Archive for February, 2009

The Misadventures: One Short Day in the City of Brussels

Published by
jessi
at February 19, 2009 in Random Reading and The Misadventures: European Tour. 0 Comments

Okay, so we didn’t quite wake up as early as we would have liked. Well, technically we did, but then went back to sleep. We ended up leaving the hotel around 10:00, which was when I’d hoped to be starting our tour.

The first place I wanted to check out was the Musee du Cacao et du Chocolat. Whilst my mom got ready, I had pored over the map trying to find the best way to get there. At first, I figured we would just go to Gare Centrale and walk to it from the station. However, after I talked it over with my mom, since the Musee des Instruments de Musique & Old England building was on the opposite side of the Gare Centrale, it seemed better to take the tram to Bourse Station and walk to The Chocolate Museum that way instead of needing to backtrack.

It turns out, the transport I took the first day to get to Horta Station was the tram, not the underground. You can understand my mistake since access to the tram was underground. Anyway, we hopped onto the tram to Bourse Station.

After exiting the station, it was to the maps. The landmark I was using was the Scientastic Museum, which was easy to find. From there, I had to find Rue Henri Maus, and again, it was pretty easy to find. So far so good. In fact, I was feeling really good about my navigation skills. (I shouldn’t be all that proud since the route was a square.) Once we were on the Rue de Tabora, we just had to find the Rue de l’Amigo. On the way there, however, my mom got a bit sidetracked by a souvenir shop.

We milled around the shop for a spell, but Mom didn’t really find anything overly worthwhile. I figured we’d pass another shop somewhere in our wandering, so my mom was content to pass on by. Stopping by the shop kind of threw me off my navigating, and we ended up walking all the way down to Rue du Lombard. We weren’t that far off course, though, and it was quite easy to turn around.

I had originally planned to find the Rue de l’Amigo, but it just so happened that we passed the Rue de la Tête d’Or, the very street the Musee du Cocoa et du Chocolat was on!

One of the best parts about navigating a heavily tourist city is all the signs. I remember reading on Dave’s blog (Fiona’s husband) that the museum itself it actually quite hard to find since it doesn’t look like a museum. Lucky for us, a crowd of tourists had just exited the museum, so that made it wicked easy.

The Chocolate Museum was not at all what I was expecting. I guess when I think “museum”, I think like the British Museum or something like that. This was more like a little shop, a rather expensive little shop. Admission for my mom and me was €9. This did get us a tasting of melted chocolate on a biscuit, so that all right. I started to look at some of the items on display; a lot of the information cards were things I kind of already knew. The chocolate sculptures were pretty cool, though. Still hadn’t felt like it was worth the Euros, though.

There was chocolate demonstration that I was interested in seeing. Unfortunately for us, the chocolatier was in the middle of her demonstration. There was a Chocolate Process DVD playing in the area in front of the kitchen that we were watching. It was because of this DVD that I decided I want to be a cocoa harvester. I mean, you get to use a machete.

The woman who sold us our admission reminded us that we could take a look upstairs as well. We weren’t sure how much longer the demonstration would take, so we thought we would kill some time wandering around upstairs.
Even with the additional displays, it still didn’t feel like it was worth the Euros. Again, the information that I read about was things I either already know or could have looked up online. (I realize it’s about the experience, but when you’re trying to spend money sparingly, every Euro counts.)

When we went back downstairs, the place had exploded with people. When we first arrived, there were maybe ten people put together. Now there was hardly room to walk around. I wasn’t going to leave without seeing the demonstration, though. I wanted to get the most out of my money, after all.

As we went back up to the kitchen area, we discovered that the DVD was in the same place it was when we had left. If we had stayed where we were, we could have gotten into the demonstration and then gone upstairs. Oh well.
We were lucky that we pushed our way to the front. The chocolatier was already talking to some of the other people in English, so that was something of a relief to us. The bajillion other people who showed up whilst we were upstairs also crowded into the demonstration area.

Once there were enough people, the chocolatier started her demonstration. Since there were more French-speakers who joined us, she used both English and French. I wish I could say that I remember everything she said, but I really can’t. Much like the DVD, the demonstration caused me to want to work with chocolate. It was still cool and it was finally worth the €9 (€5 for me, €4 for my mom). We even got another sample.

Leaving the Chocolate Museum, we managed to meander down to the Grand Place surrounded by Musée de la Brasserie (Brewery Museum), the Musée de la Ville de Bruxelles (History of Brussels), and the Hôtel de Ville (Town Hall). Naturally, we took pictures of the architecture.

Since we were already in the square, and there were things to see, we opted to take advantage of our location instead of going across town to the Musical Instrument Museum.

It was to the Musée de la Ville de Bruxelle, which was, incidentally, the most elaborate building in the square. It was probably why we decided to check it out.

