JoePa's London

Baguettes, Croissants, and Bonjours

2010-11-22T01:59:00.001Z

After an awesome fall break, Michelle and I could not ignore our imminent and unavoidable futures. That future was two nights, 3 days in Paris. Rbitrarily I decided to two, not 2, and 3, not three there. I like it. I did have my first week of internship then, but Paris is too important a journey to really include other things in a blog post about it.

So Michelle and I wanted to leave Friday night, but the problem became getting a cheap plane ticket. Apparently easyjet doesn't actually make things easy, it just makes it cheaper. Who knew right? So we had to settle for a 7 am flight out of London Luton Airport. Would have been even easier if that airport was close or easy to get to, but my first statement is continuing to hold true. Michelle and I had to get up at 3 am in order to catch this flight on time because of travel time and things, but our real problem became actually getting up at 3 am. Thats because we didn't. Haha, our college years certainly have not gotten rid of our lack of being able to wake up for things properly. So I wake up at 4 am. First words out of my mouth you ask? Sorry, it wasn't a word. It was a curse word! A big fat cursey word.

So then we had to 1) get a cab 2) get a train 3) hope all went well so we actually got to the plane on time. It didn't help that once we got the cab I realized I had forgot my passport. Stupid Joe, screwin' things up for the rest of us. Long story, much shorter, we made it to the train station on time and luckily got to our plane as well. Luton was really small so customs took like 10 minutes max.

The plane ride was fine, as we arrived in a rainy Paris day. Ugh come on dude upstairs. Couldn't you just shine some warm sun for once? Michelle bought us some nice two day metro tickets with her great French(she got a wink as well of course). Then we set off on our Paris adventure. First stop? Hostel. The place was called Hotel de Paris, so we knew it would be a great tourist trap. It actually was pretty good in terms of what Michelle and I needed, and the staff was kinda nice as well. We dropped off our stuff there, took a quick quick nap, and then set off to be the greatest tourist there ever was. Pokemon style.

We went to Notre Dame Cathedral first, because Michelle had planned out the trip extra well. She had directions to and from every single place. What a great girl. Notre Dame was really cool and was my kind of church. It really was humongous, but there was some sort of reverence that enveloped the place that I had never experienced before. Just a humble place to worship the big dude.

We then headed off to the Pantheon. Ta Da! It was this place where a bunch of cool people were buried, where there was a bunch of awesome artwork, and science abundant. Namely, Foucalt's pendulum. Literally the most scientific way to prove the Earth is orbiting that I could ever think of. Can't argue with science.

The coolest part about going to the Pantheon was that we were tired and hungry, which meant lovely and delicious crepes. Mmmmm so good, chocolatey, yummy, and delish. Paris does it so well. I think my Mom might have actually gone to the same crepe place, since her hostel was really close to the Pantheon, but oddly enough she didn't actually go into the Pantheon. I'll never understand that logic. Michelle then took me to the most famous part about Paris. Whats that you say? You have no idea what I'd be talking about? What? Its not that old? Well thats right, we went to the not that old Eiffel Tower. Both the scourge and the blessing of Paris. It only took us a couple hours to get to the top, as we waited in a line that included a drunk guy telling me that he wouldn't hook up with Michelle because he was married. Great job dude, I like your moral fiber. At the top of the Eiffel Tower, we saw pretty much all of Paris as well as this weird thing going around the roof that pointed out where countries were and how far away on a map. We felt obliged to take a picture for the Parks of the world.

That night we got some nice wine, chilled out, while Michelle learned about crack babies on the French BBC. I'll never understand the fascination, but I'll guess it was more of a car crash effect. The next morning we got up and went to the Chateau de Versailles to soak up some free French rich culture. All these museums were free so we decided to go like everywhere. Versailles was extremely nice with spectacular architecture and artwork.

It really had everything you would have expected. Nice paintings, gold all over the place, expensive furniture, odes to royalty, lovely gardens, and modern Japanese art? About that. I'll never understand why this was there, but apparently the French found it necessary to have weird Japanese art randomly throughout Versailles. It had to symbolize something, but I couldn't really pinpoint what that was. Japanese people, cartoons, anime, colors, not French stuff? Whatever, it seemed awesome to the Asian tourists.

Me trying to look like one of the statues.
I'm better at advertising Nike.

We then went back into the city of Paris to visit the Louvre, which was basically much more of the same. Loads of classical art that was really old. The sculptures were amazing, the paintings were stunning, I thought the Mona Lisa was smiling at me, but thats still up for debate. My favorite part was actually the one Monet painting we saw. I love Monet. If you wanna give me a really expensive artwork at some random point in time, throw me a bone and get a Monet. NOT Manet jeez.

Last stop was the Pompedou? I put a question mark there because the museum was so modern, even sentences about it shouldn't be the samE. The building was made inside out in order to emphasize how modern the stuff was. I have to admit it was really cool and modern, but I can only take that stuff to an extent. After looking at artwork all day, I was pooped. This painting was really cool though. Look at the effects!

We decided to catch a late dinner, met a couple of women lover's in a restaurant who new a bunch about the US, and then came back to the hostel. Soooo tired at this point. I then got on my morning plane back to London, and Michelle started the second leg of her fall trip to Prague. So jeal. In the end, Paris was rainy, but fun. Thank God Michelle can speak the language.

Guys...Bridget is in London right now. Its a DC takeover!

I Have Almost Failed You

2010-11-22T00:47:00.001Z

Readers, my lovely readers.

Whoops! Lemme try that again...

Viewers, my lovely viewers. I feel as though I may have failed you in terms of telling you what I'm doing and how much fun I'm having abroad. This I still blame on my lack of a computer, but to a certain extent I deserve some serious tongue flogging. But seriously, I don't think I deserve Passion of the Christ level stuff. Anyway, I will now attempt to finish my Germany trip, talk about my Paris trip, as well as give a good summary of my internship and what I'm doing lately. Then, we'll just let bygones be bygones and forget about the funny stuff in between. That is facebook chat/gchat conversation material!

So Michelle came to Frankfurt on Thursday night. My Aunt and I picked her up quite promptly, and then we went back to drink some alcohol/socialize. Michelle was really happy to get there safe and sound due to her fear of planes, so that was comforting. Yeah, I mean comforting to land the plane successfully. I know its not that exciting, but just think if YOU were afraid of flying. Yeah, I know, scary huh?

So the next day I went out on the town with Michelle to show her Frankfurt in all its glory. After going on a tour for 4.5 hours on Tuesday, I luckily remembered basically EVERYTHING about Frankfurt. That meant I was pretty much the best tour guide of all time. Michelle was basically fawning all over me for my great tour guide skills and excessive knowledge of the city. I impressed so hard. We even got frankfurters successfully, which brought up in my mind JFK's memorable quote, "Ich bin ein Berliner." Props to Kabak for that gchat conversation. We have a lot of cute pics up on facebook, that I will now tempt your eyes with: BAM!

Oops! Can't forget the trip to the German communications museum. I really did like it, but at that point we were a little tired, Michelle's ankle hurt, and everything was in German. How were we supposed to understand the communications museum without being able to communicate? Um. But great pictures nonetheless.

