Scarffy Scarf

Here is my pretty Vogue Knitting scarf thanks to yarn and pattern provided by knitting extraordinaire Ginny. It is even softer and prettier in real life and Andrea my flat mate who calls me grandma also thinks it is nice. I love it. Now I am going to start a cabled sweater. I have the yarn, I have the pattern, the only thing I don't have are the flippin needles! Argh! I think I literally have every needle size except the one I need. I found a new needle brand I really like called Addi. Even better than Crystal Palace although they are medal and tend to clickty clack clickty clack. I am also looking for some cheap yarn to make a purse. I am really excited about that! I am also going to make a simple Jo Sharp sweater but I am still waiting for the yarn to arrive. I can knit when I am working at the hospital and the Jo Sharp sweater will be perfect for that.

School has started up again and so far so good. One class is about information society and the law which is really interesting except 3 whole hours of lecture on the subject is a bit much. The teacher is a bit quirky and kind of reminds me of an eewok. Two other classes are on databases and cataloging and then I am doing literature review for my dissertation as my elective. Now I have to try and find an internship for the summer and everything will be in order. There is a slight possibility I will have to come back to the states to do this but I really really would rather do it here as I would be cutting my time here very short.

I booked my trip to Rome and I am off at the end of February. I am excited to go but I wish it wasn't alone. Thankfully I have perfected my "mean" face that will hopefully discourage anyone speaking to me. Unless of course they seem nice and then I will try and revert back to friendly. I hope it will be warm!!!

SNOW

There is snow on the ground! Usually I sleep with my shade up so I have something nice to see when I wake up but it has been so cold lately that I have been putting it down to make my room warmer. This morning I woke up and it seemed unusually dark in my room so I went straight to the window to see what the weather was like. This is what I saw...
I am so excited! I want to go outside and play or something. It is suppose to keep snowing all week. This is really exciting for a city girl who doesn't see snow that often. I tried to convince my flatmate to go roll around in it with me but she said no.

I have my first knitting meeting tonight and I am soooo excited. Looks like I won't be able to do the marathon as I couldn't secure a spot so now I have to think of something else to do. I am still running quite a bit though, I am really enjoying it.

I think I will go bake cookies to win these knitters over. Apparently MEN go to this meeting although I am almost certain they are all gay as the people who organize the meeting are a gay couple. Bless their hearts.

Oxford

Here are some pics from a recent trip to Oxford with my mom and dad. They were here for 10 days and we had a lovely time going about and doing touristy things, one of which was going to Oxford. I actually quite liked Oxford although it was a bit small. We also went to the ballet which I enjoyed very much and the Victoria and Albert museum which is really wonderful. This is a museum filled with objects rather than paintings. I really enjoyed the fashion exhibit and they had some beautiful Moorish tile work. I hardly scratched the surface in that place and I am looking forward to going back.Oxford is actually a university made out of 37 colleges, a fact I never knew until I went to visit. Normally you have to be a student in order to be allowed inside a college but tour groups like ours are allowed inside. This is Trinity. Apparently only two people are allowed to step on this beautiful grass, God and the gardener.




This is the dining hall inside Trinity. I think it looks pretty nice. I wonder what the food is like...


Bikes! Everyone in Oxford rides a bike. It reminded me of being in Santa Barbara as I crossed the road more nervous of the bikes coming my way than cars.


This is one of Oxford's many libraries. I think I could work here. We couldn't go inside but I am picturing a large open building with lots of light. Oxford has so many books that they have storage 11 floors under the university and still don't have enough space. There has to be a copy of every piece of material printed in Great Britain so it is no wonder. I actually wrote a piece of course work on this very topic. Fascinating I know.

Paris!

I love Paris! I really do. It is an amazing city and I think I even prefer Parisians to Londoners. They at least apologize when they run you over in the street, although they will pretend they don't speak English when you are struggling to communicate. Paris is a lot grittier than London and in some ways seems more European. Everything in Paris is old, you will struggle to find any new buildings. The first thing I did when I got there was head straight to the Eiffel Tower. Thanks to the abnormally warm winter we are having I was able to walk around and enjoy a waffle with nutella, my favorite. I didn't go to the top as I tried that the first time I went to Paris and HATED it. You have to take an elevator and I really don't like elevators. I next went to the Musee de l'Armee which houses Napoleon's tomb. The tomb is pretty impressive, considering how small he was and the fact that he was cremated. This is also where the National War Museum is which I really enjoyed. They have a wonderful exhibit on the World Wars and I spent most of my time here. I was disappointed at the end when I went to the gift shop and they did not have any post cards or books or posters on the subject. Bastards.



