A little bit of everything!

Since we last wrote, we had two more days in Wellingborough, one day of travel to Devon, and now we've been here for almost a day. Here is a little recap of what's been going on and a few weeklies.

One of our days in Wellingborough, we went to Cambridge, which is home to England's second oldest university. It was a little like most other college towns (students riding bikes everywhere, people studying for exams currently, etc.) although with the added charm of it being founded in 1209. The other day in Wellingborough, we visited Stoke Bruerne and saw the canal locks in action. It was so cool seeing the water level raise so much in such a short time. Walking along the canal was gorgeous, and it was so fun to look inside of the boats and see the tiny kitchens and such.



Overall, we've found England to be similar in looks to New England, with small towns, brick houses and lots of the same place names. Basically the biggest difference we've noticed so far is how much older everything here is. It's amazing to think that it's perfectly normal for buildings here to be over 500 years older than the United States.

We spent our first full day in Devon at the local high school with our host. For me, I found this school to be much different than the others that we visited in how they interacted with us. At the Hungarian high school, not many of the students' English was well enough to have a proper conversation, and at the international school in Switzerland, so many of the students were American, so it was just like meeting a new classmate. At the English school, however, we found that a few people (jokingly) refused to talk to us because we were Americans. However, we were forewarned that they might not be that friendly, but it was all in a good-natured way.


So now onto the Weeklies! Since we were only in Wellingborough for half a week, we decided to combine the weeklies from there with the ones from our week in Devon.


People of the Week

We interviewed both of our Wellingborough hosts this week.

Name:
Issa
Harry

Where were you born?
Issa: The east end of London. I'm a Cockney, although Harry has the Cockney accent.
Harry: London

What is your favorite place in England?
Issa: London
Harry: Derbyshire

What is your favorite English food?
Issa: Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.
Harry: Roast Lamb

What is your former job?*
Issa: Most recently, the Equal Opportunities Coordinator at Northampton University.
Harry: A printer

What are your current hobbies?
Issa: Working with children, being a School Governor**, line dancing, swimming, and reading.
Harry: Riding my motorbike, photography, gardening, and watching football***.

What are some places you've traveled to together?
Israel, American, Australia, the Far East, Europe, including Italy, France Portugal, and many more places.

What is your favorite place in the world?
Issa: The Italian lakes
Harry: New England

Anything else?
"When you first asked us to host you, we were surprised by your age. Most English kids don't do something like that until 18 or so."

* - Issa and Harry are retired.
** - School Governor is a bit like School Board in the U.S.
*** - In America, it's soccer.




Word of the Week

Although it's all still English, they do use different words for certain things. For example, in England they might say, "Let's use the zebra crossing to get to the other pavement." In America, we would way, "Let's the the crosswalk to get to the other sidewalk." There are also certain words they pronounce differently, like "zeb-rah" instead of "zee-brah". Overall though, it's great not to have as much of a language barrier as certain other countries.

More soon!
Ariel

Paris Weeklies! And Arrival in England!

It was a lovely week in Paris! Here are our weeklies to sum it up!




Photo of the Week

The Eiffel Tower - taken from the second tier by my father.


Place of the Week

The Paris sewer system, first created in 1370 and updated in 1991, is like no other sewer system in the world, as we learned in the Paris Sewer Museum with its 2100 kilometers of tunnels. The museum itself was incredibly smelly and we could actually see and hear the waste rushing beneath our feet through the grates, but it was fascinating.
Additionally, I'm a bit of a theater/literature nerd and I was so excited to visit the sewers that were referenced in Les Miserables multiple times.


Food of the Week

Beef Tartare. I didn't try it, but my father and Ariel ordered it and were incredibly surprised to find that it is actually raw hamburger meat seasoned with horseradish. My dad ate the entire thing. I tell you, he must have a stomach of steel because it did not look appetizing in the least.


Phrases of the Week

The phrases for this week are rather dull and most people know them; but they are useful when trying to properly practice French etiquette. They are simply "Bonjour" (hello), "Merci" (thank you), and "Au Revoir" (goodbye).
These basic phrases are simple as it is considered rude not to greet a shopkeeper and then thank them on the way out.


Arrival in England

We arrived just yesterday in Wellingborough, England, just North of London. It's a very small town but is surrounded by beautiful countryside and some fascinating history. Our hosts were very sweet to plan some excursions for us! Today, for example, we visited the Warwick Castle built by 1068 by William the Conquerer in Warwickshire. It is now a prominent tourist attraction in the region and includes a falconry, a theatrical dungeon tour (incredibly scary, but the actors were also very funny...I was laughing and screaming simultaneously), a giant slingshot, and a turret walk.

Paris!

Well, we've been having such a fun week here in Paris with Emily's parents! It's been filled with museums and monuments and delicious food and lots more! Since it would be far too much to write about everything we've been doing, I'm just going to give you the highlights.

