June 9, Day 18

So we were up early for the train. No breakfast, no time for anything. We were off to the subway. Got on one, headed to our stop. Then we noticed Dani was nowhere to be found in transition between that train and another one to another line, don’t know when or how she got lost, but in the subways and when we have to make a train- tough luck really. Got on our second subway train headed to the train station. Unfortunately this train was having technical problems and was taking entirely too long so we randomly ditched it to find a faster one on a different line. Got to that train and noticed Abbie was nowhere to be found. That’s two. We had more hope for Abbie finding our train because we know she knew what station we were going to and had an itinerary with her. Regardless, we moved on because we were cutting it incredibly close. Armon stayed back to look for Abbie once we were at the train station while the rest of us ventured on to find our platform. After finally finding it and running onto the train around 9:02am (the train was to leave at 9:10am) we sat and waiting. Eventually around 9:12am they announced that the 9:10 train was cancelled and was now also the 9:35am train. This was good news for me because I was starving, and we had 25 minutes until departure, so I got tea and a pain au chocolat ^_^ We got back on the train and started moving leaving Dani and Abbie behind. Armon apparently got a call from Abbie’s mom- I guess when she got lost the first thing she did was cry and call her mom, which would have helped the situation a lot. Ha. As Armon was on the phone with Abbie’s mom we heard yelling or something then Abbie magically appeared in our train car. Apparently some nice lady saw her sobbing hysterically, offered her her phone to call someone, and helped her get to the train she needed, and after getting to the train she found out that it was now the 935 train, and risked getting on it and taking a chance. A woman, after hearing her story, suggested she walk the train and look for us. And that’s when she ran into Armon who had exclaimed ‘SHE’S RIGHT THERE!!!!’ to Abbie’s mom on the phone which is the yelling we heard. What a great morning. Moral of the story: learn to keep up. Hopefully those two get it now haha. When we need to make a train, we need to make a train, so hopefully now some of us understand a sense of urgency. Two hours and 20 minutes later we arrived at our destination, and headed out to find the National Medium Museum. Here we wandered around a bit at first waiting for a curator to take us back to the collection and what not (we had specially arranged that or something). After waiting for about an hour (which sucked because we were all without lunch and tired) we finally found the person who was showing us around. She took us and showed us the entire archives of some British newspaper, then showed us a small objects collection room that had walls of cases enclosing tons of old cameras and things and even gaming systems which they had recently begun collecting. Very cool. She then showed us the Large objects collection room which just had a ton of old tvs and video cameras and such. After that she took us to a room with photographs she had pulled out specifically for us. This is where we saw some original work by Julia Margaret Cameron (who’s museum we’ll be visiting eventually on the trip) i.e. her photograph ‘Sir John Herschel’, one I particularly like. We also got to see some of Talbot’s original work (the one who invented the negative and lived at the Lacock Abbey) like his infamous photo ‘Open Door’. Pretty stinkin cool. There was a mysterious black box that was all sealed and tied up sitting on the table. We asked what it was and apparently it contain the first ever negative. I touched the box. Haha pretty awesome. That was fun to see all of those things and to be in the presence of the beginnings of photography was pretty fun. We moved onto another room where we saw a few other famous photographs in the history of photography, i.e. ‘Fading Away’, and this room also had original props and such from movies- I saw Frankenstein’s eyeballs. That was neat. After she showed us everything they’d prepared, we went down and ate at the museum café, and then were free to tour the museum ourselves which is really a museum of motion pictures and movies and cienema. They also started collecting video games, which I mentioned. They had a video / arcade game station for people to play in. I played a game of Galixian specifically for my dad, got a photo too. There were other classics like centipede, pac man, donkey kong, frogger, etc. They had actually gaming systems set up too. A sega, where I played a few games of Sonic, a Super Nintendo where I played a few games of the original Mario Kart, an n64 where they had goldeneye 007, and they even had Pong. I played Pong, it was so boring hahahah. But it was cool to actually play the game that started everything. I loved the whole video game experience because one thing I miss a lot is playing video games. Haha.
On the train ride back I read more of my book, Carrie, which I love. We went out to a nice dinner, another Italian restaurant that was SO GOOD. I had the most incredible bruschetta in the entire world. After that I hit up the ATM and Market to buy some pistachios and chocolate. I came back and was by myself for a bit, which I loved. I found the Exorcism of Emily Rose on tv, one of my faves, and got to see a bit of it, then I found the Illusionist on another channel, not a favorite, but entertaining nonetheless. I sat and watched movies and had tea, and a bit after that we got the internet to share and after waiting for everyone else to use the computer I go to skype my mom, dad, and PANTS (our cat, Strider, who is nicknamed ‘Pants’) for the first time in a few weeks!! I even eventually got to skype Zach for a few minutes, which was really really awesome. And afterwards I was told ‘you get all giggly when you talk to your boyfriend’ and I said yup.

