Luxembourgeoisie

Goodbye, Europe

2005-12-15T16:28:50Z

Well, this is it. Last time I'll log in and update from Europe - next time I write I'll be back across the pond.

Still must figure out what I'm doing tonight. Meant to come back here and maybe meet Zoe, she's not here yet though. Hope she comes, otherwise I will be all alone for finding dinner. The chateau is so quiet, so many people have left. The front entry is loaded with luggage for the people leaving from here tomorrow. I'm leaving from the Lux City train station, so my luggage is locked up in one of their lockers. I'm probably heading over there around 2:45 or 3:00 in the morning, since it's an hour walk.

I'm not sure what else to write. I'm sad to be leaving this place. It's not like coming home from vacation, I actually got to live here. As much as I can't wait to get home, it's still hard to leave.

Ooogh. I am NOT looking forward to that flight tomorrow. Or that bus ride. I've run out of reading material and obviously have no more homework to do. Hmmmm... This could present a problem. Oh well, I'll work something out. At least after much ado and many tries with a scale, my luggage is of the appropriate weight. In the process, I also learned that I had dropped around 10 pounds over here. I stil don't know if I believe it, I thought I'd been gaining weight.

So yeah. This is it. Gotta find something to fill the next hours until I start my marathon journey back to Cincinnati. Au revoir, Auf wiedersehen and ADDI!

Huh.

2005-12-14T12:06:10Z

You Are the Individualist

4

You are sensitive and intuitive, with others and yourself.

You are creative and dreamy... plus dramatic and unpredictable.

You're emotionally honest, real, and easily hurt.

Totally expressive, others always know exactly how you feel.

What number are you?

Take that, exams!

2005-12-14T11:18:17Z

Final Exam Status: 4 down, 1 remaining

HST 438 exam (Western Heritage): Tore it up (not literally). No way that wasn't an A- at least. Unless of course I totally misinterpreted a question or something, but as of right now I think I have a good chance of pulling it off.

HST 472 exam (Rise and Fall of Hitler): Still recovering. That exam was a beast, I just finished it about an hour ago. Three essays - first one I think I got ok, it was asking about Hitler's decision to re-occupy the Rhineland and its consequences. Not terribly involved. The second one was awesome - explain and analyze the the Battle of Britain in August/September of 1940. British history? I can handle that. Third essay was the trouble one, we got to pick from two questions - either discuss the Warsaw Ghetto uprising (which, oddly, was neither in the lecture NOR the book), or talk about Reinhard Heydrich and the Wannsee Conference. Since I knew nothing about the Warsaw uprising, I had to do the other one.

Here's my mental notecard on the topic: "The Wannsee Conference was on Jan 20, 1942. It was called by Reinhard Heydrich, 2nd in command of the SS. At the Wannsee Conference, Heydrich announced the implementation of the Final Solution."

So based on that knowledge (and believe me, there wasn't too much to know on the topic) I had to write a short essay. Finely-tuned historical BS-ing skills are a necessity:) Other than that, I think it went tolerably well, and I'm seriously relieved it's over.

Top 5 Worst Exams in the History of My Universtity Education

5. HST 472 - Rise and Fall of Hitler
4. Russian 101 (when we first learned the meaning of tears:)
3. Russian 102 (continuing agony)
2. Russian 201 (total mental exahaustion and nervous breakdown)
1. Russian 202 (In which we finally submit, sign the confession of sabotage to the Communist Party, and go quietly down to the prison cellar)

So, in the long view, this past history class was really just a drop in the well compared to Irina Dmitrievna's butt-kickings. (I kid you not, hers was the only exam during which I have seen a grown man almost in tears) Nothing but good times ahead.

Just German left. Such a relief. I need to figure out what to do with my afternoon now since (probably thanks to being in Europe for a few months) my German is more than passable for someone who's only taken one semester of the language. Hoobah, time for a nap in the cave.

One exam down!

2005-12-12T11:04:10Z

I just finished with English! Yay! It wasn't bad, there was a question on existentialism that I think I nailed. There was another question on Freudian influenc in literature that I don't think I got quite so well, but that was possibly due to the fact that we never really *talked* about Freud in this class. Oh well, it's all over now. My response journal is turned in and everything. I'm just really hoping to pull an A out of this class, my GPA would be very happy with me. It seems so much more difficult to manage A's over here. We were told by most of the teachers that they try to make classes harder now in order to convince the people back in Oxford that we're getting an education and not just screwing around in Europe. Yeah, ok. Keep it up and people won't come to Lux because it'll hurt their GPA's too much.

One more exam today - music history. Backes always says tha this exams will be so easy, but then he asks for the most obscure facts from us. I'm sure this time will be no different, so naturally I'm going crazy about this. MUS 189 is another class I need an A from. The way I see it, I need to have A's in at least English, music history, and German. 12 credit hours of A and I might be able to deal with the two B's that are probable. Emile Haag is a great teacher... but it's not so much history as mass memorization. Not like any other history class i've had in college. We're so busy taking notes in those two classes that we don't have a free second to think about the material. It's entirely possible to get A's in both of those. It's likely though that he'll grade hard and I'll end up with B's. That's like a... 3.7? Ugh, how dismal. So, I've got to get A's in Emile Haag somehow. Hoo boy, this should be interesting.

So I'm going back to studying. I packed last night. Most everything. I'm doing that stressed-out obsessive-compulsive thing with cleaning and organizing... Heehee, anyone who saw my dorm room last year should know just what I'm talking about:) I can't believe I'm going home on Friday.

Hope exams are going well in Oxford!

