Pity V.I.P.'s

About one month ago my friends and I found out that James McAvoy was going to be playing the character Macbeth in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. We have been saying we must get to the show at some point ever since. James MaCavoy is a brilliant actor and there are opportunities to buy discounted tickets, so we thought it was a good plan. One of the ways to get £10 tickets is to show up at the theatre door by 10 am for same day tickets. £10 for tickets that cost up to £84, there’s gotta be a catch right? Well, here it is: there are only 10 of these tickets available for each show; so, naturally, one must show up rather early for a chance at one of them.

I don’t have any classes on Fridays; so getting up early on a Friday morning to sit outside in the cold for two hours was not exactly my idea of a good time. However, we decided that getting to the theatre by 8 would be our best bet. Luckily we were all there together so we chatted and made much-needed coffee runs. When 10 am finally rolled around we were all freezing and getting antsy to go inside. A man opened the door to let us in and I immediately knew he did not have good news for us. I was right. “I know you have all been standing out here for quite some time in the cold, but I am very sorry to say that there was supposed to be a note on the door informing you that tonight is press night, so we do not have same day tickets available for this evening's show.” We were all shocked and quite annoyed by this news. We had gotten up early to stand shivering for two hours, and loose the feeling in our toes for nothing? The man was very apologetic and I could tell he felt bad because the issue was out of his hands. He invited us into the theatre to warm up and said he would see what he could do.

Warming up inside, we could see he was trying to figure something out with the manageron the phone. It was finally concluded that we were going to be given the option of buying same day tickets for a later date. He and the other people working behind the counter talked for a while and after a few more phone calls, he came out a last time and said he was able to sell 6 tickets for that night’s performance. We were ecstatic! There were 6 of us and we were first in line so we could go to that performance together! We were given receipts for the tickets and told that we could pick them up at the box office from 6 until the start of the show.

After our previous experience with show starting time difficulties, we decided to triple check the start time of the show. 7:30 the board at the box office as well as the internet told us. We had it all planned out; get to the theatre a bit after 7 and we would have enough time get the tickets and find our seats but not too much time to wait. We had a lovely dinner at a little Italian place we fell in love with our first week here, before heading to Leicester Square. We were meeting Jen at the theatre and when we got about 2 blocks from it Madeline got a call from her. “What? The show started at 7?” We heard her say. That’s not possible, we thought, we checked many times. Upon arriving at the theatre we were very upset to find out that because it was press night the show had in fact started at 7. We were not allowed in until the second act, because entering the theatre would ruin the atmosphere for the press. After everything we’d been through the people at the box office felt bad, especially once they realized they had not told us the early start time.

At that point we had two options: we could stick around and see the second half or have our tickets refunded. Neither of these was ideal because the tickets were only £10. At that point a woman, who we found out is the publicist, stepped forward and said she felt very badly and although couldn’t do anything about getting us in until after intermission, she could give us V.I.P. passes to the after party but if we decided to see the second half! We decided to go with that option. We had about an hour and a half to wait until the second act so we went to a coffee shop for a bit and then decided we should be in the theatre just in case so we hung out at the bar. Finally people started pouring from the theatre and we were like fish swimming up stream trying to find our seats. The second half of the show was amazingly done, the acting phenomenal, blood and all. I hope to get back for the whole thing in fact.

After the show we made the three-minute walk to the hotel where the party was and had our picture taken as we entered! We put our coats in the coatroom and were offered Champaign as we walked into the party room. I felt it was not the right time for pictures so I didn’t take any but the room was beautiful, and had very warm atmosphere with red and gold accents. The appetizers and wine were just scrumptious! I tried haggis for the first time before knowing what it is and I don’t think I’m going to eat it again any time soon. It wasn’t bad, quite good actually, but it’s ground up sheep’s stomach, and the thought of eating stomach is just, well…

There were many famous people there including James McAvoy, Allen Leech and Laura Carmichael (Branson and Edith respectively from Downton Abbey). There were definitely others that I didn’t see or didn’t know. Although we were not dressed for this kind of party, we had a ball and in the end only paid £10 for the entire evening! A once in a lifetime experience, I’m sure, that I am very glad we took. I coined the title Pity V.I.P.'s because that's essentially what we were, but V.I.P.'s none the less!

Have a wonderfully marvellous day, cheers! ~Laura 

Ice Bar!

