London Lovin'

I’m falling in love with every city I go to and it’s becoming a problem. I cheat on Calgary when I plan bike trips in Ghent, I cheat on New York when I take part in all of the cool shopping here, and I cheat on Ghent when I admire the gorgeous architecture here! My love for every place I go to give me a guilty conscience when I think about the statements I’ve made about the other cities… But my love for London is like nothing I’ve ever experienced.

 I have another love issue here as well, which is my falling in love with every local who speaks. From Paul the Pasta Brown owner, to little children in the park, to the lady selling me clothes… I love it! British accents are straight up adorable, and they make unintelligent things sound intelligent, and mildly funny things sound witty and clever. ‘Yeah, I’ll pick up some pizzas and meet you at a quarter past six, good?’ simple sentences like that spoken here sound so much cooler than in Canada. My favourite word people say here is ‘Cheers’… how cute is that??? ‘Yeah, ok, see you around. Cheers.’ Would it be dorky if I started to say cheers? I hope not.

We’ve done some awesome things the past two days we’ve been here. We started by a train trip to Brussels and then to London, which was awesome, the countryside was so beautiful and very green. We had to walk to our apartment from King’s Cross, which made us look like the biggest dorks with all of our luggage… but still fun! We got a chance to explore our little neighbourhood of Islington and got some genuine London fish and chips, which was great. I am overwhelmed with shopping and am going to hell for excessive consumerism, no doubt in my mind.

 Yesterday was a classic, cloudy, rainy, drizzly London day and I loved every minute of it. We had crumpets and tea for breakfast like true Brits and we went to see Big Ben and the London Eye via the Underground (which is much cleaner than the NYC Subway btdubbs). We then went to Westminster Abbey, which I enjoyed way more than I thought I would. I got to see the memorials of so many amazing writers and poets like Chaucer, T.S. Elliott, Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, Jane Austen, the Bronte Sisters, Charles Dickens and Rudyard Kipling. So cool. There were lots of scientists buried there as well like Isaac Newton, and interestingly enough Charles Darwin, the guy behind the theory of evolution. Everything from the memorials we saw for Kings and Queens and the architecture was all so awesome.

My favourite stop we made yesterday was at St. James’s Park, which was really pretty and great for pictures. I have far too many pictures of other people’s children running through flocks of pigeons in the grass and I kind of feel like a big pedo. Haha, but the park was great, and I would love to be a local and eat my lunch there, or read or hang out there all the time.

We stopped at Buckingham palace, St. James palace, and Trafalgar. All big, all old, all famous, all awesome. We stopped by the National Gallery to culture ourselves a little more and feel awkward around naked paintings. We saw some more Leonardo, Monet, Canaletto and my new favourite, J.M.W. Turner. Then we had some of the finest Indian food in England and called it a night.

Today was equally great. Our first stop was St. Paul’s Cathedral which I love. So much better than Westminster and I don’t blame Lady Di for wanting to be married there, it’s so much brighter and grander and just lovely. We stayed for communion which was a cool experience too. My favourite part was climbing to the top of the dome with a sketchy guard rail that only went up to my chest. Had mum come with us she would have puked then died, those of you that know my mum can only imagine her horror. We did a lot of market shopping today and wandering and sightseeing. All great things. We went for dinner at Pasta Brown, where we became buds with the owner, Paul, thanks to our friend Justine back home who used to know him. Paul treated us right and hooked us up with a table during the busy hour, free bread, and free desert. Love him.

Well, this is looking less like a blog post and more like a really bad short story so I should go. Cheers. ;)

Exploring

24.08.2011

10:13 pm

We had a chance to explore the downtown area a little more today which was awesome. I love Ghent even more than I already did now that I was able to get a better look at the heart of the city.

Today was a beautiful, drizzly day in Ghent which was magnificent, ‘cause I actually missed the rain in the beautiful Calgary summer we had this year. We did quite a bit of shopping, and found lots of coffee shops and candy stores in the downtown area. I’m pretty stoked on the coffee shops we found, because of a surprising lack of coffee shops in our area. We have about 15 bars nearby, and a dozen places to get pita, but no coffee shops. Disappointing? I think so. I’m pretty sure the Ghent equivalent of grabbing a coffee is grabbing a beer, but the parentals aren’t too keen on me doing that. There is so much amazing shopping to be done downtown, and I’ve hardly even made a dent in the shops yet. I still have much work to do. Walking near the canal is beautiful, and the buildings and cobblestone streets seriously look like something that Monet forgot to paint. I love the streets of Ghent, and I can’t wait to see more of them in these next two months that we’re here.

