High time for procrastination

So, I should be working on the 25 1.5 spaced pages that I would like to have written by Monday, especially since travel delays mean I didn't do any work yesterday as I planned, but writing a really long travel narrative is more interesting.


My time at home was nice. The week passed much more quickly than I anticipated. The weather was really, really cold in Chicago. We also got a lot of snow, more than I can remember in recent years. Had a lot of fun shoveling. My flight from Madrid got in fine (although with delays, probably because of the nebulous Iberia unofficial pilots' strike). My brother's flight was cancelled early in the day, which was unfortunate because the storm started later than anticipated and his evening flight was due to land before the mess began. The next day I reacquainted myself with the joys of driving in the snow. Apparently the price of salt has gone up big time in the past couple years, but municipalities have gotten away with it because there hasn't been too much snow. It was kind of unacceptable this winter though, as we got a deluge of snow in the week I was home, and my town didn't salt because it was too expensive.


On the 26th, my brother and I got on a flight to Heathrow. My brother at least got a little sleep, but I pretty much couldn't sleep at all, which was unfortunate. We were on the same flight as some of the "All-Stars," a dance team from Texas that was performing in the New Year's Day parade in London. We kept seeing them in London which was highly entertaining. We landed in London relatively early in the morning. The border control employee was very serious. Once we secured our bags, we took the Underground to our hostel. We invested in week-long "Oyster cards" which paid for themselves in about two days because a one-way cash fare on the Underground is 4 GBP...that's more than $6! We dropped our bags at our hostel, but of course it was too early to check in so we started our sightseeing.


We started out at the Westminster tube stop, from where you see Big Ben/Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and the London Eye. We went into Westminster Abbey, which was incredible. I'm not normally an audioguide person, but the included audioguide was actually fascinating. The highlight for me was the Lady Chapel with its ornate fan vaulting.


Once we finished up there, my brother was hungry. Armed with Rick Steves' Great Britain, I saw a pub that was close by, and we made our way there. I don't think my brother is the biggest fan of "pub grub" but at least he can always eat fish and chips.


From there we went to the Churchill Museum/Cabinet War Rooms. I normally wouldn't have been that interested in a "war museum," but the description of this one sounded promising and it did not disappoint. It is the underground headquarters of the World War II operations, and it went completely untouched from the end of the war to the 1970s and has since been preserved.


After that, we continued walking towards Trafalgar Square, where the British National Gallery is located. It was free, so we decided to go in. However, by this time we were blisteringly tired so it was a less than pleasant experience, unfortunately. Also, the one painting that I really wanted to see, the Arnolfini Portrait by Jan Van Eyck, was in the temporary exhibit, so I had to pay to see it. Unfortunately jet lag ruined my perception of the National Gallery, which I'm sure is a great museum. We went back to the hostel straigtaway for a good nap.


The hostel, where we stayed for five nights, was alright. It was located in a very residential neighborhood and was close to the tube. The facilities were acceptably average. We were in a six-person dorm...more on our roommates later.


I think Patrick would have preferred to sleep through dinner, but I made him get up. I introduced him to the delicious world on Indian food, and the introduction was a gracious one.


That night we were still tired. We had met two of our roommates earlier in the day, a girl and a guy from Wisconsin, and we figured they would be pretty chill. Wrong. At one in the morning, the guy's friend turned up, and they had an hour-long convo in what I'm pretty sure was Hindi with all of the lights on. I'm not sure what the relationship was between the girl and the first guy (she assumed Patrick and I were dating, which makes me think she may have been his girlfriend even though I didn't detect chemistry between them), but if they were dating she should break up with him because she was feeling sick for the first two days and he was very inconsiderate of her need to get rest. He apologized the next morning, which led me to believe the incident would only occur once.