As cold as it was in Stockholm, I was ready for the frigid weather, so I must say I stayed fairly warm during the day. To give you an example of just how much it snows, the second day of our trip there was a 10% chance of snow, and of course, it snowed. But we were prepared for cold weather. We also found ways to get inside for periods of time throughout the day, one of way being a tour of City Hall. It was constructed using eight million bricks, one million of which make up the anterior and are hand made!

Megan in the courtyard of City Hall

We were first taken to the Blue Hall, named so because the architect was going to paint it blue so it was known as the Blue Hall for so long that once he decided not to it simply kept it’s name. This is the venue for the Nobel Prize ceremony.

The Blue Hall from the stairs where important people descend into the room

People come through this door and make their way across the balcony before coming down the stairs which were built specifically for women wearing heels and floor length dresses.

We also saw a room used for weddings every Sunday. Many are performed in the room taking either 1 or 3 minutes if I am remembering the time correctly. It may have been 3 or 5 minutes, but I know they all take fewer than 5 minutes. The walls are covered in tapestries depicting a traditional wedding. It may be the case that we were not allowed to take pictures in that room, as you can see the picture of the camera with a slash through it, but many of us did take pictures so maybe not allowed to use flash? Regardless, I took pictures…

Going to City Hall, and we're- gonna get ma-a-arried...

The other room worth mentioning (well they all were but I don’t want to go on too long) is the Golden Room. The walls are completely covered in a mosaic made of real gold. The artist got a bit of a hard time for the mistakes and semi strange portrayals of figures, explained by the amount he was rushed on the job.

Walls made of gold!

And of course I found an owl, hiding

Our tour guide also mentioned that we were actually visiting the city on Semla Day! A semla is a very tasty sweet roll, which has had the top cut off and it’s insides scooped out. It is then filled with scrumptious almond paste. (I thought of you, Nicole and Christine!) It is topped of with a large amount of whipped cream, which has some characteristics of frosting. We had in fact tried semlas the day before but being in Stockholm on Semla Day, we had to eat them again. Such a bummer!! We found them in a little café where we also got delicious hot chocolate served in a large bowl with a spoon. It was like chocolate soup. 

There it is, the delicious semla

On our third and final day we went to see the changing of the guard at the palace. This happens every day at 11:00

The Palace

The guards leaving after having changed

And one of the most exciting things we did was go to the Ice Bar! It is the oldest Ice Bar in the world, kept at 27˚F all year long. We slipped into the provided parkas, being told to wear the gloves because the glasses, also made of ice, can be very slippery, and walked into a room made of 60 tons of ice! Our reservations came with one free drink, any drinks after that would have cost 95 kronor, or £9.5 or about $14.5 so we decided one drink was enough.

Our delicious drinks in ice cups!

I personally really liked the ice thrown even though I was a bit cold sitting in it.

Megan and me

Liz and me in front of the bar

Liz me and Megan in our parkas with the hoods!

After the ice bar we had to go back to our hostel to pack and go to bed early in preparation for our 3 am wake up time. All in all our travels were fairly painless, other than the extremely early mornings. We were lucky that things ran smoothly and that we did not run into any problems for the entire duration of the trip! 

Have a wonderfully marvelous day, Hej då! ~Laura 

Hej from Stockholm

Stockholm is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever visited! The only unfortunate part about it was trying to figure out their currency. Everything is quite expensive and right when I was extremely used to using pounds, we had to change currencies and use euros in Germany, and then kronor in Sweden. I find it strange that in such an expensive city, their currency is actually quite weak. One kroner is the equivalent of $0.16 so there are 6.25 kronor in a dollar. Trying to do this conversion all the time was tiring. We spent three days trying to convert to dollars before realizing that there are exactly 10 krona in a pound. This would have made things so much easier because I am already so accustomed to the pound! But, such is life, we made out just fine so no harm done.

I have many pieces of advice to give anyone who is going to visit Stockholm.

1.     To get through the fact that it is so expensive, buy food at the grocery store. This can be a hassle if you don’t have a kitchen but it is still easy to buy a meal to eat in the moment.

2.     It’s possible to find cheaper food; however, not so possible to find cheap coffee. Just buy it, drink it, enjoy it because it’s so good, and move on.

3.     Waterproof boots. If it’s winter, bring them. Wear them. Every day. It is almost constantly snowing so the ground is quite slushy so my feet were wet most of the time.