The entry fee wasn’t as expensive as the Chocolate Museum, only about €5 for the two of us. There was a weird rule about my backpack; I had to either carry it around in my hand or wear it on the front.

The first room we wandered into had a lot of Christian artifacts, paintings, statues, and carved doors. The part I enjoyed about this place was that all the information panels were either in French or Dutch. I could suss out more of the French panels than anything, but that’s ‘cuz I studied it at school. I think I could have guessed my way through the Dutch since English and Dutch are cousins.

The next room was one my mom was more interested it; it contained porcelain dishes and tea services. Next to that one was a room full of tapestries.

We ascended the stairs to the top floor, figuring it would be easier that way than stopping off at the second floor and then climbing to the top – a trick picked up from Japan’s Osaka Castle. (I’m sure there are other places that do the same kind of method but I’d never practiced it until Braden and I visited the castle.)

On the top floor there was the History of Brussels and the many costumes of the Mannekin Pis. I thought all the different costumes were pretty cool; he pretty much had something to wear from every country! Some counties had multiple representations like the States, England, and France. The History of Brussels portion was pretty cool, but there wasn’t anything overly captivating for me I’m sorry to say.

The second floor was more about the changing faces of Brussels from its founding to modern times. There was a pretty cool model of the city from its medieval days (then again, of course I would think that was cool). There were also architectural drawings and the like.

So far, our misadventures in museums weren’t taking us nearly as long as I had expected. We’d seen two museums in just about two hours or so.

Since we were in the square, and the streets that led to it were full of souvenir shops, it seemed logical to do a little browsing. There were more shops to choose from instead of just the one we’d passed on the way to the Chocolate Museum, so we never did backtrack to it. I think in total we spent around an hour browsing, or rather, my mom did. I wasn’t really looking for anything overly touristy other than chocolate.

It was well past the lunching hour by this point, so yeah, we were pretty hungry. We wandered past a whole bunch of restaurants, but unfortunately, none of them were really in our price range. For what the signs were advertising, it didn’t seem worth the Euro. On Boulevard Anspach, we found a McDonald’s and a Pizza Hut, both establishments I refused to set foot in. We passed a kebab place called Sultan of Kepab, and we ended up eating there. All my mates in London are always telling me to try a kebab, so I figured I would. (Although, I think they meant kebab places in London, but I figured it was all the same.)

Considering how much we spent, it was a pretty good value. And it wasn’t something I normally eat! It wasn’t particularly Belgian, but it was consumed in Belgium.

By the time we’d finished eating, it was getting closer to 3 PM; the Musee des Instruments de Musique & Old England Building closed at 5 and we were still a bit far away from the museum. I admit I was a bit disappointed to not be able to go; I mean, it didn’t take us that long to make it through the two other museums, but my mom didn’t think it was worth the Euro for only two hours.
It was decided that we ought to stay in that general area rather than try and make it to the other part of the city. We headed back towards the square and passed yet another church.

The Church of St. Nicholas was actually pretty cool. I was mostly impressed with the altars dedicated to the different Christian figures and saints. Whilst my mom prayed at the altar of St Nicholas, I wandered around a bit. I’d been incredibly reluctant to take pictures whilst we’d been in the cathedral, but I got over that when we were in St. Nicholas. (That and everybody else was doing it!) One of the other things I liked about the church was the English pamphlet numbering all the different artifacts and pictures with the titles. I snapped pictures of the altar dedicated to St. Nicholas, the altar dedicated to Our Lady of Peace, and of St Theresa of the Child Jesus.

Afterwards, we ended up going back to a few of the souvenir shops. I went into Dandoy’s Biscuiterie, a famous Belgian biscuit shop (it was shown on $40 a Day with Rachel Ray!). In retrospect, I really shouldn’t have spent the Euros for the bag of butter biscuits I bought (what is up with me and alliteration?), but not much to be done about it now.

Since we had effectively gone off the itinerary, I had a look in the guidebook as to our next course of action. We’d seen and read about the little guy, so it made sense to try and see the Mannekin Pis. It wasn’t that hard to figure out where he was since there were signs everywhere. We retraced a lot of the steps we’d taken to get to the square in the first place. When we finally got to see the little guy, there was already a bit of a crowd around him but it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. He’s actually much smaller in person. I snapped a picture of him and my mom and I even got to a picture with him together. Of all the sights we’d seen together, the one we pose for is the one of a little boy peeing. Hmmmm…

Another Brussels attraction was off our list. I suggested going to the Palais Royale next. I read in the Lonely Planet book that they allow visitors inside but only until 4:30 PM. We had enough time to try and make it there, so that’s what we did.