As far as the sights go, we have basically been to all the most famous ones in Paris. We saw the Notre Dame (and a Gregorian chant concert there!), climbed up most of the Eiffel Tower, saw the Bastille memorial, went to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, and saw the graves of Jim Morrison, Frederic Chopin, Gericault and the Stroganoffs. For museums, we visited the Sewer Museum, the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, the Victor Hugo House, Musee de Musique, and the Pompideu Center. We've been very busy, as you can tell. To make it more condensed, I'll just tell my favorite places.

My favorite of the monument was the Arc de Triomphe, I think. It was so much fun to stand on the very top and look down at all the cars during rush hour trying frantically to take the right turn off the rotary. The Smart Cars were especially funny to watch, since from above they look ridiculously small compared to the normal-sized cars, which looked small on their own.

I also really liked Pere Lachaise, which was the graveyard. It has the graves of so many famous people, including Jim Morrison, Frederic Chopin, Gericault, Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde, Sarah Bernhardt, Camille Pisarro, the Hugo family and so many more people. We visited the first three of those graves, as well as the Stroganoff family. Pere Lachaise is one of the most famous cemeteries in the world, and is also almost unnavigable. Unfortunately, we forgot the book with the detailed map and home and didn't want to buy a map just to visit a couple of graves. Needless to say, it was quite an adventure. Some of the graves we found simply by following groups of other people or looking for where people were crowded around, which is how we found Jim Morrison and Chopin. Gericault's grave was the first we visited, so we tried our hardest to remember from the map at the entrance. Gericault, in case you don't know, was an artist who painted "The Wrath of the Medusa", among others. On his tombstone, there was an engraving of this painting, so it was quite a gorgeous tombstone.

How we found the Stroganoff family, on the other hand, is quite a story. Originally, we were trying to find the Hugo family plot, which was surprisingly difficult. On our way to find it, we found this huge monument to the Stroganoff family. After looking them up online we discovered that they were a family of Russian barons and traders, and beef stroganoff is thought to be named after them. Just a random fact.

My favorite museum was Musee de Musique, which showed the history of musical instruments. Some of the old instruments they had there were amazing, like a guitar with the back of the guitar made from a tortoise shell and a huge collection of lutes. The museum was very interesting, especially since three out of the four of us are musicians.

Of course, I also enjoyed the bigger museums, like the Musee d'Orsay (which had paintings by nearly every famous impressionist painter), the Pompideu Center (a modern art museum), and the Louvre. Unfortunately, a lot of these museums were so huge that it was impossible to see everything. We spent hours at the Louvre and really only saw one wing!

The most interesting and unique museum, however, was the Sewer Museum. It consisted of an underground tour of the Paris sewer system as well as the history of and just about everything else you'll ever need to know about the system. Although it was quite interesting, it was difficult to breathe freely in due to the overpowering smell of feces.

That's all for now, keep reading for weeklies in a couple of days!
Ariel

Americans in Paris

We're all safe in Paris...

My parents MIRACULOUSLY were booked on the only airline stupid enough to fly through volcanic ash and arrived only six hours later than scheduled. Thank goodness. Ariel and i arrived from Switzerland by train and are immersing ourselves in the Paris experience...for example, lots of baguettes and brie are involved.

So basically we are having a Vermont party here in Paris. People are stuck here...the Kenneys and the Pattises. So we're all hanging out here in the Kenney's apartment. It feels like Vermont inside but when we look out our window it looks like Paris. It's very strange. I can't believe this coincidence!

It's amazing not only that other Vermonters are here...but they're actually staying two doors down!!!! We discovered it this morning and were completely blown away.

Anyway Paris looks amazing so far...I can't wait to see more of it (and post about it, of course)!

Keep reading.
Also bear in mind that you don't need to make an account to comment...just comment anonymously!!
xxx
Em

Switzerland and Weeklies!

For our Swiss day trip, we visited Bern. It was about an hour away by train (the European public transportation system is amazing!) and is the capital of Switzerland. While in Bern, we had so much fun! First, we went to the Einstein Haus, a museum about Albert Einstein located in the apartment he lived in with his wife for two years while in Bern. The museum basically told the entire history of Einstein; he had such an interesting life. Among other things, I learned that he didn't win the Nobel Prize for the Theory of Relativity, but rather for discovering the photoelectric effect. Unfortunately, I still don't exactly understand what that is.
After the Einstein Haus, we went to Barengraben, the bear pit which Bern is famous for. The bear we saw was named Bjork. Right next to the pit is a tourist center, which plays short movies about the history of Bern. From the video, we learned about everything from Napoleon's conquest of Bern to the chaos caused when he removed the bears from the bear pit (the bears of Bern are very iconic, the city's shield even features a bear). Also while in Bern, we saw the large clock tower that helped Einstein discover the Theory of Relativity, the Parliament and water jets, many fountains, and small stores.

