Another beautiful day in London, that is, it is raining.

So, I'm sitting in my room and I've come to the realization that I'm pretty much screwed. I have three papers due in the next two weeks and an Arabic exam, for which I have not studied at all . AT ALL. Frack.

More life events. I dont' think I've shared with you all my general week schedule, so I'll do that now so you know how I spend my life, and you can stalk me down if necessary.

Monday:
10am: Arab-Israeli conflict lecture. Hit or miss on the boringness. I usually don't leave my room until 15 minutes before this lecture, so I end up being 10 minutes late, sneak in and sit behind a pillar so my teacher doesn't notice. It works well. I also reacently did amazingly on a paper for this class, like wow. Which is good as I got a C on the last one.

11am: Since I will not have finished my reading for the day, I head over to Cafe Amici, which used to be on the corner of school but is moving locations two doors down, for breakfast. It is generally empty and the Italian man gets me by tea very quickly and refers to as 'babe' which was awkward for like 5 months, but apparently now I'm ok with it. N.B; I used to get cappuccino, but i gave it up for lent, and he is confused on occasion as to why i get tea.

On a side note, Brits use 'cheers' for thank you, you are welcome, good bye, and a bunch of other random crap. I recently said it as a natural response and I was very proud of my enculteration and I wanted to share this fact with you deux.

12:05pm: Kinship sex and Gender class. Here I actually participate, and I probably did some of the reading for this class when I was sitting in Amici drinking my tea, milk one sugar. Most of my colleges will have done one reading, I try to do 2-3 but I've been slacking as of late. I have an American friend in this class, Anita, so that makes group conversation good and most of the other Anthro students are pleasant and friendly. Oddly, there is like a strong French contingent in the department with at least 6 French girls. Maybe this isn't strange, it could just be me.

1:05 Economic Anthropology Lecture: This term my teacher is German, and the most intense person in the world. She really knows her stuff, but she is a little intimidating. I generally sit in the back of this lecture so that I can charge my computer which I lug to campus on Mondays as I have so many classes. This leads to awkwardness as I am the only person in the back of a very large room, but this is the ONLY place there is a plug (socket) in the whole room. Seriously, my reoccurring cultural observations of Britain is that they are afraid of fire, hence a ton of fire doors which make walking awkward, and no plugs.

2:05 Lunch. I will be very hungry as I ususally forget to eat breakfast/i have no time. I will meet Anita in front of one of our dining halls, which is more of a cafe that is filled with students and teachers. Last week we went to Pret A Manger, which is this sandwich chain in London and then took our sandwiches back to Garrick, the dining hall.

3:05: Philsophy Lecture. Mostly these are really good lectures dealing with interesting topics and the material I think is really important to understand. I sit in the front so that I actually pay attention, however, I tend to sit near the window so I can stare outside if necessary...or if the sky is blue, which is an event that should not be missed.

4:05 Econ Anthro Class. I have this with my very intense German prof. She doesn't let us get away with not doing all of the reading and just stares at you until you speak. Overall, she engages a lot with the material and presents very good points about how the way we think in our own society as related to economic perspectives on life, so i've been blown away at times by the conncetions that I just didn't see.

5:05 Now, I should go home at this time, but recently I've been going to a lecture series on Philosophy and Public Policy which runs from 5-6:30. I've enjoyed these as they give me an opportunity, like with Econ anthro, to apply stuff to the real world and not live in the abstract realm of academia.

Afterwards, I will go home, scrounge for some food or go to the grocery store and then do my reading for Philosophy class the next day.

Tuesday:
Morning-12:05: I will do my arabic homework and then wander over to school. I also attempt to eat lunch, but sometimes I forget, which leads to me walking into a pub at 4pm and getting soup, which is amazing.

12:05: Kinship lecture. Again, hit or miss. I have one lecturer for this class, the head of department, who is very good generally, but we also have another professor who while being generally pertinent to the topic of discussion, has bad delivery and i think gets two pensive for anyone to take him seriously. I usually finish my arabic homework if he is lecturing while at the same time taking notes.

