Time is of the Essence- Happy New Year!!!

December 31^st

Today, Michael, his parents, their dogs, and I all packed into the car to spend the last day of 2011 visiting Greenwich which fittingly is another landmark known for its time. Walking the dogs in some lovely open park space, Michael’s mum, Niko, and I went on a little detour where we explored the Royal Observatory. We met back up with Michael and his dad and went to the invisible GMT line- well they do have a portion of the line actually drawn on but it cost 7 pounds to go stand on it, I felt that there were better ways to spend 7 pounds. 

From Greenwich you can see a lot of London and other landmarks. It was such a great view!

We then had lunch in the Greenwich farmers market and Niko went and got her palm read by a fortune teller. I found an eastern shop that had nice wooden chopsticks for my hair. After visiting the market, Michael, his dad, and I went in the Greenwich foot tunnel which takes us under the River Thames! On the way back Michael and I went into the National Maritime Museum which was absolutely fabulous. There were just so many things to see but unfortunately we only had ten minutes to see them. Then we got ready for the night where we were going to bring in the New Year with style.

Michael and his Mum

Royal Observatory

National Maritime Museum!!

Greenwich Market

One of the events I have most been looking forward to since planning on spending this year in the UK has been spending New Years in London. For the past ten years or so I have seen the fireworks displayed on TV which always highlights London, New York, and Tokyo. Finally I can experience those same fireworks in person bringing in the year that many say will be our last (well according to the Mayan calendar at least).

Michael and I met up at the train station with a group of Michael’s buddies. We went and squeezed our way through the masses till we had a nice spot across from the London Eye. After waiting around four hours just standing around, my feet practically gave up on me 30 minutes before midnight, but the anticipation that the fireworks were going to be really good kept me going.

Finally Big Ben struck twelve and fireworks started shooting off of the London Eye as well as Big Ben. We had roughly 30 minutes of absolutely gab smacking spectacular fireworks display. The whole sky seemed to be consumed in a fire-y blaze tinted by metals and other elements. By the end of the show, despite being just across the river from it, you couldn’t see the London Eye as smoke smothered the visibility. Our next task was to rush and hopefully catch the one of the last trains to Dartford. The crowds were so intense; police were lined up outside a McDonalds and sectioned off the crowds as not to overwhelm the train and tube stations. Luckily we ran and raced into one of the cars of the second to last train. Despite all the waiting, hustling, and crowd maneuvering- it was all worth it. To be in the masses, to be part of such a big event, the whole experience was what I hoped for.  According to Michael, they were the best he has ever seen coming out to the city for New Year’s.

This has been a New Year’s that I will never forget. 

Greenwich Market

National Maritime Museum

Blurry, but I loved how these two managed to view the fireworks on top of a phonebooth

HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYONE!!!!

Hello London!

December 30th

After a sad goodbye to Cecilia and Carl, I once again found myself in the chaos of traveling from point A to point B. This time my point B is a long anticipated destination, London! On the train towards Dartford, where I was going to stay with my friend Michael and his family for the New Years; a random man a few seats from me asked me out of the blue: “could I stay at yours?” I was a bit shocked since we didn’t really make eye contact nor exchanged any words beforehand. “uh, I am sorry but I am not going to my home at the moment” was all I could reply. It was slightly awkward for the next few stops till he decided to get off the train. Welcome to London I thought to myself.
Michael picked me up from the train station shortly after the weird confrontation.

Michael has a younger brother named Alex, who is 17, and is nothing like my 17 year old brother named Alex. First time he met me he immediately made a comment, isn’t Adrian a guy’s name? Interesting character that one. 

The next day Michael showed me around the heart of London. Getting out of the train station, I immediately found myself in front of Big Ben!!! Whoa, didn’t expect to see a landmark that soon! Excitement was pulsing through my veins. The next few landmarks were a bit of a blur, I think they include Leicester Square and the Houses of Parliament. We went to see the changing of the guards where at one point I got yelled out to get out of the guards way (hard to when there are so many people and you don’t know where the guards are heading to next). Then we walked down the Pall Mall to the Buckingham Palace! It was spectacular! The flag was up too, which meant that the Queen was inside!!

