3.25.2010

spring break

i'll be traveling for the next 17 days. a couple of my hostels have internet access, so i'm going to blog wherever i can. heres the itinerary:

paris
florence
rome [on easter--yikes.]
athens
santorini
back to london on april 11!

until then!
k

3.20.2010

long time no post

since when did blogging creep onto my list of activities that i procrastinate doing? i haven't updated since before my trip to madrid. katie showed me such a good time in madrid. i'll let the pictures speak for themselves, since this is really a fake blog post just so i can say that i blogged, but two coolest things: el prado museum and el retiro park (both of which we spent hours in). oh also, the street-food corn on the cob=exquisite.


both of retiro park
chocolate con churros

3.04.2010

first continental-europe experience, you treated me right.

i just chatted with my friend sarah who is in prague right now and i realized i have yet to post about my adventure over to her. i told myself i'd wait until i'd caught up on all my work, but since that is not going to happen, i decided to allow blogging to actually take me away from my work. im drinking a cappuccino from pompidou cafe. not sure if i ever mentioned this place, but it's become a daily addition to my schedule. it's also the 7th day in a row that london is absolutely beautiful, so it's going to be hard to convince myself to stay in and write my paper today.

prague is the first place in continental europe i've been to, and i'm so incredibly happy i decided to choose it as my first. i feel like prague is automatically a whole different ball game than say, london or madrid or florence, just because of its political history. it's so crazy how much it shone throughout the city. i travelled with a friend of mine from london who also had a friend in prague, so we spent most of our time together the whole weekend with our friends. from the minute we got off the tram to the minute that we went to the airport to go home we were on the go. i don't think we had a minute to relax, and i loved it. sarah took me around her area, which was sort of comparable to where i'm living in london. it's a young, hipster, and up-and-coming area (to euphemize), but i loved it because it wasn't too touristy. we went to some quiet, local pubs to relax and read and, on the other end of the spectrum, went to a massive five-story club that was infiltrated with internationals. we had an incredible time. i also got a brief taste of the housing accommodations in other nyu study abroad sights, which i'm not sure was the best idea. sarah's huge apartment, with a kitchen that one may actually like to cook in, made my dickensian closet, i mean dorm, pale in comparison. ultimately, though, i actually found myself getting a bit homesick for london by the end of my stay in prague, and though i never thought i would say this, i found myself missing Nido, my dorm.

other things to record here, since it's been some time since i blogged: i accidentally stumbled upon one of the coolest exhibits i've been to in london the other day with my friend alex. we had intended to pass by the east end festival in the city of london, and, thinking we could walk there (a mistake), we naturally got a bit lost. it totally worked out, though, as we wound up seeing a few things that the festival involved, AND passed the barbican centre, which is the largest performing arts centre in europe, and saw CĂ©leste Boursier-Mougenot's "The Curve"

i finally ate, with gabe, at a pub that i absolutely love called the angelic. they have a dining area upstairs, with delicious food but a totally un-pretentious and laid back atmosphere. i'm going to drag my friend alex to it sometime next weekend.

finally, the dave matthews band concert was kind of incredible. we had general admission tickets, got there about half an hour before they opened doors, and still managed to have great spots on the floor. the concert has catapulted me into a sort of dave kick now, and i've been listening to all his live albums ever since. some pics are below!

view from the cab, if you can believe it, en route to the o2 for dmb

sarah's beautiful campus in prague

also found blake's grave at bunhill fields burial ground with alex.

at dmb!

another one of old town square near sarah's campus in prague


off to madrid tomorrow morning! will be sure to blog next week.

missing everyone immensely,
k