1:05 Philosophy: I love this class. My prof. is French and really smart and helpful in getting across some complex ideas. The only way that this would be better is if more people actually did the reading so that we could discuss deeper implications of the material than a few people getting very set on a few points of contention and their irreconcilability with their own life ideas that would be clear if they had read.

2-4 Arabic. Ewe. It isn't that bad, but not anything like my Gtown language courses. I do need to study for my exam though. Because I dont' need to study for class really, i've let a lot of stuff not get the proper attention and now i'm in trouble.

I have to go clean my room as Mer is coming tomorrow so I need to sort myself out as they say over here.

Ali-I'm sorry I left you alone with a strange girl in Paris. But that post was amaizng and made my day as it were, since I have to sit here and do so much work.

Where the bloody hell is Zhao, is she alive wtf. I want some news on her if you can.

Much love to you both,

elle

Paris, je t'aime -- quand je suis pas fauchée

I am guarding the library right now. This in and of itself should be so exciting I have no room for anything else, but I have decided that -- in addition to my careful screening of students and strangers coming into our ugly monstrosity of a library (in case you've forgotten what it looks like, Eleanor) -- I shall also update my dear friends on my current ghurba status.

Washington, D.C. continues to exist. I am sure you all will be happy to hear this. Today I went to Vienna -- the Vienna that is connected via the orange metro line in Virginia, that is. I think I prefer the Wien of Austria, however. I interviewed an Indian woman about her dialect Telugu and phonetically transcribed some words she gave me and asked intelligent, pertinent questions about agglutination. What else have I done this weekend? Yesterday Shelly, Jim and I drank champagne and played Super Nintendo games. Well -- I watched and played some Tetris. Exciting. But anyway, as I sit here going over cover letters, writing a paper abstract and reading about rats dying in Camus' La Peste, I thought it would be about time to talk about my trip to Paris. I apologize in advance for the ridiculous length of this post.

As I'm sure both Shelly and Eleanor know, the latter abandoned me by deciding not to go to Paris for a weekend as originally planned. It's okay -- I've made my peace. Sob. Thus, with a 70-euro train ticket I refused to let go to waste, I set off to Paris alone. I left on Friday, and almost missed my train because I am stupid. I won't bore you with the details, but it does involve the longest train I've ever seen. Someone was sitting in my seat, so I told her to leave. Politely. It was ridiculously crowded because the SNCF is run by the devil -- didn't know that, did you? People had to stand in the aisles if they weren't lucky enough to get a seat. At one point the train came to a halt in the middle of a fog-shrouded, empty countryside, where the announcer told us that they didn't know when we would be continuing onwards. I wrote my linguistics paper during this time, about a wonderful advertising slogan. I can send it to you if you want to read some fascinating observations of mine. Thirty minutes later, we finally continued.

I arrived in Paris a little before six o'clock, or maybe it was five -- I can't remember, as this was over two months ago now. Anyway, I did not have a hostel, and there is one thing that I can definitely recommend to anyone traveling, ever: DO NOT NEGLECT TO BOOK A HOSTEL IF YOU ARE TRAVELING ALONE IN A CITY WHERE YOU KNOW NO ONE. I will emphasize further: ESPECIALLY NOT PARIS, WHERE HOSTELS ARE TERRIBLE. If you have friends with you, as was my case in Switzerland, it's fine -- you can always take turns as a sentry if you have to sleep in a park. If you know someone in the city, even remotely, it's fine -- you can crash on their floor because seriously, who's going to leave you to rot outside in a city alone? In my case, just about everyone I had contacted before was gone for the weekend. Or I suppose if you're a man, it's fine -- because the world sucks and traveling alone is fine for you.

Anyway, I went to a hostel that had 13-euro beds, hoping for a room, but they were full for the night. The woman very kindly recommended another hostel. I got lost, asked for directions from a very helpful shopkeeper, and after a few sketchy streets and a race against the dwindling sun, arrived at the second hostel. A bed was available and, once I had payed for the mandatory sheets, it was a little over 20 euro for the night. Frack. I went upstairs to the room, planning to grab dinner but not do much else since I didn't want to wander the city alone at night. In my room was the weirdest girl ever; at first, my guard was lowered because I thought we could make conversation and she could give me some tips about things to do. After an hour, however, I wanted to switch rooms because I was scared to sleep in the same building as she. (As an aside, I really need to use the bathroom, but I have to wait for who knows how much longer until a rover comes to relieve me).