The next day, our first stop was the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. This morning I developed a mysterious ankle injury that dogged me for a week and a half. Wouldn't I remember hurting my ankle??? I usually notice these sorts of things. In any case, it seemed like every tourist in London showed up for the ceremony. We got there pretty early but the crowd was already about five people deep along the fence of the palace, so we made a claim to a spot on the platform of the statue of Queen Victoria. We were kind of disappointed that the guards had grey coats on instead of red ones. I guess the ceremony is required or something for everyone who visits London, but by the end it was just so cold that we skipped out on the very end. It was a lot of waiting for a little bit of interesting pomp.


We made our way through Hyde Park to Speakers' Corner, which is where all the soapboxers congregate on Sundays to spread their word. From there, we went to the British Museum, grabbing a bite to eat in the cafe before seeing the Egyptian and Greek collections. The highlights were the sculptures from the Parthenon. Patrick had no interest in the British Museum, but we walked there and ducked in about fifteen minutes before closing time so I could see Shakespeare's First Folio. From there, we walked to King's Cross to do the Platform 9 3/4 photo shoot. Then it was time for a nap and more pub grub. Then I started to feel bad that Patrick ate fish and chips two days in a row. Then I started to feel angry because there was another lights-on foreign-language conversation.


The next morning we started out at the Tower of London, which was a neat experience. I wonder if it's kind of embarrassing for Brits that other than the current queen, the monarch we know the most about is Henry VIII since he started his own church so he could take different wives/had several decapitated. From there, we went to St. Paul's Cathedral, which is neo-Classical in what I would call the "State Capitol Building style," impressive because the dome survived World War II. After lunch in the cafe, we climbed the dome. Patrick was disappointed because the third level was closed, but for my purposes the second level was probably plenty high enough.


From there we decided to go to the London Eye because we preferred to go on it while it was daylight. Unfortunately, the earliest tickets we could get were for 5:30, which is already very dark. Since we had so much extra time, we made our way to Abbey Road to attempt to do that photo shoot. We went back to the Eye and had extra time so we decided to duck into a bar to get warm and get a drink. I tried to order a beer and it was...terribly embarrassing. The bartender carded me, which didn't happen any other time in Britain. I handed over my Spanish ID card, which was more handy than American drivers license. I don't know if the document didn't seem official or what, but he tried to tell me that the drinking age in Britain was 21. It isn't. I thought he was kidding, but we went back and forth for several exchanges and he told me he wasn't kidding. I should have asked to talk to his manager. I looked up the official policy: people are supposed to card you if you look under 21, but the age is 18, younger if you are with your parents and drinking with a meal. Also, at the time, I was only a month away from 21, so I was pretty insulted that he didn't believe I was at least 18! I mean, yeah, I do look young, but still...


Finally we got on the Eye. It moves very slowly, so a couple of times we stopped moving and it was pretty hard to distinguish between stopped and moving. The ride was very expensive, and I think it would have felt more worth it during the day. We had Thai for dinner, which was only alright.


The next morning we went on a daytrip with London Walks to Bath. Bath wasn't really on our top list of places to see (although very highly recommended by Rick Steves!), but our aunt and uncle had raved about London Walks, which organizes inexpensive walking tours in London and daytrips to surrounding areas. Our top two choices were Oxford and Stonehenge, but those were later in the week, and we decided to go to Bath. It was a pleasant excursion.


Bath is the site of the only natural hot springs in Britain. The Romans built a bath there, which was ruined and completely unnoticed by Georgian socialites who flocked there to take the waters. Today the main highlights of the town are the new spa-bath (I would have liked a treatment!), the Roman bath museum, and the widespread Georgian architecture. We took the train to Bath from Paddington Station and spent the morning walking around. Patrick and I ducked into the first restaurant we saw for lunch because we were cold.


In the afternoon, we saw Bath Abbey, finer examples of Georgian architecture such as the Royal Crescent, and toured the Roman bath museums. The waters in the museum were open to the public until the 1980s when someone consumed too much of it and died of meningitis. It was so cold we were tempted anyway, stopping for some very nice hot chocolates afterwards. I grabbed a pasty for the train back, which was delicious.


