I can’t believe it but my time here in London has come to a close and I am off to travel around Europe for two weeks before heading back home. Don’t worry by the time I get to New York I will have a ton of stories and lots of pictures. I threw together this little graphic to show you guys my travel plans. Bye for now…
See you all again in two weeks!
So amongst the crazy of this past weekend Marisa and I went with Katie, Theresa and Sam to visit the famous Abbey Road. First off its a busy street, not easy to get a picture when there are cars coming down the road every two seconds. Also there are a ton of tourists so its like a game of chicken, whose going to go first and block the other group’s picture? Even with all of that we had a lot of fun and it was pretty cool to try and recreate the famous picture. So here are some pics from our little adventure:
Theresa making a funny face while we wait for a break in the line of cars coming down Abbey Road. Love you Theresa.
Our best attempt at recreating the famous Beatles photograph. Note Sam isn’t wearing shoes, so authentic.
Our best picture with me in it. This time Katie isn’t wearing any shoes.
The original picture of the Beatles on the Abbey Road album cover. Eerily similar I say…okay not really but we tried.
I’m going to miss all the Harry Potter stuff around London…sigh.
Theresa signing the wall outside the famous Abbey Road studios.
Sam trying to decide what to write on the wall.
Theresa was kind enough to get a picture of me signing the wall. My mom says thanks.
Sam signed the wall to represent all of our time here in London.
Katie signing the wall next to the famous 5 Abbey Road sign.
To say the past week has been hectic would be an understatement. Not only is it my last weekend here in London which means I am trying to squeeze in every last thing on my list of things I want to do, but by friend from home Marisa came to visit from Barcelona and got stuck here because of the volcano. That volcano with a name that no one can pronounce turned what should have been a nice relaxing with a friend into a stressful one.
Marisa had arrived late Wednesday night, and Thursday morning on my way to my last day of work I saw a sign in the tube station that said, “volcanic eruption in Iceland, call your airlines to find out about possible cancelations before leaving for the airport.” I remember thinking, oh that’s strange, but kept on going. The first advertisement I saw after I got off the elevator was one for Whale watching in Iceland…love irony. At work I sent my mom an email saying how lucky she was that my family was no longer coming to visit me because their flight would have messed up. I preceded to call Marisa and say how lucky she was that she got in just in time…yeah lucky was a wrong word to use. It quickly became clear that this volcano was going to be a much bigger problem than we had all originally thought. By Saturday air restrictions didn’t seem to be going away anytime soon so Marisa and I started the search for alternates routes back to Barcelona.
The process of getting her home was one of the most stressful and frustrating things I have ever done. We tried to buy her an overnight train ticket from Paris to Barcelona for Sunday night, but when we went to put the credit card information in it said, oh whoops can’t book this train less than 7 days in advance online, go to the Eurorail office in the center of London. Sure no problem, that’s not too far out of the way. On the way there we laughed at the people waiting on the long line outside an airline claims office. Oh those poor souls, trying to deal with the airlines, we are smart and are booking a train. Of course once we finally got to the Eurorail office we quickly realize that the line wasn’t short; rounding the corner we realize holy crap its more than 3 blocks long. After we picked our jaws off the floor we made the long walk to the back of the line, laughing the whole way. What else can you do but laugh. I decided to get us some sandwiches since it seemed we were going to be there for a while. On my way, just out of curiosity, I asked a woman in the front of the line how long she had been there; my heart stopped when she said 9:30…that was 5 hours ago. CRAP!!! (I would apologize for the language but this is the clean version). I brought back sandwiches and some croissants so that we could eat our feelings and we geared up for a long, boring afternoon. Oh but don’t worry yet, we didn’t end up waiting that long because not 20min later a very stressed, unhappy looking Eurorail employee came down and said that we shouldn’t bother waiting because where we were standing we would never make it in before the branch closed and that we should come back on monday. MONDAY!?! You have got to be kidding me…nope wasn’t kidding.
Marisa looking sad after getting kicked off the Eurorail line.
Again laughing Marisa and I decided to go use our tickets for the Tower of London, eat some ice cream, and just forget about this for a while. When we got back that afternoon we sat on my computer, along with my roommates computer (two computers is better than one), from 6pm to almost 11pm looking for ways to get her home. After many many many many many many many many failed attempts (dam you shitting websites and delayed eurostar bookings) including a 27hr bus ride from London to Barcelona that was sold out, we finally made some progress. We soon realized that if we broke up her journey it may be possible. So this is what we ended up with:
First Leg: A eurostar train leaving London at 5:25am on Monday morning…btw on a foldout chair because that’s all that’s left.