My favorite words to hear English people say, and I hear these often, are ‘Cheers!’ and ‘Smashing!’ I mean I’ve heard that stuff in the movies, but I never knew that they actually said things like that here. It’s hilarious / awesome. Also, London weather is interesting weather. I like Kansas weather more (never thought I’d say that) It’s all way overcast, and seems to always be sprinkling. Whenever there’s any sun, it’s just a quick glimpse through the clouds maybe after a bit of a more normal steady rain. It’s kind of chilly here, which is one thing I love. I can’t imagine how hot it’s been back home. Ugh. Friday and Saturday we’re all signed up to do these Ghost Tours of London, which I’m quite excited for. Other than that tomorrow and Friday are free days. I’ll probably be tagging along and what not like normal.

June 8, Day 17

Up earlyish and off to breakfast. Two cups of tea to begin the day. I guess I could say something about a traditional English breakfast, which is actually quite revolting and is why I only get the continental breakfast. A regular English breakfast consists of various things like eggs, a muffin or croissant, some slice of bacon ham thing, baked beans and some sort of blood sausage link thing. Oh and tea of course. So every morning I always get one croissant, two mini blueberry muffins, a box of frosted flakes to eat later, and go through generally two cups of tea. I keep it simple and American I guess. Haha. Today’s destination was the Nation Gallery and National Portrait Gallery. Museum museums everywhere but not a drop to drink. I’m starting to almost get museum-ed out. Anyways, off to the subway to the National Portrait Gallery. I saw a few interesting photos I liked here, minus some Warhol portraits. I’m not the biggest Warhol fan. It’s like, good for him for thinking of what he did and doing with pop art what he did, but I generally hate pop art anyways and hate bright vivid colors, and that’s exactly what Warhol is. Plus he’s gay. HAHAH. No really I just don’t like his work. Unfortunately, they had an Irving Penn exhibition, but it was closed. I love Irving Penn, and was excited to see his work, only to be shutdown. How sad. After walking everywhere, I headed to meet the group at the café there. Had myself two cups of tea. Delish. Then it was off to the National Gallery which was not quite as large as the Lourve, but entirely booked with paintings and only paintings. I actually did see a lot of artists I’ve studied and a few I actually really like, namely Anthony Van Dyck and especially Peter Paul Rubens. Others I saw and recognized included Carvaggio, Monet, Manet, Surat, and many others that I can’t recall. After spending too long staring at a billion paintings, four of us headed out for lunch, and we could not have picked a more awkward place to eat. From the look of it on the outside, it looked like a simple sandwich and pastry shop, but once inside it turned into an incredibly cheaply decorated awkward looking restaurant with awkward waiters and food. The menus given to us after we were seated were like a foot by two feet and there were no words really, just pages and pages of pictures of what the food is. Easton and I split some pizza he wanted… it was like a tex mex pizza? It was the most mysterious pizza I’ve ever eaten. There were chunks of something on it that we were even daring one another to eat- that’s how odd it was. Hah. After eating we went back to the town where our hotel is I had some chill time and was again reminded how much I love my ‘Kacie time’. (In my journal I wrote “love kacie time” and I was like ‘what? Everyone decided to love on kacie time? I misread it and what I meant was ‘I love my personal, to myself, kacie time’ haha) Everyone else was either not back yet, or preparing for our critique in an hour and a half or so. Since I can’t really do anything for critique, I decided I could just count the number of rolls of film I had taken thus far. It turned out to be five, which having been abroad nearly two and a half weeks, that’s kind of pathetic it seems. But after thinking about it and doing some math, 5 rolls of film, each at 36 exposures equals 180 frames. 180 film photos is actually quite a bit. So I had to sit through the critique where I sit and listen to everyone talk about the supposedly few photos they’ve chosen from their collection thus far that are supposed to go along with the series aim and idea they pitched at the previous critique. Really all it ever turns out to be it people saying I have this, this, and this tell me what to do now. So odd to me, because I mean feedback is great, but I hate suggestions from others about how to change my work. I think everyone here really doesn’t know what they want to do- like they’re taking the photos and then deciding what they want their series to encompass, where as I prefer things to happen the other way around: choose what I’m aiming for, and then shoot following those set guidelines. It makes more sense to me, and also saves me a lot of time and editing I would assume in the end because I’m not taking a bunch of random photos of things that I think are pretty.
After a boring critique I had a crappy dinner at the hotel restaurant. Worst dinner I’ve had on the entire trip, not to mention crappy service. I was relieved to finally get back from dinner around 1045 so I could hit the sack and prepare for the early morning that would follow.
And by this point my knee is doing LOADS better, and I’ve been sleeping fabulously thanks to my ipod, with the exception of occasional waking up from snoring because one of the snorers keeps crashing in our room. That’s because it’s the community room. Whatever.