At the Royal Crescent in Bath:



The next morning we were ungraciously awakened by three of our roommates turning on all of the lights and banging stuff around. The guys kept berating the girl for not packing fast enough, but once they left she at least apologized. I was confused because I thought they were there until January 2, but obviously I wasn't too sad to see them check out.


Our first stop of the morning was the reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe. Patrick had no interest in seeing the theatre, but in my Shakespeare class with Dr. Holmer, she didn't say, "if you're in London, maybe you will see the Globe." She said, "when you are in London, you will see the Globe," and I got a real kick out of the museum/theatre tour. Afterwards we ducked into the nearby Tate Modern, but didn't stay too long because the cafe menu was too limited. After lunch elsewhere, we took in the Piccadilly Circus and Harrod's. We went to the Tate Britain, which was close to our hostel, which I think was more suited to our tastes. It was funny because more than half of the Turner galleries were empty because the works are on the tour that has been passing through the U.S.

Patrick was up for a low-key evening (which was New Year's Eve) so we grabbed sandwiches and decided to do the Jack the Ripper tour with London Walks, not on our list of things we definitely wanted to do, but we figured why not. After that, Patrick was ready to turn in for the evening, but I was upset because at least part of the reason I wanted to do the trip was to do something exciting for New Year's, so I figured if nothing else we at least ought to turn out for the fireworks. But I met some other people at the hostel who were walking over to see them, so I let him sleep. We hopped over a stone wall so we could lean over a fence along the Thames. Some people had found a way to get down on the actual bank of the Thames, but we decided not to do that since we didn't envision how we would get back up. They actually shoot some of the fireworks off of the London Eye which to me is kind of scary. Would not have gone on the Eye on January 1.

The next morning we went to the train station to head up to Glasgow. Our train was late leaving London so we missed our connection in Lancaster. We hopped on the next train, and no one ever checked our tickets so I'm not sure if that was legitimate or not. In any case, the train was pretty empty.

In Glasgow, we checked into our hostel, which was glorious. I mean, it's really a hotel. I think it must have been, as it's a 10 story high rise. We had our own room, with our own bath, for less than the dorm in London, and it was nice to have privacy, etc. The facilities were really nice, and the hostel even had its own decent bar. You had to put a pound in the TV for it to work, but we were just glad to chill, wandering only as far as a TGI Friday's for dinner...but we were south of Argyle Street, which according to our guidebook is the sketchy part of Glasgow and to be avoided after dark. We didn't have any problems, allthough we weren't out too late.

The next morning we took the train to Edinburgh, which is where we wanted to stay but apparently their New Year's celebration is wild so you have to have a minimum four-night stay. We started off our day at Edinburgh Castle and then strolled along the Royal Mile. The day started sunny but then it got drizzly. At the bottom of the Royal Mile, my brother made fun of me for taking a photo of this kind of weird looking modernistic building, but as it turns out it is the Scottish Parliament.

We then entered Holyrood House, which is the palace in Scotland, still used occasionally by the queen. For me it was the highlight of Scotland. I especially liked the ruined abbey that sits on the ground. After that, we had lunch at the World's End pub.

There is this very gorgeous cliff-like feature in Edinburgh called Arthur's Seat. I believe there is supposed to be a path that takes you up to one of the peaks, but following a group of young people somehow Patrick and I strayed off that path. I was wearing my very well-travelled Birkenstocks, not exactly appropriate hiking footwear, and it was very muddy. I fell, big time, sliding a good distance. My camera kind of broke my fall but miraculously was undamaged. I was at this point covered in mud, and got rug burn on my legs. This incident very much broke my resolve, so I went back down while Patrick continued to the top. I only fell twice on the way down. I tried to wipe off as much mud as possible, but it was pretty futile.

Arthur's Seat.

