Romance and BRomance (Malta and Copenhagen)

These past two weekends were both lovely, but couldn't have been more opposite in pretty much every way. The company, climate, colors, and other alliterative things were all completely antithetical, so this blog post will probably have more ups and downs than an episode of reality television.

(Oh, and in between these two bookend weekends happened to be a take-home quantitative methods examination that took up pretty much every minute of the three days I did spend in Oxford last week, so forgive me again for the tardiness of this post)

So, back to the fun stuff. Joe and I decided some time ago that a much better alternative to throwing away money on Christmas and Valentine's Day presents was to pool our resources and throw it all away on a weekend trip to a warmer climate in the middle of term...hence Malta! I know it's a rather obscure destination, so don't be embarrassed if you've never heard of it. You see, it's right here (next to that big red arrow):

and it's a country composed of two small islands that have been conquered and reconquered by so many civilizations seeking strategic naval advantages over the course of history that they've developed a rich and colorful culture. It also doesn't hurt that it's just about as close to the Equator as you can get on cheap Ryanair flights and that its recent accession to the EU has brought an explosion of investment and growth to the place!

So anyway, a typically early (3:45 am) bus ride to the airport and a three hour flight was all it took to emerge into bright Mediterranean sunlight and temperatures of almost 70 degrees. I have only felt like kissing the ground a few times in my life, and the first steps out of the airport was definitely in the top five among them. Although the bus ride to our apartment was long, bumpy, and (almost) uncomfortably warm, we spent the whole time glued to the window, taking in the palm trees and cacti, as well as the many building clustered tightly and scenically around hills down to the water.

We could barely make ourselves stay in the apartment long enough to drop off our things before we set out to walk and explore. We stopped to take several pictures, and had time to see churches, climb ruins of old forts, and even eat "pastizzi" (traditional Maltese phyllo pastry filled with ricotta cheese) before the setting sun brought English memories back to light and convinced us that it was time for our Valentine's Day dinner. We found a little restaurant with huge windows over one of the harbors, and had a candlelit dinner that tasted even better because it was cheaper than any other we'd had in our European travels.

After dinner, I had promised Joe that his other Valentine's Day present would be to binge watch the new season of House of Cards, so we spent a large chunk of the night watching the continued nefariousness of Frank Underwood and friends.

The next morning, we'd decided to do a bit of an atypical tour of the island. First, we took a bus about 10 kilometers to Fort Rinella, a British 19th century bastion that boasted the largest gun in the world (100 tons) at the beginning of World War I. I indulged Joe's love for British history for several hours, and even took a picture of the big guns (and the cannon, too!):

Afterward, rather than getting back on the bus, we took off jogging and wound our way through the streets to Valletta, one of the other waterfront fortresses/cities we wanted to explore. With a few inadvertent detours, it was about 5 miles, and we were both ready for a good hearty lunch before walking the winding streets and ducking in and out of old churches and museums. We stayed there pretty much all afternoon, and snapped a photo together before sitting down to watch the sun set over the island.

Then we got dinner and headed back home to watch more House of Cards and crash. The next day, we'd planned to go to Mdina, one of the oldest areas of the island perched on top of a tall central hill. It's called "The Silent City", and it really does seem that the narrow streets eat up all sound, so we strolled in silence for some time, enjoying the sun and the little nooks and crannies we discovered:

Fun fact about Mdina: it's also one of the sites where Paul was held in prison on his way to stand trial to Rome. They now charge a ridiculous entrance fee for what is essentially a cellar, but we still went by it to say that we'd seen it.

Right around the time we were getting hungry for lunch, we found a restaurant built into the city walls, with probably the most gorgeous views I've ever enjoyed while eating a sandwich. Even with my camera's panorama setting, I don't think it really does the scene justice.

We lazed our way through lunch and coffee, both basking in the direct sunlight for the first time in months. Unfortunately, my skin has gotten much less resilient to such basking over the course of my time in grey, rainy England, and by the end of the meal, I could feel my shoulders practically sizzling. Although it was definitely painful the next day, I can honestly say that I've never been more excited about a sunburn in my entire life...I've never had occasion to be!