4.     If you can, stay at a hotel or hostel in the middle of the city. This is something Megan and I did and we were very happy with this decision. Liz and Grace were able to stay with a friend who is studying there, but living about an hour outside of the city, and ended up spending quite a bit of money on transportation, which we all found quite confusing.

My favourite part of the city is Old Town, in a section called Gamla Stan. It is a very old part of the city, hence the name, with narrow streets and gorgeous architecture. I would definitely recommend it. 

Grace, Liz, and Megan. Liz is about to turn around to give me a "stop taking pictures, lets go" face to which I responded, "Don't give me that face, look at where we are!"  

Liz and me on a bridge leading to Gamla Stan

Me, Liz, and Grace

The streets of Gamla Stan at night

We also went to the Vasa Museum. It was a bit of a walk to get there, which was extremely cold, but totally worth it!

On our walk to the Vasa Museum

The Vasa was a very large ship that took almost two years to build! Unfortunately it was too tall and narrow to sail much more than 1300 meters. Of the 150 people on board an estimated 30 of them died. Later the ship was brought up from the bottom of the harbor and now sits in the Vasa Museum along with exhibits to teach people more about the ship. It was beautifully crafted and was once painted in vibrant colors. Although some of it had to be reconstructed, much of the ship in the museum is actually the original. 

Also in the museum are remains of some of the passengers who died below the deck. People have reconstructed the faces using the found skulls, as well as put the bones on display. I didn't take any pictures of the bones or faces, but the faces were eerily realistic looking. There is also a model of the ship so it can be more easily visualized. The scale of the model is 1:10 to the real ship. Liz and Grace's friend Jim joined us that day so we were finally able to get a picture of the four of us. 

Liz, me, Grace, and Megan in front of the model of the ship. 

More stories of the rest of our Stockholm adventure to come!

Have a wonderfully marvelous day, Hej då! ~Laura 

(Pronounced Hey da)

Three Hour Tour

Figuring a three hour tour (*singing* a three hour tour!!) would get us to most of the sites we wanted to see in Berlin, with the added plus of the tour being free we decided to go for it. We almost didn't make it, slipping into the group part way through the guide's intro. For some reason we are very good at letting time get away from us and often arrive to events right as they start, but it hasn't posed as a problem so we shall probably continue with this until it becomes an issue... Anyway, the tour started at the Bradenburg Tor (Gate), one of Berlin's most famous and meaningful sites.

The Bradenburg Tor

In that square, located behind me while I was taking the picture above, is actually the hotel where Michael Jackson hung his baby out the window as onlookers watched, horrified! Needless to say, I didn’t think I needed a picture of that building. We then continued on to see much of the city including a surviving portion of the Berlin Wall, which looked much shorter and less daunting than I’d imagine a wall that so successfully separated a city should be. Much of it was destroyed and what remains is quite damaged.

The Berlin Wall. I know, not much of a wall...

Of course being in Germany, we learned some about the history of the Holocaust. What impacted me the most was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. We stepped among the rectangular graphite structures and I didn’t feel quite right. The atmosphere became sorrowful. Seconds later the tour guide stated where we were standing and it made sense to me. The memorial is a series of grey, stones, rectangular in shape with very sharp looking edges. When you stand on the outskirts of it, you can see above all of the stones and get a glimpse how vast it is. Once you start to walk into it, the stones start to get taller, eventually blocking your view. They are set up in a grid like pattern so that if you stand at an intersection of 4 of them, you can see a small pathway leading out in all directions. This pathway is spacious for one person, yet not quite big enough for two. It is quite disorienting to walk around, as the ground below your feet is not flat, but rather gradually sloping up and down. The memorial was done in such a say way as to not be conspicuous to the onlooker. By walking among the stones, the individual is left to his or her own devices deciding where to turn how to get from one side to the other. In this way the memorial allows for self-interpretation of the meaning behind the way in which it was erected. 

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe 

View from the centre of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe 

We were given a few minutes to walk around the memorial and then continued on the tour. We also went to see the twin cathedrals, one of which is depicted in a picture below, as well as the University of Berlin, and Checkpoint Charlie The last stop on the tour was the cathedral, which we had visited the day before and is in a picture in my previous post. Here we were told the story of the Berlin Wall being opened, which surprisingly didn’t happen all that long ago on the 9^th of November 1989. The story was quite funny as the man who delivered the speech in which he claimed that the protestors were going to get what they wanted, for the wall to be opened, was not aware that he would be making the claims he made until right before he made them. The story was told very well and I learned a lot about Berlin and how the wall separated the East and the West, realizing just how recently both sides of the city reunited. 