I reunited with Patrick in the cafe at Holyrood House. He had slid himself on the way down, so our plans to visit the Scottish Museum or the Scottish National Gallery were nixed. We decided to try to find the "Nicholson Street" we had seen on the map, and were pretty disappointed when we found it was in fact "Nicolson Street." Nicholson isn't actually a Scottish clan (and as far as I know I'm not Scottish), but I think it's a somewhat common Scottish surname, so we saw our last name on some souvenirs. The most entertaining was the little bottle of Nicholson whisky, but Patrick didn't think it was a good purchase. He finally had some cookies from Millie's Cookies, and we caught the train back to Glasgow, where we washed our muddy clothes and just grabbed a pizza from a doner kebap place because we were tired.

The next morning we checked out of the hostel in Glasgow and paid three pounds in a variety of denominations...down to the penny to store our bags until the afternoon. We spent the morning following a self-guided walking tour. We found this place for lunch where we could get a two-course Italian meal for 4.95 pounds, which is very reasonable, as far as British restaurants go. The problem is that the place was empty, and I don't think the heat was on, so it was freezing. Even the waitress was complaining. Since we spent every last cent at the hostel, I ordered a Diet Coke so the bill would be over 10 pounds and we could ask for change from 15 pounds to leave a tip. But they forgot to put the Diet Coke on the bill and Patrick was to cold to wait for change so we left a 5.10 tip on a 9.90 bill. They did give us complementary pink custards (inexplicably the color of my purse) for dessert.

In the afternoon we walked around the shopping district before catching our train back to London. Apparently there was a problem with the train line we were travelling on, so a delayed arrival was expected even with an ontime departure. Then in Preston a whole bunch of people who had missed their connection to London joined our train. I was glad that our luggage had a spot and that we had reserved seats. For a while not everyone could sit down. We had anticipated arriving in London for dinner, but instead we bought some of the last sandwiches the train had.

We decided to stay in a different hostel closer to the train station that night. Bad idea. The place was 40 pounds/person/night in a terrible eight person dorm, whereas we paid about 90 pounds for two nights at the wonderful private in Glasgow. We also paid significantly less for the nicer hostel in London. Supposedly their credit card machine was broken so it was cash only. There were no keys; instead they gave us the "combination" for the door. We were tired after a long train ride so just wanted to shower and crash. There was no hot water, and we also had to go outside to access the showers. Patrick tried in the morning and there was still no hot water. There were no lockers in the room, which would have been a problem if we were staying more than a night. In the morning the breakfast room was really dirty. I went in the office in the morning, as usually you have to check out, to at least deposit your key. The same sketchy employee was on duty and said there was no need to do anything. Obviously I could have memorized or written down the door combination as many times as I wanted, but it would have given me peace of mind if they at least required the registration slip to be relinquished.

The one positive was that it was a short walk to the train station. Checking in for my Eurostar train through the Chunnel was a bit chaotic as I had let myself sleep in a bit later than I perhaps should have and couldn't remember which credit card I had used to make the purchase, but I made it in time so that I was past passport control just as boarding started, so I was the first person on the train and had my choice of luggage locations. Especially as the New Year's holidays were ending, many people had far more luggage than they could reasonably carry. I thought we were going to be horribly delayed as people tried to fit in their baggage. I had been hoping that we would be fed since the website had asked whether I had dietary restrictions when I bought my ticket, but alas that must have been for first class only. The ride was quick, and I didn't even notice going through the Chunnel.

In Paris, I decided to take the Metro to my hotel. I saw two machines, one of which was broken, in front of the Metro entrance, with a humongous line, so I got in it. Everyone was having problems. When I finally got to the front, I realized I could only use coins or credit cards. I wanted to buy a carnet, or discounted set of 10 tickets, but didn't have enough coin, so I tried every credit card I own. They were all rejected, so I just bought a one-way. Then I entered the Metro, where I found not only another machine with no line but a window with an honest to God human being behind it. I got in line and asked for a "carnet," pronouncing it as it is said in Spanish. Apparently a general rule of thumb in French is to drop the last letter of everything. The employee looked at me funny and held up 10 fingers. It's ok. A Spanish person would look at a French person funny who ordered "carne" in the Metro also. On the train, a very friendly French baby played with the zippers on my suitcase.