 If I were to object to something in Ghent, it would have to be the outdoor urinals. You heard me, little booths where men in need of relief can stand and take a leak while still being able to watch the world around them. It’s disgusting and awkward to walk past a man standing in there, and it’s funny to me that his head can stick out in case he wants to give someone a little nod or wave as they pass by. I saw a man having a conversation with these two ladies while peeing… It’s strange for sure. Adam has already used it though, and he and Dad think that they’re fantastic and convenient… Sickos (or is it sickoes? I don’t really write that word in the plural form a lot) Speaking of discomforts, I completely ruined my feet today in my new “roaming around Europe” boots. I’m considering amputation to take me out of my pain. Just kidding, it wasn’t that bad and I looked dynamite. ;)

We catch our bus to Brussels tomorrow afternoon and then take a real train to London! I’m pretty excited about it all. We’ve got some great plans in the UK that include visiting the Globe Theatre, the London Eye and Buckingham Palace in London as well as a day trip to Liverpool (the home of the Beatles!!!) and Manchester for the long awaited Arcade Fire concert. I’m just livin’ the European dream. J

Lady in Ghent

22.08.2011 7:53 pm

We’re just finishing our second full day here in Ghent, Belgium and trying to get a grip on our jet lag. We are 8 hours ahead of Calgary time (my friend Beth will be happy to know I am on the same time zone as Vienna) which screwed up my R.E.M. cycle or whatever quite a bit. It’s a strange thing going to bed at 5am and not waking up til 1 the next afternoon. Despite our weird sleeping patterns, we have had an opportunity to explore our neighbourhood quite a bit, and once again, I have fallen in love with a city. I’m pretty sure this city was made for me, it’s as if God and 18^th century architects got together just to supply me with my ideal living space. Ha! We are living in an apartment on the University of Ghent campus and we are right by the canal and there are some cool shopping and coffee places nearby. There are so many little details about the city that I love so much, like the architecture, everything looks so cute and romantic and old, hardly anything has been modified since it was first built and we can hear the bells from the old catholic church from our apartment. It makes me want to sing songs from the Sound of Music, I love it. I wish that we still put in effort to make our buildings into pieces of art.

 I also like the fact that everyone here rides their little cruiser bikes everywhere, and it makes me miss my little candy apple red Huffy back home. Once we get back from our upcoming week in the UK I’m beyond stoked to rent a bike and explore the city that way. I like to keep an eye out for the stylish European university students in their skirts and dresses riding along the canal on their bikes, so cute! I would love to be one of those girls someday; hopefully I make friends with some of the professors at the university. Everyone has such great style here, the guys in collared shirts and boat shoes and the girls in their cute dresses and cardigans… even the old people don’t dress cooler. It’s great.

The graffiti scene here is awesome too, and there’s so much of it. It’s really unique and somehow cleaner and more professional looking, like most things I’ve seen here so far. I already have some favourite artists that I keep an eye out for, which is fun.

It’s been fun getting settled in a new place for a little bit! We head out for the UK on Thursday by train and will pull into Kings Cross Station! That’s right folks, all of my Harry Potter desires are being satisfied in one trip! Expect a picture from platform 9¾! J

New York Summary

Written on August 19^th at 11:00 pm

Although I think I’ve experienced nearly everything a tourist must need to see in Manhattan, I’m sad to leave New York, as I know there is so much more to see and do in this huge city. I am currently sitting in the JFK       airport waiting for longer than expected as our flight to Frankfurt was just delayed… right on. It actually feels great to just sit and hang out in my greasy, off the street I <3 NY hoodie after always having somewhere to go this past week. I’m looking forward to getting myself to Europe and comparing their lifestyle to the crazy, crowded and busy one we’ve been living this past week.

