Bumming Around

I have been on vacation for over a month now and still have a little over a week remaining. Student life really is the best form of life. This vacation has been amazing and I today I realized I should write a post before I forget everything I've done and all the people I've seen/met.

Travel with me back in time to last year, a few days before Christmas....

Stjørdal, Norway:  Dec 21-23, 2014

I spent a couple of days here with my friend Hanne and her wonderfully welcoming family before I flew out of Trondheim. It was a very relaxing couple of days. The highlights were helping to bake the gingerbread pieces for a gingerbread house (way more involved than the traditional McElroy graham cracker houses) and eating the traditional dinner with lutefisk. It wasn't bad, pretty flavorless actually, but I can see how some people might not like the texture. Here's a link for those of you thinking "what the hell is lutefisk?" I also made the required visit to Hell....

 Yup, there really is a Hell, Norway

Bavaria, Germany: Dec 23 - 29, 2014

Most of this time was spent outside of Munich in the small town of Schnaitsee with Nadia and her mom at here cousin Stephan's house. Stephan's house is this amazing old stone farmhouse only heated with stoves. Cold, yes, but I also think it only added positively to the experience. It was so cozy, sitting around the stove drinking what seemed like an endless supply of gluhwein, making home cooked meals every night, watching Christmas movies dubbed in German .... I really loved it. Nadia and her family were amazing and it really felt like a home away from home. It snowed the night of Christmas which only added to the charm of the area....

 We did get to spend 1 day in Munich where I was able to drink in a couple beer halls (yum yum), see the glockenspiel (very anti climatic), and walk around (beautiful city). I highly recommend the free walking tour of the city center. I love taking walking tours around old cities; they really help to refresh my historical knowledge and the guides for the free walking tours are always great because they work solely off of tips.

London: Dec 29 - Jan 28

Well, two of the above days were spent back in my old stomping ground of Gloucester visiting my friend Kate and her adorable daughter Jennifer but the rest of the time I was the unofficial third roommate of Nadia (and her official roommate Ronja) in London. God I love London, I can’t wait to live there next year though it might bankrupt me. Some of the notable activities:

*New Year’s Eve: An “Around the World in 80 Days” themed party hosted by two of Nadia’s friends. Initially I was a little apprehensive about the party when Nadia told me about the 19^th century dress code but after we purchased bowler hats and mustaches I was all in. The party was the type of party I can only imagine myself being ambitious enough to prepare. It was a small affair, only 10 people, but it was a dinner party with different drinks, food courses, and trivia/activities in line with the places Phileas Fogg visits in the book. Now I've never read the book, but that wasn't a required prerequisite. In all honestly, the night ranks in my top five New Year’s of all time.

*Street Markets: Yummy yummy yummy food.

*Indian and Punjabi Cuisine: Best food in London, I ate a lot of it. (Tayyabs and Lahore were both great places)

*The Bermondsey Beer Mile: I learned about this while I was doing the Meantime Brewery Tour in Greenwich, mentioned it to my friend Amanda and her husband Carl who also live in London, and two days later we were walking the mile. To anyone who likes beer and has a free Saturday in London, do this. I think it’s a relatively new activity that has popped up over the years but basically it’s a brewery crawl of six microbreweries mostly under the railway arches from South Bermondsey to London Bridge. They are all within walking distance of each other and most of them only open up shop on Saturdays between 10 am - 5 pm for people to actually drink at the brewery. The beers are tasty, there's the Maltby Street Market nearby for when you need sustenance, and all in all, it makes for a really fun day. One word to the wise, don't drink anymore after the mile is complete. Go home and go to bed. I won't go into details but London took my hat from me that night......

*Walking Tours: I did two "Street Art Tours," one with the London Free Tours by Foot group (with Nadia and friends) and another through the Street Art London group (by myself). Both were good but I liked the Street Art London tour the best. It was a much smaller group and guide talked more about the art than the history and politics of the area which is more what I wanted out of the tour. I only remember a few of the artists' names but the art is still cool regardless....

