i was kicked by a greek hobo

i am supposed to be cleaning my room/ workin on my bod right now. but i'd rather sit here, be emo and type blog entries all day. so here it is

rome was awesome. as soon as we got there i took the metro to st. peter's basicica to st peters square. important. st peters square is actually st peters ellipse, so don't be fooled/extremely disappointed when you travel all the way to rome and not be able to find corners. then i walked across the Tiber (hey mesopotamia unit in 4th grade) to the Trevi fountain and Spanish Steps. I must say, i was a little disappointed with the steps, they are just steps, but dont worry, they grew on my exponentially, they are great for sitting on and looking good.

lookin good on those steps

the trevi fountain was super watery and neat with all those statues spewing water everywhere. i dug it a whole lot. we took a million pictures in front of that and then went to meet courtney and her friends for dinner. we found a place for 12, wait 10 euros (because we were smelly college students) and got wine and salad and pasta and it was great! i really havent seen a vegetable since 2010, when i last saw Sand my mom, and she provided nice vegetables right in front of my face on my plate at dinner.

this is me throwing a coin into the fountain, lookin trendy

then we walked home. people may doubt that rome is walkable, but to broke backpacking college kids, any city can be tackled via dirty tennis shoes. the next day we hit the Colosseum and i made my poor friends take about a million pictures of me in front with my terrible towel. gotta rep that yinzer pride.

here is me, the terrible towel, and the colisseum

we are taking a picture in front of some ruin, love ruins

after contemplating what it'd be like to be slaughtered alive by lions, gladiator men wearing minimal clothing, etc, we went to the pantheon! let me tell you i love backpacking as much as the next person, but after 2.5 solid weeks of sightseeing, monuments start to blend together. the parthenon was cool though, especially because im reading angels and demons. i do want you to know it is the worlds largest unreinforced, (holy smokes!) concrete dome.

we then went back to our hostel and the english majors journaled about life while i ran around all over packing and not journaling. witte has noticed that i can't sit still really ever, and every time we go to a train station, airport, ferry dock, etc i have to go explore the area while she is forced to man the luggage. i think this further proves my little theory that i have undiagnosed add ( and maybe a flair for the dramatic). my mom still never will let me get tested all because i had 4.0 in hs, where is my 4.0 now? out the window with the adderall i dont have.

so anyway they contemplated the meaning of life while i just sat there. then we had pizza and wine so that was delicious.

friday we had one goal: the sistine chapel, so we went and it was all nice and we got shhhed alot by the shhhhers, whose life passion and occupation is to crush joyful comments of Sistine Chapel first timers. Michaelangelo painted the whole thing and 

a. who has that much time?

b. who knew he wasn't just a ninja turtle

painting by day and fighting bad guys by night must have left little michaelA with no time to contemplate life

this is the famous painting thing but it was illegal to take pcitures and all the shhshers were shhhing me so sorry that it is blurry i was nervous

stairs in vatican

Courtney and I went to the Steelers bar afterwards. amazing. definitely one of the best days of life, and i kept being like, this is the best day of my life.

and look at these

my favorite is this terrible towel wrapped around jesus. my other favorite thing is my friend alex asked me if i put the terrible towel around the jesus. yes, alex, i stood on a chair, hijacked the jesus and placed my yellow towel around it. and get kicked out of my favorite bar in the world? do you know how important jesus's are to roman people? there is a high probability id spend the night in jail. no i did not do that.

anyway, the guy is not evern from pittsburgh, but whatever he was super duper for existing. and his bar existing too.

also an ad just came on for will and kate, is there job to walkround from place to place kissing babies and receiving flowers? because i can do that.

i also got rosary beads blessed by the pope! wow. impulse by though, let me tell you. as soon as i wen tto st peters elliptical square i saw this guy with rosary beads and i knew i had to get some for my gig, my grandma, she'll die, not literally, she's going to outlive me the rate things are going, but she be real happy. and it was on my checklist of abroad things to do. travel the world. check. rosary beads for my gram. check. i wanted to do some rosary bead exploring before i bought some, wooden or metal, jesus or no jesus. but this guy was like , "this is the only day you can get them blessed by the pope" ( he comes out on wednesdays and blesses the people) so i had to get them (although i doubt the pope is like "and i bless you and you and the rosary bead guy at the back", but whatevs, mission accomplished)

then we went to greece

and now were here.

i think the world doesn't want me to like athens. we got to our hostel and our greek man told us all the acropolis/parthenony/reasons for going to athens/ stuff closed at 2 and since we got there at 1:30, we were out of time. as i explored all i really saw was alot of garbage and stray dogs, pretty wild. but i know they just went through some bad economic times, so i'll come back one day athens, and i expect you to get your shit together.

we went to bed and then in the middle of the night i thought we were gonna be attached because someone kept coming to our floor. and no one was staying on our floor. and when its like 3am you always think your gonna be taken by bad guys, like that is their "stealing kids time" or something, but no worries, we weren't attacked, and me taking out my one orange earplug (i lost 2 in florence) was pointless.