We hopped on the tram again instead of trying to take the Metro. It was a short ride up to De Brouckère Station (also a Metro station) where we caught the 1A/1B going to Parc Station. There was another way we could probably have gone that would have brought us closer to the palace, but I figured it would be nice to stroll through the Parc de Bruxelles.

Oh winter. How you mock me with your winds and cold. My idea to walk through the park probably would have been more pleasant in Spring or Summer. And if we had come to Brussels at those times, we probably would have actually been able to go into the palace. I misread the information in the guidebook and apparently, they were closed in winter. We got some nice pictures of it, though.

Whilst we were walking up to the palace, I noticed what looked like the Palais de Justice. Referring to my handy map, I discovered that it was indeed what I thought it was. Rather than go to the station, I suggested just walking it.
We passed yet another church along the way. Since it was something to see, we went inside. The Chapel of the Madeline was very simple. There wasn’t anything really ornate about it at all, but it was nice to see. And yes, my mom took the time to pray at this one as well.

After leaving the church, we continued our way towards the Palais de Justice. I noticed one of the streets was marked “Sablon”, and I remembered reading that name in the guidebook. I referred to it quickly and told my mom that we were near the antiques area. That definitely got my her attention so we took a side trip down into that area. Most places were closed, but we did eventually wander into one of them. I kinda laughed about it in my head because most of the things we were looking at were things we’d probably have seen in a museum but we’d have paid a lot for an entrance fee. This was nice and free.

We didn’t spend too much time in the antiques area, though. It was pretty uphill from that point. (No really, we had to walk back up on an incline.) Walking towards the Palais de Justice, we stumbled upon Notre Dame du Sablon. Now this church impressed me greatly. Where the last church we visited was simple, this one was ornate. It was styled in the gothic tradition and featured stained glass windows. Of course, I snapped several pictures. It isn’t very often that I see stained glass windows in a gothic church.

The visit to Notre Dame du Sablon completed, the walk back to the Palais de Justice resumed. I’d wanted a waffle all day but unfortunately for us, there weren’t any quaint waffle vendors along the avenue as there had been in the main square. We resorted to Hagaan-Daaz. It was still incredibly tasty, though! The guy even warmed them up on the griddle so they were nice and hot while we ate them.

Not too much happened once we got back to the hotel. We’d spent just about six hours in Brussels and we still hadn’t seen everything! (It probably didn’t help that things closed at 5.)

Even though there was still so much to see, we decided that we were to Bruges the next day anyway.

The Misadventures: Bienvenue a Bruxelles

Published by
jessi
at February 18, 2009 in The Misadventures: European Tour. 1 Comment

I’m not sure if that’s the right usage of “to”…but then again, my French is absolutely atrocious.

(written from the Four Points by Sheraton Brussels)

I made it to Brussels in one piece, or should I say “not dead”. The start of the trip wasn’t overly inspiring. Then again, I am under the delusion that England is out to get me.

I took the Eurostar over here. My train was scheduled to leave St. Pancras at 9:57 AM. The website said that boarding would take place half an hour before the departure; so I figured I should try and get to the station wicked early. I calculated that I ought to be able to get there in time if I left the flat at 7:30 AM.

I really should have known better. The bus wasn’t particularly punctual, but that’s really nothing new. I also had the misfortune of trying to travel on a day that they were doing roadwork, which added to the time it took to get to East Croydon Station. I made it there a little after 8:15.

I was strangely in luck when I bought my train ticket, though. I even managed to catch the 8:30 train to London Victoria. I could have sat down on the train, but thought against it because of my luggage. (Sitting down on the train isn’t always a guarantee.)

‘Twas a little before 9:00 when I got to Victoria. In my head, I had enough time to top-up my Oyster card since I’d be traveling in Zone 1 of the London Transport and I wanted to make sure I had more than enough credit to do so.
Yeah, that was a mistake on my part. I have this particular talen of picking the wrong lines to queue up in. The machine that I selected decided it only like certain coins; and here I’d thought the person in front of me was just not so good at working the machine! Hence, it took a bit longer to top-up than I first anticipated.

Perhaps my favorite part of trying to get to St. Pancras was when there was some kind of delay on the Victoria Line from the station. There was quite the crowd gathered by the ticket stalls. I considered re-routing, but I was reluctant to do so because the Victoria Line seemed to be the most direct to St. Pancras. So I stuck it out.

We were eventually let through and the trains were coming and going just about every 3 minutes. The carriages were only super full until Oxford Circus, when it seemed everyone and their brother got off the train. There were even seats available! (Again, not always a usual occurrence.)

There were only a few more stops to St. Pancras and it looked like I was going to make it in decent time. I followed the pretty, pretty signs to the depot and even managed to find the ticketing area. I thought it would be easy to print my ticket with the self-service machine, but again, I have that talent of picking the wrong machine. I ended up needing to stand in line anyway.