We then came back to lil ole Liederbach and got ready to go see a concert at the opera house in Frankfurt. The cool part about that is the environmental consciousness included in the concert. With the ticket you buy, you also get a train ticket included, which promotes the use of public transportation into the city instead of the use of cars. SO GREEN! The concert was actually really good and I found out that Germans love to clap. I'm talking they just clap for ages and ages and ages. No whistling, no woo hooing, no standing up, just straight up clapping for 10 minutes straight. It was both something to admire, and to abhore. But lets be honest, every culture is weird.

The next day the whole family took a nice trip to the Rhine. Well, to be honest, it wasn't the whole family since Martin and Julius had just gotten their feet operated on, so they got to sit at home and chill out all day. Also, they've been to the Rhine a lot at this point. We went to a nice little river festival, where there was this tasty type of wine they served everywhere. It had not been entirely fermented, so it was still extremely sweet, and to be fair, really delicious.

We then got to walk around the Rhine, take some more cute pictures, and go up to this huge monument that declared Germany united. Apparently it was the first time Germany had been united for a very long time(all time) so a monument seemed crucial. The monument was at the top of a really large hill overlooking the Rhine, so we got to take this little car all the way up over the wine fields to the coldest and windiest place ever it seemed. But it was really peaceful and serene, especially when we went to a little convent overlooking the river as well. It had great views of everything, and we had a lot of fun. And yes, Helen did wave at every single person we passed in the ride to the top of the mountain.

Sunday Aunt Becky took Michelle and I to the German version of Versailles. Unfortunately I cannot remember what its called, so if anyone knows PLEASE tell me. Its really embarrassing not knowing where we went. But my first description of the place was entirely accurate. It had nice classical German architecture with wonderful gardens and a nice little quaint town.

You guessed it. I'm the pot.

The church there was insane. There was this big picture of Jesus looking down at you, and its eyes followed you everywhere. Talk about creepy. No wonder people in Europe sometimes don't like churches. Michelle and I took some cute pictures in the gardens and really enjoyed the feel(especially a weekend before we went to Versailles!). There was a really oddly placed Indian wedding taking place while we were there, and if anything threw of the atmosphere, BINGO. Don't worry, they were quiet. Of course, this was Halloween, so Michelle and I did have a chance to make a nice pumpkin for Helen and the twins. I hope they liked it, but we'll never know if my American skills translated to Europe. You can be the judge.

That night Michelle and I journeyed back to London again, leaving our beautiful trip behind. Many thanks to Aunt Becky, the twins, Carston, and Helen for a great trip, but regular duties back in the UK called. Namely, preparing for Paris. Ahhh yeah.

Sorry guys, I'm tired! I will now take out my contacts and then continue to blog and blog and blog and...

Frankfurt + Family = Fantastic

2010-11-15T16:51:00.002Z

My fall break was mostly dominate by my stay in a little town near Frankfurt, Germany where my Aunt, Uncle, and my three cousins live. The town is called Liederbach, and is only a short train ride into the main city. They were nice enough to entertain me for the week, even throughout their busy lives, and I am extremely appreciative for that.

My flight from Edinburgh went off without a hitch as I flew the lovely airline Luftansa into Frankfurt. Tell ya what, they know how to serve a guy. First a drink, then a sandwich, then coffee or tea. Man that hit the spot.The flight was smooth sailing with a nice landing and a one hour time difference from the cold UK. Unfortunately, Frankfurt was just as cold. But my Aunt picked me up at the airport as planned and all went well from then on. I got to see my twin cousins when I got in to Liederbach since they were up sort of late, which was wonderful. I had missed seeing them this summer when they came to Corning since I was in DC, so the reunion was nice. They are seriously just as tall as me at this point, which is scary since my little brother is currently a good deal taller than me in the first place.

Luckily for me, my Aunt had already scheduled a bunch of stuff for us to do that week, so I didn't have to worry about planning issues. The first day we were there my Aunt and I went on a walking tour of Frankfurt. Although my Aunt has lived there for a long time, she still didn't know a lot of history about the city, so she was excited to do this too. The greatest part about the walking tour was that it was conducted by an ex-GI who had been stationed in Frankfurt following WWII. He spoke in clear American English, which made it extremely easy to understand, ya know, verbally and all.

The walking tour was only supposed to take about 3 hours, but I think the guy liked us so much that he went over time just an insy-winsy bit. The guy did know loads about Frankfurt, most of which I remember but would only bore you going into detail without having pictures of the landmarks, but the tour actually ended up lasting 4.5 hours. Like to walk and talk much? But seriously, I really enjoyed the walking tour as well as the top notch German cuisine my Aunt treated me to afterwords. We went to a traditional German bar/restaurant where I ate "meatloaf" and apple wine. The German meatloaf is much different than the American kind, since it is truly a big piece of ham. Delish though. The apple wine could have mos def used some work though. Not my favorite German alcoholic beverage by far. The highlight for the rest of the day was seeing my little cousin Helen and having my Uncle come home from his work travels. Helen likes to act a little shy and reserved when she first sees people she hasn't seen in a while, but it was fairly obvious after about an hour she was happy to see me. The next day resulted in a lot of Helen trying to be center of attention as well(really cute the first day at least haha).

The next day was a lot of fun as well. My Aunt took Helen and I to an old Roman fort that dated back to the more glorious days of that empire. As many will recall, Rome conquered like everything in Europe, especially some of the old German tribes. This fort was built on a mountain and connected with other forts and walls to keep invading German tribes out. Apparently back in the day no matter how many people got taken over, everyone still didn't like it. I understand I guess, but from the like 200 wells within a really small fort area, I wouldn't have minded having to speak Latin for a while. The fort was really cool in terms of seeing some of the old Roman architecture, armor, tools, and other things, but I hate to admit that my Aunt and I came to the general conclusion that the Germans could put a little more effort into museums. It definitely seemed that the bare minimum was done at the site, and when we walked past different people working there, they seemed to give us a look of "I know that we work here, so we have to be here. But why are you here?" In other words, they didn't think the place was that cool.

I then spent the rest of the day hanging out with Helen and the family. Helen in particular because we went on a bike ride around the town. The Germans love the whole experiencing the outdoors thing, so it was just one taste of their culture. It really was nice not having to run around to do 20 million things for site seeing and just be able to have a generally relaxed evening. The next day I got up relatively early(in other words no too early) in order to take a nice walk through the German hills. We passed by some wildlife, talked about stuff going on, went up to an old church, went up really high and saw the whole area, and just generally had a good walk/hike. I still am not sure whether to call it either of those things. The Germans like to act as if something they are doing is not as big of a deal as it is, so I'm going to use the minimalist "walk."

Later in the day it got really nice outside, so I decided to go outside and run around with Helen, which was actually pretty fun. She comes up with quite the games to play in small spaces. Then I just waited for Michelle to come that night! Yeah! Her flight got in about the same time on Thursday night that mine got in Monday, so it turned out to be about the same general schedule at the airport. Anyway, this blog post is HUGE, so I will postpone the next post about Michelle's time in Frankfurt to another time.

Donke

Edinburgh Was Still Fun

2010-11-10T21:26:00.001Z

So my computer didn't work, but Edinburgh was still a great experience. Waterhouse was nice enough to meet me at the train station(awwww so cute) and then he took me back to his flat. I wanted to turn my computer on to check if it worked so bad but I abstained in the interest of it maybe working the next day. We then went out to a local pub and got some haggis. It was actually quite delicious despite its awful reputation. Also got some delish October beer at the pub.