Buuuuut… Before I do that, let me just give you my top 10 highlights of the week:

1.       The Shopping: I love to shop and I did quite a bit of it this week. The NBC store at Rockefeller Center was a dangerous place for this Office fan on a budget to be, so I had to limit myself to the Cousin Mose t-shirt and the Schrute Farms Christmas tree ornament. I also invested some money in a kaleidoscope from the Metropolitan Museum of Art gift shop… It’s like an acid trip inside a cardboard tube, not that I know what that’s like, but I imagine it to be pretty much the same type of experience.

2.       Times Square: The first night of our trip we stopped in Times Square. It was beautiful, and like I’ve said before it looks so much more amazing in its neon, LED flesh compared to pictures or in film. It is so bright and so big, you can’t even imagine it. The crowds and the shops and the excitement were such a cool vibe to be a part of and really got me stoked on the week. We visited it multiple times this week and it never got old. Love it lots.

3.       Central Park: It is such an amazing thing to me that in the midst of hazy, sweaty, polluted New York, there can be such a large space of sheer, green beauty. The architecture inside the park itself is beautiful too, and I loved everything I saw. There was water, and boat races, and buskers and park benches with cute dedications, and bikers, and puppies, and frizbees, and sunshine… What is there not to like about Central Park? One of the highlights within this highlight was seeing the Imagine Circle in Strawberry Fields. I am a pretty big Beatles fan, as well as a fan of John Lennon specifically, so it was really cool for me to see the memorial for him, where people still place letters around the circle. All in all, I wish I could have spent more time in the park and definitely plan to visit again someday.

4.       The Empire State Building: It was beautiful, besides the vom on the ground supplied by a tourist afraid of heights. We went at nighttime which was definitely the best choice, because the lights on the bridges and from Times Square were magical and the view was a lot more colourful than it would have been during the day time. Plus it looked like the scene from ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ which was awesome ‘cause I kind of love Tom Hanks. 

5.       The Subway: It’s dirty, it’s greasy, it’s filthy, but it’s legit. It’s one of the few things I did this week that made me feel like a local and not a dorky tourist. One of my favourite “waiting for the subway games” to play this week was deciding which stylish business woman’s outfit I would steal. Do I like the half-pony? The pencil skirt with the bright yellow shoes? The horned rimmed glasses and the high bun? Oh to be a working lady in NYC, it sounds so glamorous.

6.       Witnessing a real-life ‘Almost Famous’ moment: I loooooove the movie Almost Famous. I would go as far as calling it my favourite movie. I witnessed something this week that could almost be a deleted scene straight from the film, and I have to include it as one of my favourite moments. Basically, when we were in Times Square starting to make our way to Rockefeller  we saw a black suburban pull up to the curb and saw a tall, long-haired gentleman jump out in his skinny jeans with a camera pointed up at a billboard exclaiming the phrase “Holy f*ck!”  After a further examination of the billboard, we saw the cover of a Rollingstone magazine featuring the band The Sheepdogs as the first unsigned band to be on the cover. It was so cool to see such a milestone moment for a small band take place before my very eyes. So great.

7.       The celebrity sightings: As much as my family hates me for making them come with me, standing out front of a theatre for an hour with my fellow Daniel Radcliffe stalkers was a blast. Hearing the screams of girls as he came out of the building was awesome and trying to take his picture was a frustrating yet fun challenge similar to the feeling you get when playing Frogger, but at the same time not really at all… We also went to the Broadway Musical Production of Spiderman with T.V. Carpio from Across the Universe, so not really a celebrity sighting but still cool, right? Also, mom claims to have seen Jeffery Tamborn who plays George Bluth Senior in Arrested Development, but I can’t really say if it was him for sure, because instead of pointing him out mom just hit me and pointed at the back of a biking man’s head and shouted “There’s always money in the Banana Stand!” Haha, it was funny.

8.       The people: From the employees at Guy & Gallard’s who practically memorized our breakfast orders by the end of the week, to our Suburban driver Kareem who drove us and our 11 pieces of large luggage to and from the airports this week, to the foul mouthed street vendors,  to the obscenely annoying bus tour guides, there were many memorable characters and people that we met this week who made it a little more fun.