Since I was alone, my mom didn't want me to stay in a hostel, so I stayed in a little hostel close to the Eiffel Tower. I would have met more people staying in a hostel, but other than that it was perfect for what I needed, and very reasonably priced. The staff also spoke very good English. There was an outdoor market on the street, so for a lot of meals I just grabbed a quiche or a crepe on the street. Unfortunately I was not allowed to eat in my hotel room.


I had seen that the Arc de Triomphe was free the first Sunday of the month, so I went there. I was surprised it wasn't packed until I realized that many attractions were the same, including the Louvre. But probably still a good choice since a packed Louvre would have certainly diminished my experience. After climbing back down, I strolled along the Champs Elysees and then walked around the Eiffel Tower. I then found an internet cafe, not realizing that my hotel had a computer available.

Monday was Louvre day. The hotel was very much recommended by Rick Steves, so I got a free breakfast (actually with Rick Steves London), which normally costs 9 euros. That would have been an outrage. There was coffee, juice, bread, croissants, and cereal, and it was very convenient, but I was never going to pay that much. I looked outside and thought it was raining but it was actually snowing, which made it a good museum day. I went to the underground entrance to the Louvre. At 8:40, there were already a few people waiting for the 9 am opening, but it wasn't as bad as it would have been at the main entrance. I was hoping for a student discount, which there wasn't but it was 9 euros well spent (unlike breakfast).

Once inside, I made a beeline straight for the Mona Lisa. On my way, I passed the Winged Victory at Samothrace and paused to enjoy. I should have paused longer because I had her to myself and she would be surrounded for the rest of my time in the museum. Obviously one can't too close to the Mona Lisa. I'm surprised that the Louvre permits photos. Even when you say "no flash," people still do flash, not understanding why it is forbidden. Also, there's a lot of money to be made when you have the sole copyright of a particular work. More of this rant when I get to the Musee d'Orsay. In about six hours, I think I hit the most interesting parts of the collection. From there, I made my way through the Tuileries gardens very cautiously, as my Birkenstocks are no more practical for slippery packed snow than they are for muddy hills. I went to the Musee de la Orangerie. It would have been worth it just for Monet's water lilies, but they also had a decent collection of paintings downstairs.

In my guidebook I had read about a company that did full daytrips to Versailles and Chartres, which would hit the two main out of Paris things I wanted to do (Giverny is closed in the winter), but unfortunately they don't run the combination daytrip in the winter. I went to Versailles with them, and I feel like I was big time ripped off since it would have been pretty east to make it there by train, but door to door bus service was nice as it was cold.

The Chateau at Versailles is absolutely exquisite. The Jeff Koons sculptures are still there, and they juxtaposed nicely with the rooms. Many of the rooms are pretty empty because the furniture was sold off, but it was still spectacular, especially the Hall of Mirrors. Unfortunately the gardens were closed because of the weather. Obviously they wouldn't be anything like what they are in the summer, when they charge you an additional 8 euros to see them, but I still would have liked a little stroll.

"Michael Jackson and Bubbles" by Jeff Koons in Versailles:

Back in Paris, I made my way to the Musee d'Orsay. I had the grave misfortune of joining the line at 1 p.m. on the day the Louvre is closed when it is cold out, but it was of course worth it. There was a student discount, but the regular admission price is slightly over that of the Louvre, which I found interesting. For most sights in Paris, they are free to under-18s and discounted to 18-26ers and seniors. Obviously this is nice and makes sense since children aren't making money and student age people likely aren't either, but it definitely inflates the price for adults.

There was a little exhibit of Manet's "Dejeuner sur l'herbe," as this painting evidently served as a huge inspiration to Picasso. I was pleased that the exhibitions were included in the admission, but as the exhibits were all somewhat underwhelming, I would have been impressed otherwise. I still would have paid just to see "Dejeuner sur l'herbe," which is exceptional, but I would have expected them to include other Manet works as well as borrow "The Pastoral Concert" from the Louvre.

