Lucky to Have Been Where I Have Been, Lucky to Be Coming Home Again

The title of this post is quote from one of my favorite songs, called Lucky, by Jason Mraz. And it pretty much sums up how I am feeling as I get ready to head back to the good old US of A. Although I should add that, to me, luck is synonymous with blessed, because I know that all the wonderfulness of this semester wasn't a random accident.

I almost can't believe that the semester is drawing to a close...it feels like yesterday that I was sitting in all of those pre-departure meetings in DeBartolo, getting overwhelmed by all I had to do before I left. But here I am, getting ready to go home. And as lovely as Londontown is, I am definitely ready.

This semester has been a whirlwind of excitement and adventure, ups and downs, happiness and challenges. They always told us that going abroad changes you for the better, and I'd like to think that I see that in myself after this semester. I feel more independent, grown up, and relaxed, of all things. Not in the sense that this has been a vacation, because it has been quite the busy semester, but in the sense that I have really learned to go with the flow and be open to adventure, and to just generally be much calmer in situations that otherwise would have completely freaked me out (read: getting to a Polish train station at 5 am--where no one speaks English--and just hopping on the train that we think will take us to Berlin is definitely not something I would have done in October; nor is eating Sri Lankan food).

Today I went on my last run along the beautiful Thames River, one of my favorite things to do here, and pondered the whole experience. I think that this has been my hardest semester yet, and definitely most different. It was hard for me to be away from my Home under the Dome and all the safety, comfort, and familiarity of Notre Dame. But I think that it was something that I needed to do. It would have been easy to stay at Notre Dame and live life as usual. Instead I stepped out of the box and out of my comfort zone. And at the end of the day, I am so happy and grateful that I came to London. It has been an incredible experience, between classes and my internship, traveling, and just living in such an amazing city. I think that is what I have liked best, living on my own and taking advantage of all that London has to offer. There is so much history and culture here, between the markets, museums, historical sites, and theatres. I still can't believe that I got to live here for four months. I'm thinking that it will sink in once I am home. But all in all, London was my favorite city in all of Europe. There is just nowhere like it. Other places are beautiful and special and I loved all my travels, but I was always so happy to return to London. Speaking of travel, I still can't believe how fortunate I was to travel as much as I did (or unfortunate, as the case may be for my bank account...). I've now been to eight countries. Eight. Another unfathomable and unforgettable aspect of this semester.

I feel like this is the perfect way to go out. I know that I will miss seeing Big Ben every morning on my walk to school (how could I not?), but I also feel ready to leave. I miss my family and my bed and my cell phone and American food. I'm lucky on both ends--lucky to have had a great semester and lucky to return to a wonderful life in the US, with an exciting summer of internships at home and then a fabulous senior year at ND!

Game, Set, Match

Part of the sadness/annoyance of my family not coming to visit a few weeks ago was having to cancel all the tickets and reservations that I had made for them. Doesn't get much more depressing that that. One of said reservations was for a tour of Wimbledon, site of my favorite Grand Slam tennis tournament. So I took matters into my own hands and decided that the best medicine would be to use as many of the tickets as I could, and I knew Wimbledon was not to be missed. So a few weeks ago, my roommate Kelly, her boyfriend Dan, and I all went to Wimbledon for the day.

The tennis lover in me was absolutely in heaven all day; I couldn't stop snapping pictures. And it just made me want to grab my racket and play. I am definitely going to have to get out on the tennis court again when I get home. And lots of friends at ND play as well, so there are going to have to be some matches when we get back to school next year (this means you, Nick and Sarah. Chris and I are going to make a comeback.) And Dan Crupi was a tennis star in high school (see? I remembered!) and Dan Masterton plays too, so hopefully I will be on the court a lot in the fall! And of course I'm looking forward to some doubles matches with my family this summer as well. You can see how anxious I am to get back on the court...but back to Wimbledon now.