the nest day we hiked up the acropolis. we hiked up to the top and saw some old Zeus buildings and stuff and the parthenon, everyone knows the parthenon! (not really) and when we got to the top we saw this building that looked like the parthenon that a wrecking ball had hit, and we could see this other really parthenony buildling was way below us. the is the time where you think, "i wish i bought a guidebook because the dumbest question i could ask at the parthenon is 'is this the parthenon'", well good news, it was, some southern lady from upstate new york told us. also why can't upstate newyorkers just be like "im from albany" or say the location for petes sake. is there somethin goin on in upstate new york that no one can say that?

after we got back we grabbed our bags and went to catch the ferry. now let me tell you this real  life story about how i got kicked by a drunk greek man. i am sitting there on my giant backpack in the subway and this man comes up to me and gives me this really weird look, then he kicked me with hi swork boot, then i screamed, even though it was in slow motion because he was so drunk, but i screamed anyway. then he death stared the shit out of me, and i death stared the shit out of him. then witte and i ran away because we got scared.

then we got on the bus to the fairy. and i had my huggggge backpack on. and i was real squished with my big backpack on and witte was like "daina move over" then this weird barefoot old man with long hair and a beard was like "you have the power" so then i was like "alrigh ti have the power and i moved over" tight squeeze though,  then as we got off we found out that this old barefoot man was not in fact homeless but he has a whole backpacking family and backpacking baby. he had his entire life on his back and his family's too and his baby in front. then his backpacking family followed him onto his ferry forever.

i have eaten 15 gelatos

so now i am in italy and i am in love. we started off in cinque terre where we walked along the cliffs and saw beautiful sunsets and everything beautiful in the whole wide world. also, one of the trails was closed, so ryan led us on a cliff


florence- i have never had better food in my entire life. kait and jenny took me to a great place where a little italian man talked and sang to us the entire time, while his wife cooked us food of the gods. if jesus made pasta, it wouldnt be as good as this ladys. holy smokes. he also took pictures of us every half an hour because whe wanted our dinner to be well documented. additionally, i would like to point out that the stereotype is true. italian women do everything, and the men hang out all day. he told us about his life in the boyscouts while his wife slaved away making gnocci with buffalo mozzarella. i almost fainted and threw up! faint because that could be my favorite thing in the entire world and threw up because i ate so much. but neither happened! and also we had unlimited wine, which is like angels words to 5 broke college girls. and it was all 15 euros, really.

the next night we went to a pizza place which in fact, there is one with the same name in the burgh! i melted with the pizza because it was so delicious. also we got wine again, they drink wine more than water. which i didnt even think i liked wine, im just learning that italian wine is a bit better than franzia.

also, i counted how many gelatos i have eaten. but then i stopped, because it ebcame embarassing. kait took me to her favorite place and if jesus specialized in ice cream and not saving people he wouldnàt compare. actually maybe he would. i dunno jesus doesnt make ice cream. i had fig because im trying to do stereotypical study abroad things, cliff diving, eating fish heads, you know.

then i climbed the duomo. 453 steps to the top. my new thing i hate in life is people that block tiny European staircases. the stairs in the duomo are tenny tiny and  spiraly. this man kep ttaking pictures of every brick in the goddam buildling so we had to stand and wait and be done. i learned an important lesson in life a long time ago, that when you get back from your trips, your not gonna print all your brick pictures, your gonna print your people pictures, so flex in front of the duomo or something.

then kaitlin took me to the leather market. my mom kept being like, daina, go to the leather market and buy yourself a nice leather coat, its timeless. and im like, ma, im not gonna spend your 8 million dollars on a leather coat, yes im now on my moms dime, dont come to a country where the exchange rate is double. go to south america or something. but actually do come. as were walkin through the market this guy alex came up to me and made me try on like 17 leather jackets and i was like ''alex, listen there bud i am broke as shit  i am not buying one of you rleather jackets'' then he was like ''i will give it to you for 70 percent off''. now that is a deal. so now i have a timeless leather jacket that i am wearing around europe, i look rull trendy and good, so let me know if you see me.

next, i saw a canoli in the window, and i thought, oh my goodness, im in italy and this is a canoli, so i got it. ( my new passion/goal in life is to eat all of the barbs in italy and believe me it s challenge, but dont worry, things are going great so far). it was awful, the canoli. jesus definitely could have made a better one. so then i went on a canoli search because i was like holy moly i have to eat a good one while im here. the end.

