Look right!

In England, they thing that right is wrong. Incidentally, they also thing that left is right. Clearly, they're a little mixed up.

:: handy instructions whenever we crossed a street ::

Confusing and disconcerting driving laws aside, London was GREAT. I haven't posted yet because, again, I've been furiously reading Harry Potter all week. Haha… but boy, London was awesome. We were so spoiled being able to speak English all weekend. Everywhere we went, we kept saying "I can read that sign!" and "I can hear that subway announcement" and "Did you see I just asked for directions IN ENGLISH?!" Oh man… and it was a good thing we all spoke English too, because the Tube was having major engineering work this past weekend and a ton of lines were closed between certain stations or just outright closed. Even with all that work, it was probably the best underground system of any city I've been to!

So our plan for the weekend was to get in on Friday night and leave EARLY in the morning on Monday in order to make it back for our afternoon classes. When we got there Friday night, it was quite a task getting into the city center via bus and then taking the Underground to a zone just outside the center where our first hostel was. We'd had a bit of a problem getting hostels in London because nowhere good was open for three days when we first booked them and we had to get two different hostels - one that was closer to the bus station for Sunday night when we'd have to wake up at 3 to go to the airport. But then a few days before we left, our other hostel emailed me to say that they didn't have beds for us after all, and we had to book a place even more last-minute - landing us in a hostel above a bar that was nice at first glance, until we got up to our room. It was roughly the size of a large closet with triple stacked bunkbeds to hold nine people. I wish I had gotten a picture - it was ridiculous. The first night was rough, but our roommates were really interesting people, so even though I would never go back there again I'm glad we got to meet them there. One of the guys staying in the room was from New Zealand and he was so sweet! He brought up coffee and bread in the morning to the other girls staying there who had hangovers, and walked my friend to the bus station when she had to leave a day earlier than the rest of us.

:: had to hit up the red phone booth ::

Anyways, on Saturday we woke up, ready to get out of the hostel, and set off into the city center. We took pictures with Platform 9 3/4 in Kings Cross, bought tickets for some West End shows at Leicaster Square, and then went on to see Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and Buckingham Palace. I really liked going inside Westminster Abbey because I recognized so many famous authors in the Poet's Corner. I even sneaked an illegal picture of Shakespeare's grave because… hey, I'm an English Lit major. I wasn't going to pay to go into the Globe Theatre so this was an obligation. After Buckingham Palace (where we didn't get to see the cool guards le sigh), we wandered into Hyde Park and found the statue of Peter Pan. Since that's one of my favorite books and favorite Disney movies, I took a picture with it.

:: had to leave space for my best friend since we both enjoy Peter Pan ::

Then we walked up Oxford street (a shopping street already decorated for Christmas) for awhile, angling for a certain Mexican restaurant I was particularly excited to go to. It ended up we were walking in the opposite direction, but the Tube came to our rescue and we found CHIPOTLE with enough time to eat before we had to catch our shows. I loooovvee Chipotle. Of course, it wasn't as good as in America, but it definitely will tide me over until I get back to the good ole USA.

:: food of the gods ::

After Chipotle, I split off from the rest of the group to see Les Miserables while they went to see Love Never Dies, a new sequel to Phantom of the Opera. I would have liked to see Love Never Dies, but I have been wanting to see Les Miserables ever since I fell in love with the book in high school. Since its no longer playing on Broadway and seeing Les Mis was something of a bucket list, life-goal sort of thing, I couldn't really pass up this chance. And it did not disappoint. They had this great revolving stage that made for some really interesting staging. Jean Valjean and Marius were both understudies, and while Jean Valjean wasn't my favorite, Marius was wonderful! The actors who played Eponine and Javert really stole the show though… I wish I could just watch it over and over again!

We ended up hanging out at the hostel bar that night with our new roommate friends, which actually ended up being pretty fun. In the morning we had to move to our new hostel. And when I got on the internet, I was surprised to find that my best friend's dad had messaged me to tell me that he was in London too! After wandering over the unimpressive London Bridge and taking some pictures of the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London (another English major obligation), we hung out in Starbucks until we met Mr. Pledger for lunch. It was really crazy seeing him there, and it made me miss Jess a lot, but it was great to catch up with him. It was pouring after lunch so we went back to the hostel to dry off. Aunna and I then went off by ourselves to find some second-hand bookstores. She wanted to find British editions of Harry Potter and I wanted to find an old version of Peter Pan, and although neither of us found what we were looking for, we found something even better up at Camden street! Camden is an alternative sort of area, and they were having a market of sorts that night. There was food everywhere and stands of homemade odds and ends. Aunna and I split a bag of candy, I got a headband and some mulled wine, and Aunna gave me a bite of her caramel and chocolate filled churro. It was probably one of my favorite things we did in London because it was completely unplanned and the atmosphere there was just really cool.