9.       The food: Street food is sketchy, but an experience none the less. Soft pretzels and gyros and New York style pizza are everywhere and as much as I don’t recommend it, it is definitely an experience. The best thing we’ve had all week was at an actual restaurant in Times Square called Carmine’s where I ate most likely the best Italian food you can eat outside of Italy. Seriously, I don’t care how bad the Caesar salad made my breath smell… It was magnificent.

10.   The fam: Sometimes they drove me nuts. Lauren liked to sleep on top of me rather than on her side of the pull out couch, Adam would have sporadic nosebleeds and guilt trip me with the whole “I waited in a crowd of a billion people so you could take a picture of Daniel Crapcliffe”, Mom would get mad at me for being a slob and not putting in 100% effort to keep my suitcase organized, and Dad would sometimes make rude comments loud enough for other people to hear. But I love them, and there aren’t any other people I would rather be with on this wild adventure.

So there ya have it. It’s weird to think that we still have 4 full months of adventure left, and I’m really excited for it all. It will be nice to get settled in Ghent and have a little bit of a home there for a while. I can’t wait to see what these next days and weeks and months are gonna bring, but if it’s anything like this last week it’s going to be amazing. Ahh, Dad just brought me coffee as we’re almost ready to board the plane. I look like such a legit writer right now with my little computer and my coffee… Someday someone will be paid to bring me coffee while I write. ;) Just kidding, not really though.

Keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we make our way to Ghent!

Ps. My mum just informed me that our bog posts about New York might be siimilar, and I want you to know that this is all my original stuff, and I have suspicions that she might have been reading what I was writing over my shoulder and gotten jealous of my rad blogging skills. Just so you know. Haha

All Part of the Experience

What did I tell ya?

That's right, I dragged my family down to the theatre on Broadway to wait in a crowd for over an hour to get a picture of Daniel Radcliffe. I don't even really like him that much, but it's all part of the New York experience to have a celebrity sighting, right? It was quite the experience for sure, we saw 12 year old girls cry, one went as far as making up a disease to try and get to stand closer to his car, and we saw people shove into one another to get the best look at a celebrity. It was wild. Why do we even react that way towards people we've never met? Does just any type of closeness to someone popular make us feel cooler? I'm not sure, but clearly I fell under the spell of the rich and famous and decided to wait out an hour in the sweat and heat to take this creeper shot of Harry Potter. Being known is definitely a big dream in this town for a lot of people, even today I walked past the spot where Mark David Chapman shot one of the best musicians and advocates for peace the world has ever seen, solely to gain notoriety. I still don't fully understand the whole fame thing or where I stand with regards to it, but it's something to think about.

Anyways, my little brother was not super impressed with the crowds and the screaming girls, so I've gotta give Adam a shout out and say: I love you, man.

I'm still loving the city, last night we went to the Empire State Building and the nighttime view was magical. Central Park today was beautiful, and I truly do <heart3 NY. I plan to give a more detailed report on my other adventures in the Big Apple when it's not 2 a.m. our time.

Wish you were here!

New York Groove

I have fallen in a deep passionate love with New York and I've only been here for 6 hours.
We flew into Newark and drove into town on crazy highways and under the Hudson River in rush hour traffic. It was mayhem and it was beautiful. Everything is old and make of brick, and there are vines and greenery growing up the oldest of the industrial buildings on our way into the city. It was nothing short of beautiful, and I wanted to ask to pull over and take a greasy hipster tumblr style picture every few minutes. There was graffiti and street art everywhere and I could hardly wait to get out of the car to see things and be in the city for real.

We pulled up to our little Manhatten apartment on the perfectly classic burrow street like every New York street you see in movies. It is beautiful. I'm convinced that our apartment would make a stellar bachelorette pad for me one day, but for our family of 5 we're all pretty much falling on top of each other.