finally, i would like to tell you how i do with beggars. not well. europe is known for its variety and originality of beggars trying to scam daina. probably my soft green eyes and gentle face that lure these suckers in. probably my wealthy looking appearance ( i have worn the same £1.50 fleece and shorts the entire time ive been traveling, witte is concerned that people will notice that i have been wearing the same blue fleece and shorts the whole time. no. im not. i am wearing them right now. and i feel great) anyway, so these beggar people find me and i really can never shake them. women with clipboards, firls with postcards saying they cant speak english but need money, men without legs. it had become a joke that i am always the target, my favorite was when i went to the bathroom in the marseilles train station, which you have to pay for but i really had to pee. i couldnt figure out how to put my money in the gosh darn slow and then this kind old man came up and showed me , spoke english with me, and talked to me about his, german french an dbelgian wife. then he showed me the slot to get a token! ah thats what i was missing! then i was thinking, wow what a nice guy, hes a winner, then he goes,'' can i have 4 euros? i need a bus ticket'' fiddlesticks! fooled again

also last night i thought of a great idea. jenni kait and i were going to sleep and then i thought what if bucknell had a sorority paintball fight to become the most popular group of sorostitutes!! maybe the best one ive ever had. 1000 sorostitutes running around campus with sorority color corresponded paintballs. so now weve been debating who would be agile and stealthy and strategizing. now the end.

also, there are alot of words and i apologize for the lack of pictures. iwould be really bored and wouldnt read this, so if you did. wow.thanks. your really nice.

EN FRANCE (throaty voice)

i am currently updating from paris. the city d'amour. my new passion in life is speaking frenglish. anyway, paris was amazing. i have been to the eiffel tower 3/3 nights 100% eiffel tower all the time is what i'm about. and for those engineers out there, it really is in the shape of its moment diagram.
the first day we got here we went there, and it was amazing. then we walked to the hotel des invalides, which is napoleon's tomb, and we weren't even supposed to go there, another reason why i love europe, you just walk around, and your like " oh yeah, this built in long time ago century and this is the most important monument in the world" all the time. then we went to the champs d'elysees and saw the arc de triomphe. then kristen left to go write a paper, and i went to. THE. STEAKFRITES PLACE I'VE BEEN DREAMING ABOUT FOR 6 YEARS. when i came to paris in high school we went to this place that served steakfrites (steaks and fries) with this magical green sauce. Mrahskis and i have been craving steakfrites since that day.when i got here i thought id give a google search a try, and what do you know, there are like a billion "entrecote" aka steak frites places. its a chain! but thats ok cause it s delicious chain! anyway, so i went to "entrecote" and ate the whole dang thing, then i felt sick afterwards but i walked towards the eiffel tower (time number 2) and got a crepe and sat from the palais du something..palais this, hotel that...its hard to keep em straight,  but it gave a great view of paris and the eiffel tower. so i had a crepe in my right hand, and i just sat and watched it for 1.5 hours (im not joking imreally that werid) then it sparkled. WHICH IS LITERALLY MY FAVORITE THING IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD.  then i rolled back to the apartment and then i was really sick. but that's ok. cause steakfrites and a shit ton of crepes was so worth it.
the last thing we did in paris was go to the top of the eiffel tower, which was amazing, but the most important thing about paris are

eiffel tower guys. these are men that stand everywhere within a 2 mile circumference of paris and beg you to buy little mini keychain eiffel towers.67 for one euro people. its a deal. anyway, so for some reason, either my akwardly masculine walk, or my "innocent look" witte calls it. these men target me instantly. and beg me to buy their eiffel towers. for 2.5 days i was strong, i said no, also key to this, once you look them in the eye your dead, so look away, anyway, the last night we were on the eiffel tower, we came down from the eiffel tower and were hit with the most eiffel tower guys i've ever seen, right as you leave the gate so you can't escape. somehow we managed, thennnn were walkin along back to the metro, and we decide, "you know waht 6 for 1 euro, thats a goddam steal, theyre practically giving them away" so we bought 6. feeling satisfied after our colorful metally purchase, we continued to walk, only to be presented with the DEAL OF THE CENTURY. 7 for 1 euro. boom done. now we had 13 eiffel towers. what the hell do you do with 13 eiffel towers? we still don't know because they are currently in our backpack in nice. so if you want one, let me know.


after paris, we were off to marseilles to meet ryan. we took the tgv, and i made the mistake of not making train reservations til the day of, so we got to the station at 9:30, and the next available train didn't leave til 1:30. we had a lot of time, and nothing to do. so we went to this frenchy coffee shop in the train station and everything was super expensive because they know your trapped in there so they can make you spend as much as they want. anyway, so i ordered a coffee because i love coffee. it was 3 euros. i was really excited for my coffee. then it came, and it was the size of a peanut, not actually, but it was one of those espresso things, maybe its because  im from amurica where everything is bigger but its hard to drink one sip of coffee in a four hour duration.

then we went on the TAY JAY VAY as the french people call it and that was rockin because it went super fast i felt like i was in a rocket ship and there were bathrooms and everything. it was magical.

we got to marseilles and it was absolutely beautiful, we walked around the town and took millions of pictures. then we bought 16 euros worth of awful guacamole, never buy european guacamole or salsa ever. ever. ever. ever. not in london, or germany, or france. so after we had our shitty dinner, we met some americans. they were super duper cool and we hung out with them

then we went on this trail in marseilles where we had to take an hour long bus ride and then hike for an hour, but then we got to this cove-ish thing that you can now see, and your probably like ,, "wow that looks super tropical" it was super tropical. also i jumped off a rock into the water, which is big for me, cause i usually dont like heights or anything involing fun and/or adrenaline. it was amazing. it's the new me, so i'm probably going to go skydiving, get a couple tats and do other adventurous things. 