It was so surreal to actually be at Wimbledon; I've seen it on TV for so many years that I couldn't believe I was actually walking around there. And yes, it is as green as it looks on TV. We got to see Centre Court and Court No. 1 and sit in the stands in both. I basically just looked around in awe at Centre Court. It blew my mind that I was at the site of such amazing tennis history, where legends like Pete Sampras, John MacEnroe, the Williams sisters, Billie Jean King, Lindsay Davenport, Roger Federer, and my personal favorite, Andy Roddick (maybe he hasn't reached legend status quite yet...), have played. And we sat in the press seats for that portion of the tour, which was pretty cool for the journalism nerd in me. It is going to be so much fun to watch the tournament this year and to be able to say that I've been there. We got to walk around the grounds and see the other courts, Henman Hill (or Murray Mount, as it is known these days), and hear our tour guide's little anecdotes about various Wimbledon Championships. The view of London from Henman Hill was so cool--you could just make out the London Eye. And then in the opposite direction is the adorable village of Wimbledon, which we spent a bit too much time walking through because of a GoogleMaps epic fail that led me to taking us to the wrong Tube station...whoops. At least it was a pretty neighborhood.
We also got to go inside some of the buildings and saw the interview room for the BBC where the champion does their post-match interview. They even had this little silver plate that looked like the Venus Rosewater Dish that the women's champion receives, so people could sit in the chair and pretend to hold the trophy. Which of course, I did. So this semester I won Wimbledon. And Dan (who also played tennis in high school) and I won the mixed doubles' championship as well. We're just that talented.
The exhibits in the Museum were amazing too. There was a lot of the history of tennis and the Championships, because it was the world's first tennis tournament. It actually first started because they needed money to buy a new roller-thingy to flatten out the grass to keep the courts in good enough condition to play. And there was this cool exhibit where a John MacEnroe hologram takes you on a tour of the men's locker room. There was also tons of memorabilia from past Wimbledons: dresses, shirts, shorts, and shoes worn by past players and champions. Maria Sharapova's sneakers with her name stitched into the back in 14 karat gold (a little excessive if you ask me...), Andy Roddick's sneakers from last year's epic final, several of Venus and Serena's dresses from their many Wimbledon finals. And of course the trophies themselves. The champions actually don't get to keep the trophies, which belong to the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Association. They get their own smaller replicas and then their names are engraved on the trophies. If I won Wimbledon, I'd be bummed that I didn't get to keep the actual trophy, but as a visitor to the museum, I was pretty pleased that they were there for me to see!

The quote above the entrance to Centre Court from the locker rooms (which we sadly didn't get to see) is by Rudyard Kipling, and I found it really thought provoking:
"If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same."

It's from a Rudyard Kipling poem about becoming a man (I'll forgive him the sexism...he was of his time period) and just really struck me as an interesting and inspirational idea. Both for the players going out onto Centre Court and little old me, reading the replica on the wall in the Wimbledon Museum. It seems like a good reminder to remain calm and true to yourself, no matter what comes your way, whether it was good or bad. Which was a nice reminder for me on a day that I was a little disappointed that my family wasn't there with me. Especially since I was still lucky enough to be in the company of good friends.

I should also mention the gift shop. Because it was basically a tennis player's dream. Balls, visors, hats, skirts, shirts, bags, rackets, posters, towels, you name it and they make it with a Wimbledon logo on it. I talked myself down from buying the 30-pound tennis skirt (even though it was so cute, with its little baby-blue accents...) and ended up buying a poster for my room for next year.

Definitely an unforgettable, tennis-y day. Here's the link for photos if you want to see more: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=12158950&l=54d84c6f4e&id=538960556

The London Bucket List

As we realized our time in London was quickly drawing to a close, the gang and I (the Dans, Megan, and Kelly) went to the Sir John Oldcastle pub down the street to make an utterly amazing bucket list for our last two and a half weeks here. We literally planned every day, right up until our last night (the London Eye, to "survey all we've conquered," dinner at our fav, Indian Veg, followed by The Horseshoe, the pub we went to on our very first night in London...a fitting end to the semester!).
And so far, the bucket list has exceeded our expectations (and trust me, they were pretty high). Here's what we've been up to:

• Picnics: Regent's Park, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, and St. James Park are all perfect spots for a picnic. Plus, London has been having some beautiful spring weather, so Friday afternoon has become picnic time for us. Lying on a blanket in the sun is the perfect way to end a busy week and get ready for a busier weekend. And its quite the contrast to our Friday afternoons earlier in the semester, when we were running around from place to place trying to fit in all the sites and sounds of London. And the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Park plays a big role in the movie that is the namesake of this blog, so I got to have another "Winning London moment."
  

