arielarena

I'm unable to find my amazingly awesome mask. :-(

Hopefully it was left at home or something and not missing for good.

It's occurred to me that I'm going to be camping for the next four days. I don't even like camping. Hopefully the sleeping on the ground in tents part will not suck. The music and friends should make up for it. Folk Fest has always been a good time. And if I'm desperate for my bed, I can always get a lift with the 'rents home and back since my volunteer hours aren't until later in the day. See? Bright sides. In the mean time, I should sleep since we're leaving earlier than I usually wake up.

Quizzo tonight. Won a free t-shirt because I yelled out that the real name of the Taco Bell dog was Gidget...before he even finished the question. Because I'm that awesome. We didn't win but we had a great time. Got to see Avi, a friend I haven't seen in ages and we are totally hanging out at Fest next week. SO EXCITED!

Friday night is Project Philly and then Cara and I run over to Paul and Storm/Arrogant Worms and pray we didn't miss too much. We're probably going to be noticeably late, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if we get called out on it. Mum and Dad will be there early so we will definitely have seats.

During the day Mum and I will go shopping so I can get more pants. Italy destroyed my favorite jeans. :-( Must replace them!

ETA: When waiting for Chris to finish up work, Nonee, Jess and I saw this guy walk out of the restaurant and I immediately said, "dude has Edward Cullen hair". Then he turned and we saw his face looked very Elijah Wood-esque. This guy is what would result if Robert Pattinson and Elijah Wood had a baby.

Is it bad that I totally called Obama replying to that woman's question about the new health care plan killing us all with his fabulous dry wit? Specifically saying that we don't have enough man power to go to each American citizen and ask them how they would like to die. Though that would provide jobs for the currently unemployed...Just an idea.

P.S. You chose Bud Light? Really, Obama? REALLY? Not because it's a "foreign" beer (it may have been purchased by a foreign company but it has maintained it's American identity of being watered down)...because it's a shitty beer.


"Cupcake Reach-around"? I love you Stephen Colbert (and writing team). That and "Jeremeh" made me laugh like crazy.

Tucker Carlson looked a lot like Gollum in that photo.


Unrelated, I'm going to DC for the weekend to hang with my big brother. Maybe we'll get a chance to go for drinks at the White House. If so, I'm asking for liquor.

Been home for about two days now and it feels like I haven't even left. This is like when I did my first solo trip to the UK for three weeks. I came back and things were just so normal that it's like it never happened. But it did and I was gone six months this time, not three weeks. And I got a chance to hang out with some people last night and it was wonderful. Everyone is growing up and taking the GRE...it's weird.

Speaking of being more grown up, I've been looking at internships. Thinking about applying for some that don't really have to do with my degree but would give me a chance to learn more about the entertainment business from a different angle. Don't know if I can offer the hours they're asking for but I'm tempted to apply anyway. I mean, worst case I just don't get it, right? I've no idea what I want to do with my degree, I just need some idea of what I can do. There is also an internship for Cupcakes Take the Cake that I totally want to apply for even if you don't get credit/money/whatever. They do, however, give you free cupcakes.

Dun wanna grow up...

I think I'm going to save my stories from Family Vacation™ for multiple photo-posts. That way you can SEE what the hell I'm on about instead of just reading it...

Yesterday I arrived in London and promptly made my way to Cambridge where I met up with Aurore. Aurore and I became friends through Fallen, whom I met at the Scuola Leonardo in Milan. I met her when she visited Fallen (they were friends from Australia and have known each other for ages) and we got along famously. Aurore briefly stayed on my floor before heading to London to get a job. She currently lives outside of Cambridge with a family friend and seems to be having a wonderful time.