then later we all went out to dinner, and i ate boulyabase, which is spelled wrong, but i dunno how to spell it, anyway, my uncles always are all "boulyabase this, boulyabase that" so i thought id try it cause its marseilles famous thing, so alot of us tried it. and it turned out to be fish heads and soup. whcih was weird, and kind of gross, and kinda delicious, and i ate it anyway, it was a magical evening but i am too tired/not creative enough, to describe it.

now we are in nice, which is nice. but actually nicer than nice. it is great, we went on another hour long bus ride to this place called cope d'ail, which means garlic island or something, i dunno, there wasn't any garlic there, but there was a completely awesome facebook default picture perfect place. and some nude people and guys in speedos, welcome to france(and i say that in a throaty, escargot, kind of voice...shout out to #stephanie  cutler) ( i dont understand # signs) also i laugh like a french person "hoh hoh hoh, france, escargots" all the time in my french accent, because i think its funny, but then kristen gets mad, and says i can't do that in their own country, but i say, when in france. anyway, i am having the best times of life in the history of time for me. i cant write anymore cause i gotta go to bed! 

also 

"insert something creative here"

i am supposed to be studying right now.

but i'm leaving for my year long trip across the world on thursday so i wanted to update my loyal followers before i leave (also year=month, world=france, italy, and greece) ((sorry for my code, i've been reading the da vinci code lately, and yes, i just double parentheses'd))

anyway, no EXTREME EVENTS to blog about lately, we've just been doing our thang in londontown, lookin cool and american. but here are some events that recently happened in daina's real life

1. i went to chinawhite. what is that? well you should probably google it, go ahead it has a wikipedia page. it is a club in london. and not one of those flasshy "i'm a club" clubs, one of those, in some dark alleyway because its a  "i am too cool and trendy to be on main streets" type of club.  and the most important thing about this club was the faucets in the bathroom! they came down from the ceiling onto real live chinese rocks! it was wicked cool! i went to the bathroom/escorted anybody that wanted to go to the bathroom so i could see these dang rocks! also, you may be wondering how we got into this really awesome club, although besides me showing my face at the door, a friend's friend's friend knew a promoter. but that part's not as important. ALSO, i'm sitting at this club in my dressed up gear lookin fly, and all i wanna do is get my dance on, but i cant, because all these people are wearing like fancy pin stripe suits and expensive dresses and stuff, and gettin your groove on is not cool to them. it is more of a place to see and be seen. which i have decided is not my style. i'd rather be shakin my booty all day errday.

lookin flyyy

2. today i went to the library. i know it was weird. and i also got really mad because i went to the library and i sat at this desk thing on the main floor because you can eat there. and i was eating a tuna fish sandwich so i had to. anyway, i'm sitting there calculatin some bitches, doin my engineering homework when these people came up to me and asked if they could share my table, i was like "ah sure!" but then they just screamed the whole gosh darn time, so i had to get out of there. i then went to the 1st floor (which is actually the 2nd in england! ((which is annoying when your room is on the 3rd but actually the 4th floor and there are quite a bit of stairs!!!) and sat in the silent area. i sat at this desk that had another one connected to it. and what do you know, 3 people sat down!! for one desk, and they were chatting and punching each other and chewing gum (those are the things i noticed) and this girl told them to be quiet. in fact, i was so mad!!!!, that i almost blogged about it right there and then! but i didnt!

this is me and kristen on st patrick's day. i am practicing my sorostitute squat. butt out, suck it in, and some weird elbow thing that i haven't figured out yet.( this is not very appropriate (but it looks like we are about to use the lavatory facility (aka the bathroom)!))

this is me showing my cool and weird arm. also, we had green eggs and green beer on st patrick's day in a moderate amount. there is nailpolish here because our new hobby is painting nails/drinking beer at the same time! my nails have never been painted the same color of purple so many times! **i made these eggs myself and decided that oncei graduate from bucknell, i'm going to be the new eggbar lady, engineering is overrated

in hyde park (the sun is making us cool and artsy)

(this is me and a leaf that i found that was bigger than my head so arden took a picture of me with the leaf!)