At one point I needed a pick me up and had to wait in a maddeningly long line for self service snacks. From there I headed to the Impressionist galleries.

Were the paintings great? Yes.

But it was hard to enjoy them with so many people taking pictures. For me, experiencing a painting means looking at it from a distance to take it all in, then getting closer to see the details and the texture. For many other people, experiencing a painting means looking at the tag and taking a photo of it if the artist is impressive enough, then moving on without even really seeing the work. Especially because I am tall, I try not to linger too long up close in front of a painting. If I get in the way of someone looking at a painting, I feel bad. But when I get in the way of someone taking a picture just because it's a Monet, I don't feel bad at all. And when you take a flash picture...

If I was in charge of such policies at a museum, I would prohibit all photography and have strict enforcement policies. Mandatory camera checks with fines for violations would be feasible. But confiscating/breaking cameras would be acceptable from my point of view too.

I acknowledge that sometimes people take a photo of the work because they just really love it, or because it is new to them and they want to investigate in the internet. But unfortunately that does not seem to be the case with many museumgoers, who must walk away from the average museum visit with upwards of 100 photos. In regards to people who videorecord their museum visits: who is ever going to watch the video???

Probably I'm just a little oversensitive, but getting crowded out by people taking pictures really gets on my nerves.

From the Musee d'Orsay, I made my way past the Asemblee National and considered walking all the way to my hotel but I realized it was really cold.

I decided to have dinner in a real restaurant and picked an Italian one. I had pasta, wine, bread, and dessert for under 20 euros, which is somewhat reasonable. There was good people watching, as it was very easy to determine who was Parisian and who was tourist. A family of five Americans was seated at the table in front of me. They were three daughters who ranged from late teens to mid-20s, a dad who didn't do or say anything the whole time, and a mother who was very high strung and evidently overwhelmed by the situation. She was wearing her money belt over her clothes, which, for the record, not only looks terribly tacky but also competely defeats the purpose of wearing one.

Wednesday was to be my cathedral day. I started out in Notre Dame, which was lovely. At one point an unseen choir began to sing and it made the moment just perfect. I ducked into a very pricey cafe for a coffee, waiting for 10 a.m. when the bell tower was to open. Unfortunately the weather meant it was closed. I walked to Sainte-Chapelle, which unfortunately was completely closed. Thus frustrated, I decided to hop the next train to Chartres.

Rose window in Notre Dame:

The tourist masses were certainly not in Chartres, which was nice. Of course the bell tower climb was closed, so I decided to spring for the audioguide. The woman in the shop said that a passport was required as a deposit. I was not going to take no for an answer so just took things out of my wallet until she finally relented and let me have it.

I hadn't been by the Eiffel Tower during the daylight hours, so when I got back from Chartres, I strolled around there. I had planned on going out to a French restaurant Wednesday night, my last in Paris, and had found the address of a place in my guidebook and everything. But I was feeling kind of tired so I just got a quiche and crepes nutella. But then I decided that I wasn't going to stay in, and that I needed to ascend one tower while in Paris, so I got in the line for the Eiffel Tower during tourist dinner time (yes, I eat before tourist dinner time...so that my suppliers will be open). The top level was closed, which was just as well for me. In fact the middle level had been closed earlier in the day. I was a bit confused though because the stairs, which to me (metal, slippery) are terrifying, had still been open and can't possibly be safe. Would have been nice to have a guy to hold my hand while I was on the tower...

The next morning I started out at the Catacombes (had planned to start out at St. Denis but the Metro had other plans). I knew what the Catacombes were going to be like, more or less, but it was still very macabre the way the bones were so neatly arranged. What did they do with the little bones? Yikes.