Waterhouse then took me out to a bar with his frazbee friends at Edinburgh. They were typical ultimate players ie going out and getting drunk the night before a tournament. It was a fun crowd to be stupid and drunk with as we played probably the simplest game ever. It consisted of everyone sitting around a table with their pints. One person spins a 2p coin. Then they call out someone's name at the table who tries to hit the coin at someone's glass. If your glass is hit, you have to drink while they spin the coin again. Simple and simply sloshing.

The next morning we got up and began a whisky tasting tour. Yay Scotch Whisky! Our travels took us to 6 or 7 different distilleries where we were given the finest whisky in the world. And yes, that IS how you spell whisky. HA! Our favorite place turned out to be something called the Scotch Whisky Experience. This place had bartenders who knew more about whisky than I do about tickle fights. If you don't get that joke I'm sorry for you. Anyway, these bartenders were able to tell us what to try and taste, where the whisky was from, how old it was, really cool stuff like that. Our favorite whisky was found on the island of Islay. It had a smokey flavor to it that we had basically never experienced. We liked it because of just how smooth and rich it was comparably with the whisky based off of fruit flavors.

We took a break midway through to go to Edinburgh Castle. Somehow Waterhouse had never been there yet. Whateves. It was really effing cold up there, with the wind basically ripping through us. Besides that the castle was sweet. It had actually been attacked, which made it that much cooler, and there were some great crowned jewels to admire. We then continued our whisky tour gallantly. Except for the one problem that Waterhouse apparenlty doesn't look 18 and his Michigan ID is flimsy. We went to this one bar where the guy immediately asked for our IDs. I was cleared, but then Waterface handed over his(dumb). The guy took a look at it, looked at Waterhouse, flipped the card around a bit, and said, "its a bit flimsy." Water replied with the brilliant line, "just a normal ID." The guy then said he wasn't going to accept it. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Last thing I thought would happen happened. Waterhouse got denied for not being 18. We did indeed carry on with the trip, going to a few other places to get some more fine spirits in our blood. The whisky was good, we had a great buzz, and it was a wonderful day.

The next day we proceeded to go to frisbee practice with Edinburgh! Woooo! They were surprisingly dominated by a lot of Americans who were studying there as well. Instead of just doing regular ultimate, they played this weird game called gultimate. The way it works is the same as regular ultimate except you have to throw the disc through a big hoop thing and catch it in a certain area to score. Really weird but also a really good workout. While ultimate is supposedly continuous, gultimate actually is continuous. After you score, you just start running again and play. It was fun to play some sort of frazbee though, since I always miss the Imperial College practices due to traveling/class/my internship.

We then went to do some more sight seeing. This included visiting Arthur's Seat. Its an 823 meter high mountain with basically the greatest view ever. We actually saw white caps in the distance. We then went to this famous graveyard/monument place. I cannot for the life of me remember what it was called though. There was a monument to Abraham Lincoln though! That night we then went and watched some American football at a pub and met some Scots. They were awesome football fans. Waterhouse showed me some awesome times in Edinburgh, even though I lost in fantasy football. My journeys then took me to Frankfurt to visit family. Oh, and when I turned my computer on, Saturday morning to be exact, everything started to not work and now it won't turn on. BOOOOO! Frankfurt post will be next!

I DON'T HAVE A COMPUTER!

2010-11-09T17:57:00.001Z

OK so I obviously haven't blogged in about a billion blog years. That is around 2.5 weeks in the real world. But at least I have been able to understand what life is like without a computer.

It sucks sometimes.

My trips to Edinburgh, Frankfurt, and now Paris, have been a time of no documentation due to this unbearable disability I have recently acquired. If you at any time decided to read my last post, you may have noticed that I was going to see Alex Waterhouse in Edinburgh for the weekend. I took my computer so that 1) I could register for classes and 2) So I could blog about my time. Unfortunately that dream I used to dream ended within the first 5 minutes sitting on the train to Edinburgh.

So I will now, in subsequent posts within the next few days, try to write what happened during my trips to Edinburgh, Frankfurt, and Paris. I will of course not forget the important details of my first week of internship. I will start with Edinburgh.

So it was MAD easy to get to Kings Cross Station to catch the train. I know you all were like pissing your pants to find out if I made it. The train got to the platform early, I got a nice window seat, a cup of coffee, and got ready to use my 15 minutes of free internet. But lets be clear, of the 15 minutes I used, it was pretty much the slowest of the slow. Like worse than Andrew Feierman's in South Africa.

So I was sitting in my nice seat, minding my own beeswax, trying to finish my coffee before the train left the platform, when the unthinkable happened. OK not unthinkable, but unlucky. The guy who has the seat next to me comes to sit down after his long day of whatever the hell he does with a couple of bags. He takes one of his bags off in an ENTIRELY DISPLEASING manner. He basically swings it down off his shoulder and hits my coffee in the process. My coffee then spills on my computer, and I exclaim, "Oh God Damnit!" I try desperately to turn the computer over, get the coffee off the keyboard, hoping that it will all work. The guy says he's sorry profusely, probably not enough considering the end result of this episode, but he seemed sincere. Then I left the computer off for the rest of the trip in order to let it dry out/not short-circuit.

I have to borrow someone else's computer so I'll finish this thang later peeps.

45% Fusion: Wastedhouse Here We Come

2010-10-22T00:29:00.001+01:00

This past week and a half has been one of the absolute busiest I've experienced since in London by far. The largest reasoning behind this BS excuse why I haven't blogged lately is because two of the courses I am taking have decided to END. If any of you recall this craziness of a semester and its academic setup, you will recall that I am taking three academic classes, two of which last a whopping 7 weeks. That means a semester's worth of material, six hours of class per week, and whatever the professor decides I need to read/write/watch/talk about.

My Media in Britain class has been probably the biggest joke. For some reason I know more about the themes, class struggles, and characters in TV shows and movies than anyone in the class. Although this is a Comm class in the end, I am deeply disturbed by the inability of Comm majors to actually answer questions the professor asks pertaining to these topics. They even have trouble with the news questions! I mean I know that a Comm major is generally not seen as requiring the same analytical skills as others, but I became increasingly disappointed with how true that stereotype became. I mean, no offense to AU Comm majors fa sho, since I was the only AU person in my class. I just finished a final paper on the characters in The Office UK and The Inbetweeners, which to my knowledge did not increase my own knowledge at all. Other than that I loved the class! A career in analyzing movies and/or TV shows would be easy peasy lemon squeezy.

My British Politics class has been not only a nightmare of sarcasm and cynicism from my elitist British professor, but he also decided to have the last week of class combine a 15 minute presentation and a final. This dude, for a job, sits and reads government documents. If anyone will hate the way I generalize and tend to avoid specifics in papers and presentations, it'll most definitely be him. He also seems to have a style all his own everyday. One thing he loves to do is NOT match all of his clothing. His socks are always especially flashy and out of this world. We're talking Alice and Wonderland crazy colored stuff right here people. Or maybe crazy Wicked Witch of the East socks? I really just cannot decide. Maybe if I thought everything was corrupt except the BBC I would do that as well.

Just finished studying for all that nonsense, which I can only hope will lead to good grades and prosperity. The other activities I have recently participated in over the last week or so included a specific highlight of seeing the Social Network. Overall a wonderful movie that makes it seem like if you make enough money you can do whatever you want and ostracize those closest to you so you can make more money. Yeah...I guess that actually does make sense.