To see Switzerland's schools, we spent half a day at our hosts' high school visiting her classes. Since it's an international school, it was interesting to hear not only how many countries various students had lived in and came from, but also how many languages people speak. There are people who speak over five languages fluently! It's amazing! Another interesting thing for us was having to be awake and functioning by 8 a.m. for school. After the English teacher suggested we take notes on the lecture, I realized that I'd gotten pretty out of practice with it. Still, it was nice to hear English being spoken everywhere, since it seems to be the main common language at the school.


Food of the Week



Chocolate! What else? We are in Switzerland after all...


Word of the Week

entschuldigung - sorry or excuse me
(ent-shul-di-gung)

Yes, it's hard to pronounce, but we often used it to get by a crowd of people on the tram or apologize after stepping on their foot.

In Basel (where we are staying), they speak Swiss German. This is different from High ("Regular") German, particularly because it isn't really a set written language of it, so spelling differs. The Swiss are very nationalistic, though so they usually would rather English than High German. However, the languages do share many similar words, as both are dialects of German.


Place of the Week



Bern! It was great there! You can read more about it farther up in this post. This particular picture is of the Zytglogge, which means clock tower.


Photo of the Week



On our first day in Basel, our host showed us this wall. Although it looks like graffiti, the city actually commissioned an artist to make this mural on a building wall. In case you can't tell by the picture, it shows many of the rock and roll greats in some of their most iconic poses as well as various band logos. Since we love rock and roll music, we really liked this wall.

Switzerland (and some Italy)

Italy. Hmm. I am constantly losing track of time. Let's see if I can recall the important events that have not yet been blogged about. Wow, you know you've truly crossed the line from average human to blogger when you start using "blog" as a verb.

Anyway, Italy was fantastic. We took a day trip to Milan, which was interesting. It was quite clear to us that it was a business and financial capital; there was one street where nearly everyone we passed was sporting a crisp suit and accessorizing with a briefcase (you could tell that most of them were the type who thought it was nearly criminal to wear a black belt with brown shoes...Milan is also a fashion capital). Since this trip is somewhat about determining a career direction, this trip to the Wall Street of Italy spurred a lengthy conversation which consisted mostly of arguing (We are debaters, after all) alternately the merits and negative aspects of working in an office-setting.

Another memorable moment was that first glance of the Milan Cathedral (in Italian, Duomo di Milano, or in Milanese, Domm de Milan). We had taken the Subway to a random stop that, on the map, looked rather concentrated with stores and restaurants because at that point we were looking to do some shopping and eating. Completely unsure of what to expect, we stepped out of the Underground and suddenly this gleaming white structure was towering over us. We were completely breath-taken by the sight of the Gothic cathedral and when our breath returned we promptly got out of the middle of the road (yes, somehow that's where we found ourselves) and snapped a photo.

While we're on the subject of Italy - a HUGE thanks to our hosts, once again, CLAIRE AND ALDO. Thank you, thank you, thank you.


Now we are in Switzerland staying with equally hospitable hosts - a truly amazing and inspiring ex-pat family (we haven't yet asked permission to use their names). But - Thank you guys!

Basel is a river town, similar to Turin and Budapest, which were, probably not-so-coincidentally, some of our favorite places to visit! There's just something beautiful about a waterfront.
It seems to be an incredibly unique town because of the HUGE portion of the culture that is dedicated to the arts.
In the past couple of days we've visited a few of the numerous museums that Basel is home to, including the Dollhouse Museum and the Tinguely Museum.

Jean Tinguely, the museum's focus, was a Swiss artist who specialized in meta-mechanics. While his work appears whimsical and playful, Tinguely's art is primarily a satirical illumination of modern greed for material goods. Over his lifetime, he created pieces that moved, lit up, spouted water, played music or video, and even self-destructed!
I personally think he must be one of the most original artists of the 20th century.

The Dollhouse Museum (In German, Puppenhausmuseum) took a lot of time simply because of the SIZE of the collection of dolls, miniatures, and teddy bears. I was especially interested in the teddy bears because of the story of the development of the teddy bear. I honestly had NO IDEA what the orgin of the teddy bear was, and now I can't believe I had never inquired about it, or even inferred as to what it might have been.
For those who don't know, it was named after Teddy Roosevelt after he refused to shoot a young bear who was tethered up, meant to be an easy kill after a largely unsuccessful hunting trip. After that, thanks to some ingenious marketing, the popularity of the Teddy surged, inspiring all sorts of variations; these included mechanically-engineered bears who could perform sommersaults and dances, bears of every color, and clothed bears.

So far, Basel has been fascinating.
You can expect another update very soon!
xxx
Em

Photos!