• Markets: the world-famous Portobello Road was the perfect spot for some retail therapy after the disappointment of my family not visiting, and I picked up lots of great souvenirs for people. And I loved going to the market that is featured so prominently in one of my favorite Disney movies of all time, Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Brick Lane is the famous Indian market in London, but it also happens to be the best place to get basically any kind of ethinic cuisine imaginable. So the day we went to Brick Lane, I had some Sri Lankan chicken and rice for lunch. Yes, me. It was called chicken 65, which makes it seem a little less exotic, but its pretty cool to say that I've eaten Sri Lankan food. I picked it partially because it looked yummy, partially because Kelly ordered it first and let me try a bite of hers, and partially because Sri Lanka was the country on the map in my elementary school history books that fascinated me. Weird and random, yes, but it got me to try something new, so it's all good.
• Theatre: All semester long I said that seeing great theatre would be the one thing that I splurged on this semester and I have been trying to cram in as much as possible before we leave, because there are just so many great shows in London. A few weeks ago, the Dans and I saw Billy Elliot, about a little British boy in northern England who wants to be a ballet dancer, much to the chagrin of his miner father. It was a funny show, with absolutely amazing dancing. A lot of the British cultural references went over our heads, partially because of their accents and partially because we just didn't get it. And the fact that we were literally in the last row of the theatre may have had something to do with it. It was kind of comical to sit there and just look at each other confusedly as the entire theatre cracked up. But the tables were turned when Dan and Kelly and I went to see Avenue Q last week, because we got all the American jokes and references to New York that went over the British audience's heads. Avenue Q is a hilarious mockery of musicals starring puppets and we laughed literally every second of the show. It was a little "off-color" (as my mother would say), but still funny. We loved the "bad idea bears" that convinced the main character to make poor decisions, often involving beer and girls, and have been quoting them nonstop ever since. Tomorrow night we are going to see Les Miserables (despite the fact that I have two finals on Friday...but that's study abroad for you. Gotta take advantage of the city while I can!). I also took a class on London theatre as part of my fine arts requirement and got to see five amazing shows. Favorites were The 39 Steps, a mockery of Alfred Hitchcock films where four actors play all the parts; Taking Steps, at an intimate theatre in the round in beautiful suburban Richmond, Ruined, a play about women in Africa, and London Assurance, a hilarious play starring Fiona Shaw, who plays Aunt Petunia in the Harry Potter movies! And who could forget the best performance of them, the Dans and Kelly starring in the Playing Shakespeare class' adaptation of Twelfth Night. Their take on the play was utterly hilarious and we got to see Millenium Bridge and Shakespeare's Globe to boot.
  
• Going to Hogwarts: Ok, not really. But I came pretty close when Megan and I went to Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross, which is only about 20 minutes away from our flats. They took this little nook near platform nine in the National Rail part of King's Cross station and created a Platform 9 3/4, complete with a luggage trolley that looks like it is halfway through the wall and on the way to Hogwarts. Basically the cheesy Harry Potter tourist's dream. So naturally, we were in heaven.
• Booze Cruise, otherwise known as A Wholesome Boat Outing, as Dan M. dubbed it. It's a London Programme tradition to have a cruise on the River Thames at the end of the semester, and it was definitely one of the best nights of the whole semester. It was a blast to be with everybody, all dolled up and dancing on a boat on the Thames. Definitely a "what are we DOING right now!?" moment, as we like to call them. It actually felt a little bit like the prom, silly as it sounds...a fancy event at the end of the year, where everyone gets all excited to get dressed up and go out and have fun. And you can't beat the views...I don't think I'll ever forget sailing by Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament or underneath Tower Bridge. And of course spending an awesome night with all my friends and everybody in the program.

• Brighton: On our last Sunday in the UK, Dan M., Kelly, Megan, and I journeyed down to Brighton, a cute little town on the ocean. Unfortunately for us, the streak of beautiful weather ended just in time for us to go to the beach...it was rainy and probably around 50 degrees all day, which put a bit of a damper on our fun, but we made it work. We wandered along the pier and the shoreline, found every cardboard photo-op cutout in the town, window-shopped, and checked out the Brighton Museum (modern chair art alongside ancient Egyptian artifacts, wacky but cool). And then we found yet another Free House, our favorite chain pub, as well as this pub called The Evening Star, that is known as the best pub in the UK. And I loved it because they had delicious cherry beer like in Brussels!

And for more photos of London Bucket List antics: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=426526&id=538960556&l=83dd7552b0

Planetary Indulgences?

Rome. The Eternal City. Did no one read the info packets?

That's my favorite quote from The Lizzie McGuire Movie, my favorite movie about the wonderful city that is Roma. I was privileged to spend my Easter weekend there, with a bunch of other ND pilgrims, and it was definitely one of the best weekends of the semester. Here's why (in no particular order, of course):

1. gelato
2. throwing a coin in the Trevi Fountain
3. seeing my lovely roommate, Sarah Kathleen Ruszkowski
4. gnocchi
5. the Pope
6. pizza
7. seeing lots of other awesome ND people who I haven't seen all semester
8. nutella cookie
9. the Spanish Steps
10. Good Friday Stations of the Cross, with the Pope, at the Colosseum
11. ancient Roman ruins
12. Easter Mass with the Pope
13. beautiful spring weather and sunshine (except for the four hours on Sunday morning when we had to be outside for Mass, ironically enough. the bright yellow rain coat definitely came in handy)
14. absolutely stunning churches
15. seeing my "word," aka Chris Gautsch
16. relics of the saints and the Passion, including St. Francis' hand and St. Catherine of Siena's tomb
17. getting lost on the way back to the hostel on Saturday night and happening upon the Trevi Fountain again
18. touring the Vatican Museums
19. seeing the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
20. the Pantheon

