Hurricane Sandy in Facebook Statuses

A summary in Facebook statuses of what Hurricane Sandy has done to my sanity and a rant about American Airlines....

- Well, guess I'm not going to America for a few days. Flight canceled. Stuck in a hotel in London, had to pay 15 pounds for WiFi because they think a 5 minute telephone call is long enough to rebook a flight. As of now my flight is rebooked for November 1st. Fuck. Could I maybe have gotten stuck in a city that's not so damn expensive? Let me downloading every TV show ever commence...

- This will be my night...and yes, I did open that beer with a DVD cover I found in the hotel room. And yes, I did have to walk across a highway in the rain to obtain said alcohol. #notanalcoholic

- Just going to dwell in the negativity a bit longer before I pull myself together. Today blows. I want to go back to Berlin.

- Also...there was an earthquake in Canada today? What the hell, is North America exploding?

- There are two beds in my hotel room. I am going to sleep on both of them. Nevermind that there is a gap inbetween. #shitbetterbelux

- Just encountered problem #1 with the hotel room: the ceilings are too low to jump on the bed. #wtf

- Apparently this is a four star hotel. That explains why there are no beer vending machines. #fuck

- I wonder how I can make friends with all the hundreds of other sad, canceled flight to NY people in the hotel. Is it inappropriate if I just walk around the halls carrying wine? That's how you make friends, right?

- There is a new wireless network that just popped up at the hotel called "Unicorn". It is not password protected. If I find them, we will date.

- Yesterday I was visited by a toilet ghost. The End is Nigh: 

- Day Two of Hotel Prison: The Hotel Gods have appeased me and fed me veggie sausage and coffee with soymilk. Some people I talked to yesterday gave me a Wall Street Journal and it said the storm won't even hit in full force until late tonight or tomorrow morning NY time. So now I will try to be a productive human and work for a few hours, then begins the day drinking and re-calling of the customer service. If anyone wants a free place to sleep in London, hit me up. I seem to be on a bus route.

- Just waited 25 minutes on the phone to be told they only handle domestic flights, and am now re-put on hold for 30 minutes to speak to an international rep. #someoneisgettingbitchslapped

- No hotel paid for after tonight, not possible to sort on the phone (after being on the phone over an hour, mind you), means I'm heading back to the airport to sort it out in person. Wish me good not sleeping on the streets luck! Why do I always have such bad travel luck?

- New Plan: Fly to Boston tomorrow on stand-by. Hey Boston, how's the weather over there? If I get stranded there, can I sleep on your couch for one night before renting a car or something to NY.

- On the bright side, this hotel room has the most powerful shower I've ever experienced. Downside, didn't bring any razors or toiletries with me as I thought I'd be stealing my parents' stuff. Lesson learned.


How will the story end? Let's hope I catch that flight, my friends, or I won't even have internet to make Facebook statuses. Wish me luck and hope to see you on the other side of the pond!

Poland For Lunch: A Day Trip to Szczecin (Stettin)

It all started while sitting around at a bar one day, our friend Karla from Australia mentioned, "I want to go to Poland for lunch...just because I can." Coming from big countries like America or Australia, the chance to just "pop" over to another country for a day, or lunch, is quite a novelty. We decided to go for it. Szczecin is a two-hour train ride from Berlin, a smallish Polish town. The best part is things are open on Sundays there, there are pierogies and everything was super cheap. I took out the equivalent of 30 EUR and managed to get a full lunch with beer and appetizers, coffee, postcards, some more beers and fill a grocery bag with food. It was also generally a super fun day trip.

One good thing to know is that you can get a Berlin-Brandenburg group ticket for up to 5 people for 28€. For some reason Szczecin, though not actually in Berlin or Brandenburg, is included on this ticket (it's right on the border). Thus, the trip there AND back cost each of us less that €5,50 total. Hellz to the yes, I say!

I baked cake and made a HUGE container of coffee for the ride and we arrived at the train station for our 9am train on Sunday morning, July 8th.  We were tired. Our friend Myriam managed to somehow go from a night out straight to the train station without sleeping and not die.

Marion, Myriam and Carly, who was visiting me. Tired at the main train station, Berlin Hauptbahnhof, but excited!

Carly was demonstrating that we got to touch a piece of Russia. Train stations are exciting!

Me demonstrating the parmesean cheese soap in the train toilet. Yes, I took pictures in the toilet.