Why was this French girl so crazy, you ask? Well, first of all, she told me all about her life troubles -- she dropped out of school, studying rocks or something like that. She's been trying to get work in a jewelery store but since she's, y'know, crazy she's had some difficulty keeping a job, though she chalks it up to mean bosses. So she goes from hostel to hostel, a nomad lifestyle, looking for employment. That's right -- she lives in hostels. The bathroom of our room had a robe, her coats, and an entire suitcase worth of toiletries. I will repeat this: SHE LIVES IN HOSTELS. Once she found out I was American, she then switched to really terrible English, "for practice." I was too polite to tell her I didn't understand anything that she said to me; I simply spoke to her in French in the hope that she would pick up the hint and reply in French. She never did. (Once, the next night when I returned, and started my homework, she turned to me and said, "Tell me what I need to start my life in America." She then asked me whether she could find work in California. Yeah, good luck with that.)

Continuing onwards, on Saturday I started the day by taking a walking tour in my guidebook that took me past, among other things, the Pont Neuf, the Ile de la Cité (Notre Dame, etcetera), and awesome little streets on the Left Bank. I learned all sorts of clever facts, browsed many open-air markets, and gazed longingly at antique bookstore windows. Then, in the early afternoon, I met up with a French girl, Lola, whom I contacted through strange connections (okay, so don't laugh because this saved me from a very lonely weekend -- she's the friend of this girl on Livejournal I've known for a while. Honestly, she could have been a crazy murderer, but I'm still here and now we're Facebook friends, hurrah. Alright, you can laugh now). We met at les Buttes Chaumont pour se balader un peu -- which, by the way, is an utterly gorgeous park completely unlike the typical (and boring, in my opinion) geometrical gardens of Luxembourg or Versailles. The view of Paris from atop one of its high hills was incredible.

After that, I had another rendez-vous with someone from Atlanta I knew was studying in Paris. I'd only met him once before, however, so it was semi-awkward and I ended up having to pay 5 euro for a café. I'm still bitter about that. He did direct me to the best viewing platform for the Tour Eiffel, however, so I went there to see the sparkling lights of the engineering marvel. (By the way, the other day I saw a chocolate contest on the Food Network where contestants had to make architectural marvels out of chocolate. The Eiffel Tower was, of course, included, but I must say that it looked a little rickety.)

Sunday, however, was a dramatic change in my otherwise pleasant weekend in the City of Light -- to be more direct, it was miserable. I had to leave the hostel by ten in the morning, which meant that I had to carry my backpack loaded with books and clothes all day. Furthermore, the weather was a drizzly, rainy mess. I walked to the Musée d'Orsay, which had free admission, and -- taking frequent breaks to prevent a back break -- I admired impressionists. And then when I was walking across the bridge from the museum to go look at the holiday windows at les Galléries Lafayette (completely awesome), the crazy Parisian wind BROKE MY UMBRELLA. This was a draining experience for me, emotionally. My umbrella was kind of my only ally against the elements, only to be destroyed. But anyway, I then took random stops alone throughout the city, rather enjoying my time in the cranky old métro because it kept me out of the rain, and sat in a café to do homework for a while. And then as I was wondering around looking at boutiques and generally feeling sorry for my sodden state, I was talked into buying a 105-euro dress. Yes, one-hundred-and-five euro. For a dress I will probably never wear. Aiya. I still maintain that I was not in my right mind.