Target acquired. I mean, ticket acquired. I went to go through check-in. Here’s the part where I’m a moron. Since I was taking the train, I didn’t really think about going through security. That’s always been an airport thing to me. I forgot that technically, I was traveling Internationally. Thank God I remembered my passport! So maybe I should have left the flat at 6:30 like I originally though.

After using my amazing talent to pick the slowest line possible thought the checkpoint, I finally made it to the trains.

The train ride itself was pretty good. I wished I had a window seat, but maybe I’ll be lucky on the way back.

Now here’s the part where I think I’ve grown up a bit. Five years ago, the thought of trying to make it through a city on my own would have sent me into a fit. Trying to navigate a foreign city? Yeah right.

Well, I somehow managed to get myself lost in Brussels and still made it on my own in one piece.

The hotel my dad set up for my mom and me was one called Four Star by Sheraton Brussels. The minor detail my father failed to notice was that it was kind of on the outskirts of the city center. No matter. I decided I would be able to figure it out using the Metro. I managed to find a station that seemed relatively close to the hotel and then I used Google Maps to try and navigate by foot. This way, I wouldn’t have to spend too much on a taxi. Brilliant plan, right?

Yeah…about that…

After purchasing two three-day travel passes, I managed to find the underground. I was able to find Horta Station, the one I deemed close to the hotel, and I managed to board the train with no more trepidation than usual. According to my directions, once I exited Horta Station, all I would have to do was find Ierlaandstraat.

Forty-five minutes later and after circling Waterloostraat at least five times, I was out of luck. The time was fast approaching ridiculous, so I said screw it, I’ll pay for the damn taxi and headed back to Gare Midi.

There are two parts to this misadventure that kind of irritate me. The first part was finding out it only cost around €8. Not nearly as expensive as I thought it would be. The second part that got me was discovering that Horta Station was in fact NOT the closest Metro station to the hotel. If I had gone to Louis Station instead, it would have been a fifteen minute walk straight down the boulevard.
Oh well. Live and learn, or something like that.

I was glad my mom wasn’t expecting me at 2:30 when I originally thought I’d make it to the hotel. (It was closer to half three by the time I made it the hotel, and I’d arrived in Brussels at about 1:45.) In fact, she was surprised to see me when I arrived. The original thought was that I wouldn’t get to Brussels until 5:00 PM.

Anyway, it was a quick stop in the hotel room and then my mom and I decided to explore the city a little. We stopped at the front desk to ask for directions, which is when I discovered that I should have just gone to Louise Station, and then we were on our way. We decided to walk rather than take the tram.
It wasn’t overly exciting, but it was a good jaunt. We wandered down to the end of Avenue Louise where we saw the Palais de Justice. We turned around from that point to take the Metro into the city centre.

Here’s a thing that kind of surprised me. I expected my mom to be all kinds of annoyed that I didn’t have a plan. In fact, she was pretty easy-going about whatever we did. She was perfectly content to just wander around with me as I would do on my own anyway. Of course, we had a map and the Lonely Planet so it wasn’t completely aimless.

Looking at the Metro Guide, I thought perhaps it would be good to see St. Catherine’s. I mean, it had its own station, so it must have been something to see. (Of course, I was actually thinking of the Cathedral of St. Catherine’s, not the church.)

We took the Metro to Arts-Loi and then transferred to the 1A/1B Lines. While looking at the Metro Guide again, I noticed that we weren’t that far away from Gare Centrale. I suggested maybe seeing that area instead, figuring it was close to a lot of the major sites, but we ended up going to Sainte-Catherine first.

It wasn’t difficult to find the church once we got out of the station. We wandered up to the building and found it still open, so naturally, we went inside. My mom prayed and I just kind of took in the sight. It wasn’t the best looking church, but the guidebook said it was a place of note because it was designed by Joseph Poelaert, the same person who designed the Palais de Justice. It also had an open-air urinal on the side of the building. That was definitely something you don’t see on the side of a regular church.

While walking around a little, we found La Mer du Nord, a stranding room only fresh seafood place that was listed in the Lonely Planet. We thought maybe we’d sample some of the fare, but unfortunately for us, they were closing. (The guidebook said they close at 6, but I wasn’t going to argue with the guy. He even spoke to us in English. Oh yeah, wandering around the city is brushing up my French a bit.)

We went back to the Metro and stopped at Gare Centrale instead. I wanted to maybe trace a rout to the Musee du Cacao et du Chocolat. But instead, we got distracted by the Cathedral. We were lucky again in that it was still open.
The Cathedral was far more impressive than the church, but then again, it’s a cathedral. There was a beautifully carved oak pulpit that was on display. I read the panel explaining about it and it was pretty detailed.