June 7, Day 16

We had to get up pretty early to ensure we got to our train in plenty of time to get to Lacock. I got tea and an apple turnover at a café by the subway station to tide myself over since we didn’t have time to have breakfast at the hotel. Subway to the train, train to Lacock. Not only were we going to get to tour the Lacock Abbey, the home of William Henry Fox Talbot, the inventor of the photographic negative, but we were also going to do a workshop with the curator for the museum and make salt prints!! As for museum visits as a whole, this one is my favorite thus far, and I think it’s because I was allowed to be hands on. I learn best that way really. I’m a visual hands on person, so today was perfect for me. After getting an explanation of how to make salt prints and a tour of the darkroom (my home away from home), they sent us off to grab a quick lunch before we really dove in. I had tea and little sandwiches as a tea shop just across the tea. It was awesome. Just a quiet little tea and sandwich shop on the corner of town. And town, mind you, that being Lacock, is literally only one square block. Very small, but very nice and quaint. After having lunch, I WENT TO HOGWARTS!!!! Don’t worry, I had others take photos of me in the hallways of Hogwarts, and I’d post them on here, but they have to get their photos uploaded and everything first, and that will take awhile seeing as we all have very VERY limited internet. Anyways, that in itself was quite an experience… walking in the same steps as the Harry, Ron and Hermione. I touched the walls of Hogwarts. BAHH!! So after walking around we eventually ventured into the house, erm, mansion. We were allowed to walk all over the house and in all of the rooms. I stood in front of Talbot’s infamous ‘Latticed Window’, or the window that is subject of the first ever negative. That was quite fun. Once we were done touring we headed back to the darkroom to make our own salt prints! Now, salt printing is specific to Talbot- it’s the method he found in ‘light writing’ or photography that worked best for him and he really perfected it. What you do is prepare a piece of paper with sodium chloride (HENCE the name SALT print). You just wet the surface with it, and then dry it. After the paper is dry you then add a layer of silver nitrate which when combined with the sodium chloride becomes light sensitive. So really you can to the sodium chloride layer in normal lighting situations, but you need a darkroom for the silver nitrate part. After drying the paper one last time, you can place it in a negative carrier with various plants and vegetation arranged however you want on top. Then all you do is lay it outside to expose. Easy as pie. I made 3 prints, it was a fun experience for sure. After we were done work shopping in such we just looked around the town a bit then took a double decker bus back to the train station. I rode on the top level at the very front on the left side of the bus, and let me tell you, it was sooo weird. I did have a few freak out moments where I thought the driver was turning left to go into the right lane on another street and it turned out he was like turning right in the complete opposite direction on the left side of the street. The UK is weird. After getting back to our area of town, a few of us ate dinner before going back to the hotel. I had an absolutely scrumptious meal at an Italian restaurant called zizzi’s. Though we had to wait awhile to be seated, our food came out surprisingly fast and was divine. After getting back to the hotel we just hung out, and I guess everyone and their mom wanted to watch 28 Weeks Later, a movie I had brought. There were six or so of us all squeezed into the hotel room... not really the ideal situation I want to be in to watch a movie, but I had to stay because it was my movie and I felt obligated to be there. It’s a good movie, not as good as the first, and was nice to see it again, but I was just kind of bothered throughout the entire film. When I get crowded, I get antsy, and I also feel like my hearing is amplified to where I can hear every movement, every crunch of someone eating food, every time someone swallows, even heavy breathing. It drove me insane and took away from my movie enjoyment. Not to mention the talking and asking questions happening throughout it which is a huge pet peeve of mine anyways. I guess I sound quite irritable, but I feel like some may be able to understand how I felt. Maybe. I just can’t stand when my space is invaded. Honestly at this point I was already tired of Jen’s and my room having been dubbed ‘the community room’ pretty much. My roommate in Paris, Dani, was never there, and that was perfect for me, because I always had a place to escape to. My room. This whole experience with my room being the community room is bringing back memories from my sophomore year of college when our dorm room was pretty much the community room and my space was constantly invaded. Oh well. It will be over soon