3. i am going traveling in less than 48 hours, holy smokes! kristen and i are going to paris, marseilles, nice, cinque terre, verona, venice, florence, rome, athens, and then mykonos, hopefully we're gonna meet up with some of our other people along the way!, 27 whole days wowzers. it is going to be rockin and i am so pumepd and cannot wait. we are taking the eurail and i am taking a backpack (aka backpackin through europe!) which i have always wanted to 1. actually do 2. update my facebook status saying that....wait for thursday, everyone, it's coming.

we went to hyde park one day, and we're having a very serious discussion about laguna beach

p.s.a. (you may have noticed the big, and or bold, and or italic,and or colorful text. ((it is because this blog is very wordy, and i wanted to make it more interactive and fun, so i hope it was) )...there is one word in here that is not supposed to be all decorated...guesss!!!

pittsburgh and fryd meet london

so last week mrahsters and gary came to visit me. i could write a small novel on this week of my life, but because i hate reading, and im pretty sure half the people reading this are engineers and know they do too, i'll try to keep it short.

 i went to bed at 5 am and woke up at 7 to pick garhead up at gatwick and maria at heathrow. without cellphones, picking up 2 people in international aiports is not simple. "DO NOT leave the baskin robbins" "i will find you" (turns out there was no baskin robbins and jesus himself walked me smack dab into my sister at heathrow)

 let it be known, that i am a really good person/ sister. maria refused to take a simple train ride to get to london because she was afraid of being kidnapped and sold into the sex trade, completely rational fear, so gary and i took the hour long tube ride to pick her up, only to find that she brought the biggest suitcase known to mankind.....for 6 days. i am here for 6 months and we had equal volume size. you can never have enough boots, party tops, jeans, socks, bobby pins..you get it

this is not an accurate picture.

after we got back my teeny little room instantly exploded with mess. i now know why the bathroom maria and i share at home for the past 17 years is always disastrous...dear mom, its not me. anyway, we hit the ground running first stopping in westminster to check out parliament and all those other "london skyline" buildlings for gar, who had never been to europe before.

maria in her natural pose

a summary of how my week went: maria hates monuments, all things history, and touring, but loves shopping and getting ready at least 3 hours before we need to leave. gary likes monuments, history, and touring, hates shopping and somehow already has his party top on.....he learned more than he's ever wanted to know about cute tops, clashing, and straightening hair.

so after about 20 minutes after arriving in london maria NEEDED a party top for the night's festivities, off to oxford street we went and we left gary to explore a bit of the city. we ended up going to primark 3 times

they really like eachother

basically the week went like this: touring all day, going out all night,  send daina to the hospital for exhaustion, repeat 6 times..also, add fried chicken at 3 am 4.5 times

but some really favorite things i liked was going to brick lane for food on sunday, gary and i ate moroccan and mrahskis...clearly chicken terreyaki, is that a question? and st pauls for ashes on ash wednesday, followed by fish and chips afterwards. kinda felt like i was back at our lady of grace going to the fish fry. though let me say, st pauls for ashes was one of the most beautiful church experiences i've ever had and i know gary and maria agree.

i also would like to tell you an excerpt from my real life. all week i begged maria and gary to ride bikes in hyde park. i have yet to figure out why that is a repulsive idea, but they were absolutely not feeling it. so the last day we left primark, and are walking to a pub gary wanted to go to. guess what we had to cross to get there? instead of walking through the park, maria wanted to walk  AROUND the park on the crowded street parallel to it.... i forgot, there were probably sex trade killer people hiding in between the magical horses and moats and boats and buckingham palace.... now it all makes sense. i made them walk through it anyway, and maria complained about pebbles in her shoes.

playing the lie down in the middle of crowded public area and see what happens game

workin it

not only did gary and mrahsters come to visit me...the noble sarah fryd was in town as well on some sort of school trip thingy..it was so nice seeing her,  we all went out the last night maria and gary were here and we all packed into my room to sleep for all of 2.5 hours, maria decided to roll in late, calling me at 5:30 am, so i made her sleep on a suitcase, with no blanket or pillow. that was sad.

gary and i walking abbey road style across abbey road

where's maria? oh wait...do you think she wanted to go here? no. there's too much history.

we also tried to go to hogwarts, but were thwarted by the lameness of platform 9 3/4...honestly if i was 6 i would not be impressed, at kings cross station they have a laminated poster and a shopping cart

maria about to get on the express

i said goodbye to maria and gary the next day, and fryd and i went to primark (4x in one week now) and let me say, i would be a great personal shopper/mom/person who holds your things while you try on 15 jackets and shoes and everything

frydhead and me in bricklane

the next night i literally wanted to sleep for years, but there was a foam party at drapers, our school bar, why sleep when you can smell like a washing machine in 3 feet of foam with complete strangers? you can guess what happens next, and here are some pictures

it was wild.

deutschland and libraries

sorry i havent posted in awhile. im too busy being on facebook and maintaining a sleep schedule parallel to my friends in amuricaaa.

ahh so today is thursday. and on monday i got back from germany! i was there for 5 days staying with angela kelly's germ. we saw cologne and bonn it was magical. the cathedral in cologne was the biggest coolest thing ever...buildings fascinate me.

cologne, and me!, and the lovers bridge and cathedral!