English Journal Hell

2005-12-11T13:12:16Z

So, no long update. I'm still alive, but am currently wading through dozens of short stories for my English class, writing responses for every last one of them. I hate English classes.

So I woke up this morning in Heidelberg...

2005-12-05T17:57:45Z

...and four trains later, I was sitting in Music History taking notes on Faure and Ravel. Man, I will miss strange days like today.

The concert went well on Saturday. It was a ton of fun to be singing again, even though the choir didn't do much singing in the concert. I was happy to see that some people from MUDEC actually came - Matt, John and Daryl showed up, as did their fantastic host dad Guy and Matt Klein, who seems to pop up in the stranges places. I was sure that they would want to stay home rather than go listen to Bach cantatas for a few hours. But they came and that was nice. I felt less lonely. Afterwards, we were having some sort of reception in the church basement, and Matt (Klein) metioned to Georges Backes that in his speech to everyone, he had neglected to mention that it was Matt (Lewis)'s birthday. Well, Backes had to remedy that and tell the whole room to sing. So Matt got to hear what it sounds like to have a roomful of Luxembourgish vocal musicians sing "Happy Birthday" to you in multi-part harmony. In English, of course. Birthday stuff of legend.

Sunday morning I left on a train at 8:23 headed to Heidelberg. I knew I wouldn't get much time in the city, but I had to go anyway. When I got there, I had a few hours of daylight to walk up the Hauptstrasse (this enormous main pedestrian street that is crowded with stores). I crossed the Alte Brucke (Old Bridge) which was right by my hotel, and took pictures of the Neckar, and generally acted touristy. I couldn't climb up to the castle because of the fast-failing daylight, bu I got as close as I could by taking pictures of it from below in the Kornmarkt. After the light disappeared, I wandered around Heidelberg's very beautiful Christmas market which was going on all over the Altstadt. Germans do Christmas right. You think we're nuts about it in the U.S.? You haven't seen anything. And I haven't even been to Nurnberg, which is supposedly the best Christmas market of all.

Well, I bought my mom's Christmas present, though I'm not *entirely* certain how it's getting home. It fits in my suitcase now. We'll see how it works when the rest of my clothes go in. Packing is going to be a tricky issue. Everything should fit if I get it just right. So I actually began packing on Saturday, to give myself more time to plan it out. I even sorted out what's staying here (We can actually donate old clothes here, so that's awesome). It's even better for me, who got most of my winter clothes by taking what my older sister didn't want anymore. And my school books are staying here, nothing drives up the weight of your suitcase like books. All in all I think I should be fine, it'll just require some effort. And maybe that Harry Potter spell where your suitcase gets packed for you by magic and of course everthing fits. Anybody know that one? ;)

So yeah. Got a full week ahead. Then some exam-fun. Then quite a bit of intercontinental flight-fun. Then a whole lot of chilling with my family-fun. So you all have good weeks, don't stress about exams too much. I'm going to find my headphones and catch up on some Making Fiends.

Rainy Gloomy Day

2005-12-02T14:36:45Z

USS Proposal Status: turned in. Why do I still have this feeling of impending doom?

This is the last weekend I can travel anywhere. My Eurail will officially expire on Wednesday. We only have one more week of class, then exams until Thursday. Friday, my roommates and I have to find a cab to take us and our luggage to the station at 4:30 in the morning, so we can get on the bus to Brussels. By 10:15 I should be officially leaving Europe, and by 6:30 in the evening I should be back in Cincinnati for the first time in months. Weird. The closer it gets, the more I worry about leaving. This semester has been suspended reality, I hope I can pick up right where I left off.

So I have a concert tomorrow night. It's hilarious to me that I'm singing in a concert in Europe. Backes (music teacher) told me to try to get people from here to come, but I doubt that will work in most cases. Case in point - when I asked Matt, "Hey, do you want to go to hear a concert of Bach cantatas? I'm singing in it." the response I got was an enthusiastic "Hell no!". Incidentally, Matt is going now, but I'm pretty sure it's just because Georges Backes will be there. Eh, c'est la vie. I don't really care, I just like singing again. I really miss May Festival...

Sunday I'm hopping the earliest train for Heidelberg. Unfortunately, it's supposed to rain Sunday. Kinda like it's doing now. I hope it doesn't rain the whole time, because Sunday is the only day I'll get to walk around this city. I'm spending the night, but I have to get the earliest train home because I have to do my oral exam for German on Monday afternoon.

I think it'll be a pretty good weekend. Tomorrow morning is probably going to be spent in the first stages of packing. Time to play triage with the clothes. Fortunately, a lot of the stuff I brought was on its last legs coming over here, so I won't feel like I'm being wasteful donating some of the stuff and throwing some of it away.

Ok everyone, enjoy your weekends. See you soon. Two weeks from right now I will be... sitting in Chicago O'Hare, probably. Good luck on exams, and Nico you had better have those internet timewasters in reserve for exam week, I'm counting on them;)

Guten Abend...

2005-11-30T18:58:36Z

Hello, journal-readers! Thank you for reading my journal, but I'm afrain I'm going to have to ask for a short break from the journalling. You see, Friday is the due date for all Undergraduate Summer Scholars research proposals. I have been working on mine SINCE MAY and it still is not exactly how I want it. Also, quite a few teachers have mounted ridiculous demands in terms of assignments, so I'm juggling time and drinking Red Bull with every meal (fortunately for me, it's a very popular drink over here in Europe)

Hopefully after Friday some of the stress will be off. Then I can actually devote all my energy to classes here.

Here's a fun and interesting question: Why can't Dr. Stiller keep the cave and computer room open later than 8:45 for those of us who NEED to stay at the chateau and work?

