Brilliant BBC Broadcasts

Yesterday I did something new.

I left for London at 16:00 with two friends. We caught a train to Liverpool Station, and then took the Underground to Oxford Street. Been there, done that. We went there, though, to be part of a BBC Radio broadcast! Cool!

See, Faye signed up and got free tickets for the show Laurence and Gus: Hearts and Minds. Never heard of it? That’s ok; neither had we. We got a bit lost, which was unfortunate as I was trying to look at least somewhat trendy and so decided to wear heels. After walking for 20 minutes I was cursing society’s insistence that outward appearances are vital for making a good impression. After 25 minutes I was glaring at any smartly-dressed woman. How dare she support this brutal culture!

But then we found the building after asking some joggers and other people who looked generally too busy to help out lost people. The security was stricter than at the airport. We had to take anything metallic out of our pockets, take off belts and anything around our wrists. That was all x-rayed while we walked through the metal detector, praying that we would not be tackled and frisked for forgetting to take off a ring. We got through alright, but security confiscated a spoon from someone in the audience.

After waiting for another 15 minutes (during which I sat on one of those ice cream bins you can find in gas stations and tried not to think about my throbbing feet) we got to go into the recording area. It held around 200 people and looked really impressive. In fact, it looked like a normal theatre without raised seating.

The show was really quite funny, and reminded me at least partially of Prairie Home Companion. I especially liked the part which featured a queen and king- in chess. She was complaining that he just sat around all day while she did all the work. In the end he retorted “I can’t handle your nagging any more. I’m castling.” Ha-ha! The show isn’t up yet on the BBC iplayer, but when it is I’ll post a link.

Because I’m Back on the Blogging Bandwagon

I have sort of fallen off the blogging bandwagon. But I’m back! I’ll just say that the rest of the trip went almost-swimmingly. We spend a few more days in Amsterdam, spent a day in Brussels, two more in Bruges, and then a few days in Calais. I rode an elephant! I went to sleep in the van with the glow of the ferries going between France and England in my eyes! Then I went to Faye’s house for Easter. Now I’m back.

The weather here used to be absolutely magnificent. I spent most of last week outside by the lake, either reading, taking pictures, planning essays, talking, or playing American football. Now the weather has turned, and I’m finding the idea of sitting in front of a computer to be much more bearable.

Over the weekend I got to compete in an epee competition. I got 6th place... out of 10 people. That’s not too bad, though, since I prefer sabers. It should also be noted that I came in first for the women’s competition. (Yes, I was the only female to compete. I’ll take what I can get.)
Here I am actually scoring a point. Intense!

Epee is fun, though, because any part of the body is on-target. (In other words, I could hit someone on the mask or the big toe and get a point. This is different than, say, foil, with which one can only get points by hitting the torso.)

The competition finished by 4 30, but we had the court until 6. So we played basketball, of course! My team won by a fair margin. It rocked. Tomorrow I’m going to London to be part of a BBC radio audience. That’s pretty exciting, I’d say.

Part IV: Uh oh!

After the fun day in Amsterdam we went to the Red Light District for dinner. I had split pea soup with a side of bacon and weird bread with salad on it. Yum! I also tried some pannakoken and bitterballen. Or some things that are spelled and pronounced vaguely similar to those words. It was all mighty tasty! We saw people dressed up for a football game- it was a sea of bright orange! We didn't see any scantily clad women (except on playing cards) because we left at 8:00(Or should I say 20:00) in order to get a train back. I got way too many souvenirs. I got a sunburn. I got split pea soup with ham and sausage. It was a great day! I'm glad that I'm 75% Dutch!

We got back to camp pretty late. Two girls slept in the bathroom(it was clean and warm!) but i opted to layer and stay in the not-so-clean not-so-warm tent. I wore:
-normal socks with two knee-high socks over
-leggings
-jeans
-sweat pants
-four shirts
-one long sleeve shirt
-one sweater
-one wool jacket

I got a bit cold, but it was a-ok! Then we woke, took showers, dissemble the tents and left. Breakfast on the road consisted of:
-Haribo
-gummy vitamins
-Ritz-like crackers
-Potato chips
-Wilhemina mints

Breakfast of champions! (Of course, coke was the beverage again. Nice!) p.s.- In Belgium and Holland there are so many people who run. Through fields. Weird!

(Next Entry. This is where the Uh oh! comes in.)
We made it to Germany! Now we're leaving.

Part III. Amsterdam!

Yesterday we went o Amsterdam! Wow! We took a double decker, lovely train to Amsterdam because the driver didn't want to navigate the harrowing streets. We saw big, old fashioned windmills and cows (and sheep!) We saw fields of daffodils, but no fields of tulips. It's still a bit early for those. We got to Amsterdam and split up into groups- one for the bikers and one for the non-bikers. Me with Lillith, my wonderful bike!

I was in the biking group, surprisingly! We rode around aimlessly for a while, then decided to go to the Van Gogh museum. We found out that entry was 15 euros, so only one person was willing to go. The rest of us spent the 1.5 hours having lunch and relaxing in the park by the museum. After lunch we went to the Rijk museum to look around. Why, we wondered, are museums so expensive? It was around 15 euros for that as well, and there were no student discounts.

