous. The exterior looks very rustic, and the house is sort of built up on a much older, structure failing house behind it, but that increased the Tuscan charm. With two bedrooms, a large couch, and a creepy Jesus room, it comfortably slept the five of us, but it got very cold at night. We had no tv, radio, or internet, so we were forced to make use of the lost art of scrabble and conversation for three days. Difficult for our generation, I know.

After we got settled in, the housekeeper Enrica, who Peter's teacher that owns the house put us in contact with, took us on a tour of their organic bee and honey farm. Their family is one of the most well known bee-keepers in Italy, about a half block up from our house. She showed us the beehives and how they collect pollen and make the honey. She let us taste the different flavors of honey they make, each one better than the last. We all explained how we had never tasted good honey before, since we are all used to the over sweetened stuff that comes in a plastic bear. This stuff was delicious. It was awesome going off the beaten path for break and actually immersing ourselves in the culture outside of tourist destinations. No other SB group got to meet a beekeeper for their break! We all patted ourselves and Peter on the back for booking our house in Lucca so we could enjoy the experience.

After a quick stop at the house, we decided to head in to Lucca and do some walking around the ancient Etruscan/Roman city. The city center itself still has the old city walls around it -- a perfectly symmetrical oval shape with elaborate flourishes on several turns. It's hard to explain this city without drawing a picture. It reminded me of the computer game I used to play, Civilization II, where city walls give you plus ten defensive points (yeah, I'm a nerd). I finally realized why people had walls when we walked through these massive defensive positions built up on mounds of moved earth. Cool stuff. We walked into town and wandered around to the old squares and churches. We stopped in a ceramics shop and an Italian told us the difference between azurro and blue. Apparently there is a difference. We hit a gelateria (which is not pronounced like cafeteria, Lizzie found out), and liked it so much we decided to go on a gelato crawl. Less expensive than a pub crawl, and it doesn't get you drunk. Does make you fat though. We stopped at six gelaterias over the weekend just for the hell of it. Lucca was the most underrated places we went to on break - nice people, quaint squares, pretty churches and shops, and everything was walkable. A great first full day in Tuscany. We bought some wine and cheese from a local butchery shop. Peter ordered in Italian. We brought it home to cook with the spinach ricotta spaghetti that we had bought from the store across the street earlier in the day. Peter's Italian was already getting better, and the food we ate in Tuscany was delicious. Copa and Pecarino sandwiches for lunch was one of the best meals I have ever eaten. We drank copious amounts of Chianti and played hot seat scrabble, asking personal questions to each person in turn with the knowledge that the answers will never leave the room. It was a great way to get to know the team on a more personal level, which proved invaluable later in the week when things got stressful. We took an early night so we could wake up early for the Cinque Terre. Day One proved to be one of the best 24 hours of my life. Gorgeous cities with gorgeous people (on the outside and inside). Day two was just as good ...