:: Harry Potter ads were everywhere and we were ONE weekend too early ::

We turned in early for bed because we had to be up at 3 to catch a bus to the airport. We got to ride a red double-decker bus to the bus station, and after a bus, plane, another bus, and a train, we made it back in time for classes absolutely exhausted. I really loved London because the people were so friendly and it felt very comfortable. I guess it makes sense that it feels a little more like America since we were speaking English all weekend.

In other news, I went on an adventure today to a hair salon and got bangs! I was really scared cause they spoke zero English, but I got across what I wanted with pictures and broken French (cheveux long et frange? sil vous plait? lol). I'm really happy with it, but we'll see how I manage on my own without a decent round brush.

:: new bangs, thankfully not a disaster ::

In other other news, we also had Thanksgiving dinner last night. Not real Thanksgiving dinner - it really just made me sad I'm missing Thanksgiving at home even more - but it was still good. And now I'm breaking my stringent No-Christmas-music-til-December rule because I've already celebrated Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving doesn't technically exist here anyways so I'm not pushing Thanksgiving aside for Christmas. But this is a special case; next year I will go back to confining Christmas music to its proper month.

It's not letting me upload pictures. >:| I'll do it later. I only have Half-Blood Prince left to read. I should probably consider writing a paper today (but I'm leaning heavily towards reading the article I'm supposed to summarize over the weeklong break and then write the paper on Sunday night before class on Monday... hmmm)

Edit: Now they're up!

j'adore Paris et Suisse.

Not going to lie, I haven't been super excited about writing a blog this week because I've been distracted by other things - namely, my mission to read all of the Harry Potter books before the new movie is released! (Just finished book 3 in case anyone was curious.)

I did, however, have an amazing week off from classes, traveling to Paris and Switzerland with my family. I'm going to try to shove the whole week into one blog post, which will surely leave things out, but I'll try to hit the high points!

My family came in on Thursday and we were able to get dinner with my host mom in Differdange. It was a little surreal showing my family around the chateau, but I'm glad they could see where I go to school. On Friday we hopped on the train to Paris after classes and thankfully the strike in France the day before didn't slow us down at all. We got to stay in a nice apartment while in Paris, and after staying in hostels all semester it was like luxury! We visited the Louvre at night in Paris since it was free for people under 26 after 6 on Fridays, and did a speedy tour of famous art like the Winged Victory, the Mona Lisa, and Aphrodite.

Friday was delegated for seeing museums galore since we bought a museum pass that lasted two days. We saw Notre Dame, Saint-Chapelle, the Musee d'Orsay, and the Place de la Concorde. In the middle of all that, we stopped in at a English book store called "Shakespeare and Co" that was incredible! It was wall to wall books, with ladders and little nooks and crannies where you could read. I could have spent all afternoon there, but unfortunately we had a lot to see.

:: in this corner, unpictured, was a piano for anyone to play ::

At night my siblings, Aunna, and I got to have dinner with my friend Pietro and his brother, as their family was vacationing in Paris that weekend too. It was so fun (and, not going to lie, a little surreal) to introduce my siblings to one of the friends I met in Rome this summer.

The next day we took a day trip to visit Versailles, the palace of a few French kings. The palace itself was beautiful - albeit a little strange since there was a Japanese art exhibition on display - but the gardens were absolutely gorgeous. We had a bit of an ordeal getting inside, but I'm so glad we stuck it out because it was my favorite thing about Versailles! We went just when they turned on all the fountains and with all the leaves changing for fall, it really couldn't have been more pretty.

:: hall of mirror with the juxtaposition of modern art ::

:: just one of my favorite fountains - this one was small! ::

At night we walked almost the entire length of the Champs-Elysee and climbed to the top of the Arc de Triumph. The view was absolutely gorgeous and included a nighttime view of the sparkling Eiffel tower. Unfortunately, my camera FAILS at taking pictures in the dark. We also got to meet up with Pietro and his brother again, and saw the old Opera house on our way. In a rather comical turn of events, we ended up walking for thirty minutes in a large circle on our mission to find a bar, and ended up right back at the Opera where we started! European streets can get me so turned around.

The next day was dedicated to shopping, so I won't bore you with the details - but I did get some fun purchases including some heeled boots, a huge scarf, some Euro-pants (that's what I call them, but I honestly can't think of a single way to describe them), and a furry vest (not real fur of course).