We wandered back to the park to watch jugglers until Tina came back from the Van Gogh museum. We biked to the Anne Frank House next. Well, we got really lost and found it after about 45 minutes and several queries. That was 8.50 but worth it. I didn't know her father survived, and I felt really sorry for him since he was the only one of everyone to survive.

In the house there was also an interesting exhibit about rights and how many rights are necessary. They would explain an event (e.g. in the states the government can check what books you check out from the library.) The audience would then vote yes- it's alright to have that right taken away or no- that shouldn't be happening. Interesting! 100% of the people voted that the government should not be able to see what books people check out.

We later rode around a bit more and turned our bikes in. They cost 9 euros for the entire day. Not bad at all, I'd say!

-Soft serve ice cream in Holland is phenomenal. It's fluffily fabulous!
-Bikes are everywhere. There are ore bikes than cars for sure. And people respect cyclists. Crazy!
-A Dutch guy saw my name and said "you have a very Dutch name." I replied "I know!" and beamed.
-We hadn't had a dinner meal inside until dinner this night.
-David almost ran into a tram.
-Tina ran into a bike and a post.
-I like frites more than their British and American equivalents(chips/fries of course)

Europe Trip Part 2 (Bruges to Amsterdam)

To start with, here are some bullet points from the day's activities:

-We took back roads from Brussels to the Netherlands. We passed a town center that was about half an acre which was full of Daffodils. Now we're on a bumpy road between farms.
-In Bruges we climbed the Belfry and heard the bells playing from the top. (It was loud!) There were good views worth the four euros. (It was also a museum.) The view from the tower. Bruges in all its glory!

Other than that I spent 2.50 for breakfast, one euro for a Belgian waffle, and two euros for a dinner of bread, cold chicken, and cheese.
-The camp was closed near Bruges so we're going to the Netherlands tonight.(Eek!)
-31/3 Ack! That was a bad idea! We got in to Amsterdam around 11 pm. Of course there were no camp grounds and no cheap hostels. So we decided to sleep in the van. two hours later we left again. I asked the driver to pull over half an hour later because driving was pointless at that time. (As you might tell, I was a bit grumpy at this point!) We slept util 5 then went to find a camp site. We got in at 9 15 and then, surprisingly maybe, had a great day! We ended up in a campsite which was a five minute walk from a lovely, sandy beach, and was also near Den Haag.

We went shopping in Den Haag for lunch and dinner foods. We then went to the beach and had frites and ice cream. (By the way, frites are fries. But frites originated in Belgium and, in my opinion, are tastiest by the beach there.) Then we had lunch and took glorious showers. (Remember that we had been wearing the same clothes from Sunday morning until Tuesday afternoon. Ick!) Afterward, we strolled to a cafe on the beach and had amazing cokes. They tasted better, somehow, than cokes from other countries. They had the perfect amount of fizz to complement the sugary dark-amber flavor of the cola.
Dinner at Den Haag. It was lovely to eat outside!

We came back and had dinner (bratwurst made with real intestine(!) and beans with Focaccia bread) and cleaned up. Finally Tina, Madeline, and I went to watch the sunset over the North Sea. Cool! It as grand, and I'm very tired now.
The sunset.

Here are some figures:
-Price for camp(2 nights)= 9 euros!
-Price for lunch = 2 euros
Price for dinner = 1 euro
Price for frites & coke = 3.60

Not bad!

Europe Trip Part 1

I'm finally back from Europe! Now I'm relaxing at Faye's house in the countryside of Suffolk. Very nice! So I'll be writing this while looking out the window at a green fields, grey skies, and birdies flitting by and whistling. Not bad!

I'll write based on my journal from the trip. Here goes!

Yesterday at midnight I left on the Europe Trip with six other people. Wow! Things started out a bit horridly when Steve got lost in the first five minutes. But then the toll road wasn't taking money, showing that things would certainly get better. We got to the ferry at around 3:30, and boarded at 4:00. We slept for around 45 minutes on benches. I thought to myself "enjoy this sleep, because it could be your last good sleep for a while." (I was right! I was so right!)

We got in to France(Calais to be exact) at 6, but the time change made it 7. Nothing was open (or even near) so we went to a huge mall which opened its doors at 8 30. The Mall of Europe! Isn't it magical? It reminded me of Disneyland!

We huddled outside in the cold for half an hour, then sat inside for a while. But we were awarded baguettes and chocolate eclairs for our wait (and even chips and coke!) Lauren and Tina got sandwiches which Grandpa Hopkins would have loved- they were literally dripping mayonnaise. (Well, they were sort of dropping globules, but dripping sounds less icky.) We listened to The Final Countdown, Mr. Blue Sky, Madonna, and more!

Maddie pointed out: Everything in France is symmetrical!
Steve had a great idea: We have the national anthem for every country we're listening. So when we cross the border we blast the new national anthem. Fun!