On the brighter side, I had 7 cups of tea. That’s a record, and I definitely couldn’t even go the whole night without waking up having to go to the bathroom. Haha.

June 6, Day 15

Nice relaxing morning with a lovely breakfast we’ve paid for at the hotel. I started the day off with about 3 cups of tea. Awesome. Today was a free day, so we could do whatever we wanted. When it has come to free days, I’ve generally just tagged along with everyone else because I don’t really know anything about where I am and would rather just let other people do the talking and planning. Yes, I’m lazy, but I don’t care. I just like to say I’m extremely easygoing. Everyone decided to go to the Tower of London, which I’m sure everyone knows what that is. I had no idea. Basically it was a large palace thing with a bunch of medieval stuff in it. I actually thought it was quite boring. I’m not so interested in history and historical artifacts and all that, but when it comes to Photography that’s a bit of a different story being involved in the medium myself. Maybe if I liked to sword fight and wear knight’s armor and jousted in my spare time I would have appreciated being there a little more. HAH. After we finally left there we decided to check out something we’d seen in add for on a map we have. It was called The London Bridge Experience and London Tombs- definitely sounds like my cup of tea, no pun intended. [little sidenote, a few of us stopped by subway before heading onward because we were hungry. I was quite amused by the fact that I literally ate a subway sandwich ON A SUBWAY!!! Hahahah] First of all to get there we walked across the London Bridge, and as I told my mom on skype, no, it did not fall down. Turns out the London bridge experience was like a history lesson interactive thing that lead into visiting the London Tombs, aka a haunted house. It was just like the ones in downtown KC. I absolutely loved it. We had to walk through the whole thing in a single file line holding the shoulders of the person in front of us. It was so fun. It started off with walking through a dark hall and we kept bumping into things- turns out they had like severed heads and limbs and bodies hanging from everywhere. Absolutely hilarious. It was a fun time, there was one point which I didn’t like so much though actually. One thing that has always even made me a little uneasy in scary movies is if the characters have to squeeze themselves through some tiny little tunnel or something. They actually had a section in this haunted house called ‘the big squeeze’ where there was a long hall lined with these black mats that you literally had to squeeze yourself through. I really didn’t like that. I thought I was going to get stuck and suffocate and die. But I’m alive so it’s okay. Of course the whole tour ended with walking into a room decorated to look like a butcher’s shop, and when we passed a certain point a dark figured reved up a chainsaw and started swinging it at us. It was awesome.
We were all pretty hungry afterwards, well I was. Other people just wanted a drink. So we stopped at a little pub restaurant and ate / people had drinks. I was the odd one out, as usual, everyone had alcoholic drinks while I had tea. Ha. I did also have a delicious asparagus and pea risotto along with my tea. The food in London, like I said, really isn’t so bad after all. Once we were back at the hotel everyone went out to the bars and I was the only one who stayed in, which usually tends to be the case. But in all honesty I like when everyone else goes out—I finally get to have some legitimate time to myself. I treated myself to a few cups of tea, some dry frosted flakes I saved from breakfast, and hung out and watched tv in ENGLISH. It was a nice ending to the day for me, and I was really excited to go to bed for Lacock Abbey the next morning… aka I’m GOIN TO HOGWARTS!!!!!