Second Leg: A train from Paris to Avignon which is in the south of France, which we weren’t even sure she had because we only got a receipt not a confirmation email.
5 hr wait in France
Third Leg: A bus from Avignon to Barcelona, arriving at 3am Tuesday morning.
Dear Volcano,
YOU SUCK!
Love,
Isabel and Marisa
I’m going to be bold and say that I don’t usually win things, seriously the last time I entered a contest they lost my stuff. This time things seem to be different because I won!! I got first place in the news category of the Boston Press Photographers Association (BPPA) 2009 Student Contest, along with some of my amazing fellow BU photographers. Here’s my photo:
September 13, 2009- Brandeis University junior Liza Behrendt leads the parade from the Democratic Health Care Rally down Bolyston St. in Boston, MA.
p.s. trying out a new watermark for my photo’s, let me know if you like this or the old way better. Thanks!
Easter weekend, my roommates Katie and Theresa, along with their friend Sam, went to Dublin to visit their friend Colleen….confusing with all the “friends” business so here’s a flow chart:
So much clearer now right? As you can see what started as a 5th wheel crashing a best friend reunion, became an awesomely fun weekend.
We flew into Dublin Friday morning on Air France…what? a real airline?!? gasp!!…..can’t lie it was nice to get my complimentary soda and snack, something that was severely lacking on my previous trips with discount airlines such as easy jet. After attempting to get into the driver side door of the taxi we headed out to Dublin City University to meet up with Colleen who was studying at the Dublin Boston University program. After an adorable run and hug moment we all went into Dublin city center to see the sites and enjoy the sporadically rainy weather.
A view on the sunset from a bridge over the River Liffey.
It is safe to say Katie did not like the pigeons that kept flying over our heads.
Stopped in “Queen of Tarts” for the most amazing scone I have ever had, plus some yummy tea.
Saturday morning we woke up nice and early, and by early I mean noon, to a nice sunny day and took a train out to the coast. Even though it was still chilly outside the sun felt wonderful. We walked around the shore and decided to head up to take a short hike to the top of a nearby hill to see a great view…unfortunately, something we quickly named the “death cloud” started to roll in.
Look how beautiful and blue the sky is…
Now see the ominous “death cloud” that has creeped into the background…at least Colleen and Katie enjoyed the surge of wind. This picture was taken literally 15min after the one above.
Later that night we went out for dinner to this really great restaurant called Elephant Castle that had the hands down best wings I have ever had in my life. Seriously walking into the restaurant made your mouth water. Imagine our surprise when we get the bill and realize that there is a second location in NEW YORK CITY!!!! Um reunion summer 2011 to eat some great wings? oh yeah its happening.
A cute picture of the girls prior to wing induced food coma.
How good do those look….by the way, notice the sunlight? Yeah that’s because we went back Sunday afternoon before our flight home and ate some more. I am in no way ashamed of that decision.
Sunday morning I did something that I have never done before….attend a Catholic Mass. Along with fellow jew Sam we joined our Catholic friends and went to church to celebrate Easter Sunday. To be honest I wasn’t sure what to expect but it was definitely interesting to attend a service that was so different from what I am used to. In addition to the service they had three baptism, which were adorable because the babies were sooooooo cute. I think the funniest part was when they threw holy water on everyone, I didn’t know what was going on so I ducked, which prompted laughs from Katie, Theresa and Colleen. What?….A guy in robes in chucking water at my head, no thanks, we stay dry in temple.
I love how confused we look. Also before you judge about taking pictures during Church, this was taken before services began and I’d like to point out that the woman sitting in front of us was painting her nails.
After Church we did what all good Catholics do, took a tour of the Guinness Factory. Hey we are tourists and we had to get some things done, even if it was Easter Sunday. Although it was interesting to learn how the famous beer was made, the best part was the free pint at the Gravity Bar which boasted incredible views of Dublin.
A dark Irish stout, I learned that the color of Guinness is in fact a deep ruby red rather than a dark brown or black. Who knew?
It’s hard to see, but I got the famous three leaf clover design on the top of my pint of Guinness!
The group in our church attire enjoying a fresh pint of Guinness.
So that’s my trip to Dublin in a nut shell. If you are still wondering about the title of this post I will let you in on a joke from the trip. It’s from a youtube video called “Drinking Out of Cups” in which the rant of a man on an acid trip is told through a cartoon lizard. We couldn’t stop quoting it the entire time…yeah I’m a college student so I can think its funny. Check it out for yourself, if you don’t like it you have no one to blame but yourself because I gave you a pretty accurate description haha:
