Pictures: Isle of Wight

We got on the ferry and waved goodbye as we left Portsmouth harbor and went on towards the Isle of Wight.

Three of my favorite people, Caitlin, Jon and Matt, hanging out on the sun deck of the ferry.

I was really trying to get a picture of the flag on the ship but Matt and Jon managed to be in my picture. So I put them in black and white (I played around some with photoshop for these pictures)

More photoshop- the Isle of Wight is apparently known for its sailing (so says wikipedia). There certainly were a lot of sail boats wandering around so I believe it.

Sepia Matt on the ferry. Inside where its warm and not windy.

We arrive on the Isle, drive down to Shanklin and hit the beach! Sand!

Adorable little beach front town. Good fish and chips. As would be expected.

Sand! Exciting.

Black and white of this old rotting...thing...sticking out into the ocean.

Proving that I was on that sandy beach.

We left the beach town and began on our very long walk up and over the downs. And so begins the excessive amount of scenery pictures.

Scenery pt. 2

The first hill the we were walking up. I do believe there were more hills behind it.

Where we had walked up from.

I really liked how all there were all these chalk bits just strewn around the Downs. I proceeded to take a piece. I don't know why, I don't really need chalk. Oh well.

All the hills tired me out. Time for a nice little siesta on a cliff edge? Notice Caitlin laughing at me in the background.

Monument to Tennyson on top of one of the Downs.

Tennyson monument or born-again Christian logo? You decide.

Scenery- pt....whatever.

Ah one last look before tripping down the mountain and getting back on the bus.

The Isle of Wight

Good morning, gentle readers, I have returned. It has been 2 weeks since my departure from Amsterdam back to jolly old England and I finally have something of note to say. Brief recap of the past two weeks first though? Brief indeed. After I returned to school I realized exactly how much work I had to do and it made me anxious/nervous/slightly stressed. Nothing is due until the middle of May or later but after being away from WashU for so long and completely losing my work ethic, I was afraid it would be extremely difficult to bounce back into the 'hard work' mindset. It has been. But I have done a fair amount of work...I have first drafts of two of my essays complete and I've made good headway on a third one. Umm what else? Its been wonderful to be back with my friends here, I missed them so much. And Matt, who went back to the states after we left Venice, is here visiting for a couple weeks before his internship starts and thats fabulous as well. We're planning on going up to London on Wednesday which should be a lot of fun. I haven't been up to London in a long while and I need to get in at least a couple more trips before I leave England. There is so much that I want to see. So yeah, that's really the main gist of the past couple of weeks. Not a lot interesting has happened, but it's been nice to be sort of relaxed.

Yesterday, though, we had our first Sussex-planned day trip of the summer term. It was off to the Isle of Wight and I must say it was a bit disappointing and definitely my least favorite of the day trips that we've had. Mostly because I feel like we didn't do anything. We spent a lot of time driving on the bus/ferry, seeing a lot of the island but after the first hour segment of seeing the pretty Isle of Wight countryside pass by, you kind of get bored. Anyway. I'll start from the beginning. We left school at about 8AM and made it to Portsmouth in time to get on the 9:30 ferry to the Isle. The ferry was a very nice ferry and we actually had a good little time playing around up on the sundeck (which was a little cold because of the wind...but it really was a gorgeous day). I think my favorite part of the sundeck time was there was this little British toddler who was holding a little puppy on a leash. And we kept looking at him because he was adorable and he looked back at us too. Jon had his camera in his lap and this little boy continued to look and smile at us, specifically at Jon. His parents came over and started talking to us and the mother said, oh well he sees you have a camera in your hand so he's posing because he thinks you're going to take a picture of him. So Jon, of course, took a picture. And then (the best part) the father said to his son "you're just a little camera-tart, aren't you?". It was hilarious. And I'm going to start to call people camera-tarts. Be prepared. The ferry took about 45 minutes and once we drove off of it, we drove probably about another half hour to get to Shanklin, a little town on the southeast coast of the island. It was really cute and all, and it was really nice to see a beach with sand on it, but there really wasn't anything to do and we only have 2 hours there so there wasn't a lot of time to do anything, if there was. Jon, Matt, Caitlin and I wandered down to the beach and frolicked on the sand and stopped to get lunch (mmmm fish and chips on the beach. Amazing) but that was it before we had to walk back up from the beach to get on the bus. And then we drove another hour along the coast to the southwest side where we had a very long hike up these cliffs. It was pretty. It had some great views. We saw the Needle Rocks which are apparently famous. But it was a very long walk. After a while the scenery wasn't anything new. At about 4 we got to Alum Bay which had like a little amusement park thing going on, but we didn't have any time to do anything like that so we all basically got candy at this cool candy store before we had to get back on the bus. We left Alum Bay at 4:30 and got back to Sussex at 7:30.