Ben Wilson: Guy who paint discarded chewing gum on the side walk

Space Invader

 Roa

We also did a "Jack the Ripper" Tour with the Free Tours group which was really great. The guide is a Jack the Ripper Tour guide expert, no, really, she's doing her Phd in "dark tourism." Who knew that's a thing?! We actually did the two free tours in one afternoon which I don't recommend; we were absolutely exhausted the following day.

*Yelp Cooking School Event: Nadia is now a yelp "elite" which means she gets invited to free events only for elites. This was her first elite event and it was awesome; makes me want to start writing more yelp reviews. Basically we did a "street food" cooking class which also included cocktail making and wine. All for free. Let me reiterate, awesome.

*Straddling the Prime Meridian: One foot in the East hemisphere and one foot in the West hemisphere. Where modern time telling was developed...

*Ice skating by Liverpool Street

* Seeing the Rosetta Stone and the British Museum: I hardly go to museums but I figured I should check this one off the list. Great museum though, lots of cool very old stuff (like mummies)

*And of course, seeing James McAvoy in "The Ruling Class" and also getting to take a picture with him: For those of you who are unaware, Nadia and I have been James McAvoy fans for years. I'm not sure where or how it started, maybe Atonement? Penelope? Becoming Jane? Regardless, it's a very good thing that he's married with a child or we might argue seriously about who would be allowed to marry him.....
Anyways, I'm lucky that we scored tickets to this play while I was there, it just opened and it's running until April. I'm even luckier that we were able to score a great deal and only pay 15 pounds for the ticket. I had never heard of the play before, it's from the 70's and hasn't been performed in a while I think, but it was really great. Yes, I'm biased towards James but he is phenomenal on the stage and the rest of the cast also put on a fantastic show. There was singing, dancing, unicycle riding, murder, half nudity... it really had it all. Best line of the play (in my opinion):

Lady Claire Gurney: How do you know you're God?

Jack Arnold Alexander Tancred Gurney, 14th Earl of Gurney: Simple. When I pray to Him, I find I am talking to myself.

After the play Nadia and I went and waited outside the stage doors with about 50 other women to get the picture with McAvoy. That's why he looks so exhausted in the picture, after spending three hours on stage he's was nice enough to stick around to take pictures and sign autographs. Yes, I felt like a 14 year old girl but whatever, now I have this picture and it makes me happy (Some of the other fans brought him gifts...at least we weren't THAT crazy).

As I said before, I love London and this was by far my favorite visit I've ever had there. Of course, the fact that I was there for a month means that I had plenty of time to relax and enjoy the city. Shout out to all the people who housed me while I was in England: Kate, Amanda, and of course Nadia and Ronja. I am very lucky to have so many awesome friends and especially a friend who doesn't think twice when I ask if I can stay for a month.

Oslo: Jan 28-30

Just a short trip back to Norway to finish my Spanish visa. I never visited Oslo last fall so even though it's annoying I had to come back for my visa it was nice to walk around the city today. In fact, it has nice to be back in Norway in general, it's like being wrapped in warm blanket, comfortable, familiar.... I walked around a lot today but didn't take too many pictures. Here are a few from Vigeland Park, my favorite place I went today but to be fair, I only saw about half of the city in one day....

Funny picture of Norwegian kids sliding down icy stairs in the park. Their teacher was the one pushing them down..... one of the reasons I love Norway. Teachers in the states would have to worry about being sued/convicted of abuse or something stupid if they did this and a kid got hurt...

Tomorrow morning I fly to Barcelona and on the 9th I start my second semester of school. I can't wait to unpack my backpack. Being a bum and crashing at people's houses is great and everything but I am ready to hang up my clothes and have my own room.....

So there you have it, first post of 2015. I think it's going to be great year!