Hopping the Pond

For the record...

I know I've been talking about leaving for a long time, but it's really starting to hit everyone now. We're working on finals (when it gets to 2:30 p.m. tomorrow, I will be incredibly relieved.) But tonight is the last Professor Serb session! And everyone is dashing around to see the things they still haven't seen (Abbey Road and Camdentown Market for me) and doing some last minute shopping. (I had an incredibly successful day on Oxford St. yesterday, when I didn't have class.) And of course, visiting all of the tourist shops to find a Union Jack speedo for a certain someone. Although in light of recent photographs that have surfaced, I'm thinking a bikini might be more fitting.

At any rate, it's starting to get sad! Last night was the film club finale, and they showed a foreign film called L'Auberge Espagnole, about a French student who studies in Barcelona for a year. More than anything, the movie was about the bonds that were created between all of the students who were living there together (French, English, Danish, Italian, Spanish) and the three categories life has gotten divided into: school, traveling/exploring during the day and then doing the same at night. (In other words, going to see the tourist sights during the day and getting 'legless' at night, as Prof. Serb would say.)

The thing that hit home the most in the movie was when the main character went home and had a hard time re-adjusting. I've gotten so attached to this place. There were even some tears during the movie (Stacey;) because the weight of leaving is finally hitting. Leaving and saying goodbye is always particularly hard with me. Ever since the move from Illinois-->CT. and saying goodbye to Granny and Pops, I always get upset, even with minor goodbyes. I still well up when my parents drop me off in Syracuse every year.

There were some scenes that really stuck out and were easy to relate to: when the whole group went out to a club at night and ended up finding a guy (American) with a guitar who played a Bob Marley song for them. You could tell that they were just all so happy. It's been those moments--the sort of unexpected ones, where you just have this feeling of freedom and happiness. Paris in particular was one of those. And now there's really this bond between the people here, because we all experienced it together. I have no idea how I'll be able to explain the experience to people at home, because there's just so much. When I used to think of studying abroad, I would just think of traveling for a few months. But this was our home, and how can you describe your whole life to someone if they ask you? I can tell you stories about getting farted at in Dublin or unruly Irish Ryanair passengers on the way to Barcelona, but I can't describe how happy I've been here, how much better my life is now that I've had this experience or how freeing it is to navigate yourself all over Europe. The past three and a half months have been the best time of my life.

I apologize for getting kind of schmaltzy and emo, but like I said I'm not good with goodbyes.

Thanks for listening.

Professor Serb Addendum

For the record...

Here are some more recent Professor Serb musings to keep you interested...as it is nearing finals week and I am getting too burnt out on that to have any original thoughts of my own!

-"I am not wasting paper. I am creating jobs in Brazil."

-"Hi Arielle how is your blackberry?"

-"I've flown from what's it thingy" (In reference to Russia.)

-"I mean, I'm not a very moral person...I'm not going to say I don't have mistresses...I met my paht-nah in December 1971, it was the best day of my life and I don't fiddle around with what's it." "Marilyn Monroe?" -"Not my cup of tea."

-"A. I don't know. B...."

-"I don't think much of common sense."

-"We've been together 37 years...Blimey!"

-"You could be sadomasochist bisexual lesbian or what's it. As long as you don't make me a lesbian too."

-"Kennedy said to Kruschev...listen you schmuck."

-"Gene, take the banana off. It's kind of always in my eye."

-"There is this weirdo country, Kazhakstan, wherever that is."

-"Today there are those weirdo fricks in Bandledesh or what."

-"You want a new kidney? Muldova. $5,000."

-"Are your glasses last century or are they with it man?"

-"Americans walk in and say 'what women can't vote or drive cars here?' And the locals say 'no we know better' and the Americans shoot them."

-"The Europeans are minor bastards."

-"I hate your glasses. Four eyes."

-"Hey where is your blackberry? How will you survive?"

-"I mean, I'm not a fascist, however..."

-"Then at the Tower Bridge I got twice wet."

-"I know nobody likes me anyway. I am a loner in this world."

-"He tried to trick me again the little trickster, beggar. I will give him F."

-"I'm German. I don't know if I mentioned it."

-"No no you find your paht-nah on the Internet!"

-"Those stupid people. I've been to Beijing, you can't breath there."

-"I'm fat and pasty-faced and German. I love it."

-"You can get 60% of your last salary to stay home with your flipping child."

-"There are so many jokes about Irish being like rabbits. 18 children per mother or what."

-"What do you want to know about his sexual behavior?"

-"Do you think I want that Dutch army that smokes weed all the time?"

-"Wow those are some colors. Nice one." (While entranced by my pink coat.)

-"Do you have a lady you want to please sexually?"

