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@karajewell
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Merry Christmas and cheers around the world. #chinchin #cheers #sante #kampai #prost #salute 🎅🎄 (at Jewell's House of Bliss)
After 😆
Before (at Down By The River!)
First Yankees game! :) (at Yankee Stadium)
During the 66th Cannes film festival, in the Majestic Hotel (for Majestic Studio) Riviera One produced several live TV shows broadcast on Internet:...
For anyone who wants to check out what I was up to during the Cannes Film festival. More posts coming soon!
During the 66th Cannes film festival, in the Majestic Hotel (for Majestic Studio) Riviera One produced several live TV shows broadcast on Internet:...
Zedd at Ministry of Sound in London February 2nd, 2013
Trip to London January 31-February 3rd; Breakfast with Rachel, Harrods and Oxford steet, Porterhouse bar, fake fish and chips, Portobello Market in Notting Hill and sight seeing!
"We haven't found the missing girl from NYC yet" is always a RED FLAG
If you ever hear “we still haven’t found the missing girl from NYC yet” run, don’t walk
Oh London---after having some time to reflect on this trip, the events that occurred just become more obscure and funny. London ended up being one of my favorite cities, but the arrival and first night there makes for a great story.
After a flight, taking the train to the city center, and a taxi to our hostel we had finally arrived in London. We had a late flight, which is factor #1 of this story leading to the climax. We had heard of the hostel from some friends, and a lot of people in our program were in London this weekend--staying at the same hostel or one other than us. I stayed in a hostel in Amsterdam, but for most of us this was the first experience.
We walk up the staircase and find an empty ‘lobby’ aka 4 sq ft area with a closed office. We understood this because it was so late..but then there was a girl skyping. Standing there trying to figure out what to do, we kept overhearing bits and pieces of her conversation--but one specifically stuck out: “Ya, we still haven’t found the missing girl from NYC, but whatever.” This my friends is what we in America would call a RED FLAG. Ignoring this red flag, factor #2.
After living in France for almost a month, we collectively were excited to visit an English speaking city. And here comes factor #3. Behold--our savoir to not being able to check in: someone who works here? Nope, a Spanish speaking man who is trying to tell us something about leaving or upstairs or something of the sorts that we all couldn’t figure out. Then, a few minutes later, a man came down. I wish I had a picture because I can’t adequately describe his frightening mannerisms, looks or most importantly, vibe he gave off in words.
He was tall with dreads down his back tied with a band, his eyes were red and glassed over, and although he seemed cool, his laisez-faire way of not checking our ID’s and ushering all of us to certain rooms and beds without any formalities was concerning. Factor #4--we booked an 18 person room. So now, we all are in the small lobby with one of our friends in a separate room upstairs trying to find our bunk beds indicated by letters in the dark black where everyone else was sleeping. There were jeans, jackets, and other assorted personal belongings draped over the bunks and even on some of our beds, which we couldn’t find in between the small space and sleeping people. One man sat up in bed and turned to my friend saying, “has no one introduced you?”…another language barrier in the English speaking country.
Naturally, we figured we could use a drink before sleeping with our 17 new best friends. We assumed it wouldn’t be too tough to find a pub or somewhere to grab a bite. We were wrong. After a two-hour venture around the streets of London and settling with questionable kebabs, we headed back to our hostle. When we ‘checked’ it we were given a code to the door. There, preached against the door was a man. We weren’t sure if he was drunk, sleeping, or f***ed up but regardless he was blocking our only entry to the door to our lovely beds we so desired.
After a few minutes of observing him, I went up and went for the ‘sir, sir’…nothing but a blank stare and eyes rolled back into HIS head met my efforts. I stepped back and we reevaluated what to do. During our collaborations, the man got in a fight with gravity and fell face first onto the concrete. Looking back, this may have been our one chance to step over him and run into the hostel, but he got up pretty quickly and preached lifeless smack against the door. We didn’t know if this was someone who stayed at the hostel, or if he was a good or bad guy but we also didn’t want to let some random person into the hostel where hundreds of people were fast asleep.
Then, it started to rain and we were left homeless on the streets. After so long, we decided we had to find a hotel. A walk down the street left us in a hotel lobby crying and covered in rain to some poor employee. He was sympathetic….very sympathetic. Ten minutes and 160 pounds later we found ourselves in a suite--overlooking the London eye. The best part about this fiasco? It cost us 40 pounds each and had an amazing breakfast included. Our lovely hostel cost us 36. Nuff said, lesson learned.