I also got to play in a beginners tournament with the Imperial College Ultimate Team. I showed up bright and early on a Sunday morning, 9 am to be exact, after being a real champ the night before. No I don't have pictures, but yes my eyes were completely bloodshot. The rules were as follows:
1) If you were an experienced player you had to wear a hat on the field
2) There could only be two experienced players on the field at a time
3) Beat really obnoxious British kids who think they're the shit at ultimate

Imperial had two teams at the tournament in order to get everyone the most playing time, and my team was the BOMB. I kind of came late so I was quickly picked up by this cool dude Ming who was basically the first person I met associated with the team. And yes, he's like every other asian handler. Really really good. If anyone would like to know what I looked like in a hat(since I am not a regular hat wearer by far) here it is.

Yep ladies and gents. That is the unforgettable Shay Longtain. I wore my flatmate's AU hat backwards just like that azzhole would have done.

So my team, as I said before, was quite good. Had a couple tall kids who could run and could NOT huck to because that would be silly. We beat Kings College, some college that wore blue, LSE, and some group of kids and really experienced handlers who ran me to shit. It was really fun playing LSE because there was a certain asian handler who thought he was awesome but could have used some serious work. After watching him throw the dumbest fakes I have ever seen, I decided to match up on him and shut his British butt down. It was actually a lot of fun to have some sort of challenge to match up against, but I think I might have overestimated the challenge. It was fun to beat him up line by 10 yards though!

The next most awesome game came from playing in the finals of the tournament. We were playing a UCL team, which meant I really really needed to win. Michelle is going to UCL so it would be extremely embarrassing to lose to them at all. Long story shorter, it was a game of comebacks. We go up 4-0 right off the bat with some nice quick scores. They then proceed to go up 7-4. Omg I was so mad. One point I was guarding this kid, their main handler, and I called a pick. The play continued since no one else knew what to do, and one throw later my guy dropped the disc. He proceeded to argue that it was not a turn because I called the pick, which then distracted him from catching the disc. He was wrong and I proceeded to teach him a lesson in the rule book(it felt so awesome to tell a Brit he was wrong!). So we brought it back to 7-7. That meant universe point. There were like 4 turns per team in the point, and in the end we lost. AAAaaaaaargh!!!!! Luckily Michelle is nice so she didn't rub it in TOO much.

The real exciting stuff I am doing is traveling! This week coming up is my fall break! That means I'm going to Edinburgh to visit Waterhouse after class tomorrow, and then I am going to visit my family in Frankfurt on Monday night for the rest of the break. I am super super psyched for both of these activities and cannot wait to get everything underway after my final tomorrow morning. I'll try to update and let everyone know how plan Wastedhouse is coming on Sunday. I secured an agreement from that dude to do a scotch whisky distillery tour on Saturday, so I am real excited to do something with this dude that involves drinking hard liquors. Needless to say this will be no Tenley experience. On that note, peace out homes. I gotta get some sleep, pack, get on a train, and start edinburgh chillin'.

Oh, and about the 45% fusion figure. I went to The Globe Theatre the other day, and my classes are kind of signaling a halfway point in the program. I also think Iran would be really jealous at my ability to fuse with the culture, so 45% is a perfect number(and yes that means it was arbitrarily and randomly decided upon).

Joe Joe Joe Joe Joe Waterhouse!

Lipman Times

2010-10-12T16:58:00.000+01:00

As some people may know, for this summer I blogged for a internet news website called The Lipman Times. It focuses on current issues dealing with the Obama Administration. Unfortunately, as some of you also know, I was the only one actually writing for everyday as well. This proved a challenge in terms of my motivation to blog on my news beats, but I managed to get through the summer. My work even paid off to the point where I got to go to a White House Press Conference.

Yet things have changed. The website now has a multitude of writers covering various topics, making its information worth taking a look at. Now I've started blogging for them again as their UK correspondent. I'll also be covering the US Midterm elections frequently, so you won't have to hear about my political musing on my blog anymore!

Not only will I be blogging for the website, but I'll also be getting a press pass! That means I'll be able to go to a variety of political events such as speeches outside of 10 Downing Street and other interesting things as well.

Here are links to my first couple posts.

Murdoch Takeover Of British Media Mirrors US Problem

Democrats Banking On O’Donnell Ruining Her Chances

Enjoy!

Prior Planning + Preparation Prevent Piss Poor Performance

2010-10-11T17:56:00.001+01:00

Yet again a simply wonderful week and weekend in loverly London. The rain got to us for the first part of the week, but other than that it was a beautiful weekend with some guests some people may know??? So the week started off as usual. No class Monday, 9 am Tuesday, and Sports Cafe Tuesday night. I'm not sure if I posted about Sports Cafe before, but it is quite the good time for us Americans. Thats because they have beer pong and cheap drinks. We're talking 6 quid for a pitcher of beer. Wooooo! Thats what I like to drink!

To explain, the quote from my title I got from my British Politics professor. I thought it was funny and very British elite of him.

Wednesday was another full day of classes, where I decided that the lack of having my internship yet warranted writing a bitchy e-mail to the internship office. The response was in essence, AWESOME! They said, well we have to do this for everyone, so don't be so pushy about yours. But then they said, you are working with the Labour Party, which is what I wanted in the first place. So good, but uncertainty was still a big deal because I really didn't know what office/person I'd be working for in November/December.

Then lovely lovely Thursday arrived. I had class earlier in the day, but then Kyle Contrata arrived!!!!!! Went to pick him and his Belgium bros up from the station. He really was only with one bro, but whatever everyone still came from Brussels. We proceeded to drink a lot of alcohol.

I'm not sure if anyone has ever done that before, but it just happened to be one of the those good/bad decisions. Anyway, we went out to a club where we proceeded to meet random dudes, pay too much for drinks, and introduce the visitors to our house to London. Cheryl also came by with Roos, but decided not to come out with us. Why you ask? Ask Cheryl.

Friday morning class was basically awful. Also there was a serious situation I had to deal with Friday afternoon. The night before, Jess Rin had come in to London extremely late after her flight from Madrid. She called me to find out where I lived, and APPARENTLY I said 13 Manson Place. I actually live at 15 Manson Place, so problems ensued. Jess knocked on 13, and was standing outside 15 after she figured out where I actually lived. The bad part about this is that my RA(who lives somewhere else) discovered Jess just standing outside in a backpack. She asked Jess who she was visiting, and then I was screwed. We are not allowed to have overnight guests period!! Ahh! Long story short, I got a warning and if it happens again I will be kicked out of housing.

After figuring all this out, I got some ggggggreat news! I got my internship! I'll be working in the constituent office of a Member of Parliament. Her name is Emily Thornberry and her constituency is a part of Greater London, but I'm pretty psyched about it at this point. The commute will be about an hour, but that is to be expected from public transportation no matter where you're from. What's funny is it seems they combined my two prior experiences in the spring. That's right. Earth Day and Eric Massa minus the tickling. MP Thornberry is extremely involved in green issues in Britain, so hells ya internship team.

Friday night we, meaning Michelle, Jess, and Kyle, went to see Avenue Q because it was playing in London straight outa Broadway. Literally like the funniest thing I've ever seen. There were wonderful musical songs such as "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist" and "The Internet Is For Porn" to enjoy. It wasn't just a puppet show, it was actually a very crude comedy.