Answer: Because Dr. Stiller, in spite of talking all the time about how proud he is of "Hees Ma-YA-mi SHTU-dents", really thinks were are all about 12 years old and not to be trusted to ourselves. He's also under the impression that it's possible to get tons accomplished on the train, or that it's so easy to get everything done in your freezing cold room at your host-family's house. If I were at Miami now, I would be staying at King until they threw me out every night, and I would be better for it.

Time for REAL college again? Yes please.

Nineteen Days.

2005-11-28T18:59:21Z

So Munchen was an incredible amount of fun. Well, as mch as you can really have on your own, that is. It was a great city, but I wish I'd had someone else there. The trains back were interesting, as always. Trains are trains. They aren't particularly convenient, but still fun. It's 8 train hours home from Munich, which totals out to about ten hours counting connection times and delays. I think the weather was at fault, but every train in Deutschland was 20-45 minutes late. It was ok.

I am so exhausted. There are not enough hours in the day to do what I need to do, and I've realized that finishing everything is nearly impossible. I've been going nonstop since hours before dawn and still feel like I haven't made a dent in anything. These entries will probably keep getting shorter, I feel so strapped for time. I keep falling asleep on trains and often almost miss my stop. The teachers here are pretty merciless too, they keep adding on more for us to do by the end of the semester. Oy. We need to have a mutiny soon.

So apparently it's snowing outside in such a way that everyone who comes in from outside is soaked and freezing. Oh joy! I love snow, but I hope I can stay dry. I hope I can stay awake, too... I keep feeling my eyes closing here. Better drink some more tea.

Yeah Munchen...

2005-11-26T15:28:47Z

I'm sitting in the hostel in Munchen, so I decided to update a bit before going off to find dinner.

First of all, this city is a Christmas paradise. The Christmas market opened yesterday, and the streets are absolutely packed. There's even snow. And Christmas trees. And lots of stalls selling bratwurst and hot spiced wine. The whole place smells like Christmas.

Second of all, my hostel is amazing. It's the sort of hostel that weary travellers dream about when sleeping on dirty mattresses in the corner of rooms with peeling paint. More on this later, Im running out of time on the little clock thing here.

MUNCHEN

2005-11-25T11:49:40Z

I typed my proposal! But now I can't send it because muohio.edu is down. AARRGH! Maybe I can send it in to Dr. Lyons from Munich. but for right now, I'm off to Munchen and the world-famous Christmas Market there. Which opens today! Yay Christmas. There's snow on the ground here. Have a nice holiday weekend everyone.

Thanksgiving

2005-11-24T19:01:56Z

I've been homesick for awhile, but today is worse than usual. Something about being so far away from your family and friends on the one day of the year where you should be seeing everyone you know and love. Difficult to be spending this day with friends who you only know as much as you can know a person in a few months. I just... I want to go home.

It's not the conveniences of life that I miss anymore. I can live with never being able to drive, I can deal with a host family that isn't exactly welcoming, the costs of living over here, even the lack of a library with books in English. What I miss is not being constantly so lonely. The last few weekends I've travelled by myself, and likely I'll be doing so until this trip is over. Being alone is ok, I mean, it's never seemed to bother me before, so I don't know why it seems to be such a big deal to me now. I've never been the type of person who couldn't enjoy her own company, but lately it's been too much of a good thing.

So I'm looking forward to getting my family back. Definitely looking forward to going home to Oxford and seeing friends that don't totally ignore me when I try to talk. I really don't want to go home and accept how different my life will be though. I won't be living on campus. By that point I will probably have been rejected by University Summer Scholars. People I knew last year will be graduated and gone from campus. Mark won't be there, and as happy as that relationship made me last year, I'm going to have to come to terms with the fact that it is totally gone and not coming back. It's hard to think about all these things while over here.

So on Thanksgiving, while I am endlessly thankful to be over here, seeing Europe, I am even more thankful that in three short weeks I will be back in Cincinnati with my family and hopefully I won't have to feel this stressed-out, lonely, and overwhelmed for a long time. I'm so thankful for my family. I'm incredibly thankful for SCA, the best second family a person could ask for in this world. I miss you all so much.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. I think it's one of those holidays you don't truly appreciate until you don't have it one year. Hug every member of your family and be thankful for them. I know that's what I'm doing the second I step off the plane in December.

London

2005-11-22T11:11:01Z

So yeah... my weekend. Now that I actualy have time to sit down and update this. Time is somewhat on a premium right now, so my entries might be a bit spotty in the next few weeks.

On Friday I took the train to London. When most people from here go to London, they fly on a discount airline called RyanAir. Usually from talking to these people after the trip, you understand exactly why the flight is such a great deal. First of all, to catch the flight, you have to book a shuttle from Luxembourg to the Frankfort-Hahn airport. While they say it is in Frankfort, this is apparently utter bull since it is realy in the somewhat out-of-the-way city of Hahn. You know, I could deal with taking the bus there, that would be no problem. But from talking to people, it seems like the return flight to Frankfort-Hahn only lands where it intends to about 2 times in 5. This naturally presents somewhat of a problem if it's midnight and your plane touches down in Saarbrucken while your *prepaid* shuttle bus home is leaving without you from Hahn. Blech. Spare me the night adventures in random parts of Germany. It's getting far to cold to sleep outside at train stations anymore.