June 5, Day 14

We didn’t have to be up and ready to go until 11, so that was nice. Two days in a row I was able to sleep in. I love my sleep. We took the subway to the train station where eventually we had to go through customs and such because we were leaving France. The security guy who stamped my passport was particularly rude to me. He asked why I was going to London, and I explained that I was on a study of photography trip with other students and professors. I had to show him my itinerary and what not and he was asking about the places I had been. The problem with this entire conversation was that we were in a hurry, he spoke really quietly, and I wasn’t used to the English accent just yet so it was difficult to hear and understand him. He was asking me what I thought of Avingnon. And I repeated, ‘what did I think of it?’ to confirm I had heard him correctly and he responded ‘Yes, do you think much of anything?’ I went on about being in southern France compared to Paris, the busy city. I said I’m definitely going to miss the food to which he said, ‘So you don’t think the food in London will be good at all?’ I really could not believe how rude this guy was being. Eventually I mentioned how excited I was for tea and that made him lighten up and he remarked that ‘No one can make tea like we can’ or something along those lines. I mean I know it’s their job to question why a traveler is going places, but he had no reason to question my intelligence and what not. Definitely gave me a bad first impression of the English. If he hates his job so much maybe he should quit. Ugh. Anyways, at this point there were only three of us, that being Dani, Easton and myself, at the train platform with twenty or so minutes to spare (When it comes to trains, that is cutting it seriously close.) We had lost a good chunk of the group from the very get go when Dani and I got stuck before even getting through the subway because our little subway tickets wouldn’t work, even though they were unused. So we had to get them replaced while Armon advised Jen to take the rest of the group on and make their way to the train station. After we were through and at the train station stop, the rest of the group was nowhere to be found, so Armon stayed behind to wait for them while the rest of us, just three, went on. Long story short apparently the rest of them had gotten lost in the subway, which is easy to do because there are tunnels and long caves going every which way and tons of arrows pointing this way and that. Eventually everyone showed up to the train in enough time to board and find our seats which was so lucky. Having missed a train the very first day and knowing how stressful, not to mention EXPENSIVE that was, I was not going to let that happen to me again. This train went under the English channel, better known as the chunnel. We went underwater which is cool, but really it was just black for some period of time. We took the subway to our stop and made our way to our hotel which is only two blocks or so from the subway station. The hotel we’re staying in is an absolute maze. The entrance and reception area are on one side of the street, but to get to all of the rooms you have to go up stairs to find some over-the-street walkway tunnel thing to a separate building that encases all of the rooms which in itself is quite maze like. It reminds me a lot of the dorms actually. It’d be quite similar to them if every customer in the hall opened their door haha. It’s still a nice hotel compared to many we stayed in while in France. It’s quite roomy, and has a large bathroom. My favorite part: unlimited tea. We have our own electric teapot and bowl of free tea and sugar and milk that accessible whenever the heck I want and it’s the most amazing thing in the world.
After having set all of our things in our rooms we set out to find dinner. On the same street as the subway station I found a Starbucks (win) and also the English bank that partners with Bank of America, my bank, back home which is fabulous because I only have a 1% charge there. Yayyy. We ate at an Indian restaurant. I’ve never really had Indian food. My meal was alright, I mean I didn’t love it, but it was definitely tolerable and satisfying. Afterwards we hit up the market and I got some pistachios and a box of earl grey tea for myself.

I made a little table in my journal jotting down the things I’m “stoked for” and “not so much”. It reads as follows:
Stoked for:
-regular M&M’s
-tea
-English language
-breakfastz
-staying in one place
Not so much:
-food
-complicated subways
-no internet

All of that still pretty much holds true, kind of. The M&M’s here are quite different- the chocolate tastes odd- kind of malty. The food isn’t as bad as I expected (the guy at customs would be glad to know I said that) and the subways, known as ‘the tube’ here really isn’t as complicated as everyone made it seem. As long as you know how to read things and can map out your destination, you’ll be just fine.
A lot of people have been talking about wanting to see Stonehenge on a free day… I have no interest. I understand its significance and importance and what not and have seen a billion pictures. I just don’t feel like spending money to go see a bunch of huge rocks stacked upon one another. Hahah. Sounds like something Zach would say. I’m stoked to pretty much go to Hogwarts- we’re going to be going to Lacock Abbey, where they filmed scenes from the Harry Potter films of the students in the hallways of Hogwarts. AWESOME. And by this point my knee is doing great and much improved- prayer has been awesome that’s fa sho.

June 4, Day 13

DISCLAIMER: long post, mostly because it’s a large reflection on my feelings about France and the trip thus far. Just a warning.