It was a nice island, and probably would be really crowded and popular in the summer when it's really warm, but I felt like we didn't do anything which kind of annoyed me. I was also tired and my chest got sunburned which was no fun, which didn't help the annoyance but I guess I felt it was almost a waste of a day. There was probably other stuff we could have done, and just spent an entire day in one spot. I would have liked to have a bit longer in Shanklin so we could have explored the old village and the Chine (this large ravine) but we simply didn't have time. And then Queen Victoria had this huge summer residence in East Cowes and it would have been really cool to see that. So yeah. Pretty island, pretty day, nice to have some fresh air, but generally a disappointment. Oh well, you can't win them all.

Pictures: Amsterdam

Our hostel in Amsterdam had this cute little courtyard...

...and then we were reminded it was a Christian Hostel. Oh the adventures.

Amsterdam has canals. Very different than those in Venice. But just as cool. I think more cities should be stupid and build right on top of water, because the canals just add something special.

Westkriek? I think? Some church.

We actually didn't see any tulips in bloom but we did see a lot of them for sale. So i took a picture of the bulbs.

Dam Square. Main center of the city.

I was amused by all of the business men riding their bikes to work. The Dutch love their bikes.

More Dam Square.

Entering the Anne Frank house. No pictures allowed inside so the before and after shots are all I have.

The Huis.

I have found a place to call home in dear old A'dam.

Vondel Park. I've decided that the only way to say the name of this place is with extra emphasis on the VONDEL. It just sounds better.

Haha. Uber-tourist in the giant wooden shoe. I should have been more creative with my posing, but by this point I was too tired think of anything else.

Laura found some shoes that were more her size.

Oh the irony of it all. Our hostel was in the Red Light District. Two signs next to each other, ''Shelter City: Christian Youth Hostel'' and ''Thai 'Massage'''...right. Oh and the prostitutes were right next to the Thai 'Massage' place. Just to complete the picture.

But our hostel was free of sin.

The Sexmuseum...not quite so free of sin.

Random Buddhist temple in Chinatown. Why not.

Final shot of the entire whirlwind adventure. Me and my one true (and now somewhat battered) love and savior, Mr. Rick Steves. THE END.

Pictures: Brussels

And here we are in Brussels. Our hostel was kind of in like a business/financial district. Which of course means there should be weird silver ball fountains around. (We were only in Brussels for 24 hours, so I don't have a lot of pictures. And of those I do have, most of them pertain to food)

Moving on to the older, more cutesy part of Brussels.

Grand Place. Seriously, that's what it's called. I have no idea what it was for. But it was indeed grand.

Chocopolis! High quality pleasure for sure. The food photos begin.

Oh but brief stroll past the cathedral. It had no food in it. We did not go in.

Aha. Me with my purchases from Chocopolis.

And there are the pretties now. Looking amazing and delectable. Oh I want more.

The Brusseliers are weird in fact that their recognizable statue/fountain is a pissing boy. I present to you, Mannekan Pis.

We had lost all sense of maturity by this point.

Oh my oh my oh my. The best waffles on the face of the planet. With extremely unnecessary chocolate on them. Don't get chocolate. Just get the waffles, many many waffles.

Laura with her Kriek- cherry beer.

Framboise and Kriek. I do not really like beer. And this was amazing.