We tried in vain to find a bus to take us back to Sliema, the city where we were staying and also where I'd booked Joe's surprise Valentine's gift: a Thai massage at a place on the beach. Due to the problems of public transport, however, we showed up late, and his hour-long surprise was cut in half. Considering I can never fool him and he hadn't figured out what this particular surprise was, I still chalked it up as a victory, and used the extra money we'd saved to buy us dinner at a pizza place overlooking the harbor, where we watched the last sun we'd see in a while set.

The next morning, we headed off to the airport, and then landed all too soon back in soupy British fog and temperatures hovering in the high 30's. All week though, even in the midst of my crazy exam work, I could still feel the Maltese sun on my shoulders...that is, until they started peeling and itching incessantly :)

Due to a combination of unpacking, repacking, examtaking, and attending meetings and class, my three days in Oxford sped by at seemingly the same speed as the three hours of sleep I snagged on Thursday before dragging myself out of bed for another early morning bus (2 am this time). As I mentioned above, my next trip was a sharp contrast to the romantic Mediterranean getaway: I was off to Copenhagen, the chilly Scandanavian haven of expensive food and Nordic history, with Joe and 4 of our other guy friends. Needless to say, we made a funny picture walking around:

Although, on a related note, I would like to point out that we probably wouldn't have any photographic evidence of our endeavors had it not been for me constantly snapping funny pictures of us walking around!

We arrived in Copenhagen late morning, and found our way to our hostel, where we all took some good naps to muster the energy needed to strike off and walk around the city. Along the way, we passed Rosenborg Castle:

the botanical gardens (not shown because nothing blooms in February), and more than one Danish bakery, where we all ate some delicious pastries. One of the guys tried to keep a straight face while ordering a "Danish" from the bewildered Danish woman working the counter, but eventually broke into laughter and we all ordered winerbroden, which are basically cinnamon buns made with phyllo pastry.

We finally found our way to Nyhavn (Danish for "new harbor"), one of the most famously scenic areas of Copenhagen, and the pushoff site for a boat tour, which we promptly jumped on. After we'd finished the hourlong boatride that was pretty but mostly inaudible due to ridiculously loud engine noise, I snapped a photo of the very Dutch-looking canal before we headed back on the long walk to a restaurant we'd heard about near our hostel.

Kate's Joint, as it was called, ended up having a delicious Indian buffet for a price that was dirt cheap by Danish standards (and passable by ours). Although I didn't eat an inordinate amount, the men on the trip certainly did, and I'd venture that we lost the restaurant money on the deal. After the walking and the huge dinner, we were all more than happy to head back to the hostel and absolutely pass out from exhaustion.

The next morning, we woke up early to go for a run, and then showered before venturing back out into the city to take part in a free walking tour. Despite being jarred by both the cold temperatures and the revelation that the tour would take three hours, we weathered both adversities for an hour and a half, and did learn and see many things. For example, the oldest street in Copenhagen is young by European standards (1795), due to a series of fires that razed the entire city three times in the 18th century.

The new knowledge had no way of keeping us warm, however, so we eventually peeled off to huddle over coffee and tea at a cafe before getting crepes for a late lunch. We then wandered through the National Museum of Denmark and a nearby art gallery before getting dinner at a kabob shop and having a camp-style night of playing cards and listening to music....I'm completely serious; you can't make this stuff up. After copious amounts of rummy, BS, and Presidents, we once again curled up in our hostel bunkbeds.

The next morning, four of us had decided to venture outside of the rather small city center of Copenhagen. It's only 30 minutes by train to Helsingor, the site of Kronborg Castle...better known as Elsinore in Shakespeare's "Hamlet", and arguably the most famous representation of Denmark. The trip through the countryside was gorgeous, and we arrived at a beautiful little town by the sea, with the castle forming the last protrusion towards Sweden

Although it was far too expensive for us as poor grad students to actually go into the castle, we walked all around the outside and peeked into the chapel before making a lap of the town and winding up back in the train station to head back to the capital.

Once back in Copenhagen, we walked quickly through the area known as Christiania, which is a free, self-governed commune known for a very alternative lifestyle and some awesome graffiti:

Satisfied that every item had been crossed off our Copenhagen bucket lists, we strolled all the way back across the city to the hostel, bringing our total walking for the day up to 11 miles, by Chris's pedometer. Hungry, cold, and tired, we all rewarded ourselves with another trip to the Indian buffet (despite the waiters' looks of dread at the recognition of our crew) and then gathered our things so that we could sleep in as late as possible before heading to the airport again in the morning.