after bonn and cologne we didn't wanna spend anymore money. so we cooked (clearly i made burritos, and let me tell you, german salsa is not salsa, cravin moe's like never before)  and stayed in.  and watched deutschland Zuper Star! aka american idol for germs! cue neon colored european outfits and backstreet boys covers, every single thing on the tv was in german, and because i can only say "ich haisse monica, vi heist do bita?" (my name's monica, what's yours?) i was strugglin

me angela and markus in front of beethovens haus! (make that 7 words in german!)

turn your head to the left cause i dont know how to fix this. weinerschnitzel!

the last night i was there we were bored and hungry, and went to the bk lounge for dessert. i can be at south hills village eat and park or 4000 miles away but i still manage to find a way to get ice cream brownies at 10 o clock at night. sidenote. i now understand why the germs and european people are so skinny. they gave us our little cups of ice cream and i was like "really? i could eat 6 of these" anyway, it balances out with the 6 milka chocolate bars i ate while i was there

so i have to write this paper for my architecture class, its 1000 words, which  is kind of a big deal for me, considering the last time i wrote a paper i was 17, annnd i have to put footnotes in it! idont even know what is the point of a footnote! i always just ignore them in books. so i went to the library to do this paper. and let me say, this was no ellen bertrand, i walked in and had to have my bag searched, then swipe in with my id card, and actually on my way back out, i walked right through the metal bar and broke it ( i didn't realize you had to swipe out too!) that was embarassing. it was so cool i felt so british, descriptive writing is not my forte, but it was all tall and wooden and bookshelfy , and dusty, very cool!

very blurry pic from ray, i tried so hard wth all my might to put a vid up but the blog is breaking uh oh

i also went to ray lamontagne. most bumpin concert ive ever been too. it was in royal festival hall, which is right next to the london eye, and to get there i walked across a bridge on the thames and saw st pauls, and the tower bridge. and i thought to myself. this is not real life. ironically it is more real life than my real life, because its the real world, but still. 

lastly, i went to the doctor. which seems like something boring to talk about. read on, doubters. i had to get up at the crack of dawn cause it was on the other side of london, not really used to fighting communters on the tube to go to the doctors office, it was in knightsbridge, i know i sound very posh (look at my british vocabulary growing) naming places in london no one that reads my blog knows about so ill explain, as soon as i walked out of the tube i ran smack dab into a dolce and gabbana, then harrods, then as i read my magazine in the nice little waiting room, i found out the princess was there chillin like a week ago. which means, i now consider myself pretty important

 i think im only going to go to british doctors from now on...his name was ewoin (0wen, clearrrrly) and he literally asked for my coat in scarf, hung it up on his wall, and it was like a cozy doctors office, not that "flourescent light, let me look down your throat white walled" type of office. it was magical.

ragu and a hard loss

wahh i guess it's time for a new post...as you can see i adjust to life here in london, my posts keep getting pushed farther and farther apart. haven't been up to a whole lot lately,

the other day i was in sainsbury's buying some groceries and i took a sharp left in the pasta sauce aisle. it's been 1.5 months since i've been here in london, and i am really, really jonesin for some sandy allison sunday night spaghetti.  growing up an italian, eating cafeteria spaghetti was frowned upon, from both immediate and extended family. despite the fact i would be given mental health advice from buying sauce from a jar, i searched among ragu bottles, but then i took a long hard look and myself and though " the second i buy grocery store tomato sauce i am headed down a lifelong, addictive road of succumbing to artificially made pasta sauces"...future vision...i dont want to be that mom that puts ragu on pasta, while betty crocker my next door neighbor is making homeade, fresh tomator and garlic clad savory sauce. i am gonna be that betty crocker. so sand, if your reading this, be proud.

ian and i before the superbowl

i haven't blogged in awhile and kinda forget what's happened since my last post. but i know one sad thing that has happened is our super bowl loss. if victor, pat, and dan weren't there to commiserate with, the night would have been much ahrder than it already was. note to self. never, ever, watch american football with a roomful of ignorant, misinformed, green bay fans. i made a pact to myself, if the lers ever make it again, i'm going home, to the burgh, to watch them play. after the loss, i didn't know where to go, thank god kate was there...we skyped til 4:30 am here. i just needed someone to chat about it with, i was dying...i called my sister, silence on the phone for 5 minutes, and we eventually talked over some plays, what went wrong. i thnk as a steelers fan, we are a bit spoiled, and expect that 4th and 5 conversion with a minute left to actually happen. so if there is one good thing that comes from this loss, it's that i am less spoiled, and don't expect us to win all the time.


i am going to the land of the weinerschnitzel and heidi tomorrow! deutschland!! hayyy

amsterdam, kickin it with the dutch

so on wednesday a bunch of my friends and myself flew to amsterdam for the weekend. we decided the week before to go and it was definitely worth the trip. we hit the ground running as soon as our plane touched down, going to a bar before we checked into our hostel. even though it was wednesday night, we were out til 3 am trying out different pubs and bumpin around

in front of the i amsterdam sign

thursday morning we were out the door at 1 pm, early risers...rough life. after everyone got their hostel showers, our first stop was the heineken museum. at first i didn't think it would be worth the 15 euros, 3 free pints of beer later i was exceptionally pleased. we got a full blown tour of how heineken is actually made. we got to taste the barley before they put in the hopps. i think i might like beer better if they forgot about the hopps.