We arrived! The first thing we did was eat, of course! Well, the first thing we did was walk around confused, exchange our money into the Polish currency, Zloty, get a map, and take the old tram into town. Anyway, above are some Polish salads. Some info from Wiki about Szczecin:


Szczecin (German: Stettin), is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. In the vicinity of the Baltic Sea, it is the country's seventh-largest city and the largest seaport in Poland. As of June 2011 the population was 407,811.

Szczecin had quite the chaotic past, being taken over by Germany and Sweden at different points, a location of a few witchhunts and entirely fortified by walls in the 1600s. Apparently Szczecin also "was an important site of anti-communist unrest in the communist era." (Wiki).

Myriam with the pierogi. We went to Karczma Polska Pod Kogutem, where there were many pierogi options among other things. They had mushroom and cabbage ones without cheese or meat for me and also some with cottage cheese and something and some with meat. They were delicious. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed sitting on the patio and drinking some beers with our lunch.

Carly and June chowing down! Writing this is making me hungry all over again.

I found these pigs in the restaurant on the way downstairs to the bathroom.

After lunch, we took a wander to see the "sights", which there were not too many of. You can't really say Szczecin is the most beautiful of towns, though it does have some old nice buildings, a river running through it, etc. We thought this was funny...Franklina Delano Roosevelta street, guess FDR made an influence?

I believe the brown stone building used to be a Merchant Marine Academy. To the right is the river.

This happened.

The Church square.

Pretty old building! June, Myriam and Marion are enjoying the door.

I want to live in there.

I was complaining that there was not going to be vegan things...and then I found this poster. A vegan hardcore something from the USA at Teatr Kana. Of course. But then...

Let me mark the moment I found a cafe with soymilk in Szczecin! Sojowe mleko, bitches! I enjoyed that soy latte, for serious, and was shocked to find one in this small random Polish town. So, if you're wondering where to find soymilk in Szczecin, Kawiarnia Fanaberia (Cafe Fanaberia) is your place! Here are some reviews, if you're interested. The address is Bogusława 5 and there is another cute place called Teatr Maly next door that had beer and food. This area, Buguslawa Promenade, appeared to be the "hip" district of Szczecin. Anyway, Fanaberia had a little patio area out front and another area to sit in the backyard. They had lots of cakes and pastries and you could buy their tea and coffee, all presented with lots of fancy teapots and whatnot. They also had iced tea and apparently have really good hot chocolate, but it was way too hot to test the latter out.

Then we wandered more and found this building.

At last, we all headed to the mall for our last hour before the train. Everyone else looked at clothes,  but I headed straight for the supermarket. This was perhaps the biggest super market I'd ever seen in my life, and I'd gladly go back to Szczecin just to go there. There was an entire aisle of milk, where I found the beauty above, entire aisle of canned meat, another for yogurt, pasta, and half a refrigerated case filled with pierogies. It was epic.

After our shopping adventure we decided we better head back to the station to catch our 6pm train. Unfortunately the trams were not running so frequently and we arrived one minute after our train had left...running like idiots up to the platform. Oops. We had even attempted hitch-hiking to the station, but got turned down (there were five of us). So we managed to kill a couple hours until 8pm when the next train came, drank some more beers, ate some food in the station and played some games (I Spy anyone?). At least the train back was direct with no changes and we ended up having fun anyway.

We will surely go again, it was a great day trip, yummy food, cheap day out of Berlin and we had an awesome group that lead to never-ending giggles and adventures. Yay Szczecin!

Oh hai Deutschland

After an summer camp filled summer at Bryn Mawr College and Princeton University, I just arrived in Kleinmachnow, Germany, which is right outside Berlin, and where I'll be spending the year as an au-pair! Get ready for some updates to this here blog now that I'm back abroad! So far I've toured my family's giant beautiful house and have unpacked my room. They even gave me my own bathroom! Tonight I'm going to take a test at a language school to see what level of German I am and enroll in a German class. I've been speaking to the family in German over e-mail, but I was afraid my spoken German would be completely gone when I got off the plane. Turns out it was hiding somewhere in a corner as I just spewed out lots of things for a couple hours. Whew. Pretty sure all genders and cases have been thrown to the wind, however. Anyway, here's to hoping I get in an advanced course!

Still haven't met the kids, but I imagine they get off school soon. They are all boys and I believe they are 5, 9 and 12. I was greeted by handmade signs from them in my room, so hopefully they will like me!