-"You're funny people. You ask questions. I would be scared if he hadn't smoked dope."

-"60% of London kids have smoked dope. I hope our kids aren't nerds."

-"I don't know anyone who's 20 and hasn't taken E."

-"Sit down Gene."

-"If you're the proverbial black, Jewish, lesbian communist from the ghetto of Chicago, God help you."

-"To the chocolate fountain."

-"If I ever offended anyone with my loose words I apologize...Kareen."

Alright I'm headed to the pub soon, before Professor Serb's class this evening! Cheerio...

<3 London.

For the record...

Things are really starting to wind down--everybody is busy with final projects and papers and getting some of the last quintessential London things done before we leave in less than 2 weeks. This weekend was our 'love london' weekend, where there are lots of activities that the school puts together for all of us to do. On Thursday night it was a trip to the theater to see Billy Elliott, which was great. (Though quite long, and the Victoria line was closed for repair--go figure, so getting home could have been easier.) Then on Friday it was a tour of the Tower of London, and then a little detour by myself to Brick Lane on the (sketchy) east end for some browsing of the vintage shops.

And yesterday we all headed over to the QPR vs. Charlton 'football match' as they say. We were cheering for QPR and then won 1-0. I really don't get how these Europeans can be so into watching soccer. I mean it's fun to play I guess but 1-0? I can count on two hands the number of shots on goal there were in the entire game! They were basically just headering (I don't think that's a word) the ball back and forth.

It was cold and rainy, but a lot of fun. This is apparently the 'family friendly' league, although i have never heard such vulgarity out of the mouths of children under the age of 10 before. We also got an e-mail from our program director saying that Gisele Bundchen had been spotted on the arm of 'her boyfriend.' These British...in the U.S. we'd say Tom Brady was spotted on the arm of some Brazilian skank! (Or that's what I would say anyway.)

And last night it was over to O'Neills in Leicester Square to see a cover band play AC/DC, Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams, etc. (This however was not an organized school activity, but it was a lot of fun.) We got ourselves a semi-circle booth and immediately regretted that decision when we noticed a big pile of puke on the floor in the middle of the semi-circle. We investigated from afar for a while, trying to figure out what it was (even though deep down, we already knew.) Then some guy came over to claim his coat from the booth and stepped in it...to a chorus of our "Ohhhh Goddddd"'s. Even the employees would stare at it as they blazed on past--nobody wanted to deal with cleaning that up. Finally, someone came over with a mop, and was eyeing the boys suspiciously to try to decide who was responsible for it. They all blamed it on each other.

And now today it's work work work.

I am getting excited to go home, but I'm going to miss London so much! I haven't seen most of my family in over 3 months, which is the longest I've ever gone without seeing them. And, I am excited to start out the summer, figure out internship stuff, go to Vegas in 2 months! But meeting people in London and traveling all over Europe has been one of the best experiences of my life so far.

I've always said I want to live in a big city when I'm done with school (namely Chicago, but there are a lot of places that would be nice.) Still, I had only ever lived in suburbs before this and I had been wondering if I could really pull it off. But this proves it: it's been great--day to day life is so much more exciting when you're living somewhere that's the center of so much activity. (This also may play into me deciding whether to intern in Burlington, VT or NYC this summer...)

The time really has flown by here, and leaving in a week is going to be bittersweet. But I'll always think of London as one of my homes from now on!

Let's Play Catch Up

For the record...

The trip to Venice was great. It was relaxing, there was good food, and it was nice to see Dad on his birthday. The getting to and from Venice however was kind of a pain. I'm sick of airports and the millions of modes of transportation it takes to get there when you don't have a car! So I left on Friday and took two tube trains to get to the bus station, where it proceeded to start hailing. Then about 10 minutes later there were clear skies. I got to Gatwick, went through security and got a sandwich and I finished with all of that with 3 hours left until my flight took off. (I get really paranoid I'm going to miss things and leave way too early.) And of course, it took off late. (P.s. despite having ginormous orange planes, easyjet is wayyy better than Ryanair. No drunken Irishmen asking how old I was or passing out in the aisle and trying to steal cans of beer from the stewardesses cart.)

So we set off to Venice and everything was going smoothly until it was about time to land, and it started to get bumpy. So I thought...ok we're just going through some clouds and it's getting windy since we're starting to get lower. Then I see a flashing out my window and realized we had just descended into a thundercloud. It was cool to watch once we got far enough away that I didn't think we could possibly get struck...but when it was right outside I was freaking out!

