What happens in Amsterdam . . .

street leading to grand place in brusselsmannekin pis, brussel's most famous monument
EU headquarters
this is how they do chess in amsterdam (ish)
amsterdam = canals!

Hello all!

Anna and I are in Amsterdam, staying on the top floor (a steep, long climb) of the Flying Pig hostel, and it's lovely. Everyone speaks English really well, which is both surprising and helpful--as neither of us speak Dutch.

Brussels was beautiful and clean and small and worth exactly one night of the trip (and we made friends with two Canadian boys, Dan and Steven). I'll put up pictures eventually.

Today's theme was: that was far more complicated than it needed to be. More on that at a later date.

Much love,
Charlotte

P.S. I AM TOTALLY BLAZED LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

auguste rodin gave good face

the thinker and the eiffel tower
I really like the faces on Rodin's sculptures, so I decided to take pictures of almost all of them. enjoy!
. . . . after this picture of the gates of hell



that's the invalides behind good ol' dante here, the dome that houses Napoleon's tomb, more on that later
angry from this angle
not so much up close


the hand of god, you can see it in the mirror, what good placement on the part of the museum!
kings and pawns, marshall
emperor's entombed

this is foucault's pendulum in the Pantheon. I went into the crypt, but didn't take any pictures because that's a little creepy. But they had Dumas, Zola, and Hugo all in one room, which was cool.

Today, I woke up feeling a little ill, ended up accidentally falling back to sleep until noon. by then, Anna had left for Versailles, and I took some time to reorganize my bag, for better or for worse. (I kind of wish I could ship some stuff home, but I wouldn't be able to choose what to part with yet.) I didn't end up leaving the hostel until a bit before one, and went to the Rodin museum until four. I loved just sitting in the statue garden, despite the chill in the air and ominous clouds in the sky, reading my book, surrounded by these great works of art. I sat between Balzac and Dante (the thinker), reading and just being in the city. I find such solace in museums, I think because you don't need to know the language in order to appreciate the art, their openness and spaciousness, the sense of security because everyone there had to by a ticket/go through a screener, and the motherly-associations I have in my psyche. I love them and always feel calmer when in them. I could have spent a lot longer at the Musee Rodin, but I wanted to fit a few more sights in, so I went to the tomb of napoleon (not as ostentatiously grand as I imagined it would be, though it is quite large. Overcompensating much, Mr. complex?

After that, I made my way to the Pantheon, which is a monument to the great Frenchmen, especially of the Enlightenment. Voltaire and Rousseau eternally guard the entrance to the crypt, Voltaire with a statue and a gilded sepulcher, which Rousseau's is plain and wooden, without the plaque on the wall, I would never have known who was interned there. I wonder if Rousseau feels gypped in the tomb department.

Then it was back to the hostel. I'm still feeling wiped from things and content with my visit to Paris, so I think I'm going to stay in tonight. we head to Brussels tomorrow morning, so stay tuned for pictures of the mannekin pis, which I'm told is exactly what it sounds like.

Love to you all.<3
Yes, the title is a reverence to "Vogue" by Maddonna. want to make something of it?

playing catch-up

s
Dublin, with Tina and Rob!
doing my "the hills are alive" bit in Regents
at the theatre with our new pashminahs (sp?)
yay mica!
yes, i was as terrified as I looked, but I still made it up the towers of Notre Dame. you can almost see my knuckles turning white from gripping that wire so hard, and this was the only time I was out of reach of the concrete walls, for I hugged them more than I hug my mom.

It’s been a while since I updated, I know, but we weren’t really willing to pay 1GBP for 20 minutes of internet while in London. Plus, it was London, so I wanted to be out in the city as much as possible.

Our last night in Dublin was filled with meeting friendly people (Tina and Rob from Australia and Virginia Beach (!), respectively) and a pub crawl that didn’t end when we were finished with the Literary Pub Crawl we paid for (and which wasn’t as good as I thought it would be). Traveling ryanair to london was a bit of a nightmare, for they put “boarding” on the big board on time, but we just ended up queuing for an hour. Anna’s cell phone died, so we had to deal with that (which resulted in a cross-London search for a Motorola battery), and we had to rush a bit to meet Jon and Hannah (and Brian, from my Eighteenth Century Novel Class, and another London group member who I didn’t know) at the Volunteer. They didn’t have the chicken and asparagus pie that made me fall in love with that pub last year, but the cute bartender who looks like one of the hobbits from LotR was still there (but not especially happy about it).

After that, we hung out at Regents with Hannah and Brian for a bit before returning to the hostel (where all of our roommates were asleep! It was London, on a Friday, who are these people?). Next day, we did Westminster Abbey, ate al fresco in Regents Park (in the “secret garden”), found Anna a battery, bought tickets to Spamalot, went to the theatre, and walked along the south bank of the Thames home—my favorite walk, my special way of saying farewell to London.

Next day, we checked out, saw this fantastic and fascinating exhibit at the Tate Modern on Global Cities, then took the train to Paris, where we are now.

We met up with Mica last night, saw her cute little apartment (her bathroom has a porthole!), thought about going up the Eiffel Tower, reconsidered, wandered, and finally sat on the Champs du Mars and snacked as we watched the Eiffel Tower sparkle on the hour for ten minutes. It’s great seeing these people I know on this trip, meeting up, sharing some experiences, and it’s especially nice in Paris because the more people around me who speak the language, the better.