Friday night was the same old thang. Clubbin'! Saturday I got to play frazbee for basically the first time in a month. The Imperial College team had their second practice this term, so Kyle and I decided to go out and play. It was a lot of fun, got to meet most of the guys, and also got to play with the alumni team after the first practice. The Imperial College team is called the Disc Doctors and the alumni team is called Frump. The bad decision was to play for four hours after a month without playing.

On Sunday I said goodbye to Kyle and Jess as they traveled back to their respective country, but still had a feeling of emptiness in my heart.

To conclude the awesome parts of the weekend, there are a couple of random facts I just now remembered. After watching the most recent Jersey Shore, Matt and I have proceeded to say Pauly D's "Oh Yeah" over and over wherever we go. It becomes quite annoying a lot of the time, but that is only for other people!! There was also a brief moment of nostalgia when we got wine for Saturday night. It happened to be from Cape Town South Africa. Yes, the current home of Mr. Andrew Feierman and Ms. Kate Sheeder. LOL funny pictures commenced.

Also, there was a certain X-Factor commercial that really caught my eye. Mainly because it was absolutely hilarious. Check it out peeps!

Catch y'all on the English side!

Are You Two A Couple? Well you should be.

2010-10-04T00:06:00.000+01:00

My days in London have gotten seemingly more busy with school work and thus less fun in terms of going out and seeing the sights. But that just means I have more chances to get to blog about my roommates, random encounters with British people, and the now seemingly constant supply of rain.

Though, I would like to comment on the title of this post, since it does relate to something I experienced in my British people encounters I have basically everyday. It was last weekend after going out to a club in Soho with Michelle and her new UCL friends. Slightly a mistake because of our lack of alcohol drinking before the club, but it was still a good time. At the end of the night we walked back and were soooooo hungry. Luckily the subways here stay open til 5 am. Yeah, that's right. They stay open until 5 am and OPEN again at 8 am. So awesome right there. So we got a sandwich and decided to split it, but on the way in, these two British guys, obviously a little drunk, said to us, "You don't want the cookies. They're really awful." Both of the guys proceeded to buy two cookies each, and then we struck up a conversation with them over how they had so easily used the tactic of reverse psychology against us so they could get the last cookies.

One was a graduate student at UCL, while the other basically had the weirdest job I had ever heard of in my entire life. He was a physics major(shout out to Andrew) and became someone who scouted out potential good financial investments??? So not understandable at this point in the morning. But the one dude at UCL was actually really funny, a big dude, and in the fencing club. How does that work? Don't ask because he basically was just able to do it so easy. He also happened to be from Philadelphia, so he obviously had a British accent(what!). His friend with the weird job had a daughter, and while Michelle and I were talking with him commented on our couplyness. He goes, "So are you two together?" To which Michelle and I say yes. He then goes, "Well OK because I was about to say you should be. I'm Mr. Matchmaker tonight!" We left then because we were hungry for london subway.

The week was genuinely not that awesome because of how much work I had to do for class and planning trips. I'm blaming that for lack of cool blogging things. And you're not here so accept it at face value! I had a project in class on Wednesday, 8 page paper due on Friday. I also went to take care of Michelle because she came down with a cold as the weather has gotten quite dreary. But now for the funny upside parts!

My roommates are an especially interesting group in terms of personalities. I mean, what else makes people interesting? Paul really is just like a little kid. He continues to have a few catchphrases with his Miami accent that everyone jokes about. He keeps saying things like, "I miss Miami," as well as "Honduras," and "Nandos." Just imagine myself and Matt trying to imitate a Miami/Cuban accent by saying those words. Its pretty fun. Matt is my other bro in the house, and that is exactly how you should always describe him. If I ever want to get a pint/5 pints Matt's always down, which is a wonderful dynamic to replace Kyle from this summer. We also have the perfect woman, Monica. She's a great wingman, as Matt has experienced, and many days I come home to find she has cooked me food.

I should summarize everyone else, but really people, there can be only so many shout outs in one blog post. Chill. After I finished and printed my paper on Friday morning, I got probably the worst/most stressful wake up call at 7:30 or so. It was from miss Genna, who had got up early to catch a plane to Munich. She was flustered as all get-out and thought she was in the wrong terminal. She called and wanted Ruth to check for her airline, but Ruth had pulled an all nighter and she wasn't available. Therefore, I had to go on my computer and look up her flight information in order to make sure she actually got to her terminal and stuff on time. Ya know, I did, she got to her flight on time. She owes me something right?

Friday was absolutely tiresome and uneventful up to that point, yet I was very excited to watch my TV shows once michelle got her butt over here. That meant Modern Family, The Office, 30 Rock, then Jersey Shore TV marathon!! Yay for being sick in London!

Saturday was basically the same, except we did go to the Natural History Museum. It was really cool, but we were both tired and all the animals were not real. They were just fossils! We then came home and watched Get Him to the Greek in order to rest up for our trip Sunday!

We left at about 7:45 am for our day trip to Leeds Castle, Canterbury Cathedral, and Dover. It was really really really early in the morning so not cool, but definitely fun. We arrived at Leeds Castle and got to tour the grounds as well as the famous castles many rooms. I swear I have never seen grass so pretty than at Leeds Castle. The air was so refreshing and wonderful, I really wished I lived in the English countryside. We then made our way to Canterbury Cathedral, which is the oldest in all of England. This thing was insanely large I couldn't believe it. If you think the National Cathedral in DC is big, just imagine one twice as big and about 1500 years older. We also got to see the former tomb of THE Thomas Becket, who was such a holy dude. His tomb was actually destroyed by Henry VIII because that king just wanted to be more hated. We also saw the tomb of the Black Prince. He won a lot of battles against those bloody French. We then went to the White Cliffs of Dover. It was really pretty and apparently you can see the French coast on a clear day, but unfortunately it was raining and the fog covered most stuff up. We then headed back to London, which is surprisingly only about 1.5 hours away from Dover. The last hurrah in our trip was the passing of the Prime Meridian, which is where all time stops. Nooo thats not true, but it is the center of all time zones! Good 'ole Brits and their maritime traditions.

Now I'd like to rest, relax, and start writing a paper about my encounters with British people. Easy? Oh my gosh so easy. I mean the class is called British Life and Cultures. Come on! It is still a whopping 3 hours. Anyway, next update should be when I find out about my internship and what I'll be doing the last 2 months of this program. Jeez already a month!

Oy Oy!

London Just Got Soooo Michelled

2010-09-27T01:29:00.000+01:00

This entire week of amazing London was begun with the arrival of a lovely girl, Michelle. I'll have to admit my own determination to post on my blog was definitely not helped by my girlfriend coming to London, but after a great week of helping her move in/get over her her jetlag/meeting her new friends/going out with her, I'm ready to summarize the times.

This week was much crazier in terms of classes and traveling between my new home at UCL aka Michelle's dorm. Luckily its only a 15 minute tube ride, so everything is made much easier. Anyway, this week was basically just filled with a bunch of classes and organizing presentations and travel arrangements. I saw the respondents to my poll, and took into account my bank account when figuring out where i want to go over my fall break. My current plan is to visit Mr. President, Alex Waterhouse, in Edinburgh at the beginning of the break. I mean I'm sure he'll be getting really crazy all the time and I can't wait to join.