I took a picture of the cathedral and of the sunset.

My mom and I wandered around a little bit more, but it was getting cold and dark, so we decided to just go back to the hotel. Instead of buying an expensive dinner, we opted for a Panini from the station. (Hey, it was better than McDonald’s.) We also bought some pop from the little corner grocery store that was a stone’s throw away from the hotel. (We’re on a budget.)

So far, not a bad first day in Brussels. We managed to do a lot considering we didn’t get a chance to start seeing things until late afternoon, right when most places are closing.

Tomorrow, we plan on going to the Musee du Cacao et du Chocolat and the Musee des Instruments de Musique & Old England Building. Also, and perhaps the most important item on the itinerary, we plan on eating some waffles.

“We really need to do this again sometime.”

Published by
jessi
at February 14, 2009 in In Good Company. 2 Comments

As professional courtesy, some of the names in this post have been changed.

This past week was the end of the first half of Spring Term. Usually, at the end of the week, people go down to the local pub. At the end of Autumn Term, it was decided that for the next big break we ought to do something other than just go to The Fox. So “Sean” organized a staff outing that involved meeting up in a more or less central location and hanging out until well after midnight.

Shelby and I were invited to stay the night at Fiona’s place in the event we didn’t want to catch last trains. I was a little reluctant to accept the invitation at first, but then decided it would probably be a good thing if I did.

I’m really glad I did. But we’ll get to that later.

I was gettin’ pretty excited about being social with colleagues. It ended up being a lot of the people who usually frequent The Fox anyway. But it wasn’t going to be in our usual place. For some reason, that made a difference.

Shelby and I got ready at Fiona’s…or rather, Fiona and Shelby got ready. Let’s not forget the part where I am totally and completely lame and don’t put a whole lot of effort into “getting ready”. Whilst Fiona and Shelby spent time being proper ladies and such, I hung out on the couch with Fiona’s husband watching a really bad made-for-TV movie called “Terror in the Family”. Wow. It was way quality. Some of the cinematography was very moving. And the acting…

Fiona and Shelby got a laugh out of it ‘cuz they got to see the geeky side of me. I thought Fiona’s husband was pretty cool. He was able to speak a little geek so that made me happy.

We were meant to meet up with everyone at half seven. It was nearly seven by the time we were out the door and we still hadn’t eaten dinner yet. Fiona had me all kinds of excited to eat at a pizza place round the corner from her flat. In fact, various times throughout the getting ready process I just shouted out “Pizza!” ‘Twasn’t meant in a “hurry your asses up” way, ’twas more of a “I’m so excited about pizza!” way. I was kind of thinking we weren’t going to get our pizza ‘cuz of time, but Fiona and Shelby assured me that no one was going to show up exactly at 7:30!

Now, as an American, when I envision going out for pizza, I think of Frato’s or Lou’s or a place like that. More hanging out with your mates than ambiance and candle light. So when we walked up to Caminata (website not very informative, but it gives some contact info), I was feelin’ a bit…out of place.

“I feel like I’m in the Hills,” Shelby declared.

I was glad that I wasn’t the only one finding the place a bit posh. Fiona kinda laughed at us ‘cuz it wasn’t like we were dressed in cut-up jeans or anything, and even if we were, it wasn’t like there was a dress code.

Fiona had a voucher for a buy-one-get-one-free pizza so we decided we would go with that deal. It also happened that the waitress was super nice and let Fiona and Shelby get their buy-one-get-one-free drink as well, even though it was slightly after 7:00.

The conversation was only mildly school-related. We mostly talked about traveling and our respective experiences traveling. I think I get on with Shelby and Fiona so well ‘cuz none of us our resident UK folk and we came here to try and see the world. I’m still frustrated with myself for not going and doing more traveling when it comes to these holidays, but I also have that crazy “save money” mindset. I mean, I didn’t really start doing things in Japan until I had reached a certain amount of money saved up. I may complain about it a bit, but I’m glad that I’m meeting my mom in Belgium ‘cuz it at least gets me out of the UK.

The pizza we ordered arrived. One of the reasons Fiona loves this place is because you can watch the guy toss the pizza up in the air right at the bar. It’s pretty cool. Apparently it’s a very family-run place. I was glad to have ordered outside of my eating comfort zone. I can’t remember the name of the particular pizza, but it had Buffalo mozzarella, Parma ham, mixed greens that included fresh basil and had a cherry tomato sauce. Now, that might not sound overly adventurous to y’all, but when I’m pretty lame when it comes to pizza.

Dude. That was like the best pizza I’ve ever had! It was Italian-style and absolutely gorgeous, as my British friends are wont to say when describing food. (I’m writing this post several days later and I’m still thinking about how good that pizza was!)