This was our last day in Paris, and we had a free day and were allowed to spend the day doing whatever we wanted. I actually had a suggestion and idea of something that I personally wanted to do for once. (Well I guess the bikes in Avingnon was my idea too. I just have good idea because I’m so awesome.) I picked up a brochure next to the elevator in the Holiday Inn about a permanent Salvador Dali museum some ways away from the city. I thought oh that’d be awesome if I could go see that. It turned out that other people were interested too which I was stoked about. So this is how my free day went: Starbucks, Sandwiches, Dali Museum, Hard Rock Café, Grand Arch, tourist shopping. Definitely a full busy day, and well worth it for the most part.

Of course I started out my day right again with an iced latte and pain au chocolat- my newfound love. I didn’t eat anything at the sandwhich shop because I’d just had a pastry. Natasha had bought internet for herself the night before this day and had gone online and mapped out all of our destinations and figured out which subway lines to take where and what not etc. etc., so that was pretty awesome. Our first destination was the Dali museum. We took the subway to wherever Natasha chose, and then walked a ways looking around for it. Eventually we did find it. It was awesome. I love Salvador Dali. He’s an artist I’ve known about since the beginning of high school and one I’ve always loved researching and finding more out about. At this museum they had a lot of his sculptures, numerous prints he had made, and throughout the museum they had various photos of him and tons of quotes of his. To put it simply, it was magical and I loved every minute of it. It was awesome to be in the presence of many original work of Salvador Dali. Definitely a cool experience. After we were done wandering around the museum, Natasha really wanted to go to the Hardrock Café she’d looked up. So we did. It was nice to have a restaurant menu in English again for once, and our waiter spoke seemingly fluent English, which was nice as well. I definitely was at a point where I was ready to hear the English language again. I was getting tired of not knowing what the heck I was ordering at restaurants and having to use sign language to communicate with anyone. My meal was decent… I mean it was American, and now I really prefer French food over American food any day. Once we ate Matt wanted to go to the Grand Arch, which is kind of like a modern version of the Arc de Triumph.. and you can actually see one from the other, which really bothers me actually. I don’t like being able to see the old antique roman arch then a huge modern square box off in the distance, but that’s just me. So we went there, I just followed people around because I wasn’t too interested in seeing a large square monument. It was nice to walk around though. I love walking, and that’s a good thing because I’ve walked more on this trip than I have any other time in my life.. or so it seems. I wanted to do some specific tourist shopping back where I saw things I wanted near the Notre Dame, so we headed back there as our last stop of the day. I got what I was looking for and we just headed back to the hotel from there.

It was a long day, lots of walking and visiting places, but that’s what everyday here has basically consisted of. It’s mostly sightseeing with a touch of photography and history lessons here and there. Plus shooting whenever I feel the need when we’re out and about. I was proud of myself to have spent all of my euros except for 0.18. Money souvenir I guess. I didn’t go out to dinner or anything, but I had half of a goat choose, tomato, lettuce baguette sandwich left over from another day, plus a half litre of European coke that I had to finish (no problem), and some candy- so there’s a full meal right there.

Thinking of how I felt about leaving France, I feel like it’s kind of bittersweet really. I made a little pros and cons table in my journal and this is what it turned out to look like:

(keep in mind this is kind of comparing what France has vs. what England has, or what I thought England would probably have)

Pros Neutral Cons

-food -dirty -language

-coffee -smoke -rude people

-pastries -$$$

-language -subways

-noise

So basically the pros were really what France has that England doesn’t, the cons are what England has that France doesn’t, and the neutral things are what both I’m assuming have, but I don’t really like nor dislike… except that was a lie because the first three listed under neutrals are all things that I don’t necessarily like.

I feel like I should kind of explain my thinking behind everything I listed, starting with the pros of France. The food, I shouldn’t have to say much about that- the food in France rules and I know London’s food won’t be as great. Coffee- another thing that shouldn’t need explanation- you can get a delicious fresh shot of espresso anywhere you go in France, and I love that. Pastries I guess fall under food as well, but when it comes to France I think they definitely deserve their own little subcategory because they’re all so extravagant and extra delicious. The language for me is a good and bad thing; bad: I barely know any French, and therefore it has made it a little more difficult to navigate around and communicate with people, but good: for things like when it comes to what I’m aiming for in my photography series from this trip. My reasoning behind that is that as I’ve stated earlier I’m going along the Street Photography route, and Street Photography is generally candid shots of people on the streets, out and about, doing what they want to do. It’s easier to get away with candid shots if you don’t speak the language of wherever you are because 1) people are more forgiving and understand that I’m a touristy American who they’ll never see again so they don’t care if I take a candid photo of them and 2) if someone does get angry, I won’t understand what they yell at me, and can therefore play the innocent unaware foreigner card. It’s perfect, and I’ll definitely miss that in England.