By five o'clock, I was freezing, and wet (as were all my books), and my weekend consumption of paninis was starting to wear on me. I decided to go to the train station and do homework until my train left (which, by the way, wasn't until nine thirty, and it cost nearly as much as my original ticket did to switch to an earlier time). So I then sat in the Gare de Lyon, with pigeons for company, switching seats every thirty minutes or so to ease my aching back and still-soggy feet. I sat on the floor for a while until the pure filth of it disgusted me too much. I also consumed about five one-euro machine-dispenser cafés -- if nothing else, the French are simply masters of machine coffee -- and shook off a strange man who, when he found out that I wasn't leaving until after nine, wanted to "talk" with me until then. There wasn't anywhere open for food, and though I contemplated eating a pigeon, I settled on munching on some chips.

I finally arrived back to Strasbourg around midnight, more than happy to be back and warm in my room. But despite the miserable second day (Paris is only as charming as the weather permits. Or as one's hotel accommodations permit.), I had quite a lovely time exploring gay Par-ee.

I still really have to go to the bathroom. That is all.

Why there are no pictures

I dont' have the proper cord to connect my camera to my computer so that is why this is a very bland contribution. Aren't my words enough to set the scene for you? I thought I was just that talented. Regards, Eleanor

A Remeberance of Things Past

Dear Friends,

I have become obsessed with Text Twist. Thanks a freaking a lot Alison. I mean, really unhealthy amounts of text twist, three hours the other day. I already do no work, but this is really cutting into my staring out the window time. I also enjoy internet chess against the computer, which I always lose and BBCiPLayer which lets me watch BBC shows. My current favorites are Lark Rise to Candleford, which is about a girl from a small hamlet in Oxfordshire circa 1890 who moves to the larger town of Candleford to work in the post office and all the intrigue of small town life. It is ridiculously amazing. There is a sub plot where the post mistress, yes-that is right, I’m pretty sure the writes took some licence with the original book, is basically in love with the local squire who has a very pretty but reserved wife who is unable to adjust from London to the small town charm of Candleford. Larua, that central character also divides her affections between the said squire’s grounds keeper, who is really cute!, and a farm boy from her home hamlet. Ah, such is life. The other show I watch is called EastEnders, which is this British soap that has been on for like 20 years. The plots are ridicucles, but it is ever so diverting and it is on four times a week so it keeps me occucpied. Also, last night I watched a new show called ‘The Last Enemy’ which is set a few years in the future when Britian is on the verge of becoming a police state because of all its CCTV cameras and extensive knowledge of people’s lives. It is like 1984 on crack. Also, the protagonist is a reclusive mathematician. Ergo, he is awkward and therefore I would of course need to watch it.

My birthday: As you know, I am old. And the day that I become older officially for book keeping purposes was this past Tuesday. Thank you for my phone call Alison, it made me very happy. To celebrate, in a country that doesn’t give a damn about such things as age limits for alcohol consumption, I went to a pub with people from Georgetown and USC that I am friends with here and I ate a hamburger because it was on sale for five pounds and came with a beer. I had a Stella. There was merriment and singing and discussions of a trip most of them had been on to Belgium the previous weekend, followed by complaining about the British academic system for awhile. Afterwards, I went with Anita, who is from USC but originally from Cleveland (woot woot), Vinod and Teddy to get drinks at the Waldorf, and by drinks I mean drink. I had a Manhattan, it was very strong, but I think a good first drink choice. Then I went home called my parents and went to sleep. Perhaps I would have done crazier things had I not been forced to awaken at 5:30 to write a paper on Kant that same morning. Upon reflection, this seems rather far fetched. I wish you both had been here with me to celebrate, it was really just not the same. What did you all do for Mer’s birthday?