After our meal, Fiona decided to take a picture of us together.

Me, Shelby and Fiona at Caminata

Me, Shelby and Fiona at Caminata

Aren’t you proud of me? I willingly sat for a picture!! :-)

We were to the train station thereafter. It was closer to 8:00 than half seven, but I was going to be late with people I knew so it was all five-by-five with me. Fiona was the one with directions, or rather, she memorized the directions. We started to question her memory a bit as we continued to wander the streets of Clapham, but it turned out that Sean’s directions were a bit off and The Duck was not as close to the station as he made it out to be. We also ran into “Belle” on our way; she was equally at a loss in finding the place.

The cool and fun thing about Fiona is she’s not afraid to ask random people for directions. Or maybe it was more entertaining because she was wearing her scarf around her head in a very interesting fashion.

Eventually, we found the The Duck. Phil, Sean, “Lisa” and “Rory” were already there. Our seats were situated around couches so that was pretty cool. Drinks were ordered and room on the couches was made for one and all.

The weather was starting to get pretty bad. We laughed about it, wishing that it could have happened earlier and maybe we could have had another snow day out of it. Unfortunately, the weather was cause for some of the other people who were supposed to join us to back out. ‘Twas a shame really. But enough people trickled in to make it into a split bit of a group. “Tim” and “Kate” were amongst our later arrivals and a bunch of people went to shoot some pool.

We stayed at The Duck up until closing time, which was round 11:00. It was to the The Clapham Grand. The weather had calmed down by this point so it wasn’t too bad walking outside, just a bit chilly.

At first, we weren’t going to be allowed into the club ‘cuz of our shoes or something like that. But Sean smoothed it over somehow and the bouncer let us in. He made some comment about the fact that I was wearing trainers and I got really, really annoyed. I can tolerate rudeness from students, but I’m less tolerant from adults. I’m actually a very violent person and I really wanted to unleash my violence on the bouncer. So what if I would have totally gotten my ass kicked. That put me into a bit of a mood for the beginning of the time at the club, but I eventually got over it.

Now, y’all know I’m not one for dancing. I seriously have to be in a certain mod to dance, and usually situations like that make me uncomfortable. And yet, I was perfectly content to sit and watch everyone else dance. It was so loud at the club anyway that it would have been impossible to try and talk with people. A couple times throughout the night, people asked me if I was having a good time and I wasn’t even trying to be polite when I told them that I was.

For the most part, we stayed until that place closed too! Some others in our party parted company around last train, but Sean, Fiona, Shelby, Tim, Belle, Richard, and I all hung in there until the place closed. (And again with the rudeness from the staff. Can’t say I’m overly impressed with The Clapham Grand. Maybe they have to be jerks ‘cuz they’re used to dealing with drunks, but I thought they were unnecessarily rude.)

Shelby, Fiona, Belle, and I caught a taxi from Clapham. It was an entertaining ride home. We didn’t get back to the flat till round 3 AM or so, and we were still awake for a bit thereafter.

The following morning, Fiona took us to a little cafe on the High Street for breakfast…er, lunch. Can’t say I’m overly impressed with English breakfasts, but that might be because I had my heart set on pancakes or waffles and English breakfasts don’t have either of those. Instead, they have beans. (I know, right?)

The conversations elude me, I just know that they were good. It was really nice to hang out with people in general. I’d really missed doing so.

As we walked to the station, it was mentioned several times that we really need to do this sort of thing again sometime. We’re hoping to make this type of hanging out a more regular occurrence.

Here’s hoping!

“She also has asthma.”

Published by
jessi
at February 14, 2009 in Arts and Entertainment. 3 Comments

Has anyone else noticed that I’ve been posting a lot in Arts and Entertainment lately? Could it be because Jon Snow is my only way of accessing the outside world these days? Man, first year teaching sucks…

Incidentally, I do have two posts about social things that I’ve done lately. This post, however, was just way too important for me to pass up.

SPOILER WARNING: The following post may contain SPOILERS for episode one of Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse.

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:-D

No, that’s not all I’ll write about it. But that’s kinda how it was for like the whole first twenty minutes. Was it as sucks-you-in as “Have good sex!”? No. But really, will there ever be anything as sucks-you-in as a line like “Have good sex!”?

Am I still super psyched about this show? YES! Is it because Eliza Dushku is on TV again? I’m not gonna lie. That is a GINORMOUS factor in this. However, I would like to point out that I saw the first episode of Nurses and my reaction to it wasn’t overly favorable. (Then again, it never aired…so, it wasn’t overly favorable to a lot of people.)

I trust Joss Whedon. He hasn’t given me any reason to not like his stuff…even if he did get rid of my all-time favorite comic book character. And has this bad habit of killing people instead of giving them happy endings.

