A Canadian in England: My Adventures Abroad: December 2010

Thursday, December 30, 2010

In the City of Love!

Salut, tout le monde!

This one will be an old-fashioned written post (I didn't even pull out my camera today, amazingly!). After a freakin' loooooong day, I am now in the City of Luuurve - Paris, France! We're all safe and sound at the hotel (we actually arrived before noon today), but we had a crazy frustrating and stressful day as we ran into a problem with our EuRail passes (curse you, French rail system!). Originally we wanted to reserve a seat on an overnight train from Paris to Rome on the night of January 2nd, but when we arrived at the station haggered and sleep-deprived we were told that the entire train was booked and we had no feasible way of getting to Italy. After refueling with some Turkish food and checking into our hotel we got to work planning an alternative route. So with the help of the AMAZING hotel owner (seriously, he is so freaking friendly and helpful - and he brought us free expresso!) we managed to sort out a new plan for the final leg of our journey. Me, Steph, and Amberle will be spending one extra day in Paris and then heading on a 21-hour(!!!!!!) journey to Rome on the 3rd, and then flying back on the 7th (Julie unfortunately had to ditch her plans of visiting a friend in Northern Italy and will be flying back to England early on the 1st). So it was a really hectic day, but now that we've got most of this sorted out we're excited to explore such an amazing city as Paris and spend New Year's here! (we're going to watch Amelie tonight to get ourselves pumped for tomorrow :P). And I'm really looking forward to practice my French - already I've spoken more French in one day than I have in years, and no one has made fun of me yet, haha! (Mom, I know you'll be proud :P)

Anyways, I'm tired as heck right now, but I'm glad that we're still going to Italy and have a comfy bed to sleep in tonight. Hope you're all doing well (and feel free to send me a message - I love checking my email and Facebook and blog and getting updates from home!)

Love,

Madalyn

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Day trip to Trier, Germany!

So what does one do when visitng Luxembourg? According to most people we've asked, you get the heck out of Luxembourg! :P (in case any of the Luxembourgish are reading this, do not fret; I thoroughly enjoyed my brief but pleasant stay in your country - some people are just snobs and think you're too small too be fun). Today me, Stephanie, and Amberle hopped on a train and spent a few hours across the border in good ol' Deutschland. Specifically we were in the border town Trier, which is a popular religious destination as it can allegedly lay claim to having the cloth that Jesus Christ wore on the cross. And it also has beer glasses that are as long as my forearm! (yes, I drank out of one of these glasses - being buzzed at 4pm in a foreign country is certainly an experience, haha!) We bought some souvenirs, including a German flag that I bought that's at least three times as big as the other flags I've purchased thus far on the trip (ironic that the country we spent the least amount of time in memorialized with the largest flag in my collection :P). Anyways, we're off bright and early to Paris tomorrow, but until then, enjoy this video of me trying to pour a beer (riveting stuff, I know). ;)

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

On a train to nowhere......potentially

No worries guys, we made it! (although it took 4 trains instead of 2 and a whole lot of confused glances towards each other, lol). The hostel here is pretty nice - everyone is very friendly and our room is very comfortable (and the food is great!), although the showers very awkwardly have no doors so the water gets all over the floor >:( Today we spent the day strolling along what was a VERY snowy path towards the city centre, and then we ended up hanging out for the whole afternoon in the Museum of the History of the City of Luxembourg (say THAT 5 times fast!). It turned out to be really fun - there was a whole floor dedicated to the 1960s, and a section depicting the progression of teenage sexuality (with photos included!). Tomorrow we'll do a bit more shopping (we bought some clothes and souvenirs today) and we may even take a train over to Trier, Germany and chill there for a bit.

As for blog posts, I'm enjoying this whole vloging thing; I may continue with it until I get back to England when I have the chance to collect my thoughts and write my trademark novels :P

Hope you're all enjoying the holidays! I'll keep blogging and Facebooking as much as I can!

Peace!

Happy Holidays from Bruges :)

I can't remember the last time I strapped on a pair of skates and hit the ice, but man, was I ever glad I did it in Bruges! It was a great way to end off our Christmas stay :)

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Christmas Eve in Belgium = PARTY TIME!!!

I filmed this one at 3:35am, hence the total disregard for proper lighting, etc. :P

Friday, December 24, 2010

2nd vlog! This time in Bruges!

Please disregard Youtube's horrendous choice of a screencap for this video - I was battling an ill-timed breakout and washing my face :( Ah well, backpacking through Europe calls for some unglamorous moments......... ;)

First Vlog!!!

The firstof what will hopefully be many vlog entries (that is to say, Èvideo blogÈ entries) :D

Monday, December 20, 2010

Made it!!!!!!

I am in Amsterdam, folks! The hostel has free internet and I am using one of the communal computers right now, so that is very handy (although I cannot seem to find the apostrophe button on this keyboard, hence my lack of grammatical contractions :P). The trip over here was looooooong (when the weather gets a little crummy, England and Europe just shuts down!) but we are here safe and sound and I am looking forward to exploring more of the city tomorrow!