From there I went to Sainte-Chapelle. The line was ridiculous. As I was near the security point a tour guide elbowed her way through with 3 elderly people. Obviously it makes me a terrible person, but I was bigtime annoyed, feeling that if they could climb the narrow winding staircase to the chapel, they could park themselves on a bench or in a cafe while the guide waited in the cold for an hour. Once I got to the security point I was furious. It was going so slowly because many many people were too thick to read the sign, translated into six languages from French, asking them to remove metal objects from their pockets before going through the metal detector. Ever been to an airport, friends???? The practiacally floor-to-ceiling stained glass made for a beautiful little chapel, but my best Gothic experience was yet to come.

I took the Metro pretty much to the end of one of the lines to see Basilique-St-Denis, and I am very glad that I didn't miss it. It's the French equivalent of Westminster Abbey, but it was the stained glass I fell in love with. The glasswork at Sainte-Chapelle doesn't allow for the play of light off the stone walls that you get at St-Denis. If I had lived in the Middle Ages and belonged to that parish I would have believed in God just because of the stained glass.

I'm pretty obsessed with the stained glass windows of Basilique-St-Denis:

From there I went to Musee d'Art Moderne de Ville de Paris, which has free admission to the permanent collection. For some reason we had to wait outside even though there was space indoors to wait. It was maddening. I wasn't that impressed with the collection either...should have just paid to go to a better museum, such as the Picasso Museum or the Picasso exhibit at the Grand Palais.

From the museum I walked across the Seine and by the Eiffel Tower one last time. My train wasn't leaving Paris until 7:45 p.m. but I was having terrible problems getting my tickets, so
I wanted to allow a lot of time. I had gotten a special internet-only fare and opted to print the ticket at home. I waited until I got home for Christmas to print it, and it wouldn't work. I tried many many times. No one could really help me, but I was told finally that I would be able to use my credit card in the automated machine at the station.

I used every credit card I had and none worked. I got in line. The employee figured it wasn't working because I had a foreign credit card. Then she informed me that I couldn't use the machine because I had selected print at home. Then I produced a series of emails documenting my problems. I'm not sure what she had to do, but after some twenty minutes of phone calls and such I finally got my tickets, to my great relief.

At first there were just three of us in our sleeper compartment: an English girl who said, "I was hoping they'd feed us, but then you walk on eating a sanny..." and a Spanish girl with a giant suitcase. A French girl got on somewhere south of Paris. I fell asleep and was awakened at what felt like the middle of the night. It was actually 8 a.m., so I figured we must be almost there, since we had a 9:10 a.m. ETA. Instead, we were still in France and needed to change trains, twice. Evidently Spain has different width train tracks than the rest of Europe, so with the weather conditions it was too hard to make the switch. We were told the wrong track number. On the right train, these terrible terrible people were blocking the door and telling us we couldn't get on the train because they had their luggage in the corridor and wanted to be the first people off the train in Spain. If they were intelligent human beings they would have realized that the train would have arrived in Spain faster if they had gotten over themselves and moved for five minutes. Eventually they did.

Once in Spain, I got my first taste of País Vasco through the windows. I was tempted to get out when we stopped at San Sebastian...until I noticed the quantity of snow on the palm trees. We had joined a train destined for Madrid, making it a little delayed although I have to imagine all trains in Spain were delayed at that point.The girl sitting next to me and her parents across the aisle were about ready to sue the railways or something because they were likely to miss their connection in Madrid. If it was on time. It was kind of a coincidence that I took the train, but they really took care of me. If I had been on a budget airline, I would have flown for less, but when the flight was delayed or cancelled I would have been on my own, whereas they found us all a new train and kept us fed and watered. I did get to Madrid over seven hours late, but Madrid was in a spin because it had received its first appreciable snowstorm EVER, shutting down the airport and crippling the surrounding area. To make matters worse, no meteorologist had been able to predict the weather. There were actually a couple of inches.

I'm glad to be back in Madrid, even if that means finally facing the reality of term papers and exams.

I've left out so much. But I've written so much.