The next part of my break will consist of me flying to Frankfurt, Germany to visit my family. My Aunt married a German back in the day so they've lived there over 20 years now. I'm excited to see them considering I did not have a chance to see them when they were in Corning, NY. From there I may travel a couple other places just to see them, but I have yet to decide altogether.

I consider myself quite the lover of high speeds, so I aspire to drive on the autobahn. Don't worry, I won't crash...hopefully. So this Friday night we went out to a club called Fabric again. A lot of fun, but seriously needed to have better music. The beat was always the same with, as many of the girls said, creepers galore. Saturday Matt, Michelle, Cierra and I got up decently early to go to the Everton vs. Fulham game at the Cottage. It was a 0-0 tie, but getting to see Clint Dempsey shoot on Tim Howard was simply, erecting. Onanon was where we went Saturday night, which was CRAZY awesome. Girls scored some points for themselves in the house, but Monica completely lost her blackberry. Today was just about as lazy as all get out. Watched Top Gun, Juno, Sunday football, was a bum, cooked family dinner. We actually ended up setting off the fire alarms all up and down our street due to the amount of smoke that was coming from our kitchen.

Anyway, they're showing the Jets v Dolphins game on Channel 4 here. The coverage is awful but I do miss american football.

Go Jets?

Big England Weekend

2010-09-21T18:51:00.000+01:00

Hey Everybody! Sorry for the lack of posting on my own blog, but this weekend proceeded to be one of constantly awesome experiences that I will not soon forget. It all began with the holy pope coming by the area and ended with a visit to the Tate Modern.

My Friday started off with class, but ended with a great trip to Westminster Abbey with my flatmate Alex Ronchetti to see the Pope. At first we arrived at the St. James Park stop and asked a London Cop where to go. We only needed to mention the Pope, and he knew exactly where to point us. We proceeded to walk down the road towards the glorious Westminster Abbey, and saw a large crowd of people lining the street. Ronchetti and I knew we had arrived at the right place!

But not so fast, because not too many people where lined up where we decided to post up. Someone next to us was thinking the same thing, so we got up the courage to ask/bother another copper about where we should be headed to see his Holiness. He said to head further down the road because the Popemobile was transporting him from a different direction, so we traveled just down the road, where we discovered a bunch of protestors and a lot more of the crowd.

Anyway, in the end, we waited for two hours and got to see the Pope travel 15 feet away from us in his Popemobile! He even kissed a baby just before he passed us, which was really cool. He seemed like a guy who liked to wave from inside his bubble of bulletproof glass.

Saturday I woke up in the early early morning(7:30 am!!!) to take a coach bus trip to Stonehenge and the lovely city of Bath. It takes only about 1.5 hours to get to Stonehenge and it was definitely worth the nap time. Once you get out of London the countryside simply takes over. It turns from the city to cow and sheep country extremely fast, and is really pretty to travel through. When we got to Stonehenge, it was really pretty underwhelming. Although Stonehenge has a lot of cool history and mystery surrounding the structure, you really couldn't do much but look at it and take pictures. I'm really glad I went though, just to be fair.

We then left to travel to Bath, which is apparently the prettiest city in all of England. I have to say, I think it was the prettiest city because of simply its location and the way it was built.
The Romans first settled in Bath when they colonized England because of its naturally running hot springs.

They built a large complex of Roman baths, that to this day remain the only Roman baths still actually working. This is because the hot spring still runs today. We visited the Roman baths and were able to walk around where the Romans used to walk...and take baths naked.

Unfortunately we were all EXTREMELY tired at this point in the day after deciding to go clubbing the night before at a place called the Ministry of Sound. It was a lot of fun, but that morning was really no fun at all. Cierra and I decided to go get some lunch and have a couple drinks before visiting a little more of Bath. After having Pimms for the first time(its soooo good) we went and saw a street performer for a little bit. He really wasn't very good, but the kids liked him because he was funny. I then went into Bath Abbey, which is where the first King of the English was crowned.

It was a huge place and I think actually a little bigger than the National Cathedral in DC.

We then left to go back to London at around 3:30 pm, which meant some great nap time on the way back. We then proceeded to get ready to go out that night to a BUMPIN' club called Fabric. The place had rooms galore with smoke spilling out onto the dance floor. It was a crazy night where I had a lot of fun dancing and getting real Jersey Shore in London.

The craziest part about the night club was some guy came up to me, started a conversation, then kissed me on the neck. SOOOOOOOO weird as I proceeded to strongly tell him to GTFO. Other than that, great night with the flat mates.

Sunday morning was also pretty rough, but for a good reason. Michelle came in to Heathrow that morning! The funny part is that when I got back from the club, it was 4 am, and everyone said I should just stay up until 8 when I had to pick her up at the airport. I didn't do it, but it was an interesting proposition. Anyway, the rest of the day with Michelle was amazing, as seeing your girl after 1 month apart would be, and I tried to help her move into her room at UCL.

On Monday, Michelle and I proceeded to go to the awesome London Eye. Pretty much a great view of the entire city of London. I'll try to upload pictures, but my camera is currently having issues. Today, for my British Life and Cultures class, we went to the Tate Modern. Its a modern art museum, which isn't my fav place to visit, but I had some fun. Alrighty, Imma stop talking and start doing some work. Gotta get it done before college night at O'Neal's! Everyone should also check out DJ Pauly D's new song because it is really awful. Enjoy!

Modern Family premiers Wednesday!

Pope In Tha House!

2010-09-17T13:29:00.000+01:00

Today I had class from 9-12, but what kept me awake is of course the once in a lifetime chance to see the pope drive by in his Popemobile. He is literally only going to be traveling for 15 minutes, but boy will it be worth it to sit there and watch him wave. Everyone in Britain hates the Pope because he kinda stinks at making sure priests don't rape little boys, but at least he has the guts to visit this really big island. I am mainly making the journey to Lambeth Bridge in order to see the Pope for my mom's sake. She would really love to hear that I saw this extra holy dude. Seriously, check out the Pope with the German accent. Dude has a great blog. In the meantime, at least I can enjoy the freedom of being a bloody Protestant!

Rupert Murdoch Owns Half This Stuff Too!

2010-09-14T18:52:00.000+01:00

I am currently taking a wonderfully interesting class called Media in Britain. The really intriguing part about this class has become a showcase of the way the professor hates the fact that News Corp owns half the news in Britain just like in the US. Thats right, the same News Corp that owns Fox News, run by Rupert Murdoch, supports a very right-wing agenda in the UK. Although it stinks that those in the news who are more left-wing must deal with this constant battle, it definitely will give me something to talk about for the next 3 months.

The Guardian is the newspaper to pay attention to that is basically the UK's Washington Post. So thats awesome since my professor for Media in Britain sides on the left, and pretty much with Labour. He loves The Guardian and literally despises prominent right-wing papers like The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Mail. The professor even had us analyze a Sunday Times(conservative) article where they very subjectively, and without a lot of evidence, said that the Archbishop of St. Andrews damned the BBC for having 'anti-christian' broadcasting. It was very interesting how the Archbishop's comments, that said he thought the channel had an 'institutional bias,' were suddenly turned into him damning the BBC. It really shed a lot of light on the way a news agency can spin a message to help itself out. Even the BBC has admitted its bias against religion, so yes its probably true. Yet the language which really got to me referred to something not quoted, but put into the article as a valid summary of the Archbishops opinion. The author said,

"Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, claims that a radically secular and socially liberal outlook is tainting the corporation’s news and current affairs output."