As for blog entries, I will probably keep them to shorter lengths as we have a time limit on the computer, but I will be writing the old fashioned way with a pen and paper and probably when I return to England I will be able to give more details about my journey.

Love you all!

Madalyn

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Ah, damn it! :P

Bleeehhhhhhhh!!!! Once again I have left packing until the last minute and holy smokes do I ever suck at it. It's about 2:30am here and I have to be up in about 3 hours to catch a taxi to the train station (do you think I should take a cat nap or just tough it out until it's morning again? lol. Ah man, this is gonna be a long day........) But at least I'm done packing (technically, although I'm never satisfied with what I bring) and I even squeezed in a partial viewing of American Beauty with my flatmates Sho and Fabio, despite my better judgment advising me to get some sleep instead. BUT, before I go to bed i will post for you all my travel itinerary, just so you have a sense of when I'll be on a train or when I might be able to access the internet, etc.

Dec 20 - Ferry to Amsterdam. Overnight/Hostel in Amsterdam.
Dec 21 - Overnight/Hostel Amsterdam
Dec 22 - Overnight/Hostel Amsterdam
Dec 23 - Day trip to Bruges, stay overnight
Dec 24 - stay in Bruges
Dec 25 - Christmas, also in Bruges overnight
Dec 26 - Bruges overnight
Dec 27 - At some point train to Luxembourg, overnight in Luxembourg
Dec 28 - Overnight in Luxembourg
Dec 29 - Overnight in Luxembourg
Dec 30 - Paris overnight
Dec 31 - Paris overnight, New Years Eve
Jan 1 - Paris overnight
Jan 2 - Day in Paris, Overnight/day train to Rome (14.5 h trip)
Jan 3 - Overnight in Rome
Jan 4 - Overnight in Rome
Jan 5 - Overnight in Rome
Jan 6 - Overnight in Rome
Jan 7 - fly at 10pm to Stansted

I am totally zoned out right now but feelin' ok, so I think I'll go sit on my bed and let my body decide what I should do, lol. My British Thing of the Week will have to wait until I get back home, or possibly if I get the chance to update my blog along my journey :) So for now, that's all folks!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday, December 12, 2010

"So dance, dance like it's the last, last time of your life, life!"

Helllllllooooooo, beautiful people!

So I actually wrote this post last weekend after my dance competition but couldn't figure out how to embed the videos directly into my blog (until now - thanks Youtube!). So after I blab on a it, feel free to check them out! (I'm the really pale girl in all the videos, lol).

For those of you who are just catching up, last weekend I got the chance to travel to London's Royal Holloway University with the Essex Dance Society (officially titled "SXDance") and compete against a bunch of other universities. It was a long day, but I'm so grateful I even had the oportunity to participate!<product> <source>Saturday Night and Sunday Morning</source> <contrib type="author"> <name> <given-names>Karel</given-names> <surname>Reisz</surname> </name> </contrib> <contrib type="author"> <name> <given-names>Tony</given-names> <surnam We placed 2^nd for Contemporary and 3^rd for Jazz, which were the two dances that I was in - YAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!!!!! We also came in 2^nd place for Ballet, although I didn’t perform that dance (but I will in the next competition once we have the chance to rehearse it some more). Both Stephanie and Amberle were able to come and see me perform, and once I actually got up on stage I realized how great it was to have people in the audience who were there to see me. I always think that it won’t feel like a big deal, but once I start dancing I’m always really thankful that I can go and celebrate with someone afterwards. They were freakin' awesome supporters too - cheering, taking photos & videos, giving big hugs, and just being there in the first place! (they willingly woke up at 7am on a Saturday just to see me dance for a total of about 11 minutes). So kudos to Amberle and Stephanie for being the best audience I could have asked for <3 style="text-align: center;">

Stephanie, Amberle, and me sittin' pretty in the audience. I finished early so we got to lay back and watch the other performances together. I definitely got some serious Cumbrae recital flashbacks, but it was all good, and it was the first time that I've really felt some genuine school pride for Essex :)

So without further ado, on to the videos! (credit goes to Stephanie for the steady camera-work) ;)

This is the intro to the Contemporary number (I'm on the left side):

I told Stephanie she could stop filming until I came back on, but she managed to get pretty much all of it on camera! So here's the rest of the contemporary dance (I come back on from the left again):

And here's the Jazz number, which I really enjoyed dancing (I loved the style - I just wish we had more time to perfect it!) We're in a bunch of different formations for this one, so sometimes I start out in the back and sometimes I'm in the front - just to mix you up a bit!:

Overall I was really happy with how I performed. This was my first time dancing on stage in roughly 2 and a half years, and on top of that, after 10 years of dancing this was my first actual dance competition. AND the videos that you see are the first time any of us had actually danced on that particular stage (the Jazz number especially was a lucky break - can you hear how the music is cut into 4 different sections? This was the first time we had ever performed this dance with the music cut properly, with one song moving into the next without pauses - yowza!). Looking at the videos now I feel as though I need to build up my strength, particularly in my arms, and really work on finishing all of the movements - that way I'll look sharp and be able to hold my own against the more experienced dancers on Comp Squad.