It still hasn't hit me that I'm in Germany again. Finally. I think I feel more normal than I felt this entire year. I think I've just mastered the art of packing and getting my way around airports. I managed to only get hit with a $25 fine for being 21 pounds over the weight limit! I win! While my suitcase was heavy, I managed to get here with only one suitcase and a backpack. I have come a long way. A little over a year ago I was lugging two giant heavy backpacks back to America. Have I learned my lesson?

Anyway, it's nice to be excited about life again!

Bis bald!

Musings on the National Express...

15. Dec. '09

"My heart always does a jump as I get on the National Express bus headed to Brighton. It's this excited nervousness, which, in so many ways is like going home. I love all my friends so much, the familiarity of what I'll eat from Marks & Spensers and what I'll order from Costa."

20. Dec. '09

"Nat'l Express Driver: When you tale a call you need to keep in mind how long you're on the phone because no one else on the coach has anything to do except listen to your conversation and nobody wants to know who did what, who you took home and how long they lasted. Especially because there's children and men on board and they will get jealous...including me."

The fact that England's public transportation inspired two journal entries from me within a week means America is doing it wrong. I should also mention the bus driver gave us all chocolates while wearing a Santa hat.

Northampton, Massachusetts: Welcome to Lesbianville

That's right, folks. I'm back in America and I brought some crazy European germs with me! At least I got three seats to myself to lay down and sleep on the plane. I've been sick for three weeks and after visiting two doctors three times and getting sent for two rounds of blood tests, they're thinking it's mono. When I get the results from the second round of tests I'll know for sure. I've broken out in a rash all over my body, blew some mystery solid material out of my nose yesterday that at first I was convinced was actually a part of my lung, have something seriously fucked up going on in the back of my throat that looks like leprosy and am on my second round of steroids. Needless to say, it's been fun and I've never slept so long or been so sick in my life!

You didn't think I'd be done blogging just because I'm back in America, right? This might just be a year for me to recover, replenish my very empty bank account and rapidly learn German (more on this later), but I'd probably die without adventures. First up: Northampton, Massachusetts!

Let me tell you a few fun facts about Northampton. It has the largest number of lesbian households per capita in the entire nation (City-Data.com). My first year there, Coldstone Creamery, the major ice cream chain, went out of business to the local ice cream place called Herrell's. All of the chain stores are hidden on one road away from the center of town. There is an acapella group in town called the Raging Grannies and they are grannies that sing about peace, justice, and how much they hate George Bush. Northampton is the first place I've ever been proud to live. You cannot throw a stone here without hitting a trendy coffee shop. Or a lesbian. Of course NoHo has its problems, but I like it here.

It's in the Pioneer Valley and is home to the one and only Smith College, my alma mater. Smith is a women's college of less than 3,000 undergraduates. They call it a mini Ivy League and boy, did it kick my ass for that title. There was one time during finals that I burst into tears in the dining hall because a piece of broccoli fell off my plate and that, my friends, was the last straw left of my sanity. Also in the area are four other universities: Mount Holyoke, which is also a women's college; Hampshire, the hippie one that doesn't have grades; Amherst, the preppy one and last but not least; UMass, the much bigger state school. Students at any of these schools can take classes at any of the others. Smith is the Gay One.

A picture of part of Main Street in Northampton that I stole from the internet. The best game to play while walking around NoHo is called "Lesbian or 14 year old boy?" I mean this in the best possible way, I love me some lesbians.

During my 3 years at Smith College (I went abroad), I lived in Tyler House on Green Street, which was an old estate from the 1800s that Smith bought from super rich people. The areas of campus are Green Street, where the quiet nerdy kids allegedly live (except we know how to do it in Tyler), the Quad, where the straight girls and parties are and Upper and Lower Elm, where the hipsters are alleged to live. We don't do "dorms" and instead have 36 smaller houses. Most people stay in their house their entire time at Smith if they like it and we elect and govern ourselves leading to a general sense of house community (and house booty). Tyler was pretty bangin' because we had a dining hall and were right near the gym and academic buildings, so I could be really, really lazy. At one point someone stole a key to the dining hall and during finals we would break into the kitchen and make ourselves really big sandwiches and sodas.

Tyler House

We have Paradise Pond (really part of the Mill River that was dammed off) on campus and our own waterfall! During Spring and Fall you can canoe and kayak on the pond for free if you're a student, alum or friend!