So I bought tickets for the Eurostar train from Brussels. My two friends were risking RyanAir, so I went alone, which was pretty nice. Nothing new to report from the train ride to Brussels, been there, done that. I got into Bruxelles-Midi exactly 20 minutes before the Eurostar was ready to leave. This turned out to be barely enough time. See, getting on a Eurostar train is apparently something like boarding an intercontinental flight. Take off your coat, throw all your stuff in the X-ray machine, go through the metal detector, have your ticket scanned, and then get the 3rd degree from a passport agent because you're apparently the only non-EU citizen around to make her night more entertaining.

Well, the train was fast - it only took 2 1/2 hours to reach London. I got off at London Waterloo and was immediately elated to be somewhere familiar again. No worries about the tube, no getting lost, it was really easy to find my hostel. Especially since it was on the Baron's Court tube stop on the way to the hostel I stayed at this summer. All very nice. And people speaking English! Well, I can't claim I really did too much that first night. Jessica and Cassia were already on som pub walk, and it would be really late before they were done, so I just hung out and went to bed so I could get up early the next morning.

I got up the next morning and tried to take a shower. That experiment lasted about 5 minutes, when I realized that the water was freezing with no hope of getting warmer. Oh well. I didn't smell too terrible. So I went off, bought a tube pass and headed out to get breakfast. Because when you go to England, you can't not get breakfast. It's seriously the most fabulous meal, especially when you've gotten accustomed to the continental-style breakfast that includes a piece of bread, some butter and a piece of questionable cheese.

I went to this place we went to this summer in London, not because I'm not adventurous, but because it's really hard to just walk around and find a place that will give you a ridiculously good breakfast for less than five quid. Thank God for the British. For them, breakfast seems to include bacon, eggs, sausage, toast, baked beans, chips, and tea. All in good quantity. Now, I normally have a really small stomach capacity, so finishing this breakfast was a heroic effort involving about an hour or so of sitting there, reading the entire saturday Telegraph, and drinking copious amounts of tea. All in all, it was an excellent use of my time.

After this, I ended up walking around central London for awhile. It was nice not having to try and hit up every single tourist site - so much more relaxed. Eventually I ended up on Charing Cross road, home of a thousand bookstores. I don't know how long I spent in the bookstores, but it was great. Millions of books, all in English. I've missed having so many books around. It was like going into a pet store and wanting to take them all home, but you can't because there's no room.

I texted Cassia and Jessica while I was wandering London bookstores to see if we could meet up for dinner or something. I eventually walked to find them at the Tower, but it was getting late and they were heading to see a show that night, so I didn't get to hang out long with them. I eventualy got dinner, did a lot more wandering to look at the Christmas lights, then went back to the hostel.

Next day, I went back to the British Museum to catch the stuff I'd missed last time. Somehow, although we spent forever there, I managed to miss the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles. So I got to go back and see this. The Rosetta Stone was actually really cool, even with all the tourists mobbing the display case. By the time I left the museum, it was past noon, so I found some place to eat the requisite fish and chips (with tons of vinegar). By the time I had finished eating and drinking my entire pot of tea, it was time to head back, grab my bags, and head back to Waterloo station.

Once again, I endured the lovely affair of these airport-like train "terminals". This one was even crazier than the one in Brussels, because it had trains leaving for both Brussels AND Paris. So you're sitting in the huge area with all the random coffeeshops and bookstores while they actually announce boarding calls for the train. hehehehe. I managed to get on the right train, and got to Bruxelles-Midi without incident.

I ran through the station to make my connection to Lux, since I had about 10 minutes to do so. When I saw the train pull up, something wasn't right... instead of a normal IC train, this one was a Belgian regional. Puzzled, I got on anyway, because the signs on the platform said "Luxembourg". Once the train had started, I had a slight moment of panic remembering that there was another station called "Brussels-Luxembourg" but this train was going the right way to get me home, so all was good.

Fast forward to 2 1/2 hours later. The train stops in Arlon, and somebody says some French gibberish over the speaker. Everybody gets off. "MEH?" I say, clearly confused. Not to be left out, I grab my bag and start searching for a Belgian rail worker. Fortunately, they're easy to spot, since the Belgian train lines make them wear gray suits and funny hats.

Me: "Pardon monsieur..."(points at train I'm standing on) "Luxembourg?"
Belgian Rail Conductor: (squints at psycho American girl travelling alone) Non.
Me: (trying to dredge up some French, but give up and try another language) "Wo ist die Zug fur Luxembourg stadt?"
Belgian Rail Conductor: (gives the look that French speakers give to German speakers and points to another platform)
Me: (while running to other platform) "Merci! Merci beaucoup!"

Lord I wish I was fluent in some other language. It would save me all this language switching for words. French is far more useful here than German, by far. So anyway, I got to Luxembourg at last, and it was about 23.40. And my last bus to Cessange had left. So I walked home. For like an hour or so. In the freezing cold, with my backpack. I was a popsicle before I reached Rue de Leudelange. So I just fell into bed and tried to get a few hours of sleep before getting up at 6 to start the school week over again.

The funny thing is, Cassia and Jessica left by plane two hours before my train pulled out. I beat them home by an hour. They had to land in Koln, then take buses across Germany and a taxi to their houses in Luxembourg.

Trains are totally worth it.

Weekend

2005-11-21T16:36:47Z

So I really will update about this weekend. London was wonderful, probably the best day I've had since coming here. I'll have to write more tomorrow, because I'm running a little late to make it to yet another philharmonic concert in the city.

Stolen from Ashley, because I have time before English...