Dance really snuck up on me (I didn't even bring my ballet slippers with me to England), but am I ever glad that I fell into it. I've been dancing almost as much as I've been going to my regular classes, and every time I walk back to my room after dancing I'm always in a better mood than I was before the class (presumably this is due to my body releasing endorphins, but I like to think it's because the classes are genuinely fun too). The people teaching the classes are really friendly and very talented, and they're really keen on introducing as many people as possible to dance and the society, which makes for a very inclusive atmosphere (we went to a Spanish restaurant for dinner on Friday to celebrate the end of term - deeeeelicious!). As I mentioned before, my flatmates Sho and Ellie are also a part of the dance society, which makes hanging out in the kitchen after someone's class quite enjoyable. Sho especially likes to practice what he's learned in class, and I love watching him - he's a hip-hop dancer, and I after seeing some of his stuff I think I'm going to join the street classes as well (because apparently my feet think I should be dancing some more :P) AND on top of all that, I've decided to join the dance society in April on a competition tour to Salou, Spain (near Barcelona)!!!!! We'll be spending a week competing against other student teams, chilling out on the beach, and clubbing with the local Spanish peeps :D It sounds like it'll be one huge crazy party, but nearly everyone from dance is going, so I'm really looking forward to it.

Other than that, my life has been fairly ho-hum recently, due mostly to the fact that essay time is upon me and I've been sitting at my computer for hours on end and for days in a row just trying to string together a series of coherent sentences. Last week I submitted two essays that were due at the same time (one was on the Catcher in the Rye while the other was on the ancient female Greek poet Sappho), so I'm thankful I survived that, and now I'm working on an essay about a film called Saturday Night and Sunday Morning for my British Film history class (raise your hand if you can tell me why it's a misogynistic film!).

The view from my computer chair (only a few more days and I'll be staring at beautiful European architecture instead :D)

Truthfully, while I'm used to the end-of-term essay grind, I've definitely had a few moments of loneliness during the past week or so - I'm loving my room now that I've made it feel more home-y, but after sitting in it for the better part of a day without moving from my computer chair, I started to wig out a little bit and I began to feel a bit clausterphobic. Sometimes Facebook helps a lot with this sort of thing (it gives both a mental health break and helps me remember that I'm not the only one grappling with a thesis), but I also can't help but miss my three roommates from last year whenever my mind drifts away from school and decides to take a stroll down memory lane. We had such a cozy apartment that I never felt too far removed from everyone else (at least physically), and Anelia especially was always there for me whenever I needed a distraction (in a way she still is because she's posting photos almost every week and I've been following her blog as well; I just miss being lazy with her on the couch and watching whatever ridiculous program was on TV - Operation Repo, anyone?).

What has essentially become my life: sticking bright orange tabs in university textbooks (this one is The British Cinema Book, which admittedly is something I would probably browse through on my spare time anyways) and drinking abhorent amounts of tea (like Co-Op brand fairtrade, organic English Breakfast tea!)

BUT, while I've certainly been consumed with essays for the past few weeks, I've still had no shortage of good times, especially with my flatmates - last week we went out for Ellie's 19th birthday, and on Thursday Klaus made us an authentic German meal consisting of saurkraut, sausages, and mashed potatoes, while Emily brought New York-style cheesecake and Fabio made an authentic Brazilian dessert (UH-MAZING!). We also had a flat party on Saturday, and on Wednesday after I handed in my essays a group of us just chilled out and watched Monsters Inc. before heading outside for one of many Tawney Tower fire alarms (they're annoying, but also good bonding experiences, haha). And this week we'll be going out to dinner at what is quickly becoming our favourite Brazilian buffet restaurant (Copacobana), and we'll be having a Secret Santa gift exchange/going-away party for Emily (who is only here for one term). So while stress levels could be lower, I've got a good support system around me and still have lots of things to look forward to over the coming weeks. Speaking of which, I'll be sure to do at least one more blog post before this week is up and I head off on a little European adventure!

<product> <source>Saturday Night and Sunday Morning</source> <contrib type="author"> <name> <given-names>Karel</given-names> <surname>Reisz</surname> </name> </contrib> <contrib type="author"> <name> <given-names>Tony</given-names> <surnam

But before I go back to writing my essay, here is my...............

British Thing of the Week!!!!!!!

Soreen Malt Loaf: “Deliciously Squidgy Energy!” as it’s described on the bag, and frankly, I don’t know if I’d be able to do a better job of depicting it for you. It's basically a bread product, but it's closer in consistency to fruit cake, although it has a slightly more moist texture and isn't quite as sweet. Apparently you can get it in Canada, I've just never seen it before, which makes it my favourite British food discovery thus far. I love toasting it and then spreading some butter and Leicester cheese slices on top! It's also great plain or with some marmalade or jam. It's very dense, so it's awesome to eat before running off to dance class because it really fills you up. If you can find it in the grocery store, I really recommend giving it a try! Your taste buds will thank you :)

Until next time folks, Cheers!

Love,

Madalyn

A Canadian in England: My Adventures Abroad

From Trent to Essex and back again......