The trip home was uneventful, and we were back in Oxford by mid-afternoon...just in time for a post-travel nap. You know, I've always loved to be on the move, to go and see new places, but I have to admit that I'm actually excited to spend the next few weeks only in Oxford to relax and actually take my time on schoolwork. That's not to say that my adventures these past few weeks weren't amazing; they were. Then again, they were also exhausting! And I've really missed seeing all of my friend here in the UK. So I'm looking forward to a more low-key lifestyle.

Then again, that sappiness could be due to the fact that this week has been relatively warm and sunny...don't quote me on that if the British rain comes back to stay!

Miss New Buda(pest)

whirlwind(ˈwəːlwɪnd/)noun: this past weekend in Budapest, in which I enjoyed great friends, lots of sights, and a medically worrisome volume of cheese. 

Here at Oxford, we're somewhat constrained in our travels, even given the greater flexibility of the British university schedule. That's not to say that we don't travel at all; just that we have to be careful in selecting places we can go, see, and conquer in only 3 day chunks of time over a weekend (with the exception of the long spring break, which will be addressed later on). 

As such, different groups of people occasionally gel around a common city and date and try to pack as much as possible into only a few days, and this past weekend was one such occurrence. 

 

Joe and I left later than the two other small groups with whom we'd rented an apartment, because I had a class I couldn't skip on Friday morning. The only flight late enough was out of the dreaded London Stansted airport, which requires a 4 hour marathon bus ride on top of any flight time and then transport from the arrival airport to destination accommodations, so to make a very long travel story short, I will only say that our 1:30 pm departure time from Oxford landed us at the doorstep of an historic apartment building in the foggy heart of Pest at about midnight Hungarian time.

As usual, our VRBO apartment didn't disappoint. There were seven of us, so we'd found a three bedroom place with two bathrooms and the option for a cot (which turned out to be a huge pop-up double bed), but were pleasantly surprised when we showed up to find fifteen-foot ceilings and large windows. Tired as we were, we still stayed up for a while to hear how much fun the earlier groups had been having, and what Hungarian cuisine they'd already inhaled, before we quickly sketched out plans for the next morning and flopped into bed. 

In our breakfast wanderings toward the bridge linking Pest to Buda (fun fact: they used to be separate cities, one on each side of the Danube, and the modern name is literally the two old cities' smashed together), we found a place called Cafe Jubilee that turned out to have a strangely British Victorian vibe about it, but also some of the largest and most delicious omelettes I've ever had. We then walked one of the three long bridges across the river, and stopped on the other side to take some pictures with the Parliament, which is the third largest government building in the world, in the background:

We then trekked up the hill to Fisherman's Bastion, a strategic lookout over the entire city with a large cathedral and beautiful views. Strangely, the foggy, grey day made Budapest seem even more beautiful, and more than a bit spooky and Gothic in a strange, central European way that felt perfectly right. 

We tried to tour the cathedral, but were prevented by a Hungarian wedding, so I only got a few photos of the outside of the church before we took a detour to the National Marzipan Museum.

That's right. National Marzipan Museum! For only about a pound, we could see all sorts of things made out of sugar, honey, and egg whites, including (but not limited to): the Hungarian Parliament, a lifesized figure of a former Hungarian queen, scenes from Snow White, Harry Potter, and other movies, an inexplicable cactus landscape, a map of Europe, and even (drum roll please) a wedding cake over 2 meters tall! For scale:

It was one of those weird and bizarre experiences in which I was unsure whether the existence of the museum or our attendance at it was actually more ridiculous, but I had a blast nonetheless...and we all got to use the bathroom for free, which is quite rare in this part of the world.