Checkpoint Charlie 

One of the twin cathedrals 

The University of Berlin Library

After the tour we walked around a bit longer and then went to our hostel before going to see the East Side Gallery. This Gallery is graffiti style artwork commissioned on some of what remains of the Berlin Wall. It was about a mile from our hostel so we popped over to see it. Some of the art was a bit out there, but a lot of it was beautiful and very well done. I got some pictures of my favourite parts. I especially liked a portion of the wall, which looked slightly haphazard, with signatures, handprints, and multiple languages. I loved the way it differed from surrounding paintings in randomness, and the sense that it is a collective work. I also found a couple pictures of hands making the ASL “I love you” hand shape which made me excited to see!

"I love you" hand shape in ASL. 

Liz and me! We are covering up the lobster which is part of why I loved this painting so much. You can see his claw...

Megan Grace and me! This may have been my favourite painting. It stretched for a long portion of the wall and must have taken a very long time. I found it impressive. 

That night we were able to meet up with my cousin, Coerte, who is studying abroad in Berlin this semester! He took us to a very good restaurant where I ordered a schnitzel. It was very German and delicious! He then took us on a pub-crawl where we popped in and out of 4 pubs, then finished off the night with a Döner. I must say I am a beer snob now, as German beer tastes absolutely brilliant! It was great to see Coerte and catch up with him.

Our third and final day in Berlin was spent seeing some more of the back roads, a market, as well as going back to Museum Island one last time to get to the New Museum to see the Nefertiti Bust. This sculpture of her is absolutely breath taking. Although I wish pictures had been allowed, seeing one is not the same as seeing it in person. The depiction of her facial features, jaw line, and continuation into her neck and shoulders is just amazing. I will at least show you this picture I found online so you know what I am referencing.

Megan and I finished up the trip with dinner at Sophien'eck, a restaurant Coerte suggested. Liz and Grace did not join us as we were going to have an early morning, and they were not very hungry. We were basically on a candle lit date! Megan ordered for me, and we both got a Bratwürste, getting in one last typical German meal. I then finally got the ice cream I’d wanted the whole trip as we shared a caramel sundae. 

Me with my Bratwürste

We headed to Sweden the next day. Many pictures of beautiful Stockholm to come!!

Have a wonderfully marvelous day, bitte! ~Laura 

Berlin Day 1

A piece of advice I was given by a student here at a UCL pub one night was, "Don't stick around for reading week, travel!" So that's exactly what my friends and I did, took 6 days to visit Berlin and Stockholm! Of course now I have lots of reading to do this weekend, as well as a paper due on Monday, but I can take some time to tell you about our trip, since it's the reason I have not posted in so long!

So, Berlin made lots of sense to us. I have a cousin currently studying abroad there (not in Munich as I previously thought, sorry Coerte!) so it was a great chance to catch up with him and be taken to the best pubs in the area by a semi-local. Yes, I was taken on my very first pub crawl! Stockholm ended up being a bit chilly and snowy to say the least, but two friends of mine have a friend studying abroad there, and it only costed us €17 (which is about 20 dollars) to fly from Berlin!! 

We left extremely early Friday morning to find ourselves surrounded by German by 9:30! We then made our way to our hostel, called Plus Berlin, which is beautiful and amazing by the way. I highly recommend Plus hostels for anyone needing a cheap, comfortable, safe, and clean place to stay. We'd not had very much sleep, but had limited time in the city so we ventured out to see what we could see!

Our first stop was Museum Island, named so because it is exactly that. An island in the middle of the city with a bunch of museums on it.

The Pergamon Museum 

The National Museum

We went to the Pergamon Museum that first day and were exhausted afterwards, but it was beautiful and so worth it. 

The Gates of Babylon 

 Hoping for an early night, we took some more pictures, some of a beautiful cathedral on Museum Island, and then headed back to the hostel for dinner at their restaurant.

Our first German beers!! 

We went to bed early that night so we could get up and moving the next morning. Which we did, so stories about our three hour tour are to come! Again sorry I haven't posted in so long, there will be many posts shortly about the trip. 

Have a wonderfully marvelous day, bitte! ~ Laura 

P.S. That's pronounced bitteh and essentially means cheers in German.