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| No one prepares you for coming back. They all prepare you for going out, talking about honeymoon and crash and rebuilding stages, but coming back? That's a whole trauma in itself.
I don't know what I'm doing here. I look out of the window and it's not England. The people around me have American accents. I'm not as close to many of the people I used to be decently close to.
The thing about London too was that you could never feel stuck. You could always get up and go. Somewhere. Anywhere. And walking was encouraged. You never felt alone walking.
This is so weird. I used to love this place. But now I have my doubts. | | |
| Saying bye to this place is hard. Especially since life has been lovely.
The end of term event was perfect. Well, maybe if I grabbed a slice of the cheesecake it would have been better. But still. Complete success.
On Friday, I went to the London Centre to say my last farewell. Saying goodbye to Maggie was so hard that i couldn't gather the pluck to say goodbye to Heather. Saying goodbye to Bill would have been killer. Bill Sheasgreen, after all, is my hero. On closing the door, I just left. Didn't turn around. I didn't want to see the London Centre's heart breaking but I did feel my heart mashing up. I came home and did some packing and then went back to the Gielgud to stalk Daniel Radcliffe. Well, not that creepy. I had seen Equus on Tuesday but he didn't come out the stage door that night. I went back Wednesday but he didn't come out again. Finally, he did on Friday. I told him he was really good and he pierced my eyes with his and said "Thank you, thank you very much indeed". He's really short.
Yesterday, I went to Brighton with Chloe, Jay and Danielle. That was good times especially since the sun was out and the pier was fun. I got a flip flop tan. Beautiful.
Today, I went for my last run through Hyde Park. I'm going to lunch with James from my internship to say bye, going over to Katie's in Putney to lug all her stuff over and grab Indian dinner with her and who knows what will be my final activity in London.
Right now, all I know is that Virgin Atlantic is going to slap me with big, fat luggage overweight fees.
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| Well, technically, doing finals in America are still foreign to me.
European Mass Media paper, European Mass Media exam, British Youth Culture exam, Brit Pop exam, Internship journal and paper. gah! Too much paperwork for a TVR major.
Brighton this Saturday with some friends is exciting. Cannot wait for that.
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| Yeah, the sun was nice, the people were nice, the park was good.
But what flipped me over most was that you can get disposable barbecue grills here. And no one of any other nationality has heard of this. The Brits pioneered the disposable barbecue? Hmm...
The days are beautiful but as soon as 5 o' clock rolls by, the goosebumps start popping up. Well, that's better than whatever's going on back in NY.
I fly out in a week. That's crazy. I have two finals and a paper and that's absolutely killing me because I want to enjoy my last week in London but can't because I have to study. Actually, there were a lot of weeks that I wanted to enjoy in London but I couldn't because of school work.
Work should NOT be hard on a study abroad trip! | | |
| Portugal is for people who have a vibrant beat in their heart. Lisbon is for people looking for something but a little scared to find it because it means the end of a journey. It's a beautiful package if you're willing to put some effort into it.
(Of course I was starting it off wrong by reading Trainspotting on the way there)
(But I eventually bought a Rough Guide to Lisbon and figured out what I wanted to do)
The first evening I went there, I wanted to check out all the elevadores, or the funiculars. These are basically trams that climb the extraordinarily steep hills of Lisbon providing fascinating views. However, the main one was closed. I did check out the Elevador da Santa Justa. This is basically an elevator in the middle of a random area of Lisbon that provides excellent views of Lisbon. My camera was happy. Also glimpsed the ruined abbey. That evening, the hostel I was staying in (Lisbon Easy Hostel, the newest and best one in Lisbon. Really nice, I promise) was celebrating its first birthday. And had a wine tasting night to celebrate it. Portuguese. wines. I wasn't very impressed with Portuguese wine which was surprising because the first ever wine I fell in love with was Port.
I highly debated what I wanted to do the next day. The tourist office gave me a few ideas and I settled on doing Sintra/Cabo da Roca in the morning and come back to Lisbon in the evening to do a tour of Belèm. Sintra is a cute little village. The Cabo da Roca is the western most point of mainland Europe and I felt rather united with Vasco da Gama at that point. On the way back, I saw a sign for a coastal hike and me being me, got excited by it. It was a terrible hike. Well, it was good because it was a challenge in that there were markers and you were given a little flyer and you had to figure out what everything meant. But the hike wasn't what it was promised to be. Yeah, I walked along the coast and saw a village and a beach but saw none of the ocean. Sounds weird but let's just say I got ridiculously tired and wasted a lot of time for no good reason.
Came back to Lisbon and checked out the Alfama district, the oldest district and the most archaeologically similar to what Lisbon would have been before the earthquake of 1774. Also heard a bit of 'fado', the 'fate' music that's culturally significant to Portugal. Got some more excellent views of Lisbon from the Ingrecio do Santa Luzia. Had some dinner and tried some Portuguese beer. Super Bock, way better than the Portuguese wine.
Had a restful sleep. With painful feet.
The next morning, did the tour of Belèm that I promised I would do. Saw the Monument of the Navigators and the Torre de Belèm. Also saw some houses that looked fabulously Goan (of course the Goan houses are fabulously Portuguese). Everything is shut in Lisbon on Monday. Which the tourism office conveniently forgot to inform me.
I then tried to get to this Palace which held a lot of tile art which Portugal is slightly famous for (and I saw the tile art on postcards and wanted to see them in real life) but the Palace was in North Lisbon which is a confusing area. The maps of Lisbon aren't that good.
Determined to find some tile art, I found some in the Cais do Sodre metro station (of which there is also a postcard). It was cute. It was a bunny.
Portugal is cheap. Food is cheap, transport is cheap and I'm not really into souvenirs but I bet those were cheap too.
I bought a Sete Collinas card which costs 3.25 euro for a whole day and were good for every form of public transportation in the city of Lisbon. The train to Sintra was 4 euro return trip. I was amazed. And the transport is clean and well organized. Amazing.
Portugal deserves a return. For a drive along the countryside, for a lie on the beach and for figuring out the language. Everytime I opened my mouth, Italian was tempted to come out. I tried some with people who didn't know how to speak English and they understood but replied back in Portuguese which went way over my head.
Seeing Portugal made me learn a little more of the people who were responsible for my mom's education (she was born and brought up in Goa). Nah. But people's opinion on what happened through the dictatorship and everything. See, you never really hear about the dictatorship in Portugal. The big ones were Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin (well, not really). But Salazar. He did some pretty important things. Like build a bridge which resembles the Golden Gate Bridge. Speaking of likenesses, there's also a Jesus in the Sky like there is in Brazil. It was pretty exciting.
I took 99 pictures in 2 and a half days. That's pretty commendable for me.
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