fooling around at the heineken museum

friday morning we went to see anne frank's house. my whole life i thought anne frank lived in germany, until i came to amsterdam. study abroad is a learning experience! but i read the packet they gave us at the museum, and she did live in germany at one point. boom. anyway, it was such a moving place. seeing the bedroom she spent years of her life in just made us all appreciate how lucky we are to have the lives we do. i think next on my reading list is her diary, however, knowing my record of a one book/9 months, this might be after this blog's duration

view from our hostel

d and a and da!

after anne frank we went to the i am amsterdam sign and snapped some pics for the book. and our moms. i realized that there is a DA, which are my initials, in amsterdam so of course i took a million of daina in between the D and the A! then our group went to the van gogh museum. given the high probability that i have a.d.d, museums of a million paintings aren't really places where i tend to excel, so i decided to hit up the sex museum with ryan instead. (this is the part where i get in trouble with my parents)

after the sex museum we went to a pub and met our friends who got in that day. my poor friend victor got pickpocketed on the tram, so him and i spent friday night bouncing around  police stations, hotels, hostels, and internet cafe's to cancel his cards, and get on a flight back to london.

after the pick pocketing adventure. out of blankets, but hey, he's a steeler

gotta maintain that 30% emo

a late friday night and early friday morning left me with 2 hours of sleep, but as soon as i got back in to london i met danielle, who was in town. we hit the town sightseeing even though it was super duper cold outside and did my favorite walk across the millennium bridge to st. pauls battling gale force winds. later that night we met up with alot of bu in london kids, and did some karaoke

small world, protestin, and FIREs!

ah so i am getting to that point where i'm thinking, i am not a blogger, i'm an engineer. writing is not how i roll, but i'm gonna do my best to keep it up! bear with me if the entries get shorter.

so this week we had a field trip to parliament to tour around the buildings. we got there kind of late and it was impossible to hear our professor, but i just kept thinking " i am at parliament....for school." it is sooo beautiful.

our field trip

earlier that day we got an email from the u.s. embassy saying so stay away from parliament later in the day (after our field trip)...there we're going to be protests, and the last time there were protests some kid threw a fire extinguisher out the window and almost killed some people...obviously we stayed to watch the protests. it was AWESOME. there were like a billion people and a billion more police officers. they just marched around and stuff but we literally almost got ran over, partly cause we were standing in the path, woops.

protests!

we went to a pub on thursday night called oneills in leicester square, which i'm realizing most people probably dont know where that is, which is making me think of me and fryd head making fun of alex last semester and the poaijhsdgjhfdasfkja names she typed on her blog which we had no idea what in the heck she was talking about.

ian and i workin it at oneills

anyway, the pub was super duper fun, i'm doin my thing, dancin to a live band, and out of the corner of my eye i spot a usc-er. two usc-ers in fact. i only recognized this kid because he would roll up shirtless and painted for a field hockey games in high school. i freaked out and went and said hi! they're studying at a near by university.
then, all the bucknell in london kids showed up where i ran into some freshman hall mates and some of mah sissssters hayy. it was crazy fun. we all danced for a long time!

court, ryan and i at oneills

two more things and then i'm done, i promise! so much for the short post!

sunday morning i woke up to what i thought was a "london is being bombed by the world" alarm which i quickly found out is just a regular fire drill. it's a constant screech instead of a intervaled one. i thought fire drills in america were bad. i was wrong.

 the thing about fire drills is, you do them your whole life, to the point where you practice realizing its not real. the idea of fires seems impossible. now your probably expecting me to say, well, this time it was for real. well, it wasn't. BUT it wasn't a drill...as I get out of bed and groggily walk down the stairs, i start to see water gushing through a flat door and what i thought was smoke (it was steam) coming from a door and the floor looking like it was about to collapse... me and my friend james bolted down the stairs, and outside. scary stuff! 

3 firetrucks and 4 hours later, we found out a pipe had burst and the floor was in fact on the verge of collapsing. somehow they fixed the floor and we were allowed back in around 2. so because QM rocks, we had free biscuits in the cafeteria, then we got a free lunch at "Pride of Asia" which in fact, shouldn't make Asia proud. but it was free, which is super duper for broke pajama clad college students.

fellow usc-ers watching the steelers game

lastly. steelernation. after losing lots of sleep from my firedrill. i still went out at 11:30 to watch the lers at the sports cafe in piccadilly circus. i ran into my high school friends i met the other night and met victor. i also ran into a childhood friend. i dont know if it's pittsburgh or london that's too small, or maybe people from my past can't get enough of me. regardless, the yinzers watched the game and were very excited to see pittsburgh make it to their 3rd superbowl in 5 years. city of champions i think so.

boat cruises and clive

Last week we went on a boat cruise around London through Queen Mary. It was just for international students and was sooooo sick. for those usc-ers reading this, it was real similar to senior cruise. Basically we just lapped big ben and the london eye a few times and danced to american music. exactly what I needed to get my dance party on. After the boat cruise, everyone went to the on campus bar-drapers, and chatted, the que (insert British word here) was 50 people out the door but once we got in we all had a rockin time.

victor and in london..reunited and it feels so good!