I mean come on. It isn't a quote from the archbishop that the author gets the words "radically secular and socially liberal." That is simply the author's way to make it seem like the Archbishop disapproves of the BBC for their association with these two terms. The Sunday Times is also owned by Murdoch.

In the end, the thing that really gets me is that, for a country so rooted in liberal democracy and its leftists traditions, newspapers sold by Murdoch are getting the most audience of all. Now with New Labour and the Conservatives forming a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, things are only going to get worse for those on the left-wing side of British politics. As it seems, my professor and I will only get more disgusted. Lets hope the midterms in the US aren't another example of that!

I am also endorsing Sarah Palin for President in 2012....just so the Republicans won't win.

I'll leave you with this very unappealing find. To say the least, he's really good at making money.

"The Guardian reports that Rupert Murdoch plans to launch a digital newspaper in the US geared specifically to younger readers and to digital outlets such as the iPad and mobile phones. The paper, as yet unnamed, will pool the huge editorial muscle of Murdoch's combined holdings within News Corporation, which include the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and the financial wire service Dow Jones, as well as his newspapers in the UK and Australia. Earlier this month, Murdoch said of the iPad: 'It's a real game-changer in the presentation of news,' adding 'We'll have young people reading newspapers.'"

Tower of London, Thames Festival: 25% Fusion

2010-09-13T16:29:00.000+01:00

This weekend was an important one in terms of helping me increase my fusion with British culture. After going to a Fulfham FC game, visiting the world famous -- and infamous -- Tower of London, as well as attending the annual Thames Festival, I think that fusion is at at least 25%. I've already posted my personal review of my experience at the Fulham game. The summary of that was it was great DUH!

I had to go to The Tower of London because of all you out there who voted. The London Eye won the coveted second place prize, and I will soon get real high in the sky. Sooo, the dreaded and evil Tower of London...it really wasn't so evil I found. It was founded with the White Tower, built by the Normans as they attempted to control the British people after their victory at the Battle of Hastings. They needed something grandeur and amazing, so the first of many buildings was erected. The crown then continued to expand the fortress from the White Tower, to two subsequent large surrounding walls and a moat. The moat was just plain old disgusting apparently.

The tour guide for our visit was a very striking looking Yeoman, as he called himself. Yet he said we should call him and his colleagues "Beefeaters."

Apparently back when King Henry VIII had to ration beef, thats where they got their names. They are official guards and keepers of the Tower of London fortress. Also they give tours LOL.

We got to hear the stories about executions outside the castle walls, how many people were hung, how many people got their traitor heads decapitated, as well as the interesting stories about the two young princes killed/strangled within the walls.

We got to see the lovely crown jewels, take the cliché pictures in front of the guard, as well as go into the White Tower.

After that, we went and took a short walk over the Tower of London bridge.
Its quite the beautiful bridge to say the least. Let me tell you, the London bridge is a complete disappointment in comparison. We then made our way to the Thames Festival, where we experienced awesome food, great atmosphere, and cool shopping. We then stayed til about 10:00, where there was a fireworks display by the world champion of the firework world. Who knew that was a thing? It was a really great time on a nice lazy sunday. 25% enrichment success. In my opinion the fireworks are just a hint of the energy yet to come.

We got a situation here.

Great Week, Roomies Want Some Recognition

2010-09-12T14:10:00.000+01:00

This was a very interesting and crazy week. It all started off with the first day of classes, followed by subsequent back-to-back-to-back-to(you get the picture) nights out. I am at this point almost completely positive that my consumption of calories has included less solid food, and mostly a variety of carbonated alcoholic beverages. Although, in the long run, that will work out perfectly in terms of my personal finances.

Although everyone in the flat has read and enjoyed my blog so far, the real criticism is that I haven't given any awesome shout-outs yet. Don't worry, I've got this. My current four-person in one room living situation has become fairly OK due to the sudden departure of Matt "The Situation" Lafemina. This sudden departure to the smush room came after the smush room was first discovered. The ability of FIE to designate room F as not having a person in accordance with the common need all housemates have after late nights out shows just how wonderful the program is to students.

Matt decided to move into the smush room in order to have a single, which has continued to prove a great decision in terms of overall space in my own room. Now the room is down to myself, as well as the previously named Paul "Pauly D" Bared. We each sleep on the bottom bunks with roomie Thomas on the top bunk above me. Our escapades throughout the house have been, well, they've been well discussed in the comfort of 15 Manson Place.

Our travels this week around London have mainly been restricted by our individual class schedules as we settle in to 3 HOUR classes. I'm telling you, they suck. On Friday, I had a class from 9am-12pm in which the professor cynically talks about the British political system. He's interesting, but could use some work in terms of being less dry. Lucky for us, he decided to show us a movie about Tony Blair for the last hour. Unlucky for him, he fell asleep for most of it. LOL!!! Thats one big difference between the US and London I've found. Americans live to work, Britons work to sleep.

Yesterday Matt and I went to see our first Fulham FC match. It was a great experience with American Clint Dempsey starting for Fulham. They kinda played crappy, but beat the Wolves 2-1, so success. 35 pounds for tickets was not the most fun, but the minute we got home we bought BETTER tickets in the FRONT row behind the goal. That will be awesome as Everton visits Fulham. Thats right, Tim Howard AND Clint Dempsey. Sept. 25 will be a great day. Now I'm off to my poll results. The people have spoken, and the next place I should visit is The Tower of London. Let y'all know what it was like soon!

JoePa Out

The Start of Classes

2010-09-07T17:47:00.000+01:00

Well the first day of classes has officially started, and I think that at this point my British Life and Cultures(BLC) course will be awesome. We get to basically make the course for ourselves in terms of what questions about BLC we come up with on a day to day basis. The class also gets to go on various field trips over the course of the semester. The thing I am most excited about is a report we have to do that discusses our experiences as we meet British people. That means a contest to see who can meet the most British people in my opinion! Woot! Also my professor is quite good looking, and that aspect may make her 3 hour lectures go much faster.

Now I'm just chilling out at the flat and getting ready to go to the gym. The problem is the gym is a 30 minute walk away. That entails using the wonderful tube.

Wonderful Funeral Services Ad on the Tube

Its only one stop away, but it definitely takes a lot of time away from walking. The real problem is that I have to walk today because the tube workers are on strike! Now that is some British culture I feel like I would never experience in the US. No one ever strikes at Corning Glass.

I also found out a sweet website that links into the AU network so I can watch videos on Netflix and Hulu like I'm in America. It's vpn.american.edu for everyone overseas who is now profusely thanking me. Yeah thats right, now you can waste your time at home and not traveling. For me that means a little less money spent though, and that is very positive indeed.

I'm starting to think in a British accent a bit more now, so don't be surprised when the way I write begins to gradually change. It may even be interesting to pay attention to the subtle differences. Until next time, I think its time for the gym, or British Deal or No Deal. Although their version has no models holding the cases, it in some ways is tons better. Excuse me, POUNDS better.

If you'd like to know what I will be doing on this lovely night before my two three hour classes tomorrow, it will obviously be going to a local pub to watch the England v. Switzerland match. Ahh yeah.

X Factor Rules!

2010-09-06T16:06:00.000+01:00

Awesome because its X Factor in the UK. More awesome because Miss Cher Lloyd is my new favorite.