Moving on to the neutral column: the dirtiness. It’s incredibly dirty in France. The streets, the people, the bathrooms, (even though you usually have to pay 0.50 euro to even use a bathroom that supposedly is used to pay the employees who are supposed to clean them), everything just feels dirty in general. It also kind of smells too. I mean just walking down the street, quite often you can be just randomly hit with some mysterious stink that the wind has picked up. Not necessarily the most appealing thing about being in France. I was sure that England would kind of be the same way. Oh, the smoke. Everybody smokes. I think I’ve said something about that already. I mean I prefer walking through clouds of cigarette smoke to cigar smoke any day, but all the time, everywhere, everyone is always smoking. Quite convenient though, for those on the trip who do smoke. I did expect people to smoke in France, duh, but I had no idea that literally everyone I saw would. It’s kind of disgusting thinking about how blackened all of the citizens’ lungs are. Sucks for them. The money. Obviously in France, the currency is euros, and euros are more expensive than dollars, thus making everything more expensive. I know that pounds in England are even worth more than a pound, which makes everything even MORE expensive, which is just dumb, but I mean I chose to come here so I can get over it. The subways aren’t really something that I really mind that much. I put it in neutral because I feel like it can be a good and bad thing. Great system of getting around, but terrible if you get lost. And it’s also not the best thing in the world when you have over 40lbs. of luggage to lug around with you, because subways and metros move fast, and it’s hard to move fast when you’ve added weight to yourself. I’m going to have big biceps when I get back from all of the lifting and carrying and dragging I’ve done. They told us no rolling bags, but they were wrong, because everyone in Europe has a rolling back, and if I would have brought one I wouldn’t suffer from collar bone and shoulder bruises and neck abrasions from whenever I spend a day transferring and traveling. They look cool though so I’m over it. Lastly in the neutral list is the noise. Going to bed at night in France always sucked, because I don’t think the city ever sleeps with the exception of Sunday night. There’s always some festival or crazy party going on. There’s always some really loud karaoke bar nearby, or just any bar in general. I actually expected France to be a little more tame and quite. It could have a lot to do with the locations of our hotels and what not, but still- it’s been loud every night, and I hate that.

Finally, the cons. Language as I said earlier goes both ways. It sucks not being able to understand what is going on around you, then again sometimes it’s nice to be so isolated in some new country. It can easily go either way depending on the person. I loved it at first, but found myself frustrated towards the end of the trip- I just wanted to be able to read signs again and communicate with people correctly and properly without resorting to caveman motions to get points across. Interesting though, how even though people may not speak the same language, that we can still find some way to say what we’re trying to say. That’s precisely what makes us human. We can reason. Curiouser and curiouser. Rude people were here and there in France. We definitely got some dirty looks and glares and what not, but I also think that may have had a lot to do with our group as a whole, which sometimes I like and sometimes I hate. The thing I hate about our group is how loud people can get. That even bothers me back in America. I don’t like loud people, which is so hypocritical of me to say if you know me at all and the laugh I can produce. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I have only genuinely laughed just a handful of times on this trip, otherwise I often find myself annoyed with the noise of my peers, or the subject of conversations. I’m speaking as if I’m so high and mighty and up on my horse and everyone else is below me, but there are some things that I think are immature, and apparently I’m the only one who thinks they are. Regardless, I chose to come on the trip, so I’m done complaining. Sometimes I just feel like I’m on the outside of this circle that is the travelers on the trip whom I feel will continue to keep in touch and hang out once back in the states, which unfortunately I’m not really sure how much hanging out I’ll do. I think a lot of that just has to do with me feeling forced to all of the sudden be best friends with everyone on this trip, and I don’t generally open up that fast, never have, never will.

So now that you know about me personally I’ll continue blogging about the trip because that’s why I made this blog. Hah.

The rest of this will just be the little bullets I wrote in my journal about my time here, but don’t fret; I’ll elaborate on everything for your sake of not sharing my brain.

-I’m really looking forward to a lot of tea and scones. That’s one thing I know without a doubt I will adore about England.

-Some people went to Disneyland (That’s what they chose to do with their free day. Three people went to Disneyland in Paris. I wasn’t interested because I can go to Disneyland in the states, so why should I spend my time there while I’m in Paris?)