In our flee from the hostel, we left all our stuff..so after our gourmet breakfast we walked back over. The same man that met us the previous night was now trying to manipulate us. “Okay girls, I’m sorry for your troubles. You can just pay for last night and I’ll relieve you from the next two.” Something triggered in me…and I got pissed. After 21 years of witnessing my mother always somehow get her way I used the best logic I had to get out of this mess.
“So, you’re telling us that we have to pay for a night at your establishment, that we physically did not and physically could not sleep at? So you want our money, in exchange for what?” I stated this logic about three more times before he caved, and we left. What a smuck.
Some Amsterdam Highlights
1. We got to the airport, and noticed our train was in 15 minutes so naturally we challenged ourselves to find, buy, and chug beers in that time. Mission accomplished.
2. Staying in the red-light district and being bombarded by some busty women pressing their tatas against glass across from our hostel. My main concern was that she must have been very cold.
3. Being charged 10 Euros for bread, and 2 Euros for some ‘sauces’ for our steaks.
4. The donuts and pastries everywhere…amazing.
5. Going to the Ann Frank house. It was a life changing experience. I’ve been to a concentration camp in Germany (which was terrible), but seeing the life of a child; very visually in front of you made you hurt for every life lost. I looked out of a lot of the windows on the canal at the other houses. You have to wonder how many other people were in hiding. It's something I'd recommend anyone who goes to Amsterdam to do.
6. Enjoying the view at lunch…;)
7. Heineken experience. Shout out to my girls with their screen names--vintage shine, millerxoxlite, clothescrazy92 and Meg who was a coder for MySpace. Ps Meg...“Go curl your purple hair your acting sucks.”
8. We went to Meg’s Aunts house for dinner in a traditional Netherlands neighborhood. Not only did we have amazing home cooked lasagna, but we got to hang out with a family. Meg's Aunt went to Penn State and was friends with Meg’s mom, so hearing her sorority stories and how she got to her current life was really interesting and fun.
9. I saw my friend that lived across from me in NYC at a bar Friday night.
10. Visiting the I AMsterdam sign and Diamond museum.
11. Existed the tram only to stand directly in front of all of our guy friends. An awesome lunch followed at Wok and Walk. Ps-- Zakkenrollers means please take your personal belongings.
12. Going to an Irish Pub and playing Zuma Zuma at our secret table before being asked to leave...
13. Going on a last minute Bar Crawl. Laura and I were way underdressed, which was funny. We got to one bar that was a ‘club’ type atmosphere. We headed to the stage to dance only to be ridiculed for having our hats still on. We kept them on anyway.
Ps- everyone check out the Spice Girls’ Wanna Be music video…ya, we used to love that.
14. Mice crawling under our feet when we ate dinner.
15. Never getting to the actual Van Gogh museum and not taking advantage of the 3-d exhibit.
Getting to Amsterdam
This weekend was my first real opportunity to travel, so I was eager to plot out something. Our school plans an integration weekend each semester because there truly are so many exchange students. This semester's integration weekend was to the French Alps with skiing and clubbing included. It literally sounded so fun but for anyone who knows me, my head is a gravity magnet and likes to hit itself off of objects during numerous inopportune occasions. I’ve been in ski school and private lessons for skiing out West with my family but haven't skied somewhere legit in almost four years now so I was nervous because most typically gravity wins with me and my head breaks the falls.
As a result of that rather long logic, I decided to meet up with my roommate and some friends from Penn State and head to Amsterdam for the weekend!
I left my apartment around 930 am to catch the longer bus to the airport (because I couldn't find the express stop the day prior). I met a couple from Sweden who helped me out because they were heading to the airport as well. I, sure the bus system is simple to someone who lives in and speaks French, but to me it is a crammed mad house and other than going to school, I've yet to figure them out. On a positive note, the bus cost 1 euro and a taxi would have cost around 60 Euros so it was definitely worth it to cram on board.
Once at the airport, I had a lot of down time because I over estimated how long the bus would take. I grabbed a quick breakfast, which included a croissant. I never thought I'd jump on that bandwagon but French croissants are fresh, fluffy and fabulous.
After waiting for a while, I boarded my flight to Barcelona. Once in Barcelona I had mad downtime. I shopped around because they had two stores I love--Zara and La Perla! I didn't buy anything but shopping always entertains me.