Today, we’re off to a few museums (unfortunately, the Musee Rodin is closed today, so we’ll (or I’ll) have to fit that into the plan of going to Versailles tomorrow). Then probably meeting Mica for dinner around 8pm. I really don’t want to stay out too late in this city, I don’t feel especially safe, not that I feel especially in danger, either, but the metros stop running at midnight, and I’m fine not staying out longer than that. I like my sleep and I like seeing the sights more than I like drinking or clubbing or whatever it is people do past 2300. I’m missing home a bit, and being in Paris, I can’t help but miss my mom. I’ll push though and not dwell because I’m in Europe and I’m going to enjoy the hell out of it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edit: the post above was written this morning, since then my optimistic ending has proved a bit more difficult to follow through on for reasons not fit for public disclosure. I will say this, I hope this all works out but quick. There's always a few days in a trip that all the shit seems to rise to the surface, but, "Shit," I say, "you will not sully this trip for long."

a good day

Sorry about the quick post yesterday and anna's interpretation therein. Yesterday was a really good day, what with the gaol tour (and hearing an Irish accent for a good hour!), the walking about, and of course, Sweeney Todd, another excellent Sondheim musical. Very dark but also very funny and excellent music. I might have to add a more detailed review when I get time; anna and I have been singing the chorus periodically. Sorry about the sideways pictures, but I'm paying by the minute for internets, so I'm not going to spend too much time on them. The first two pictures are of the gaol, the second two are at the Irish Museum of Modern art (the latter of these two was grafitti that was too cool to pass up), and the final picture is of Dublin at night. I feel so rushed with this internet stuff, but do google Sweeney Todd and Kilmainham Gaol for more info.

Much love.

second verse, better than first

today was much better than yesterday. we visited gaol, saw where sinn fein murdered some people, and best of all - i fell in love with the demon barber of fleet street! more on all that tomorrow, with pictures! right now, i'm a little tipsy, 'cause anna convinced me to do "two and a half shots," in addition to a rum and coke. (anna's typing this, 'cause i'm too PLASTEREEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDDD LOLOLOLOLOLFKJDASPOFIJDSAPFIAS HI MOMMMMMMM)

CU L8R!!!!!1111111111!!

touch down in the land of guinness

Well, we're in Dublin now. It was a long, cramped flight. We didn't get much sleep and we have to stay up today in order to battle jet lag. I've also decided that i don't like internet cafes. don't like not knowing exactly how much i'm spending.

But we're in Dublin. so it's all good. except we're at a bit of a loss as to what to do with the little energy we have. We'll go to this museum about vikings in Dublin where we're supposed to be able to try on armour.

I can't even fathom how much longer i have to be awake today. but it's okay. it's dublin. we'll get a pint later and that will make things better.

<3

leaving day

In a few hours, Anna and I will be dealing with the wonders of the TSA, the lovely interiors of airports, and the recycled air of transatlantic flights, but all of that will be worth it because of the fact that in less than twenty-four hours we'll be in Dublin.

For the past few nights, I've been picturing myself on the Millennium Bridge over the Thames like my penultimate night in London last summer. This has been my strategy for calming myself down enough to fall asleep, and it's worked. Moreover, it's helped me get even more excited about the trip (though it's also making me almost wish we'd just stay in Ireland and the UK for most of the trip, then i fall into what I've come to cal the anglophile spiral, wherein all I can think about is how amazing London and England in general are and how i want to live there and oh my god london london thames regent street parks tube tea parks theatre london london ohmygodiwanttolivetheresobad).

ahem.

Now, for the real part of this post: following anna's lead, I'm putting my UK cell number here, because even if it gets to someone i don't want it to get to, if they really want to pay $2 a minute to call me, I don't have to pay, so more power to them.

We get unlimited free incoming calls, so if you've got a cheap way to make long-distance calls, please feel free to call. (I'm going to probably disable voicemail because I don't want to use my minutes listening to a recording.)
Phone number: 011 44 792 400 8110.

But of course, calls are going to be hit-or-miss with the time change and our fairly busy schedule, so commenting here is still awesome for getting in touch.

Much love!

Itinerary

I'm going to try to keep a blog of my European travels like I did last summer, but posts may be a little more spotty, as I won't have free and unlimited access to computers and the internet. But, as always, the first post is the itinerary.

June 18, 17:45, Norfolk to Philadelphia, US Air 1168W
20:51 Philadelphia to Dublin, US Air 722W
June 19-22, Dublin, leave via Ryanair 1124
June 22-24, London, leave via Eurostar chunnel train
June 24-27, Paris (Versailles probably June 25)
June 27-28, Brussels
June 28-30, Amsterdam
June 30-July 2, Berlin, leave via overnight train
July 3-4, Zurich
July 4-5, Munich
July 5-6, Salzburg
July 6-8, Vienna, leave via overnight train
July 9-10, Venice
July 10-11, Florence
July 11-13, Rome, leave via Dr. Ciuffo and his car
July 13-14, Naples
July 14, back to Rome to fly to Barcelona via Ryanair 9185
July 14-16, Barcelona
July 16-17, Valencia
July 17-21, Madrid (probable day trips to Toledo and Segovia), leave via overnight train
July 22-24, Lisbon
July 24, 10:25, Lisbon to Philadelphia, US Air 739Q
15:55, Philadelphia to Norfolk, US Air 3719Q
Arrive in Norfolk at 17:01

It's going to be nuts, and I'll try to keep you all updated.
I'll have a cell phone that gets unlimited free incoming calls, so once we figure out which phone is mine, I'll post the number. It's a UK number, so whoever calls me would have to pay for the long distance.

I'm excited and anxious, and I keep seeing commercials for movies coming out or tv shows coming up and I cannot suppress the squeal of "Oh my God! I'll be in Europe then!!!!"