At Smith, we are a very self-selecting bunch. Rather than throw keg parties and go clubbing all the time we like to do things like this:

Pin the Body Part on the Androgynous Being and,

Make really big blanket forts that take up the entire living room and have a TV in them! Say hello to Charlotte.

Fall is the best season in New England, the area of the States that Massachusetts is part of. Here is a walking bridge on campus leading to the Athletic Fields. Smith campus is pretty.

Now that you've had a primer on Northampton and are getting a feel for Smith College, I'll start telling you about my adventure. Though I was sick and ailing, my doctor prescribed me steroids so I headed up to for Senior Week (re: giant week of partying and adventures before graduation where seniors are allowed to stay on campus after finals) and Commencement (graduation). I booked my flight back to America specifically for this, only giving myself enough days to recover from jetlag, so I was pretty pissed when I got sick, but I went anyway!

The first thing I did honestly was go to the Co-Op because one Miranda M. was too busy being an outdoors kid, kayaking in Greenfield, MA to let me in. It's okay though, because I got some vegan chicken and beef boullions, dried apricots and 2 free sample boxes of iced tea! The first thing I did when she got back and let me into her room was a) say hi and b) order Taipei & Tokyo. At Smith, I ordered so much sushi delivery from them they knew who I was. Oops.

Before an adventure to Brattleboro, Vermont, Miranda discovered that one of the big trees outside Tyler House had fallen down in a storm. We also tend to hug trees at Smith. But really, this thing was massive, good it didn't fall on somebody's car.

This is in Brattleboro, Vermont, which is about a 40 minute drive away. We occasionally go there to checkout the Twilight Tea Lounge, an awesome tea place that has over 100 types of tea and baked goodies. It's still awesome, but not quite as great since they moved locations this year. This river and that mountain are pretty much in the center of town. Brattleboro is basically a more rugged version of Northampton.

In Northampton there is a store called Acme. It sells things that wouldn't sell at other stores. Things like these baby doll body parts that have penises. We like to walk though this store in Thornes for amusement. And to buy cheap things.

On one such trip to Acme, Amy bought these animal noses. So we all put them on and walked through town back to campus. Amy was a condor.

You wish you were this cool. Me, Alli and Amy. Or should I say, Dolphin, Dinosaur and Condor.

Alli (left) and Celine. Do you sense a theme with the noses? Because there is no work to do during Senior Week and Smithies don't know what to do without work, we can be pretty creative with our adventures. On one occasion Alli and I made a mad rush to Target before it closed. Without further plans, we sauntered across to Buffalo Wild Wings. Let me set the scene here. Buffalo Wild Wings is near UMass, so it was filled with frat boys watching sports and their straight girlfriends. Some of us may be straight, but we don't look it and are lost in frat culture. Don't get me wrong though, Smithies can play a mean game of Beer Pong. We stuck out like a sore thumb and it was awesome.

Katie, Amy and Celine met up with us. They thought we'd get drunk. As two of us were underage and I was sick, we had another idea. Alli and I had realized that the establishment had unlimited soda refills, so instead we had a contest to see who could drink the most sodas. I said I would drink 15, I mean, you just pee it out right? I don't drink soda much. This ended up being far more entertaining than being drunk, as we just chugged soda, peed all the time and then giggled for hours from our sugar highs. As a table, we only drank 11 sodas. I drank 2.5. Shut up, things are bigger in America. Those cups were as big as my face. Alli won. In the bathroom I overheard such conversations as "Megan thinks Joe likes her and it's like, totally hilarious because he, like, thinks she's disgusting!".

I also saw this awesome advertisement that said "Mo-He-Toe: Congrats. You're now bilingual". Good, I'm happy it was that easy.

Katie! Reunited! This lady puts the fab in fabulous. We talked about poop and ate Taco Bell and it was pretty much amazing. There was also a trip to Montague Book Mill in there somewhere. Books you don't need in a place you can't find.

Christine (center) gave about 15 massages one night. This is Miranda's (left) look of pain. Christine doesn't mess with her massages. Anna's (right) massage is not quite as painful.

On a super exciting note, the lovely Gina, my TEFL Worldwide comrade whom I met in Prague, lives 45 minutes away in Connecticut and drove out to visit me. We went to Cafe Evolution, a wonderful all-vegan cafe in nearby Florence, MA for lunch and took an adventure through Smith's Plant House, which is massive and boasts such things as banana trees, a rubber tree, tea plant, coffee tree, cacao tree, venus fly traps and tons of orchids. This is us and and a pretty special plant with little squishy balls on it.