We took the subway today which made me feel like a totally legit New Yorker. I'm pretty sure people would have thought I was a local if it weren't for the camera around my neck and my socks and sandals combo. Totally kiddding about the socks and sandals. Haha. We made a stop at Grand Central Station which was also awesome, it's so cool getting to see places I've seen in so many movies in real life. It all looks so different, and so much better. The same can be said for Times Square. Oh boy, Times Square. It was everything I imagined it to be except brighter, bigger and more crowded. There is a car to cab ratio of about 1:16 and it is overwhelming but awesome. I also discovered that Daniel Radcliffe is in a play this week and I have already tried stalking him. I swear that I will have  a creeper picture of him by the end of the week, no doubt in my mind. One of the many quotes of the day today was when my dad was trying to reason with me about my obsessive state over the guy who plays Harry Potter.

DAD: "Alanna, Daniel Radcliffe is just a person."
ME: "Who defeated the Dark Lord!!?!"

Anyways, in case I haven't made it clear enough I really really really like this city... Like a lot.

Packing

#request @brower : Shout out to my lonely homie in Sicktoria

3 days, so terrifying, so exciting! At this point packing is the worst, and I am just wishing it were Monday morning and that there was nothing left to worry about.

Here's the sum of my packing issues...

1. Packing for 4 months in a suitcase I packed for 2 weeks of camp in: So I don't wanna brag, but I generally consider myself to be a pretty stylin' person. I like to think I generally look good and a little bit put together. I also don't like to wear the same outfit amid a 14 day span of time. That strategy worked fine in my adequately large suitcase for two weeks of working at summer camp, but it is yet to be determined as to whether this will work in this situation. This means that packing for 4 months and two different climates is quite the challenge. Maybe it's time for me to let that part of my clothing mentality go, but I will not accept that fate until I get around to actually trying to fit my clothes into my suitcase... Something I'm quite honestly terrified to try.

2. Stressing out about forgetting to pack things: Do I need a curling iron? Do I have my battery charger? Extra film? Where am I gonna fit my boots? So much worry, so little memory.

3. The desire to sleep instead of pack: But the issue here is that all of the soon to be contents of my suitcase are laid out on my bed, and I don't want to pack them until I finalize my clothing choices, and yet moving them all on to my floor will just mean I'll have to move them back onto my bed in the morning... The couch is lookin' pretty comfortable at this point.

4. Not being able to wear cool clothes cause I'm packing them: I might as well just play 'Paper Bag Princess' cause all I have left is my Tony the Tiger t-shirt and baseball shorts. Hawt.

So there ya have it. I hate packing... But all things considered, it's a pretty sweet trade for four months of seeing new things and learning new things and loving new things! 3 more sleeps!!!

Away We Go

"Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living." 
- Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) 


A depressing thought, but something that struck me in a "turn the telescope around and see why we're here" kind of way. As I thought about this quote more and more, I came to terms with the idea that there is a whole lot that I'm not going to get to see and experience and I have to be OK with that. There are so many things on my checklist for life that I probably won't do, but I am confident that my upcoming trip will definitely take a few of those things off of my list and into a scrapbook. This quote has inspired me to seize the opportunity to live as much as possible with the mist of a life I have, and I am so lucky to get the chance to see all of the things I am going to see over the course of these next 4 months. In my short 15 years of living I haven't gotten the chance to travel much, but I am so excited to leave my comfort zone and live differently than I ever have and be completely out of my element. I hope that travel will allow me to broaden my ideas about things and help me to develop a stronger sense of what I want to do with the rest of my life. 

The idea of living as much as I can definitely inspired the semi-cheesy title for this blog... Also, it's a Kanye lyric. Ha!


That's why I am beyond excited to leave (only 5 more sleeps!) for New York, Europe and South Africa to live in the world in a way I might never experience again. My family and I are so blessed to get the chance to do something amazing like this on my Dad's sabbatical, and I'm so excited to see all the amazing things we are going to learn as a family from this adventure.


We have so many amazing things planned like traipsing around Central Park, a week in Paris, an Arcade Fire concert, me and my gramma cruising the Mediterranean (I can't even begin to explain how crazy that is going to be), helping out at the Seed of Hope in Bhekulwandle, and a Safari which I am naturally stoked out of my mind for! I'm also just excited to write about these adventures and share them with a little bit of an audience, as I hope to someday get paid to write. I hope that you enjoy reading about our wild adventures overseas through me, and I encourage you to check out the rest of my family's blog at www.schwartz5onsabbatical.blogspot.com