Our last day in Paris involved a little accommodation switching to a hotel across town, eating crepes, getting a cup of coffee when it started raining, and FINALLY seeing the Eiffel tower. Unfortunately, we realized that there were no seat reservations open on the 10 o'clock train, and so we had to be up at 5 o'clock to catch a train to Berne. Needless to say, we turned in early.

Berne was a huge change of pace compared to Paris. It is the capital of Switzerland, but the old town that we saw certainly didn't feel that way. We saw some old clocks and walked down to the bear pits where there were REAL BEARS. There were four bears, including two baby ones. They were adorable. We also got to have a walk along a river, and I really can't emphasize enough how beautiful a country Switzerland is.

:: someone looked a little tuckered out ::

The next night we went to Interlaken, where one of our distant Steffen relatives - Bettina - was waiting for us! She showed us around her town, Unterseen, which is a little town just west of Interlaken, and took us back to her house. Then came the best part of the day: her husband Toni goes paragliding as a hobby! So we all drove down to the landing field, and then Aunna and I drove up the mountain with Toni. We had to walk about ten minutes after the car stopped until we came to an open area with a slight incline. The view was absolutely breathtaking. Aunna went first and I took pictures of her taking off before laying down on a bench and appreciating the quiet, warm day up on the mountain while I waited for Toni to come back up to get me.

When Toni did come back, he didn't bring anyone new with him, so I didn't get any pictures of me all strapped in to the gear or taking off. But that's ok! Once I was strapped into my backpack-like harness and attached to the paraglider, Toni and I took a few steps down the hill to get the air into the paraglider and then on his cue we RAN until suddenly we just weren't on the ground anymore! It was a really awesome experience, and I even got to control the paraglider on the way down while Toni too mid-flight pictures. When we got closer to the ground, I gave the reins back to him, and we got to do some fun tricks before turning against the wind and touching back down to the ground. Unfortunately I have no pictures of me landing either, because Dad's camera deleted them all. Womp womp... The rest of the day we watched the rest of my family come down out of the sky, and we also got to walk a few minutes away to see a beautiful lake.

:: can't complain about this view ::

When the day was over, we went back to Toni and Bettina's home and had the most delicious homemade meal of rosti (cooked potatoes) and cheese with traditional Swiss sausages. For dessert, we had meringue and a something called Maronni (like a paste made out of a nut). Their children helped cook, and they were absolutely adorable in their little aprons! They didn't speak English, but seemed to like playing with us anyways.

:: adorable ::

By that night, we had decided to change our plans a bit and stay an extra night in Interlaken instead of heading to Luzerne. In the morning, we woke up and hopped on a train to Lauterbrunnen, where we caught a bus and then a cable car to visit some towns up on a mountain. First we went to a beautiful quiet town called Gimmelwald. I can't really say much about it, except by showing pictures.

:: and to top it all off, not a cloud in the sky ::

After that, we took the cable car all the way to the top of the mountain, to Schilthorn (Fun fact: this was the location of some scenes in the Bond film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"). Up there we got to eat in a restaurant that rotated 360 degrees so that you could see the entire view of the mountain - and it was breathtaking! Once again, can't really describe it except with pictures, and even that doesn't do it justice.

:: Helmuth family atop a mountain ::

After we traveled back down the mountain we jumped on a train to our last stop - Luzerne. This train trip was an experience all in itself, first because it went over a mountain and was accordingly beautiful, and second because halfway through the ride we had to all exit the train so they could shuttle us to the next station in buses since the tracks were under construction. Even though I felt a little carsick on the many roads winding up and down the mountain, I saw some of the prettiest views on that 30 minute bus ride because it was definitely off the beaten path. In Luzerne, we had one of the best meals of the trip - fondue! We had cheese, meat, and chocolate fondue, and oh boy was it good. We went back to the hotel stuffed and tired from the long day - and I had been reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows since that morning and was pretty keen on finishing.

In the morning we did a quick walking tour of Luzerne before Aunna and I had to catch our train home. Unfortunately, I was about 50 pages short of finishing Deathly Hallows when I had to return it to my sister to take home. Once again, the scheduled strike did not affect us (Hooray!) and we made it home safely, giving us a full day on Sunday to relax and prepare ourselves for the week ahead! I was so happy my family was able to come, and I got to do some things that I would have never even thought about on my own, thanks to Mom's tour books. :]

Now I'm gearing up for a fun-filled weekend in an ENGLISH-SPEAKING COUNTRY! That's right, folks; I am off to London, England this weekend, and it is going to be grand. There will be English spoken. There will be Chipotle eaten. There will be Les Miserables on West End watched. And there will be way. too. much. money. spent. Darn those British pounds…