Sunday, March 28, 2010
Today is my last day of spring break here in London, and I thought it would be a good idea to blog about what I did. Before I do, I would just like to mention that my spring break was ten days.
Anyway, I started my spring break with a trip to the Adelphi Theatre to see Love Never Dies, the sequel to the Phantom of the Opera. I really enjoyed it, and it was the perfect start to my spring break. For the next couple of days, I really didn’t do anything that fun. I just stayed around the flat and relaxed. The weekend was a little bit better because I got the whole flat to myself. This allowed me to do some cleaning up of my room and some of the flat itself. I also got many chances to have my Broadway Jam Sessions. Basically, these sessions include me singing along with a set playlist of songs that I like. I really like doing this because it relieves a lot of stress and is just really fun. I don’t know how good of a singer I am, and because of this, I try not to sing to loudly. Yet, there are just some songs that I have to sing loud because it is the only way to convey the emotions of the song. Along with that, I had the TV to myself which meant I could watch what I wanted. I don’t watch a lot of TV, but there are specific shows that I like to watch every once in awhile. I also got a chance to watch a couple of movies too. Yet, the highlight of my weekend was the walk that I went on last Friday. I was kind of itching to get out of the flat to do something, but I had no idea what I wanted to do. So, I went straight to my City Walks, a box of preset walks given to me by a friend, and picked on out. The one that I picked out was a walk along the canals that are here to Regents Park. The walk itself was about 2 hours total, and it was really beautiful. It was just cool to walk along the canals and see everything that was along them. There was an area near the park that had all these elaborate houses, which were pretty to look out. Towards the end of the walk, I decided to spend some time in the park and read a book. That was really fun, and it gave my legs a bit of a rest. Overall, it was a very beautiful, energizing, and refreshing walk.
Though the weekend was fairly good, the highlight of my spring break was my three day trip to Paris. When I came to London, I made up my mind that I wanted to go to either Rome or Paris. I did some research and found that Paris was a bit cheaper. So, I decided that I was going to do a trip to Paris. I also decided that it would be cheapest for me to go for a couple of days instead of the whole week that we had off. Plus, I didn’t really speak the language, and I really just wanted to see the sights. I made the plans and started asking around for people who wanted to go. Mary, a fellow Teaching Fellow, agreed to go and booked the tickets for the train and the hotel.
Overall, the trip was fantastic. The train ride was really smooth and enjoyable. It was my first high speed train ride, and I was surprised how fast the time went by. Granted, I did sleep most of the trip, but it was still surprisingly fast. After we got there, we wandered around the train station trying to find our metro platform. We found it on the map, but could not figure out how to get there. After about five minutes, we asked someone, and they told us how to get there. Once on the platform, we were in familiar territory. Being temporarily from London, we knew how to travel the metro and adapted pretty well to the Parisian system. We got on and eventually got off at our hotel’s stop. We found our hotel and unpacked. After unpacking, we got lunch at a really good Italian restaurant near our hotel. It was a little awkward eating lunch there because they spoke French and we spoke English so the language barrier made things tough. We got through it and had a spectacular time. After lunch, we decided to go to the Opera Garnier, the haunting ground of the Phantom of the Opera, via walking. The walk there was really cool because we got to see a lot of the city, and we even saw a protest of educators. Once we got to the opera house, we went inside and walked around. I was geeking out because I am a huge phan of the Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It was just really cool to be in the opera house that the musical’s opera house is based on. The highlight of it was I got a picture in front of Box 5, the Phantom’s box. I also got pictures of the infamous staircase and the auditorium. It was such a beautiful place. After the opera house, we ended up going to the Lafayette Galleries, which was a really big department store. We just walked around to see what the store had, and we eventually had dinner there. The coolest part of that store is that you can go to the roof and get a really good view of the city. After all of that, we went back to the hotel and crashed.
The next day, Mary and I decided to spend most this day at the Louvre. For those who don’t know, the Louvre is Paris’ famous art museum. According to a source, it would take 32 days to see all the works in the Louvre. That includes no breaks and 30 seconds at each piece. Overall, the Louvre was awesome. I have never seen so much art in my life, and it was just really cool to see everything from the ancients to the art of the 20th century. The highlight of the trip was definitely the Mona Lisa. Going in, I knew that the piece was small, but it was just a little smaller than I thought. I also think it is kind of overrated, but it was still cool to see it. After the Louvre, we made our way down the Champs Elyse. This road is really famous and has really expensive shopping on it. At the end of the road is the Arc. We made our way along the road, and as we did, we both got crepes with nutella. Mine was excellent, and I found a new topping for my crepes back home. After taking pictures of the Arc, Mary and I went into the shops on the road and looked for souvenirs. As it was getting dark, we went back to our hotel and crashed.
The last day of our trip in Paris was dominated by a free tour of the city. The tour was done by a group called New Europe tours. The tours are free and done by graduate students who are living in the city. Like most tours, we saw many of the sights, but we never really got up close to them. Luckily for us, Mary and I had already been to most of them so it wasn’t a problem. The best part of the tour was learning the history of Paris. I knew a little of Paris when I arrived, but I know some more since that tour. After the tour was done, Mary and I took pictures of the Eiffel Tower and made our way to the train station. We eventually got home at around 9 pm London time and parted ways at the main door to our flats.
Since my Paris trip, I really haven’t done anything exciting. The last couple of days have been getting ready for the restart of classes and practicum. Sadly, I have become to realize that I have a little more than a month left in London. I still have so much to do and see. I hope I can’t get all of it in before exams.
Until Next Time,
Jefe
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