Cher Lloyd's Turn My Swag On

First London Rainy Day!

2010-09-06T15:21:00.000+01:00

Today is the first official day it decided to rain in London. Oh what a glorious, glorious sight. Rain is definitely still made of water droplets from clouds here so, thats no big deal. The real big deal is that now it is expected to rain like crazy all the time. I guess we brought the warm weather with us for a bit, but now we are officially experiencing a British person's paradise. Rain Rain Rain all day everyday.

At least now classes are getting going, so there is SOME stuff to do. Yet the real problem is I don't have classes on Monday ever. That basically has meant another Sunday-esque routine of sleeping in and being on my computer 24/7. Lucky for you that means blog posts!

Only thing I had to do today was go change my classes a bit and pick up books, so not stressing at all. They decided to give me two classes at 9 am on Tuesdays. Apparently that made sense the first time they registered me for classes. But now its all worked out. My class schedule is as follows:

Tuesday 9 am-12pm: British Life and Cultures
Wednesday 1pm-4pm: British Politics
5pm-8pm: Media in Britain
Thursday 1pm-4pm: Media in Britain
Friday 9am-12pm: British Politics

This includes the fact we cannot have laptops in classes. At 3 hours a class period I have barely any idea how I will survive. Guess that means I'll have to read read read so I can actually pay attention. Currently trying to figure out what I should sight-see after class on Thursday and Friday, so let me know by answering the blog survey! It would really help! Also Europe travel ideas are in the making so stay tuned.

Cheers!

London: First Weekend-10% Enrichment

2010-09-05T17:02:00.000+01:00

My first weekend in London has been one of a lot of jet lag and a lot of cultural experiences. The first was of course arriving in Heathrow Intl. My flight on Virgin Atlantic was all but restful in my wonderfully small economy seat. To my left sat a tall black man who sounded like he was from some African country like Ghana or Senegal. Maybe Algeria, but thats not the point. The point was he was REALLY tall and wanted to complain about it every two seconds.

Anyway, great flight with seemingly everything in sight being red. Although I got no sleep because the tall guy was leaning on me all night after he nodded off to sleep, still was fun. I got to watch the Karate Kid, which was actually pretty good despite the fact that i knew how the plot would be during the entire movie. Jackie Chan actually makes a pretty good Kung Fu master guy.

Upon my arrival in the UK, I stood in line with like 10 other people from my program waiting for customs to approve my entry. Most people decided to take a taxi, but myself and a few others huffed it on the tube. It was pretty expensive, at 4.50 pounds, but when we got to orientation, we all got something called an Oyster card. This is like a smart trip, since u just swipe it, but better since the program paid for our unlimited use when we use the card all four months! Sweet I know.

The past weekend was a lot of fun. It is very different to get check for ID at the grocery store and be OK to buy the English version of a six-pack, which is a four-pack of pint sized cans. The English tend to stay away from the 30-packs Americans find so popular, and generally at the local Tesco the portions are smaller, and more expensive. It runs 4-5 pounds for a four-pack, so portion control is a large part of English life.

Living in the richest area in London is quite nice, yet probably expensive for everyday stuff. We went to a local pub on Friday night to check out the England vs. Bulgaria game. Crazy fun atmosphere at a place called the Greyhound. England won 4-0 so everyone was very happy and had fun. Beer was kind of pricy of course, but worth the experience. Last night we went to a club called Sound. Great dance floor, and they played basically all American songs. That definitely made us feel awesome. And then luckily they played a bunch of 80's songs, which was a lot of fun.

After the night was over, we took a double decker bus back home, and Matt proceeded to ride an ironing board down the stairs thinking that was great idea. I mean yeah, it is a great idea at 4 in the morning. I know this is a very long post, but this was quite the weekend. As seen in the title, I consider my fusion with London to be currently at 10% enrichment. A lot to go, but significant progress made.

PEACE!

Leaving the US of A

2010-09-01T04:57:00.000+01:00

As I get ready to embrace this opportunity to go abroad through American, I cannot help but reflect on my years IN America. They were great.

Anyway, to let everyone know where I will be staying would be tooooooo simple of a post. So yeah, thats what I'm going to do. My address is different from my mailing address because apparently everyone gets their mail at a certain place. But not like too many people will be sending me stuff when they can just read my really interesting and hilarious blog.

So here is where I am living: 13-14 Manson Place, London SW7 5LT, UK
If you street view it, you might be impressed.

Here is where I get my mail: 3-7 Queens Gate Terrace, London SW7 5PE, UK

I'm leaving my house tomorrow @ 9 am. Ugh. Although my flight doesn't leave Dulles until 6:40 pm, my parents have to drive back to Corning, NY and its amazing politicians such as myself. My new cell phone number will soon follow, but until then, I'll be saying hello to the epicenter of all time zones. The good 'ole Britannia.

PACKING!!!!

2010-08-30T19:45:00.000+01:00

Currently packing for my trip to London, and it is quite difficult. I am folding up everything to pack into two suitcases, and a couple carry-ons. Although I am a guy, I'm having trouble parting with some of my fav t-shirts in preparation for a small wardrobe. But don't worry Britain, my Back to Back World War Champs shirt will be seen far and wide while traveling throughout the other country that joins the US with our mutual title. My problem in London may be looking like I have any fashion sense whatsoever. I recently bought some David Seunglee Park style clothing. Yet I will not be rooting for Manchester United as dat Azzian would hope. That's right. I will be joining Joe Wenner as a Fulham FC fan. Pictures of me in that jersey will hopefully be soon after I arrive in London, Engaland. Dempsey is my new hero. My flight leaves at 6:40 pm on Wednesday, so all who want to wish me a fun trip should text me before then cus from then on my phone will be turned off!

Getting a Cell Phone

2010-08-22T04:08:00.000+01:00

I'm having trouble finding a cell phone plan that my parents will accept as OK. The AU Abroad website seems to have their sites set on the PicCell plans, which I am happy to use, but the moms and pops can't seem to break away from Verizon. That will mean one of a couple different things. 1) I'll be getting a sweet globally capable phone 2) I'll get the worst phone ever with the PicCell plan that is cheapest 3) GoogleVoice will become my next best friend.

Enter All Who Like To Read My Words!

2010-08-21T18:11:00.000+01:00

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to post some sort of introduction to exactly what this blog will be about. Obviously the title is self explanatory. I will be traveling to London and am ready to experience fusion of my personality and way of life as JoePa into the culture of Londoners. The reception to my coming will be small if not limited to a simple "whats up I'm ..." from my new roommate, but I accept that the energy from my body entering the UK legally will most likely be hard to control after me coming into contact with various other people, and my presence will undoubtedly start a chain reaction of immeasurable destruction and power. Yes, that was a crazy attempt at a poly sci guy to make a physics nuclear fusion metaphor. Hope you enjoyed while it lasted. This blog will be used to document my travels throughout London and Europa, yet also just about whatever I feel like posting. It may become a wonk page at times, or it could become a place where I brag about my late night escapades in the social atmosphere that prefers pints over 12 oz cans. So in conclusion, my fusion will be the first attempt anyone has made at harnessing the power of one man named JoePa (JoePatt if you want) to experience London and its people to the fullest. After my initial experience in this broad and expansive city, I expect to take this experiment elsewhere and observations will be recorded in due posting time.

English is MY second language,

JoePa