Was it the greatest pilot in the world? No. It really wasn’t. But I definitely want to know what the hell was up with the end! I also want to know if that was Toa from American Gladiators that Paul Ballard was kickboxing.

Yay for care packages!!

Published by
jessi
at February 10, 2009 in Random Reading. 0 Comments

I got a package in the mail from Darya! Woot!!

And it has ramen. Precious, precious ramen… :-D

Definitely not watching the rest of the episode

Published by
jessi
at February 04, 2009 in Arts and Entertainment. 1 Comment

Just ‘cuz Denise’s comment made me curious, I went and read a synopsis of the rest of the episode.

DEFINITELY not watching the rest now. If my reaction to reading it made me angry, I think watching it would be hazardous to Jon Snow’s health as I’d probably inadvertently throw something at the screen.

What bullshit! ( <– Yeah, it was enough for me to swear.)

Now I’m starting to think it’s just crap

Published by
jessi
at February 03, 2009 in Arts and Entertainment. 3 Comments

SPOILER WARNING: the following post may contain spoilers for the first ten minutes of Gossip Girl episode 17. Yeah, that’s right. The first ten minutes…actually, more like eight-ish minutes.

You have been warned.

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Dude. I couldn’t get past the first ten minutes. I’m sorry, again, WHAT THE HELL KIND OF TEACHER LETS HER STUDENTS CALL HER BY HER FIRST NAME WHEN THEY’RE STILL HER STUDENTS??!?!?! And what the HELL kind of high school teacher meets with a student at a coffee shop? It’s one thing if it’s a class of students, but if you need to meet with a student I’m pretty sure there are rules.

With me, you can only suspend by disbelief so much before I stop caring. Remember how I don’t like Ratatouille? (Again, I maintain that I could accept the rat being able to cook, but the rat controlling the human by pulling his hair? Really? That was the end of that.)

To be fair, every TV show has its off episode. But this is just…I don’t even know if I’m going to watch the rest.

The Misadventures: Chinese New Year London

Published by
jessi
at February 02, 2009 in The Misadventures: Lost in (Greater) London. 1 Comment

I didn’t come to this country solely to work. Unfortunately for me, it seems to be all I’ve really done.

With the Lunar New Year, and knowing that London has a China Town, I decided I would go and see the celebration. I was incredibly lucky to find out that the celebrations take place after the official New Year day.

I was supposed to meet up with one of my colleagues in Trafalgar Square, where the main stage was going to be. I briefly considered not attending because of the HMI inspection that was scheduled for Monday and knowing there were still a few things I needed to get done. However, my inner Chinese won out and I went to meet Fiona and her cousin at half one.

I’ve been to events and places with lots of crowds before, but in general I avoid them like the plague. But this was an experience I’d resolved to have.

I think I got to the steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields earlier than the appointed meeting time. That gave me a chance to watch the stage from a distance as one of the lion dances took place. I’d never seen one before, so I was pretty happy to catch it.

After meeting up with Fiona and her cousin, we went down to the main stage area. I’ve never actually been to China, but wading through the crowd I feel like I got a taste of it. Especially with all the Chinese being spoken. All that was really missing was the haggling and smog cloud.

I was incredibly entertained to discover that the red envelopes for lucky money were being distributed. At first, I thought they were just the envelopes, but after receiving mine own, I discovered there was actually 10p!! Okay, so that didn’t make us rich, but I thought it was brilliant that they were really giving them away to everyone.

It was pretty cold out yesterday. It was kinda hard to really get into the celebration and enjoy it. But it was still pretty damn cool. We got to see traditional dances and hear singing, which made me laugh a lot ‘cuz it reminded me of family parties with my dad’s side. We bought some street food that was overpriced, but it was hot and so it was pretty acceptable.

After hanging around Trafalgar Square for a spell, we decided to move on to China Town and see what was going there. We happened to arrive as the lion was making its rounds…which translated to not being able to move. We started to follow him, but then figured it was silly to try and just waited for him to come back around. We happened to pick the perfect spot for it too ‘cuz he totally came by the shop we were standing in front of. Now, I’m sure Darya will school me on the traditions of New Year (I only really remember lucky money, wearing red, and eating oranges). So the lion came by the shop and ate the bok choy that was hanging outside the window. Then it spit something back onto the store. My guess is that this is some sort of blessing, but what it means I’m not too positive on.

We got our kicks seeing the lion and his followers so we moved on. There really wasn’t much else to see, though. I wasn’t too busted up over it ‘cuz I was feeling wicked guilty for blowing off planning to attend New Year celebrations, and I was also getting pretty cold. We decided to warm up by getting some hot chocolate.