So I got a bus to meet Dad, and we found out that the only way to get to our hotel was by waterbus. We stayed at a little place right next to the Rialto Bridge. So we checked in and then had dinner outside near the Grand Canal. The seafood was amazing! And then it was off to watch a little CNN and go to bed. On Saturday/Dad's birthday it rained for part of the day, but we did the touristy things anyway. San Marco Square (luckily no one got pooped on by pigeons), cappuccino, gelato and some pizza and "water with gas" for lunch. Those Italians make me giggle. Why can't they say bubbles instead of gas?

On the way back to the hotel, Dad found a restaurant that he really wanted to eat at because they had cantaloupe with proscuitto, but since Venice is all narrow alleys and canals, we had a hard time finding it and just ended up going somewhere else because it was raining really hard. We went back to the hotel a little while after that and were looking for something to do, but there wasn't anything except for bars and "discos." So we watched a documentary on Darfur instead.

On Sunday we went for a little boat ride out to the Murano glass factory, which is on an island that's just before you get into the open water of the Adriatic. It was pretty awesome to watch...however the tour was less about the glass making and more about Italian people trying to sell you 20,000 euro glass sculptures. (A lot of them were amazing, and then a lot of them were of two people making out...which was kind of weird.) Speaking of that, what is it with Italians? I can't tell you how many couples I saw fully making out in the streets. PDA is awkward anyway, but particularly when you're with your Dad who says "get a room." I mean, I know Venice is romantic and all but hold it together, people.

So then we finally went to the restaurant Dad wanted to find for dinner the night before, and I ended up getting sick after spaghetti pomodoro and a cappuccino. But we walked to the train station to get his ticket and to walk along the water since it got nice and warm in the afternoon anyway afterwards. Then it was out for the last dinner and gelato, to head out in the morning for another hectic day of travel. So after a boat, a bus, a plane, a train and two tube trains I finally got back to London for my last couple weeks!

Unfortunately those couple weeks are going to be filled with finals and figuring out summer internship stuff. I've been trying to get these people to talk to me since October and then in the span of one week I get three offers and now have to decide between them! Oh well. It's certainly better than the alternative. Alright off to dinner with Dad!

Thanks for listening and more later

~Jamie

15 Americans and a Wolfgang in Paris

For the record...

O.k. so if you have facebook you know that this isn't the first place I've used this title. But it's too good to pass up. I know it's been a while since the previous post, but of course there were the 3 nights in Paris and the 2 days it's taken to recover from a weekend running on 10 hours of sleep for 3 nights...(aka what I ideally get in one night.) But, after a 12 hour snooze on Sunday night, the fun times that were had proved to be worth it.

So let's start at the beginning...we took the Eurostar via the chunnel to Paris (much more original than flying) on Thursday evening. Who knew it only took 20 minutes to go underneath the English Channel? And plus, who isn't a little sick of airports at this point? (Although I am really looking forward to Venice this weekend...free food and hotel! And...it'll be nice to see Dad.)

So that night we got a complimentary drink on Syracuse University and listened to a Wolfgang speech/recitation of the itinerary, and then set off in search of food. Half of a margherita pizza later, we headed back to the hotel to go to bed and prepare for a very special wakeup call from the Prof. 5 hours of sleep later...there came a sharp rapping at the door, alerting us that it was time to get up, grab a croissant and head to the OECD and the World Bank to ask our questions.

We bussed it over and had three rounds of questions for people at the OECD. It was surprisingly interesting for the most part, considering that the vast majority of us hadn't heard of the international think-tank-esque organization much before the visit. Then we had an amazing and cheap lunch in the cafeteria there (white fish with shellfish sauce and fresh green beans...steak--not had by we vegetarians of course, and some sort of espresso mouse concoction) before trekking over to the World Bank for another round of questions. After waiting in the lobby on some comfy leather couches and admiring the defensive thick windows, we headed down to a padded room in the basement for an awkward hour where we interrogated a French woman who seemed to know little about the organization she worked for. The Prof made a habit of essentially saying to our four speakers 'I disagree with everything you just said but I think it is important for us because...' which contributed to further awkwardness.

Afterwards, we hit up some touristy attractions, like the Arc de Triomph and the Eiffel Tower, chased Red Bull cars, fended off gypsies and watched the cops break up the apparently illegal vendors of Eiffel Tower key chains under the statue itself. Then it was over for dinner at a restaurant nearby the tower (FYI: une crepe avec champignons et du fromage, aka a crepe with mushrooms and cheese, is not a good idea even if you're trying to be an economical vegetarian.)

Finally, we found a metro station with the help of a Frenchman who told the boys in the group to take the girls over to the Eiffel Tower to "smooch in the moonlight," we washed up at the hotel and met up to go out as a group. We headed over to a lounge in a neighborhood called 'Odeon' (made with real bits of panther...so you know it's good) where we stayed for a bit. Then, the majority of us went to another lounge in another neighborhood to avoid spending 25 euro for the cover charge at a club. We were navigated back to the hotel, where we all got about 3.5 hours of sleep for another Prof. door knock early the next morning.