On the train to Cambridge I met a wonderful girl whom I believe is named Lara. We found that we had Italy in common--she had lived there at one time and while we both enjoyed the country we could not stay there forever. As she put it, the disorganization would drive her insane. That and the misogyny. She's from Ireland but also lived in England so her accent was kind of a mix of these three countries (Italy, Ireland and England). We talked about almost everything during the train ride, sadly cut off when a man sat next to her and we both had a mutual understanding that it would be rude to speak over him. She had lived in Cambridge when studying and was heading back to visit a friend. It was sort of like a homecoming to her. I hope to she emails me. I put her address in my bag somewhere but I'm not quite sure where right now...Anyway, one thing I'm really enjoying about traveling is meeting so many different people and getting potential pen pals and connections.

Lovely person that she is, Aurore met me at Cambridge so I wouldn't have to guess how to get to her place and most likely get horribly lost. We were going to hit up a pub for dinner but Helen, her roomie, put on some food instead and we went out to pick up some more alcohol. Helen has done everything. This woman has led an extremely interesting and entertaining life and is still exploring different things to do. I love it! She told us stories from her days working in film and that time she dated some famous guy's body double, the hiijinks they got into on set (also gossip--totally called the bj thing, by the way), explained very generally astrology to me and the Hindu calendar. Seriously, she, Matt (her friend), Aurore and I chatted for hours. When Matt left we put "Galaxy Quest" in because Aurore had not seen it. Love that movie. Helen headed up to bed and Aurore and I kept chatting for a bit, opting to sleep in late the next day and see how the flow took us.

Today we headed out to Cambridge and generally explored. She showed me the canal, the punters, a man singing in a rubbish bin (I have some video and photos) and introduced me to the brilliant creation that is the cookie-cupcake. I had never actually seen one but had heard of them. Pretty much the best thing ever. We walked through a fair that Cambridge has every year mostly to help parents keep their kids occupied during the summer. Wanna know what we saw there??? THE TARDIS! And Daleks!! And an Ood. K9 was there, too! MANY photos were taken.

We went through this tent thing and saw a woman selling cupcakes. She mentioned having issues with designing her site so I told her I knew how to do web design and she asked for my email. I have her card so Aurore and I can send her photos we took of her cupcakes, as well. Very nice woman. Apparently the US has much more in terms of cake decoration and for much less money than England. She and I fangirled over the blog Cupcakes Take The Cake and I told her about one of my favorite blogs, Bakerella. I do believe I've made a new friend.

I headed to London in the early evening and Kevin, the cousin I'm staying with, is awesome and picked me up at a tube station. I have since met his girlfriend, Jo, who is very nice and sweet, and gone to dinner. Now I'm enjoying some wifi.

Tomorrow I will hopefully meet up with klothehobbit and nibbes! OMG EXCITEMENT! And then I get to hang with melisus in Toronto? SO COOL! I love our SBMB community.

This won't be nearly as exciting for non highschool friends.

GUESS WHO I RAN INTO AT THE MARKET IN FLORENCE?!!!! NONEE!!!!!

And then we hugged and I joined her and her friends until 3, when we had reserved tickets to see the Uffizi. She leaves tomorrow to go back to her dig near Sienna but it was amazingly fantastic to see her!! She gave me a brief summary of what's been going on back home and we are definitely hanging out once she's back.

OMGAWESOME.

Family is already driving me a little crazy at times but we had a nice evening hanging out at my apartment (because it is WAY better than the one they've rented). Bri was going to stay over but they left so late that he's opted to just stay with the 'rents. Tomorrow we're heading to Lake Maggiore. We were supposed to go to Lake Garda and visit my friend Fallen but it's going to rain heavily there, which is not so fun. Sadly, the family will miss out on the awesomeness that is giant lemons...oh, and a castle. Bri and I are hoping to convince Dad to hop over to Switzerland for dinner since it's so close. Seriously, it's like twenty minutes away from Maggiore.

Sunday we're going to hit up the antique market on my street (and I will get more photos for my steampunk obsessed friends because I am an enabler) and hopefully get to the science museum. Then Monday I say goodbye to my amazing apartment and Milano. I'm ready to leave Milan...the apartment, not so much. I love it to the point where I would take it with me if it were physically possible. To make up for this, I plan to steal the mini-Spiderman figure that hangs out in the bathroom (ohniki knows what I'm talking about).