It was whilst sitting round a table at a Costa Coffee that we actually got to chat. It was nice to not talk about school, like AT ALL. Instead we talked about traveling. Fiona’s husband is in Japan right now and he’s bringing back some Balance Up bars for me (I hope) and it turns out Fiona’s friend visited Japan as well.

*sigh* It always comes back to Japan.

Anyway, after we’d finished our drinks, we all parted company. And, as my previous post pointed out, it was a good thing I left when I did otherwise there was a chance I could have been stranded because of snow.

Gong hei fat choi! Xin Nian Kuai Le! (I just wish I knew it Fujian as well.) Happy Year of the Ox!!

SNOW DAY!!!

Published by
jessi
at February 02, 2009 in The Misadventures: Lost in (Greater) London. 2 Comments

I haven’t had a snow day since the winter of 1999…holy smokes, that was ten years ago!!

Let’s see if I can put this post together without getting over-excited and putting everything in caps. All right. Where to begin…

It started snowing yesterday afternoon round 5 PM. I was lucky to have just made it back from London after having gone in to see the Chinese New Year celebration in London China Town (more on that later, this news was just too exciting to not write about right away). Not too long after I’d made it home, it started getting bad out there and people were stranded on the streets or some such.

I watched the snow fall steadily as I finished up all the stuff I needed for the HMI inspection (yes, another one, which was probably the reason I was in such a down mood). My landlady kept popping in to let me know it was still coming down and that there was a possibility we wouldn’t have school. I didn’t want to get my hopes up (yes, that’s right, “hopes up” — it’s hardly a secret that I’m struggling at school) so I carried on planning and prepping and filling out excel sheets.

This morning, I went through my routine, albeit half an hour earlier than usual. I wanted to get into school super early to get everything set.

Shelby called as I was getting ready to step out. She was stranded in Tonbridge. All trains canceled. I couldn’t help but laugh at that. I don’t really like school as much when she’s not there. It’s not like she’s my only friend, but she’s definitely the person I’m most comfortable with. I told her I’d keep her posted on the school status.

When I stepped out onto the stoop I was greeted by more snow. It reminded me of home. Part of me was getting really excited about it. Dude, if it’s this bad, there’s no WAY we’re having school today. But again, I figured with my luck, we’d still be in. (I’d gotten another call from another colleague whilst I was walking to the sidewalk. Yet another person unable to make it in because of the snow.)

London isn’t like Chicago. We’re used to this kind of stuff. We have snow plows and snow tires and all the fixin’s for this weather. London SO does not. You could hardly tell the streets from the pavement (sidewalk to us Americans). I don’t have any snow gear here so I had to walk in the tracks of the few brave cars that had gone on ahead. I passed a couple and one other fellow. The fellow said, “Don’t even bother. Buses aren’t running.”

“I only work up the road at the school.”

“School’s probably closed.”

“With my luck, it will be open.”

And I carried on walking.

Of course, when I got up to the school, the gates were wide open. With only a slight sigh, I trudged on through. I wasn’t surprised that I didn’t see any cars like I usually do. My tracks seemed to be the only set to be going anywhere.

I saw the caretaker and asked him if he knew if school was still open. He said until we heard from the principal, we’d carry on like normal.

Only it wasn’t so normal. He hadn’t opened up the area where my classroom was. I figured I was earlier than usual so I wasn’t gonna harass him about it. I tried really hard to carry on like normal, but as the time got closer and closer to 7 AM and only one other teacher came in, I started to not bother with class prep. Deep down I knew it: School was canceled.

Can’t say I was really broken up about it. I’m hardly a fan of more observations letting me know I’m not up to the standards of this country. (Yeah, that’s right. I’m officially discouraged.)

One of the assistant principals made it in. It was official by this time: there was no school to be had. So he, the other teacher, and I started putting Operation Snow Day into effect. We made phone calls as well as sent out e-mails, text messages, and got in touch with local news sources. Some other staff members who lived locally started trickling in and we all took messages or spread the word about the lack of school. It was a pretty smooth and easy operation.

I think one of the best things about the whole sitch was overhearing my two colleagues talk to their kids. “The only thing we’re doing today is playing in the snow.” And, “When daddy comes home we’ll go and play together shall we?” I was just so…”Awww…” That really made me smile. They were both so keen on spending time with their children and making sure they made the best of this snow day.

Everyone who had managed into work packed up round 9 AM. Operation Snow Day was successfully executed and Operation Play In the Snow was on its way.

So yeah, my day isn’t too bad so far. :-P

Oh snow!

Published by
jessi
at February 01, 2009 in Random Reading. 3 Comments

I know it shouldn’t, but the snow is making me really happy right now. Maybe it’s ‘cuz I haven’t seen too much of it in a while. And I don’t have to drive in it.

Either way, been feelin’ kinda down lately, but the snow has strangely cheered me up! :-)