 

mad blurry pic of me and arden on the boat cruise

Ah also, sidenote, we all joined the gym, Qmotion, or as more trendy people like to call it, The Q. I've pumped iron every day because I had to pay to join the gym, not something i'm used to, but it's actually a good thing because then i really use it!! They also have a girls only part, which is awesome, so now, when we girls want to do our 20 min of elliptical and then stretch for half hour, we can't get made fun of! i'm gonna try to go alot beause with all the going out, they're gonna have to roll me on the airplane to come home!

this past weekend we went on a homestay to a litttle place on the english coast called "Herne Bay". it's about an hour away from london and is a little fishing village chalk full with a bunch of old, really nice British people. my friend miriam and i stayed with a husband and wife, clive and gwen, who were 75ish eyars old, they have 5 kids and like a billion grandkids

herne bay is right in betwen canterbury and dover

on friday night we chilled with clive and gwen and watched some english soap opera's and game shows.

herne bay hayyy

 on saturday we went to CANTERBURY, THE ALMOST SECOND MOST FAMOUS CITY IN ENGLAND. which is what our 90 year old tourguide, jill told us. ps i dont think jill is a real tourguide, she just lives in herne bay and does her thing.

but anyway, Canterbury was cool, it was so English looking. tiny little streets and a massive cathedral. also, castles out the wazoo.  i've figured out that in England you look down the street and it's basically, McDonald's, Starbucks, 11th century Roman Fort , Subway, dumpster,  gothic cathedral, cool. 

canterbury: subway, my friends, cathedral,

cathedral at canterbury, model shot

after our day in canterbury we went back to clive and gwen and had some tea. clive and gwen drink tea like 15x a day, so much for not believing in stereotypes. they made us toast for breakfast, butter and lettuce sandwiches for lunch, and egg on toast for dinner. carbo load to the extreme. bread, fried bread, and mince pies are what they eat on the reg, tryin to keep their cholesterol low.

finally, saturday night miriam and i hung out with our guys friends at their homestay home. we drank beer in the hot tub by the sea and listened to music.

chilly in our "dressing gowns" before the hot tub!

school school school

no more green suits or anything that crazy, but the last few days here have been jam packed with fun!
classes started here on monday. i only have classes 2 days a week. which i dont think has ever happened to  an engineer in the history of engineers. which makes me sort of important and cool. anyway, so i walked into my first class at 9 am mon morning and it made me miss my engineers. all the kids were talkin about their cool insiders, and laughing. and i just sat there by myself in my bright yellow jacket. its alright though, i quickly befriended a boy next to me. his name is gobbs. not sure if i befriended him cause i wanted a friend, or because his name is gobbs, but a new friend anyway.


my architecture class meets on wednesdays and it is super duper. it's 2 hours of lecture one week and the next week is a 2 hour tour of buildings in london. on wednesday, we're going to parliament and checking it out. basically my dream come true. again, the buildings in london are absolutely fantastic!

i'm also taking a french class, oui oui, parce que je te manque francais...and maybe in a few weeks that can actually be a proper sentence, we'll see...also, i just realized i said proper, which is what all these english people say, yikes! here comes the english accent!

sidenote: my camera is broken! i'm trying to figure out how to fix it but haven't been able to yet, rats! so no pictures for this entry.

also about my classes, havin classes 2 days a week is bomb ass, however, i'm a little concerned trying to occupy my free time! i'm just ognna read me some books and drink tea and explore london. it just seems like at home, everything is go go go, and it's so much more relaxed here.

Green Man in London?

Our first night at Queen Mary consisted of a traditional English dinner in the dining hall. We had stuffing and a bread pudding type of thing. Stuffing just doesn't do it for me :/ never been a fan, but they served Fosters at dinner. The beer was free and encouraged. I quickly realized I'm not in America anymore that's for sure. After dinner they had too much extra beer and our table had a few more cups. We started them and immediately got into a cup stacking competition with 2 other tables. Naturally, having the bright civil engineer ;), we won and got a free case of beer, two bottles of wine, and trophy! My new favorite school!

our championship team hard at work

living my pittsburgh dream

friday night was probably the most fun i've had so far. me and a kid on program, scott, who actually lives 2 min from me at home, go figure, can't go to far without findin a yinzer, steeler nationnnnn,went out with courtney and her friends. being the fashion icon that i am, we all went to a club and wore neon spandex body suits. obviously with my rockin bod i couldn't wait to get into my spandexy, neony green suit. i've never had an experience quite like that. we danced all night to respect, by aretha franklin, and weird music. fyi, no club can't handle me in london :/

me and scott in our suits

in our "whosuits"