( In other unrelated news, I had a weird dream that I was heading home. )

Okay, so I have a shitton of photos to put on my computer and eventually post. In a bit, I will get them up on facebook. I haven't been good about facebook photo albums since South Africa...lots to catch up on.

That's right folks, I am in Paris. It's my...third? Yeah, third day here. I mean, if you count the day I arrived (which was actually in the evening). I have so far done two walking tours, the free one and the Montmatre one, checked out the Louvre (very big, hard to figure out how to get around and apparently you need to PROVE your age when buying a student ticket...I would have gotten in for FREE...or they would have still charged me because despite having an EU student ID my passport is most definitely USA and only EU students are free), the Centre Pompidou, Notre Dame (gotta say, all churches look pretty much the same from the inside), been up to the top of the Eiffel Tower (AT NIGHT), gone to Versailles and went on a tour of the palace, hung out for hours in the gardens and briefly strolled around in the town. And I still have one full day left.
( Cut because I'm considerate like that )
Now I'm in the apartment. Got me some take away Chinese that was le suck. Cannot wait to get to London to get some good Chinese take away. I've been craving it for too long. The family is out and it sounds like a club outside. Unless the son is home and I don't realize it...no that music is def. coming from outside. Anyway, no idea what I'll be up to tomorrow but I will be back in Milan on the 20th of June and the family comes on the 25th. Then July 11th I fly into London and stay there until the 18th. Then Canadialand and finally home on July 20th. Honestly, cannot wait. Travel is fun but I really miss my friends...and my bed...and Wawa. Never separate a tri-state area girl from her Wawa hoagies. It is not pretty.

Hope you guys are having a wonderful summer. Tell me, what have you been up to?

In Berlin, my last full day here. And I was going to do a walking tour of the awesome street art but it's raining like whoa so I opted to go back to the hostel (after spending a few hours walking in the rain anyway, just not on a tour) and change. Am waiting for the only warm sweater/jacket combo I have to dry a bit before round 2. Window shopping it is!

Yesterday was a free walking tour around the city with a very entertaining and informative guide, Natasha, from Scotland (called it as soon as she spoke!). I met a few cool people, a few girls who are here for the same amount of time as me but they are all together. I ended up kind of forcing my company upon a group of people who had met up the previous day but were all traveling alone (Andy, Jen and Ines). It was kind of awkward and I felt sort of bad about ruining their group dynamic. Oh well, it worked out. They left today anyway. And Jen has worked as a PA on pretty much every show I have ever watched. I was picking her brain about the entertainment business because I think I might want to do something in that. But, yknow, sort of related to my major. Or, PR, whichever...let's not think about this now.

We went to what is supposedly the best curry-wurst place in Berlin. It was damn good. Ines had been wanting curry-wurst for maybe two years so this was a realization of that dream. From there we decided to head to the best cake place in Berlin, detouring to the Jewish Museum on the way. Our detour ended up lasting 3 hours but that museum is HUGE and made so you have to go through it a specific way. Then there was cake.

Cake was pretty damn good, though I have had better. Despite our feet being dead from the 3.5 hour walking tour then our own trek to various places, we walked back to the hostel. I was hoping to meet up in the WomBar (Wombat Hostel + Bar = WomBar) but they weren't there when I went up and I was tired so sleep won over socializing.

And now I have opted to chill on the computers briefly (using overpriced internet) so those coats can dry and then more rain walking. In the only long sleeve shirt I brought with so hopefully that will be better.

Tomorrow I head to Hamburg and meet up with Sandra. On the 15th I'm off to Paris and will be staying with Mum's friend and his family. Then back to Milan. When I get back to Italy, it will be only one month until I am finally back home.

P.S. Canadian friends! It's official, I'm heading home via Toronto. melisus, Star Trek, y/y?