After killing some time, Laura got to the airport! It was so nice to see her that I can't even describe in words. After living together for the last two years, not seeing each other for a while feels weird.
As best friends do, we headed to the bar to toast our reunion. Laura speaks Spanish pretty well and asked him for our drinks "strong" and I was a little scared by the amount of vodka he poured in our drinks. After a few sips, I saw some of our guy friends from state! I didn't know they were going to Amsterdam, too, so that was a pleasant surprise.
Then plane seemed to be filled with Barcelona study abroad students venturing to Amsterdam for the weekend. It’s always really funny because you can tell when other people are in Greek life. Some kids from IU that most definitely are synonymous to my guy friends at school surrounded me. They were definitely equally as pumped as we were for the trip.
There were also friends in KD going and staying in the same hostel, so that comforted me. I booked my hostile after Laura and her roommates, and wasn't guaranteed to be in the same room as them. I've never stayed in a hostel before and don't really know but to expect, so I'm a little nervous and hoping I can end up in a room with some people I know or I'm doubtful ill be able to get sleep. Well have to see what Amsterdam has in store for me--fingers crossed.
Live free 👐 (at Scenic Air / Skydive Switzerland)
Your umbrella only breaks when it's raining
Things have become more routine starting my third week at Skema, yet surprises still exist in the world of high school musical. The first comes with Jans, my teacher for advertising. I literally can barely understand a word of his English, so I feel especially bad for the students who use English as their second, third or often fourth language. After he went on some rant about Brad Pitt, we persuaded him to show the Brad Pitt Chanel commercial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF8NAyqxGfk) which always makes me laugh. If you haven’t seen it yet, check it and the SNL parody of it out (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTGDde7rhJE).
After ad, I had my speech class. The class is counting for my CAS (Penn State required speaking class) but I think it would better relate to an ESL (English as a second language) class. One student brought their dog to class and I chilled with it pretty much the whole time. I am a FIRM believer that dogs can sense human emotion and I think it sensed how much I miss my puppies!
The teacher showed Obama’s speech for the inauguration, which was cool because we don’t have a TV to watch anything like that on---and, I guess the future of our country is of somewhat importance. We finished off the class pronouncing the seven common words French people mispronounce. All together! Heat, eat, seat…yup..that happened.
On Wednesday morning, I have my history class. I have always loved history and if I read, it’s usually books linked to historic events or figures. But, I’m also a believer that your perception of events can be greatly influenced by your teacher and the way writers write books. A lot of history teachers are fairly opinionated, and I think the best ones keep you guessing on their true opinions. This is not the case with my teacher. After the first class, I could tell he was an atheist that still goes to church as result of rebelling from his upbringing: an extremely catholic mother and attending a Jesuit high school. When he talks about the Vatican or great schism, he more often sounds like he is ripping on Catholics than teaching. Interesting to learn about the same events from different teachers.
During my break, I ventured to the CEA office to print some boarding passes and miscellaneous information. My advisor encouraged me to check where the bus stop to the airport was and I’m thankful she did. There are two buses, one is a direct bus for nine euros, and one is a longer, at times crowded, bus for one euro. I wanted to find the direct bus so I wouldn’t worry.
This is where not speaking French or having a working phone was not in my favor. I literally walked what I predict to be at least four miles all over Antibes, circling around and checking every stop. In addition to the unplanned exercise, it also conveniently started to rain. I was so frustrated and kept trying to ask questions in my broken French but couldn’t understand the responses anyways. Once my umbrella broke and I was drenched, a young boy must have felt sorry for me because he offered to walk me to the stop. After a long silent walk he took me right back to a stop I had been over twenty times that was right near my apartment. Even better is that it was not the right one. I was wet dog status and my moral was defeated. I opted for the 1-euro bus and called it quits.
My roommate and I headed for a pick me up coffee and a Nutella filled Panini (sorry body) before heading back to Skema for our photography class. That night I went out to dinner with some girl in my program! We split steak fondue, and I may have undercooked mine #nuffsaid.
I packed my bag and prepared for my trip the next morning. I’m glad I created the ‘optional” French class for my Thursday mornings.
The commute to SKEMA and the view from classrooms..a little Twilight and High School Musical-esque (minus the crowded bus).
#Narcolepticgirlproblems
Is there something that will always agitate you and put you in a certain mood? Well, for me, I'm guaranteed to shift into one of two very distinct moods when I'm beyond tired. In the first situation, I get slap happy and laugh at everything but for the second, I hate life and become a silent human with a face resembling a five year old child who didn't get their dream Christmas present. Unfortunately, Saturday night my mind took form of the second.