This is me petting a really hairy cactus in the Lyman Plant House on campus.

And I'll leave you with this, the chapel on Smith campus is called the Helen Hills Hills Chapel. Why? Because she married her cousin (Hills HILLS). Someone decided the "Chapel" of Helen "Hills Hills" was tired of being the third wheel, so they added a little somethin', renaming it "Helen Hills Hills Chapel Chapel". Nice one.

I ended up getting too sick to stay for Commencement, which killed me because Rachel Maddow was giving the Commencement address, which you all should WATCH HERE! I think my favorite line is:

...Al Capone rose from humble beginnings in Brooklyn to build a huge crime empire that essentially owned Chicago during Prohibition -- a personal triumph.

All these people dream their dreams and work hard and achieve their dreams.

Some dreams are bad dreams...

You should all watch that video up there though. Not only is Rachel Maddow a flaming hot homo, she's hella smart.

Image of Rachel Maddow (a la The Rachel Maddow Show), a political commentator who rose to national prominence after launching her career on local radio, stolen from Google Images.

I could write about Smith and Northampton forever (and farm lesbians), but you get the idea. I just might though, as I plan to move back to Northampton in August for the year since I cannot survive more than a month or so on Long Island. I'll hopefully be auditing intermediate German at Smith (once I get permission from the instructor), working to save up money and bein' a big gay before heading back to Europe (hopefully on a Fulbright grant this time)! I'll probably write more on this and my constantly changing plans in another post.

Chester & Liverpool: Part I

I really don't like taking planes. So I took a 7-hour ferry from Dublin to Liverpool, which basically flew by because I made a friend to play cards with, hangout and have some afternoon beers with. Here's the thing, when you take a plane it ends up not actually being much shorter. Why? Because you always have to get to the airport (+1 hour), you have to get there early (+2 hours for within the EU), take the flight (+1 hour in this case) and then you have to get from the airport to town (+1 hour). That's a total of 5 hours and my ferry was only 7 and a lot less trouble. Plus it was only 45 euro as a foot passenger with unlimited baggage. If you're ever going from Dublin to Liverpool, I recommend the Norfolk Line Ferries (http://www.norfolkline.com). P&O Ferries goes the same route, but you can only go with a car.

The funny part is, the first thing I thought when I saw this play area was "nap". But apparently enough people had the same idea that they actually had to make that sign. Oops.

After an epic walk to the Hamilton Square train station with a random drunk man, I finally got on the train to Chester and was greeted by Gulli at the station. Once there I was fed well and treated to wine and some sweet home style dining. This is Ollie, Laura and Gulli bein' all cute at the dinner table. Gulli's interpretation of cute is a bit different from theirs, it seems.

Of course, Gulli and Ollie force fed us lots of wine. Here is Laura being a "victim". Thus, the whole time I was there I mostly just giggled and drunk Skyped. And ate more.

This is the face he makes when he likes you.

Chester is pretty! The canal we walked along to get to the train station.

Chester apparently has the only fully intact medieval walls in England. But it also has a designated pidgeon feeding area.

Our trip to Liverpool was right before Easter and I found this sign particularly hilarious. Easter EGGsperience. Bwahahaha.

There's all these really interesting/kinda cute messages around Liverpool about being close to your neighbors and stuff that I really like. This one says, "6.8 million people live alone in England. Do you feel lonely?"



And this one, "There are 3951 people for every km2 in this city. Do you like your neighbors?"

While the China Town of Liverpool is not very impressive, this gate is. I did go into a pretty epic Asian food store though where I became obsessed with peanut mochi and further fed into my instant noodles habit. That's literally what I'm been living on (and hummus) since I'm getting really low on that money thing. I really like instant noodles though, so I guess it's okay.

Action shot! I'm really good at taking attractive photos of people.

Liverpool! Near the Tate Modern, which was free! My favorite was the 2nd floor where they gave you headphones blasting techno and you got to dance while looking at the art. Art is SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING while dancing.

At the very top you can sort of see the Liva bird. This tower has two of them facing away from each other that are both chained to the building. The story is that if the chains are released they'll turn around, fall in love and fly away and then Liverpool will cease to exist. Aww.