Photo of the Week



This was the freakiest thing ever. But so so awesome. We saw tons of caterpillars all lined up one after the other traveling across sidewalks, grass, roads, etc...
I've never seen anything like it! The longest train we saw was 24 caterpillars!! Here's a picture. Look closely and see if you can count them!

Person of the Week (Interview in Previous Post)

Claire and Aldo!



Food of the Week



XxxXxx

The Weeklies: Person, Photo, Word and Food

Person of the Week

Name: Claire

Where were you born?
Bucarest, Romania

When did you move to Italy?
At age 21

What is your favorite part of Italy?
Venice

Why did you come to Italy?
To study

What did you study?
Pharmacy, but initially I wanted to study language. I can‘t remember why I changed. It was probably easier to study and find work in Pharmacy

What do you do now?
I work for the public health as a pharmacist.

How did you learn English?
In school. I have studied English, French, and Russian…then later I learned Italian.

What do you do for pleasure?
I enjoy travel. I enjoy traveling where I have friends, so I can visit them while traveling.
I love to cook. I prefer to prepare cakes. I like to bicycle and here the city hall gives bicycles for very inexpensive prices to use in the city.

What is your favorite Italian food?
Probably pasta. Italian food is the best, and then French and Asian. It is difficult to say which, of French and Italian food, is better.


Photo of the Week

Well, the pictures overall won't upload right now, so we're going to do it all later.


Word of the Week

La vita bella - The beautiful life

Italians really do live a beautiful life, what with all that delicious food. We enjoyed Italy so much!


Food of the Week

Since we're in Italy, obviously our food of the week is PASTA! We love pasta! This was some incredibly delicious pasta with pesto, potatoes and cheese sprinkled on top. Delicious!

Our bonus Food of the Week is gelato! It's sort of like ice cream and comes in so many delicious flavors. There are gelaterias on every corner!

Italia is molto bene.

Hello all!

We are having a blast in Italy. The food is amazing and the people are incredibly friendly! On Easter, we enjoyed one of the best meals we've had on this trip, or ever. It was a multiple course meal, and everything was delicious. Here is the menu:

http://www.agriturismodelluogo.com/Pasqua_e_Pasquetta_2010.pdf

It was in a beautiful place...pictures on the website:

http://www.castellodibrusasco.com/

We ate with our hospitable hosts, Clara and Aldo, with a very sweet family from Rome, and with another friend of theirs who takes beautiful pictures, as we later found out on his website. If you're curious....

http://www.francoborrelli.it/

We've been spending a lot of time exploring the town we are staying in, Chivasso, and nearby Torino (or Turin).
Chivasso is small but very cute with its cobblestone streets, cafes, and boutiques; we are thankfully staying directly in the center of it all! There's even a gelateria right down the road (unfortunately, for my health).

Torino is also so, socool. Great shopping. But on a more intellectual note, it has some really fascinating history. For example, a huge portion of cinema really got its start right in Torino. So, logically, we decided to pay the National Cinema Museum a visit today. It was a truly amazing museum. It was incredible in size, but extremely entertaining all the way through. We started with the "archaeology" of cinema...beginning with the development of shadow puppets and moving forward into the more modern moving pictures which were rapidly-changing frames. As we progressed through the museum, we encountered countless authentic movie props and special effects displays. It was especially cool to see ourselves zooming through space. I'm not much of a science person, so it was all very hard to grasp, but was incredibly entertaining. I just accept it as a form of magic =]

The museum began to move away from the logistics of film and into profiling actors and actresses such as Judy Garland and Gene Kelly, who we were glad to recognize.

The museum, overall, is a MUST-SEE in Torino.

Tomorrow, we will hopefully be visiting Milan!
And the next day, we will be attending a concert of some sort at the Torino Auditorium.
More then!

xxx
Em





Ps.

Pictures from Valencia and Montpellier are up!


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=175078&id=537740457&l=29ad164ea6

Palavas and Fun with Trains

Palavas:

Right near Montpellier there is a seaside town by the name of Palavas. It's fairly empty at this time of year but during the summer it is a hopping French tourist town. We went twice; once at night, once during the day. At night the canal was lit up beautifully but it was something of a ghost town, as we've said, it doesn't fill up until the summer. During the day, we were able to see hundreds of pink flamingos in the water. Palavas is a historical fishing town, and we could certainly see why - it was in the perfect location for access to the canals and sea! Pictures later!

Fun With Trains:

Fun is an overstatement. And saying that "fun is an overstatement" is an overstatement. We had a little mix-up on Thursday trying to get to Italy. The clocks we had been using all week were set exactly an hour earlier. So we got to the train station exactly an hour later than we had originally planned. Awesome. But we were able to stay an additional night in Montpellier and then catch the next train on Friday, which actually worked out well because we had an amazing view of the Mediterranean Sea for a large portion of the trip.

We're in Italy now (yay) - and we'll post more about it soon!