2005-11-16T14:59:46Z

48 Things Survey

1. Your name spelled backwards? What an absurd question. Will this have any implications for the reader? Very well. Ehoh Htiderem. ::giggle::

2. Where were your parents born? The Great Sate of Indiana

3. What is the last thing you downloaded onto your computer? My computer back at home? umm... probably that Aerosmith song from when I got a free download from the top of a pepsi bottle

4. What's your favorite restaurant? Buca di Beppo. I've been to Italy now and it's still my favorite.

5. Last time you swam in a pool? probably last school year when I went to the Rec

6. Have you ever been in a school play? Ja.

7. How many kids do you want? Right now? None if you're talking about my own biological children. If the question is referring to stealing other people's children and selling them to roving gypsy bands, then the more the better.

8. Type of music you dislike most? Emo. Really kids, we know how much your parents dislike you. Everybody has it rough. Now stop whining.

9. Are you registered to vote? yes

10. Do you have cable? I don't have a tv at the moment

11. Have you ever ridden on a moped? sadly not

12. Ever prank-called anybody? nope

13. Best friend? don't know

14. Would you go bungee jumping or sky diving? skydiving, yes. Bungee jumping, no. A human being on a giant rubber band is a recipe for disaster and hilarious jokes.

15. Furthest place you ever traveled? Czech Republic

16. Do you have a garden? no

17. What's your favorite comic strip? Calvin and Hobbes

18. Do you really know all the words to your national anthem? yep. I know the Soviet one as well.

19. Bath or Shower, morning or night? Shower in the morning, or not at all when I want more sleep.

20. Best movie you've seen in the past month? Saved

21. Favorite pizza toppings? favorite to eat: pepperoni. favorite to giggle at: a whole egg cooked on top, like all the ones the guys kept eating in Italy

22. Chips or popcorn? Pommes frites mit mayonaise

23. What color lipstick do you usually wear? red gloss

24. Have you ever smoked peanut shells? Ok, now I'm curious...

25. Have you ever been in a beauty pageant? ::choke:: hehehe. Me? no...

26. Orange Juice or apple? Orange-pinapple with no pulp

27. Who was the last person you went out to dinner with? Tons of people for Jessica's birthday at San Marino

28. Favorite type chocolate bar? Mars

29. When was the last time you voted at the polls? when I voted for Not Bush

30. Last time you ate a homegrown tomato? I'm not really a fan of tomatoes except on bruschetta

31. Have you ever won a trophy? remembering all the funny trophies from swim team... i wonder where i put those...

32 Are you a good cook? I am fabulous as long as you like garlic and potatoes

33. Do you know how to pump your own gas? uhhhh... yeah.

34. Ever ordered from an infomercial? NO

35. Sprite or 7-up? 7-up

36. Have you ever had to wear a uniform to work? At Tuffy's, yes

37. Last thing you bought at a Walgreens? I think it was passport photos

38. Ever thrown up in public? Yes. It involved no alcohol, two packages of gummy candy and a five hour bus ride to Toledo for Drum Corps

39. Would you prefer being a millionaire or finding true love? True love, if it exists.

40. Do you believe in love at first sight? no

41. Can ex's be just friends? Experiment in progress. Get back to me in a few months.

42. Who was the last person you visited in a hospital? My grandpa Hohe, earlier this year

43. Did you have a lot of hair as a baby? a fair amount

44. What message is on your answering machine? u menya nyet <>

45. Where would you like to go? - Right now? Home, right beside the fireplace. Where *am* I going instead? London.

46. What was the name of your first pet? Fisher, my poor kitty

47. What kinda backpack do u have, and what's in it? just a black bag that's currently containing my dayplanner, wallet, passport, Eurail pass, train timetable, a few pens and a bag of Riesen chocolates.

48. Who is your best friend of the opposite sex? hard question. I haven't really made very close friends of many of the opposite sex... Well, it's been awhile since I've seen him and we don't talk much, but I'm going to say Ryan.

So one month from today...

2005-11-16T14:22:50Z

I joined a choir here. I find that hilarious. My music history teacher, the fabulous Georges Backes, invited people from our class to come sing with his folks from the conservatory for a concert of Bach cantatas. So naturally I've been the only volunteer. Sight-singing in German, and a soprano part that seems permanently stuck in the upper register. But no matter, I get to sing again! I went to a rehearsal last night at the conservatory. All in German. Thank God I could understand most of it, but it was really cool to sit through a rehearsal in another language. And how is my voice after 2 1/2 years out of choir? Not nearly as good on the higher notes, but ok. I love singing, and I really miss it a lot. I'd join a choir at Miami if I didn't have this aversion to all the politicking and diva complexes that I've always found in women's choruses.

So I need to go to the train station today, and see about reserving a seat on the train from Brussels to London. It's one of those nifty high speed Eurostar trains, which means I've got to reserve and pay a little extra since the train is so sweet. And it goes through the Chunnel. I'm hoping I'm not required to buy the ticket once the train leaves continental Europe - Eurail passes aren't usually valid in England, but I think that this one line lets you do it. I can't believe that it's Wednesday already. I have like two days to plan this all, how crazy.

One month from today I come home. 16 days until my USS proposal is due in. Oh yeah, it's crunch time. So panicked, I can't stop second-guessing this. And I get the sneaking suspicion that somewhere back in Oxford, Dr. Lyons is thinking I'm being lazy about this because he doesn't hear from me all the time. But it will work out. I spent awhile today outlining it, and thinking about it for about two hours before that. I feel like this thing is chasing me around.

Three more weekends to travel. Then the weekend before finals, then finals, then the flight home. Time just flies away here.

What a nice boring weekend

2005-11-14T19:15:12Z

No exciting travels to report on here, sadly. I basically bummed around. Amen to that.

Next week, hopefully I'll be headed for London again... I miss people speaking English, and I adore Britain. And going through the Chunnel is a big plus.