The whole experience as just amazing, to be surrounded by so much history and so much good food. ;)
And of course, Easter Mass at the Vatican in St. Peter's Square was an experience like no other. There was quite the crowd, which was amazing to see, so many people joined together in worship and celebration. Although the crowd did lend itself to lots of pushing and shoving, which was a little ironic at the Vatican, of all places. The most emotional experience of the weekend was climbing the steps from Pontius Pilate's palace, that Jesus walked up and down immediately before and after being condemned to death. It is customary for pilgrims to go up the steps on their knees, saying a prayer on each one. It was a little painful to go up such a large flight of stairs on my knees, but that was fitting, after all. It was just so moving to be on those stairs, on Good Friday, around 3 pm. It made the Passion seem more real to me, in a way, or more immediate. There was a painting at the top of the stairs of Jesus on the Cross, that was in clear view the entire time, a constant reminder of Jesus' sacrifice. Definitely a moment I will never forget.

Another unforgettable moment: when our knowledgeable, but nervous, tour guide in the Vatican Museum was talking about plenary indulgences and accidentally referred to them as planetary indulgences. So all weekend the running joke was, "If we do _____, will we get a planetary indulgence?"

All in all, a fabulous weekend, but also a whirlwind. There was so much that we saw, but also so much that I would love to go back and see. I didn't get to explore the ruins nearly as much as I would have liked to. A perfect excuse to go back someday!

And for more pictures of beautiful Roma: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=413182&id=538960556&l=51dd8049cd

More of My Favorite Place

Now that I realized that I can post videos to this blog (yes, I know, a little late in the semester), here are two of the amazing band at the pub in Galway!

Passport to Paris

The marathon of traveling continued after my weekend in Galway with a weekend in beautiful Paris. The title of this post is yet another shout out to my days as an Olsen twin fan. Paris looked amazing to "middle school Maura" when I watched that movie, but it was even better in person. Everyone always says that Paris has character and this special life to it, and they are exactly right. It's hard to describe and hard to pinpoint, but it's definitely true. Sitting under the Eiffel Tower, as it glittered (which it does once every hour each night) and eating a nutella crepe, I just felt the vibrance of the City of Light and was so so happy to be there.
We got in on Friday night and booked it to the famous Louvre, since they have this deal where you can get in free after-hours on Friday, and Megan and Kaitlin and I love being smart, money-saving travelers. Since it was pretty close to closing time, we did the Louvre on fast forward, hitting the Mona Lisa, the Parthenon statues, the Venus de Milo, and attempting to find the Code of Hammarabi (which took me back to sixth grade social studies with Mrs. Soule!) before they kicked us out because they were closing the galleries. Then we took a nice evening stroll along the Seine River to see the Eiffel Tower and have our crepes.

Saturday and Sunday consisted of hitting all the best and most famous sites of beautiful Paris: the Arch de Triomphe (which is not, in fact, behind the Louvre. That is another arch that we all have an embarassing amount of pictures of because we heard some French lady call it the Arch de Triomphe as she walked by...), the Champs de Elysses, the Eiffel Tower again (where we climbed all 700+ steps to the top--what a workout!), the Bastille neighborhood (which really made me want to re-read A Tale of Two Cities, so it's first on my summer booklist), the famous Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral, where we went to Palm Sunday Mass, the Moulin Rouge, and Montmarte, the adorable neighborhood up on a hill with the best views of the city!
We also went to the Musee d'Orsay, an impressionist museum, where I decided that Degas is my favorite impressionist painter. I'm not quite how I became cultured enough to have a favorite impressionist painter, of all things. But I've seen his work at many of the museums I've been to this semester and even wrote a paper for my London Writers class comparing his painting to Virginia Woolf's stream of consciousness writing in Mrs. Dalloway, so I've seen a lot of Degas this semester. I just love how he captures a snapshot of motion, whether he is painting a scene of people or his favorite, ballet dancers. His work seems to capture the essence of a scene, while the subjects aren't looking. And it doesn't hurt that he uses the most beautiful colors, either.
And on Saturday night we went to an awesome jazz club to hear live jazz. It was in this underground club where apparently Robespierre and his people would hang out during the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution and plot to kill people. So a little bit morbid, but also really cool, historically speaking, and as a jazz club. The band was amazing! And their lead singer spoke English, so we knew what was going on, which was great. It just felt so classy and European, to be in a jazz club in Paris. Here is a video of one of the songs they played:

And since this was Paris, Megan, Kaitlin, and I naturally continued our food tour of Europe with pain au chocolat, croissants, beignets, French bread, and crepes--delicious!

And for more Paris photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=410045&id=538960556&l=340f5ed3ea