After our excursion during the day, we had plans to go out to a very nice club in Cannes called Baoli (we went there last Saturday as well). Before going, instead of pre-gaming with alcohol--like any normal person would-- we decided espresso shots were a better choice to help us recover from the exhaustion of traveling all day. We took three... and my hands were basically shaking.
It was still raining on our way to Cannes, so as we went past the ocean, the waves were so close and splashing onto the road, which was really cool to see during a storm.
Baoli was a good time, but like I said, when I'm exhausted I sometimes suck. I would dance for a little, check the time and freak out knowing I had to stay out until at least five. The trains don't really run from ten pm to five am, so often times we go with friends. I took a selfie of my exhaustion and think it pretty much describes my mood for the night. If my eyes had been on my side, I would have have had a great night, but I actually felt like the guy from rat race who constantly falls asleep while moving.
Midnight...
Three am...
5 am..
On a positive note, we got to meet one of our guy friends girlfriends and she is so awesome! She has spent a lot of time in the states so had really good English and was able to help us understand conversations and questions when we couldn't understand.
After a long night, we had a lazy Sunday but finally made moves and booked our spring break. Ours is a lot earlier than other programs taking place at the end of February and it seems like everyone else was ahead of the game. We found a few good deals, and decided to go to Marrakech and Lisbon. I'm really excited for it because those are two places I'm not sure i'll be able to get to again.
Since it was Sunday, pretty much everything is closed. The two boys in our program have been begging us to cook dinner (I think they've been struggling) so we invited them over so long as they bring food and wine. We made a pesto salmon pasta and it was actually pretty good. After dinner I talked Danielle and Kirstin into watching the bachelor week two episode. Again, wasn't that great. Maybe it's because it's right after Emily's season which was great. Or, it could be that girls are a lot more annoying than guys, and when the guys fought it was funny, but the girl drama is just straight lame. I'm looking forward to seeing how the one really psycho girl gets pushed down the stairs, though.
Monday I took a very long walk and talked to my dad. It was really nice because he knows me very well and because he grew up so differently than I have, can always put situations and opportunities into perspective for me. I'm so blessed to have the opportunity to explore the world and learn other cultures and customs. Since I've traveled a good amount inside the states and out, I think I overestimated my speed of transition. Living in New York alone this summer was definitely good prep for this, because essentially that place is chaos, but living in another country isn't as easy as I thought it would be. Luckily, I have so much support and am grateful for it.
Italy Excursion: Cultural Pergatory
Saturday we woke up early to catch a bus with our program to go to Italy for the day on an excursion. Unfortunately, it was raining heavily and quite cold but hey, I’m sure State College’s weather is colder.
After a bus ride, we arrived in San Remo, Italy-a town that is famed for its market. We hoped off the bus and went to the market which had a lot of purses, jewelry, clothing, and food. It also had a canal street vibe because there were men with garbage bags trying to shove a fake Prada bag at you. We were warned prior that France is very strict regarding imitation products and if caught, you can end up in prison with a hundred thousand dollar fine, so I’m glad everyone stayed a way.
Beyond the market in the rain, I kept finding myself in what I called “cultural purgatory. ” When I was walking around and talked with people, I found myself confused between “Merci, Bonjour” “Ciao, Gratzi” and “Hello, Thank you”. It was a strange feeling and honestly, frustrating.
To warm up a few of us headed to a cute little restaurant to get cappuccinos. I have to say, I love the Italian vibe. I’ve only ever spent time in Rome, but from that experience and the similarities in Greek culture, I just love the hospitality and family like atmosphere they create. Then, we all had a nice lunch at a traditional Italian restaurant. After eating pasta family style, we were stuffed! Then the desserts came, and we were REALLY stuffed.
After San Remo, we went to Dolce Aqua, which was beautiful and stunning, but would have been better in other weather. We enjoyed some sight seeing and a tour before finishing our trip in Monton, France ( the town near the border of Italy and France).
Here, I purchased my first macaroon, which France is famous for. A bunch of us escaped the rain and headed for a local cafe where we tried hot wine—Vin Chaud. Although the weather was rough, it was an awesome day and are very lucky our program gives us the opportunity to go on trips. The next scheduled one is to Provence and is an over night excursion, which should be fun.