I did so much while in Paris that I am just gonna kind of run through it. One thing I have to mention is that being a vegetarian in Paris sucks real bad. I found a few meat free places but the one close to my hotel was closed every time I went there. I did manage to go to another and was the happiest meat free person in all of Paris. The rest of the time I ate mozzarella with tomatoes and pastries.


A highlight was the Rodin museum. It is housed in an old Paris mansion and most of the art work is outside in the extensive gardens. Again, thanks to the mild weather I was able to walk around as much as I wanted and took it all in. I really love Rodin and it was neat to see so much of his work. Inside was just as impressive.



Another highlight was the Musee d'Orsay that has a ton of impressionism inside its doors. I could spend all day looking at the Monet's and Renoir's. And the best part of all is there was no one inside. All of Paris was virtually empty! Coming from London where there are a million people everywhere you go it was refreshing to be someplace where the streets are virtually empty as are the museums.



A friend from uni met me while in Paris and we went to Notre Dame. Inside is big and impressive of course but really you go to climb the 354 stairs (we counted) for the view of the top. Spectacular. And not a soul to be seen. You can also check out the bell in the famous bell tower which apparently weighs 13 tons. That is a lot. And it is rather big.




Also went to the Sacre Coeur which was in the neighborhood where I was staying. I think it is a beautiful church but apparently Parisians look at it as kind of an eye sore. Went to the top of that as well and there was literally no one up there with me, which was kind of freaky. Last time I went there was traffic coming up the stairs.



The most breathtaking thing I saw was Sainte Chapelle. Again, I had been here before but this time with the lack of crowds I could really take in the full beauty of the place. It is such a peaceful place without the crowds that I even thought how nice it would be to take my knitting in there and just hang out.

Paris like London is very expensive so that was kind of a bummer. I have a student ID card but apparently you have to be under 26 AND a student to qualify for the discount. I was a bit bothered that they asked my age the few times I tried to use my card but then I discovered today that my age is on the back of the card. Phew!

Happy Christmas and Happy New Year

In Ireland, they say Happy Christmas, not merry. If you say merry people look at you funny. I almost didn't make it to Ireland. Seems like I am destined to live in fog and in London they have freezing fog which airplanes are not allowed to take off in. Luckily I flew out of Gatwick which was not as affected but Heathrow saw the grounding of almost all of their flights. I still managed to almost miss my flight. I had to run to the gate and push children out of my way. (Why do parents let their children roll on the ground in airports?) But I made it and it was a very lovely Christmas indeed. The first couple of nights I stayed with Stinky's brother who had what I like to call the Christmas room, complete with beautiful Christmas tree and yummy smelling candles. Finally it began to feel like Christmas. I brought to them some Santa party bars and chocolate oats which they quickly commented on how sweet they were. Really? Does that mean I can eat the rest of them? We took off for Derry Saturday and spent the next several days with Stinky's family. He has a big family as well so it was almost like being home. His mom is a magnificent cook who made me special vegi dishes but who I think thought I had some sort of eating disorder as I never managed to clean my plate. They eat so much! Just a plate full of potatoes in every form imaginable and then something cheezy and yuumy for me that is even more filling than the meat on their plate. His brothers and sisters liked to harrass me for being so quite. At one point his dad called me "quite chops". I tried to explain that I just like to sit back and observe but I think they didn't believe me. Brian and I also went to Dublin for a day to visit some friends who were back from the States. It was so nice to see them. I think the best part of this trip was just being around people I could talk to and who knew me. I didn't have to try to be entertaining in hopes that they might want to be my friend-they already are my friend. After that we went back to Belfast to try and clean poor stinky's house as it is in shambles and then back to Derry for New Years. We went to a ball with Brian's brother and sisters and some of their friends. A five course meal was served and after horrible music by a miserable band. The ball was nice because we were able to get dressed up and be out but not have to bother with crowds and long lines. After the ball we headed back to the Walsh's and stayed up all night long. I came home on Tuesday and boy am I tired! I am even a little sick. My coursework is due tomorrow and I will be happy to have it out of my way so I can enjoy the next three weeks of not having anything to do except go to Paris and hang out with mom and dad. Poor me ;-)