Gearing up for a lazy weekend

2005-11-11T13:07:02Z

So I didn't plan anything exciting for this weekend. I'm just too tired, and I couldn't find anyone fre to travel with me, so I think this will be my one free weekend to catch up on homework and stuff. Ahhhh. Sleeping in and doing homework, not exciting but exactly what I want to do right now.

Not much else to report from today. I faxed in my lease for next year, and now I'm about to head to the post office to get stamps for my postcards. Then who knows. Right now I just need food...

USS-related post... WARNING: PROBABLY BORING TO PEOPLE WHO AREN'T ME

2005-11-10T16:02:06Z

So today I've spent most of my free time working myself in circles over fixing up my USS proposal. The first one I sent in was too broad an area of research, and the description was not quite detailed enough. I pretty much knew that when I sent it to Dr. Lyons, but I was beating myself over the head about it so I sent it to him anyway. Now I think I've managed to limit it, but a problem I seem to be constantly encountering is the fact that I totally lack sources to include in this proposal.

Ok, so not totally. I have three articles with me. But they might not all be pertinent to the topic I'm trying to do now. I know I had a lot more sources, but somehow or another they didn't make the crossing to Europe with me. So now I'm paddling about, pretty much at a loss for some of this information that I need.

The topic was originally assessing living standards among urban and rural workers during the British Industrial Revolution to determine if there was really more change or continuity. The idea was that all the negative views of the IR were somewhat unsupported by cold hard facts and rather influenced by the Romantic movement in Britain. Well, Lyons had me read a load of stuff, and I've read a lot of papers now with that same hypothesis that has turned out to be correct, after a lot of economic number-fiddling. Original plan was to redo the econominc number-fiddling, but that is not only practically impossible, it feels dumb to go back and check the work of others like John Brown (one of the articles I have) who know much more about economics than I do.

So plan B. If I can't anymore ask whether or not standards of living decreased, then I must accept the arguments of those who've proven that they didn't, research their opinions and synthesize the arguments for the first part of my paper. (Problem 1: All though I'm certain there were others who came to this conclusion, the only article I now have is Brown). That being said, I need a new question and a new thesis. I may not be able to ask "whether or not", but I can ask "why". Why, if the new industrial system was clearly no worse than the old rural labor system, did so many form negative opinions of the standards of living during the Industrial Revolution?

Ok, so now I have a huge multifaceted question, but at least a managable one now, if I could ever manage to work out all the different components of it. First, I'd have to establish that these negative opinions even existed, which would probably entail a section on the views of Marx and Engels, as well as a look into the Romantic movement (which was emphasizing pastoral life as ideal and referring to factories as machines powered on the enslavement of humanity). (Problem 2: Now I have to find certain quotations for Marx and Engels as well as examples of Romantic oppostion. Oh for a copy of Das Kapital.) The Romantic opposition is actually managable, thanks to an online text of Percy Shelley's "Song for the Men of England".

Even after doing all this, I haven't even begun to tackle the real heart of the question. For this, my head is filled with disjointed variables that I can't make flow together in any form, so all I can do at the moment is to list them. (1) Overview of actual living conditions in comparison to pre-industrial age (2) Rigors of employment in heavy industry versus rural labor (3) Existence of occurrences such as child labor in factories (4) Relative health data.

Those are all I can think of for the moment, and with them I have to discover why there was such negative feeling during an age of such huge economic growth - not just for the rich, but for the ordinary laborers as well. I do feel a bit of a bastard for not taking up the cause of the proletariat, but I've seen no evidence to suggest that I ought to. But will there be enough to prove my proposed answer? In my opinion, before doing much research, I believe that the negative responses to the IR were almost entirely due to the sudden change in the patterns and methods of living, rather than the actual conditions, which remained the same, or if anything, improved. The world of English factories cities was a new and impersonal monster, in contrast to the feudal labor system which was a traditional, well-known, and very personal monster. But both systems were monsters in their own way (not so much as Russian communism but THAT's another story)

This proposal is due in by 2nd December. I have a little less than a month, and this thing is totally taking over my mind right now. Every time I start to work on it, I think of the chain reaction that failure to be accepted to USS might set off. Failing to do USS = Failing to be accepted at any grad program = failure at career choice = working at Dairy Queen for the rest of my life, just like Matt predicted;) I wish I could figure out how to chill out;)

If anyone has really gotten to the bottom of this, and has read it all, you are so awesome. Leave me a comment with a suggestion or two and I might have to bring you home some Belgian chocolate. But for now, I'll keep working on this evil research monster. with three heads. and an eyepatch. and a wooden leg, with purple scales and the ability to breathe fire.

Eurotrip

2005-11-09T19:43:52Z

Just watched Eurotrip. ::snicker:: Oh my god that movie is hilarious, probably more so when you're in Europe and can sit there with a half dozen people who've all run into similar situations and start yelling things like "Hey, absinth doesn't do *that* to you." and "Well, when *we* were stuck in Eastern Europe..." This is such a freaking crazy way to spend a semester.

Not much else to report right now, but I guess I'll have to leave you with this classic bit of David Hasselhoff:

Du bist alles, was ich habe auf der welt,
Du bist alles, was ich will...

DU-U-U! du allein kannst mich versteh’n!
DU-U-U! du darfst nie mehr von mir geh’n!

what a fantastic song. Makes you realize why Germans love Hasselhoff. hehehe...

Home from Italia! (well, sort of)

2005-11-07T19:21:57Z

I'm HOME!! Well, relatively speaking. I have a clean bed and shower, which is all you can really hope for in this world. Italy was amazing, insane, stressful, and expensive all rolled into one gigantic pasta-filled package. Probably better fill you in on all that's happened since my last update.

Let's see... that next day, we went to the Vatican. We didn't intend to when we left the hostel, but the museum we went to was closed (it being Monday, and for some reason things sometimes close on Monday). We took a bus that was packed solid with people across the Tiber to Vatican City. We almost lost John for awhile when he failed to get off at the stop with the rest of us. Thank God three of us have cell phones, and text messaging is relatvely cheap. We eventually met up again and got to St. Peter's square, which was packed with people. There was a line a few kilos long waiting to get into the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. Now, I really wanted to see these, but that line was ridiculous. So we got in line to get into the Basilica.

At this point, John realizes that he can't get in because he is wearing shorts. So he splits off in search of a pair of pants. After a good deal of strategic pushing and shoving (yes, nothing is sacred, even a mob of people trying to get into the center of the Catholic Church) we managed to get up to the metal detectors. Matt put his cell phone and camera in my bag to avoid it setting off the detector. Daryl didn't have a phone to worry about. We got through the detector and Matt took his camera back, but not his phone. We then went into the basilica and promptly lost each other.

St. Peter's is amazing. Every little thing in it is amazing and important. Oh that? We made that with the brass we tore out of the Pantheon. What's up there? Just a piece of the spear of Longinus. Oh hey, it's an embalmed pope. You get the picture. This place was nuts. I walked around for hours. There was so, so much to see. You could really spend all day at the Vatican and still miss half of what's there.

So I found John again. He'd found pants, at the tune of 60 euros or something. Eventually found Daryl also, but Matt was nowhere to be seen, and I had his phone. Well, needless to say, the rest of the day involved us finding each other then getting lost again, all the while having no clue where Matt was. At some point in the day. John and I paid 7 euros apiece to climb the dome of the basilica. The view was definitely worth it. That night, we finally found each other and met the guys' host dad, Guy, who was randomly in Rome. Guy is quite possibly the nicest man I have ever met. He feeds these guys constantly, and doesn't yell at them about towels. I wish Guy was my host dad.

Well we had dinner in Piazza Navona with Guy, and he picked up the check, though I tried to pay him anyway. Hats off to that incredible human being.

Next day, we all prtty much went off on our own. It was All Saint's Day, so I went to Mass in the Pantheon. How freaking cool is that? I actually went to the Pantheon just to see it, and they were starting Mass so I figured, eh, why not? Coolest part was having to walk through the puddle left by the open oculus at the top of the dome on my way up to communion. After that I went to the rather anticlimactic Spanish Steps. People, they're just stairs. I even have some at home. They go up and down. I sat on the overrated steps and wrote in my journal for an hour. Then me and Matt met up, ate a ridiculously overpriced lunch, then took the metro to the south part of the city to see stuff. That night, we all got on the train headed for Florence.

Florence was ridiculously sweet. I love that city. It's probably my favorite place so far. I felt like I was walking around in A Room With A View. It's a great city to just wander around in. Though I realized one thing - anything that is of interest has a ticket window and a few euro charge. I spent more seeing things than eating. Uffizi gallery, for example, where I saw tons of Leonardos and Botticellis. I love Renaissance art, but it got a little tiresome after awhile. I got to see Birth of Venus in person though. It's definitely impressive.

Let's see, what else? Oh yes. I climbed Il Duomo. I went to Santa Croce, wished that I could watch A Room With a View again, and saw where Niccolo Machiavelli and Galileo were buried. I wandered around, crossed Ponte Vecchio, and wanders some more. Florence was fantastic.

We left Florence on Saturday morning and went to Venice to see it for a day before catching a night train to start the trip home. Venice is an awesome city. Canals are cool. We fed the pigeons in Piazza San Marco (no one's really freaking out about bird flu here) and stared at the waterfront. Ate obscene amounts of gelato. We basically bummed around until it was time to find our train, and then the fun really began.

By this time it was dark. And it had begun to pour. And none of us had umbrellas. And were were at the opposite side of the island from the train station with no good map. Those canals and bridges and alleys that are so lovely by day become a hellish labyrinth at night. We were hopelessly lost and wandered in the general direction of Stazione Venezia Santa Lucia for about an hour and a half. good thing we left with plenty of time to spare. By the time we reached the station, we were soaked to the skin and freezing.

Luckily, we had couchettes reserved that night, rather than just seats. Couchettes involve a normal sized compartment that has six small beds. We took up four of them. I crawled up to the top bunk and curled up soaking wet under the train blanket, happy enough just to be semi warm again. Then I fell asleep, until I heard a guy speaking in German come into our car. I slept almost the whole way to Brig, but when I woke up I realized that the old fat guy who had been seaking German was asleep on the adjacent bunk in nothing but his boxers. HAHAHAHA.

The rest of the trip was a blur of trains and more waiting in Basel, and being cold and damp still. 15 hours of my life have now been sacrificed to the Basel bahnhof. Aiya.

Italy was great, but being back here feels so nice. Almost insane that I immediately must begin planning next weekend. No rest for the weary. Paris, anyone? I hear they're having a killer cookout.

In Italy

2005-10-31T08:57:12Z

I'm writing this from our hostel in Rome. We've been here for a few days and managed to see a lot of the major stuff, though we haven't gotten to the Vatican yet.

Little incident when we arrived... The whole trip took us about 23 hours from the time we left Differdange to the time we arrived in Rome. We slept (or rather, John and Daryl slept) in the train station in Basel for about 6 hours. It was freezing cold, but thank god they didn't throw us out, because it was also raining. Yuck.

Well, when we finally got to Rome, we went to the hostel and found that through some mistake in the reservations, we didn't have a place until the next night. I was all ready to sleep in the train station for another night and wasn't too upset about it. I always remember that things could be so, so much worse. Byproduct of drum corps. But the guys understandably wanted beds so we ended up finding a hotel near the station that cost us more, but we got to sleep in a clean place for once.

We spent the next day at all the ancient Roman stuff. Took a tour of the Colosseum, which is sooo cool in person. We also walked through the Roman forum and the remains of Nero's palace on the Palatine. Yesterday we walked around, looking up huge churches on the map and checking them out. Today I think we're going to the Pantheon, at least we will if I have anything to say about it.

Well, I'd better let that be all for now, other people are waiting for the computer.

Almost to Toussaint's

2005-10-27T10:00:46Z

Finished my Rise and Fall of Hitler exam. Would rather not talk about it, or about the Third Reich or anything pertaining to it EVER AGAIN. But it's inevitable. If Hitler had only been killed in that gas attack in the First World War, my life would be so much easier (to say nothing of the millions of people who would still be alive)

So after lunch, I run up to Lux City to retrieven my passport from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (complete with my permission to reside sticker, yay!). Dealing with government institutions is universally annoying, but I hope this won't take longer than a few minutes. I kinda need that passport in order to leave the country tonight, especially since we're going to Switzerland which is outside of the European Union. I have to be back by 5 though, because my english teacher Kay Sloan is having a poetry reading for which attendance is mandatory. I dislike most poetry. We'll see about this. I'll give her a fighting chance.

After that I have my English exam, and then it's time to start the ridiculous train journey that will hopefully result in us arriving in Rome sometime around dinner tomorrow. But now I need food. Hopefully it's not fish. I'll write a massive update when I return from Italy.

Oh the joy of midterms....

2005-10-26T12:29:50Z

Just finished an exam for MUS 189. Those 4-5 years of voice lessons and three years of May Festival are definitely paying off, the exam was a massacre. Many of the questions had never been covered in class, and I could only answer some thanks to having a musical background. I feel for everyone else in the class. Matt got up early, and Prof. Backes looked at his test as he left the room. Apparently Matt had made up his own questions out of frustration. I'm not really sure what he wrote, but Backes did not seem overly amused at the time.

I just finished my laundry, and now I have to fold it and pack for Italy. We leave tomorrow. THe train schedule is insane and the reservations were too expensive. I have two ridiculously hard midterms tomorrow as well, and I have to run up to the ministry in Lux City to get my passport back (It's up there because they need it to register me as a temporary resident). What a frustrating 48 hours this will be.

And my mom had to put my kitty to sleep. My very old kitty. What a terrible day.

Basel is the gate to purgatory

2005-10-25T11:51:39Z

So, does anyone remember my rant about being stuck in Basel for 5 hours on my way home from Luzern? Well, it appears that that train station complex in Basel is going to become the story of my life. I've been trying to map out train times for going to Italy, and this is becoming ridiculous.

We're leaving on Thursday night. Matt, John, Daryl and I all have an English exam that's over at 7:15. So we catch the 7:35 train back to Lux City and get there at about 8:10. Ok, by then all the trains going out of the country have left, save one. Yep, you guessed it. 8:26 from Lux to Basel SNCF. ::sigh:: Now I'll be a good sport about this. I was stuck in Basel once, but I'm not going to make a huge stink over being stuck there again.

Now. This train arrives in Basel at the lovely hour of 12:05. The next train to Rome leaves at... 6:27 in the morning. Which means that we will get off the train, walk from Basel SNCF (the French station)to Basel SBB (the German station) and wait for about 6 hours. Here's the real kicker: the train station will probably do like most stations do and close up shop at about one, and not open the doors again until 4:30 or so in the morning when the regional trains start to come in. So our only real choice is to do what intrepid travelers do and take shifts sleeping on the sidewalk outside the station. God help us if it's raining.

Then we get to take the nice ten-hour train to Rome. Which is not the difficult part. But eventually, we do have to come back to Luxembourg again, this time from Venice. Well, I won't bore you with details and times, but the trip home involves a ten-hour night train to Basel SBB (curse the name, curse it), several hours in the Basel train station, a train to Strasbourg and another to Luxembourg.

There is really no convenient way to plan this, but things could be much worse. I could be in Eastern Europe. When people say that everything is so close together in Europe, remember this: in Europe you have no car, and nothing goes directly to the place you that you want it to. What would be a fairly difficult but not overly strenuous drive between some states in the US translates to a two day odyssey of trains and sleeping on sidewalks in Europe. I've learned this and accepted it as one of those realities of life.

I'll go make the train reservations when I go home this evening. It'll all be fine. I've finished one midterm today, for my Western Heritage history class... it was ok, but I hate sit down exams for history classes. They seem so worthless.

Oh well... I guess it's always better to look on the bright side of things, so here goes:

Good things about now:

1. Italy is sunny and warm at the moment.
2. I've finished one exam that I don't have to worry about again.
3. I got to hear Mozart in one of the most acoustically perfect concert halls in the world last night.
4. Some German bank sponsored a reception before the concert last night and we all got to go.
5. It's almost Halloween.
6. After Toussaint's Break, I will have a month and a week before I come home for Christmas.
7. Four of those weekends will be spent traveling.
8. The leaves are falling.
9. I'm at a computer on the library balcony overlooking a huge hall in a castle with a painted ceiling and chandeliers. Definitely a sweet building.
10. I'm about to walk to Match for groceries. And by groceries I mean chocolate mousse.

Ok, that's all I guess. Everybody have a good day now.