I don't really know what exactly we got up for. It was pouring, and we went on a tour with this crazy french guide named Jean-Miguel or some crap, who wouldn't leave me alone the whole time because I 'looked mad at breakfast' and the Prof. told him my name. (Which he proceeded to pronounce 'Janie' for the remainder of the tour.) I had seen the majority of the sights in Paris, but the one thing I really enjoyed was going to the Pere-Lachese cemetery to see Jim Morrison's grave. Unfortunately, we also heard the nasty things kids do in the cemetery from the psychotic tour guide. And, we unfortunately missed the grave of Oscar Wilde, that homosexual. (Refer to the list of Professor Serb quotes.)

So then we spent a rainy afternoon scrounging up crepes and hanging out around Notre Dame. Then after a long, wet walk back to the hotel, a shower and a nap that lasted several hours, we were ready to meet up with the group for dinner and a night out on the town all together. We headed down the street for an extravagant dinner, which lasted until around 1 am, and the bill came to 425 euro for 15 people. (They gave us our own room upstairs.) P.s. pesto-stuffed gnocci (which is apparently pronounced 'nochi' is amazing.) Finally, we headed out to find a club to dance the night away in Paris. We succeeded, just a bit down the road, where we all went in and partied for the next few hours together. It was great--who knew you could have so much fun with a class? Maybe when I get more time (aka when I get home...since the end of the semester workload has begun to set in) I can put up pictures to illustrate the experience. The only thing that would have made the night better is if the Prof had been there himself. After another night of 3 hours of sleep, a group of us got up early and walked around the Louvre like zombies for a little bit. Then we headed back to meet up with the group to grab the Eurostar home. We passed the class quote list around and shared pictures and videos. We emerged from the chunnel to a snowy England.

The only thing I needed to cap off the weekend was a nice nap in the afternoon and then 12 hours of sleep into Monday afternoon to avenge the lost sleep over the weekend. I hope this hasn't been a 'you had to be there post'...and I will be sure to include quotes from the weekend later on!

Thanks for listening.

~Jamie

The J-Word

For the Record...

There have been a startling couple of entries to the laundry list of Professor Serb quotes!

A class field trip we took for one of my journalism classes yesterday to Al Jazeera English really got me thinking about my future profession. First of all, it was amazing, and I was really impressed by the devotion of everyone we talked to in making sure their news is unbiased. (If anyone carried it in the states, I would watch it.) Also, if we could see anymore of it, we would know that it isn't just bin Laden videos streaming 24/7. But there's my little mini-speech.

Talking to some of my fellow Newhousians, I have begun to think 'what have we gotten ourselves into?' Most of us are in the same boat at the moment--frantically searching for summer internships, and worried that if finding one of those is so hard, how are we going to find real jobs next year? (My stomach is churning at the thought.) I mean think about it...when you're going into a profession where your salary is dependent on selling newspapers...as we move towards a paper-less world. And it isn't just the fact that we're all competing against each other for the same jobs--the industry is changing so much that it needs less and less people. The Chicago Sun-Times let almost a third of their newsroom go several months ago to save money. And Al-Jazeera's cameras are all robotic! So much for camerapeople.

We all have our different reasons for deciding to study at a J-school. Some people are just naturally good writers and reporters. Some want to be the next Ted Koppel or Bob Costas (ayooooo!) Others went to college without any idea what they wanted to go into and settled on that. (One thing we don't go into the profession for: money. At starting salaries of around $20,000 a year, even if we do get jobs we'll be living in a box on the side of the road.)

My particular reason was something that happened about 10 years ago, before moving from Illinois to Connecticut. A bunch of Northwestern investigative journalism students were able to prove that several prisoners were innocent, some of whom were on death row and scheduled to be executed soon after. They saved their lives and helped influence Gov. Ryan to institute a moratorium on capital punishment in the state of Illinois. (Say what you want about him as a person--it's pretty incredible that they were able to do that.)

So there you have it. All there is that's left for me to do is go to grad school at NU to take that class, and then start working at The Trib. My life will be complete. Now if I could just find an internship...

On a somewhat lighter note, all of this talking about Chicago-related things has gotten me to thinking about the Cubbies, who had their season opener the other day! I'm not going to get into the heartbreaks of years past, or the fact that mine and every other fan's blood is boiling about the selling of the naming rights to Wrigley (but I will say WTF!?) but I will say, as we have hit the century mark this year since the last time they won the series, this is the year! (It better be...)

It's off to Paris tomorrow, for a weekend with Professor Serb. You can be sure there will be several posts on his antics when I get back!

Thanks for listening.

~Jamie