In other news...about three weeks ago, I went to Rye, in Sussex for the day with fellow Georgetownian Sarah. We boarded the train at London Bridge which is conveniently near my abode and having purchased a liter of orange juice and four pain au chocolate traveled for an hour to Ashofr international, where we changed trains and then arrived in Rye around 11 in the morning. Rye is utterly charming. It is a small town, around 6000 inhabitants and has perhaps a dozen streets in the town center. The houses are all small, with low doors and tiny windows. It is near the sea so people will have model ships in front of their curtains so as you walk along the alleys there will be these small houses with shutters framing the windows and model boats sitting in front of lace. While we were there, we visited their church which lets you climb up into the bell tower and then go outside to see the country vistas. Now, as you are aware, I really freaking hate heights, but the ascent was entirely worth it as you could see the ocean and the surrounding fields and boats sitting in the river from the top. Also, to get up, you had to go through some really really narrow passages. Really narrow, they seemed almost to be hewn out of the stonework, like 800 years of water damage had carved them from the masonry. I do enjoy old churches a great deal, learning about which parts were build when. It is strange to think that people living such a long time ago were in the same building, saw the same things you are seeing, or rather aspects of what you are seeing. So I wonder, which part of this was here at which time. What did these people think about the stonework, when did this glass get put in. Etc.

We also visited Rye castle, which is about the size of Dalghern chapel. It may actually be smaller. You get to see two stories and the basement, but it is mainly one large room on each floor and the three small, really small, you can’t lay down in them small, tower rooms, while the fourth houses the stair case. I learned that stairs in castles wind clock wise so that it is easier to defend them if you are on the second floor because there is a disadvantage for right handed people when they climb that way. Also, all of the steps are uneven so that in the dark, if you are unfamiliar with the stairs, you will trip while trying to climb them. I thought this was pretty cool.

After the town adventures of Rye, which consisted of some wandering, the purchase of batteries and a visit to a yarn shop, we headed out to walk to the sea, because I less than three the ocean a lot. It was allegedly 2 miles away. But there is no way that this is possibly that close. We found some trail that wandered along a canal for a bit, say a man fishing and then for 20 minutes no one, until a couple came a long walking their dog (Very English). We chose this particular path because it walked alongside Cumberland castle which is the ruins of a building built by Henry VIII to defend England from France. We could see it for our entire journey and it was very large and was probably very nice but it is really just ruins now. Unfortunately being winter, it was closed so we just circled it, peering in through the window openings and pretending to scale the walls. We then proceeded on our journey to the sea…

Only we couldn’t find it. We walked for about 20 more minutes till we came to some houses and then took the way we thought was to the sea, but it was very muddy, and there were horse tracks, and we opened fences, and I’m not sure we were supposed to be there…So we turned around and tried to find another path. As we walked, be passed Teddy and Patches: Rescue Ponies, we are not sure if they rescue people, or are rescued as the sign was only adamant about not feeding them. We then, after asking a British woman who was climbing over a fence to take her dog for a walk, found a road to take us to the sea. This took us at least 20 minutes to walk down and then finally we arrived at the English Channel, only to find it closed. Yes, it was closed. There is a mulit-mile fence lining the water. We then turned around and headed to Winchealsea, which is the smallest town in England to finish our day.

On our walk back we went through Dimmsdale, a la Scarlet Letter, which has about three houses and a man with a power drill who said ‘hello’ to us, we walked a bit faster after this. However, by this time, it was 4 pm, and near as we were to Winchelsea, we decided that instead of climing the giant hill to get to it, it really is a rather large ascent, we should walk back to Rye and get some food as we had only had orange juice and pain au chocolate all day.

So we walked along the road until we say 1066 Heritage trail which according to our map was a path back to Rye and proceeded on our way as the sun neared its setting behind us. However, after about five minutes of a legitimate trail with many tracks of human and dog, there ceased to be any trail and we found ourselves in the middle of a field. So we kept walking through fields, avoiding sheep, finding a bridge now and then to carry us over the irrigation ditchces, but on one occasion having to back track until the water level was low enough for us to jump safely over. Oh, I also slipped and became slightly muddy previously to this, it was rather unpleasant, but highly amusing. So we walked across fields, walking fast so that we wouldn’t loose all the light and be stuck in the middle of field in the dark. Also, we may have been trespassing as there were definitely sheep near us at points during our sojourn. We arrived at the outskirts of Rye just as the sun had set and then having checked the train schedule, got a bite to eat a local fish and chips place before training back to London.

I also did no reading this weekend. You would both be so proud. Tomorrow I go to Wales to go horseback riding and I shall write you of that when I return. Love to you both, Eleanor