-Time has gone by fast, yet slow; days are long, but time is flying. (This is a good thing in my head. It’s kind of the best of both worlds when throughout the day things seems long and stretched out- it really allows for me to take my time, but it’s also nice for time itself to continue to go by quickly because I do look forward to going back home to large bathrooms, air conditioning, ice and iced lattes, family, animals, and a boyfriend. It doesn’t help time go by fast though when the sun rises here around 5am and doesn’t set until after 10pm. France is psycho, so maybe that’s why people are always still out at night.)

-I still feel like I’m in school- it’s as if the week before I came was just a quick spring break, feeling like I’m in school is making the time go by fast (Also still feeling like I’m in school kind of sucks, because it’s like that week of summer break was an absolute tease, yet I still recognize that I’m pretty much on a vacation at the same time. It’s kind of an odd feeling really.)

-Mom said I won’t appreciate the trip and being here until I’m back--- I completely agree… I’m most focused on getting through the days, shooting, and looking for opportune moments and not getting lost or left behind. I also feel focused on getting home, once I’m back in my home environment I’ll be able to really let my travels sink in. (Totally true, I’m interested to see how I feel when I get back to the states. Will I miss Europe as much as I’ve been home? Probably not, but I will definitely miss bits and pieces of Europe here and there…)

-Traveling is hard… for so long, so unorganized, and with strangers

-Would love to come for a week and a half or so with family someday, but personally I think Colorado will always suffice.

-Roommate kept me up talking about boys and love…(That just really bothered me because I don’t know her at all, I don’t even really like laying in bed staying up late at night talking about boys, let alone hearing about it all from someone who I don’t know at all… that just really weirded me out, and also helped me realize that I’ve had and have a completely different experience with those subjects than she does. It was like being back in high school hearing girls gossip about boys or whatever.. totally not my thing. All in all this just really made me really appreciate my experience with boys, what my parents have taught me, and it definitely made me appreciate even more than before what I have with Zach. Don’t mean to get all gross and dumb and cheesy but seriously it’s something special and I’m like the most blessed and luckiest girl in the entire world. Really.)

-I’m probably the most blessed girl on the entire planet (I literally wrote that haha)

-Interesting experience… still not sure what to think about everything (This is just overall, and I feel like this relates back to the not being able to completely absorb everything until I get back home)

-Everything is all happening so fast (Literally and figuratively actually. The subways and metros and traveling is crazy fast, and this trip is flying by. Ha)

---How will I view the world once I’m back having seen another side of it?

---What will my photos communicate to the viewer… worried about unintentional emptiness (Not being able to see my photos and go through what I’ve shot so far kind of sucks, but I mean that’s film. I think it only really bothers me because I don’t think I’ve ever gone this long without developing film that I had recently shot. Generally I’ll develop within the same week I shoot so I can know if I need to shoot again or not. But, then again, the surprise and unknowing-ness of film is something that I’ve always loved.)

---How can I inject my personal artistic handwriting / emotion / feeling into the photos I choose to print?

-Hard to work with film really…

-Lots of rest tonight, finally got ice for my knee (we got back kind of early, and it was nice to have some time alone to just sit and baste in my own thoughts. I’m quickly discovering how important it is for me to get a decent amount of alone time in the day. Personal isolation here and there allows me to sustain my sanity. And there are ice machines on various floors in the hotel, but they are all old and dusty and have no electrical power going to them.. so that sucked because I desperately have needed to ice my knee for some time. All of the walking and extra weight has really made it act up. Thankfully, I think, one of the students decided to buy a mini keg for the night and found that the bar in the lobby has ice, and he had been bringing buckets up. So if he had not decided to have a mini keg party, I would not have been able to ice my knee. Hmm. Good for him I guess?)

-Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist is on tv but in French :[ (I was upset because I actually like this movie, even though it’s a chick flick, but I couldn’t understand any of it. One more con about France- French tv. Which makes sense, but sucks when you can only speak English)

And that’s where I stopped (finally) for the day. There’s everything about everything and every detail and thought that has gone through my head, for the most part, about France, traveling, people, and my experience abroad thus far. Again, I apologize for the extensive post, but really it’s hard to limit oneself having traveled and staying on another side of the world.

POST SCRIPT:

here's a boring photo of me, sitting in our hotel room at the Best Western, when we were staying in Lyon. Nothing special, but I took the photo while I was in France, so I guess that's neat.