After spending sometime there, we went to China Town, where Michael got some Chinese food and I found a place where they sold bubble tea (which I will get next time I find myself in China Town again). There was an M&M store which through the window I saw a staged argument between a guy dressed as a giant M&M and a guard. Michael and I had lunch in Trafalgar Square. It was fabulous; there was a fountain, a countdown till the London summer Olympics, and next thing I know there was a huge band in costume marching their way up the stairs. After finishing our lunches, we went on one of the stone banisters to get a better view above the crowds so I could take a video of the band for my brother to see. After a while I heard Michael say to me, “Mate, we need to go now”. I responded, “Not yet I want to hear the rest of the song” then he replied, “This woman wants us to get down”. I look over to where he was and there was a security woman in uniform waiting for us to get off of the structure.

So far I managed to get in trouble in three different countries: at a museum in Germany, at the Gardens in Austria, at the Changing of the Guards and in Trafalgar Square within the UK. Success!! You truly haven’t been to another country it seems until you are told off by a person of authority; strangely I don’t think I got into trouble when I visited Sweden- what a shame. 

 

After a quick tube ride we ended up at the Camden Market- which has to be one of the places in London that I really can’t wait to visit again. Camden Market is like the Haight Ashbury of San Francisco but so much more immense!!!! It has a similar vibe as The Haight too, with a bohemian atmosphere. Michael put his bargaining skills to work as we were able to get 6 fresh donuts for around a pound fifty each. There were so many clothes and items that I wanted to buy but unfortunately I didn’t really find any bargains. Then Michael took me to this one futuristic shop that was filled with black lights and loud music called The Cyber Dog. It was pretty cool, but my ears have always been sensitive and I was wondering how the hearing was of the Cyber Dog’s employees since they have to be in that environment way longer than the 15 minutes that I was in there.

We ended our day in London by going to two pubs, one of which was a gay pub which I was interested on going to just to say I’ve been. At each place, I would get asked for my ID while Michael, who is only 19, never was bothered for ID. Well on the plus side, if I look under 18 when I am 21, hopefully the trend continues when I get older!

Later in the evening, when I was helping on setting the table (since Michael wasn’t helping at all), I put the silverware on the table- finding that they have pretty small spoons… When Michael and his mom looked at the table, they saw the spoons and asked “why did you put teaspoons out instead of the regular sized spoons?” We all had a good laugh. I just completely missed the normal sized spoons when searching in the silverware drawer.

All in all it was a great day!

Buckingham Palace

Trafalgar Square

One of the 'coolest' places I have been to in London yet!

Malmö

December 29th, 2011

Yesterday Cecilia, Carl, and I went to Malmö, the third largest city in Sweden. We walk around the boardwalk and then around the shops where at one shop I bought some amazing Swedish candy to survive finals week. Afterwards we went to Camilla’s house to celebrate anoth God Jul with Camilla, Moa, and Cecilia’s father. While we waited for dinner, Cecilia, Carl, and I played playdoh with Moa. Dinner was once again immense and we paused once in a while for singing and at the end of the song we would say Skål and take a sip from our drinks. After dinner we went to the tree to open presents. Camilla was so sweet and got me a second gift- a jar full of my favorite homemade coconut butter chocolates! Best gift ever! Gift opening was followed by fika and then we tried to put together a race track for Moa’s new toy cars, but the car was sadly not working. We ended the evening with a rousing game of Ubongo where Carl was humming the tetris tune (Ubongo is kind of like tetris but timed). The game was really challenging but a blast. Before leaving Camilla’s house, since Carl was humming the tetris theme song for a good portion of the game, I tried to figure out how to play the song on the piano. It was a great night.

I was really sad leaving Cecilia and her wonderful family, but I was looking forward to my next adventure in London. Below I included some of the Swedish words I learned on my week visit in Sweden.   

*Glossary:

Tack                                                              Thank you

Pepparkaka         (peppar ka ka)                   Gingerbread Cookie

Fika                       (Fee ka)                           Coffee break with something (sweets, cakes..)

Ursäkta                (Ur sect ta)                        Sorry

Hej! & Hej då      (hey & hey-do)                  Hello & Goodbye

Skål                       (skall)                              Cheers

God Jul                 (goooood ul)                     Merry Christmas

Ost                        (oooost)                           Cheese

Prosit                    (pro ciet)                           Bless you!

Must                     (mooooooost)                   Christmas soda

Fisk                                                               Fish

Jacka                    (yakah)                             Jacket

JulSkinka              (ul h/w-inka)                     Christmas Ham

On the train leaving from Lund, hopefully will return soon!