After our more hokey detour, we headed back onto the beaten tourist path by walking down to the grounds of Buda Castle, which has ruins from older settlements utilizing the strategic setting on the large hill, and further beautiful lookouts and fun statues of historic figures. Probably my favorite picture of the whole group was taken there, with the whole city in the background:

and I also got some great shots of the opposite side of the riverbank, with the creepy/Gothic/vampire feeling further enhanced by a fun setting I found on my camera:

We were then getting tired of walking and the omelettes were wearing off, so we walked down the hill and grabbed a cab back to the area near our apartment, where we'd heard there was a Hungarian food and drink festival going on. And man, was there! We feasted on a lunch of mulled wine, fried potatoes, cheese, and different breads, and the non-pescatarians in my group sampled more types of sausage than they could finish.









Although we were feeling decidedly sluggish after the carb and cheese-heavy lunch, we'd decided earlier to spend the afternoon at the famous baths on the other side of the city. I don't have any pictures, because I was afraid of offending any other bath-goers not keen on the idea of being bathing suit-clad in the background of my pictures, but the baths were lovely, built a vaguely Romanesque style and consisting of a maze-like network of different temperature pools interspersed with saunas, showers, and massage chambers. We spent a full two hours exploring them and dipping in different pools, and I went in the hottest sauna I've ever seen (80 degrees Celsius!!) before we were sufficiently relaxed and prune-y and had to shower off so we could move on to our next event.

My other friend Rachel had been looking up various venues for wine-tasting, and stumbled upon one that received the most positive reviews by far of any wine tasting in the city. It was located down in the catacombs under the Budapest Hilton, a setting dating back to the days when it was a monastery, and we quickly realized why it was so highly rated. Not only was it cozy, intimate, and very cheap, but our host was amazing, and the selection of wines was unique, completely Hungarian, and delicious! After the walking, baths, and wine, we were all completely relaxed, and spent over two hours talking and tasting and laughing. At the end, our host even let us sample some Hungarian palinka, which is a schnapps-like fruit liquor served in these interesting glasses:

When we finally mustered up the energy to leave, we cabbed to one of the many kebab stands and feasted on schwarma (and falafel, in my case) for a good and cheap dinner. We spent a few hours at a "ruin pub", a Hungarian phenomenon in which an old building is barely restored and then filled with thousands of random objects, making for a fun experience both in exploring and talking with friends. When our eyelids started to really droop, we made the short walk home and then a pact to sleep in the next morning before venturing back out.






Three of our friends had to leave the next day, so only Joe, Miles, Rachel, and I were left to explore. Our "lie-in", as the Brits would say, went a bit overboard, and we didn't end up leaving the apartment until after 11. We first struck out looking for brunch, and ended up at a bakery where I ate a cinnamon roll that was literally the largest I'd ever seen. We then walked over to the Parliament, intending to take a tour, and realized we'd have to follow along with a French one, or wait an hour for the English iteration. Given my high school experience and Miles's time in France (and most importantly, our impatience), we decided to go for it, and I was so glad that we did. Not only is the Parliament large and intricate on the outside; the entire interior is gilded and worked and decorated and painted in every possible nook and cranny. To give you an idea, here's the grand entrance staircase:

Surprisingly, we were able to understand most of the hour-long tour (or at least, I think we did), and enjoyed even the unintelligible parts....gorgeous architecture is fairly universal!



We all wanted to work out and then have a bit of a siesta, so we headed back to the apartment and did some yoga before changing back into our warm clothes and venturing out to walk around a bit before dinner. We'd noticed the night before that Budapest was lovely in the dark, with all of its bridges and beautiful buildings lit up and visible from the river. We explored Margaret's Island, a large one in the middle of the Danube that gave us lovely views of both sides, and then walked back to take more pictures on the other side of the main bridge. There were many, but these are undoubtedly my favorites:

We ate dinner at a small cafe I'd found online and picked on somewhat of a limb, but it turned out to be absolutely delicious. I had a combination of goat cheese and zucchini made into almost a latke that's apparently very traditional Hungarian, and most of the others went for goulash and other hearty meat dishes.




Rachel, who's normally very good with finding activities (and previously had been more than vindicated with the wine tasting find), had booked us to do a puzzle house, which I was initially very confused/hesitant about, but willing to try. These puzzle houses are apparently very popular in Hungary, and range from rooms with puzzles to full-on games that require solving riddles and discovering keys in order to escape from a house. I was initially worried that we'd somehow volunteered ourselves for a "Saw"-like experience, but my fears were completely unfounded. The one we had stumbled upon turned out to be more of the latter type of puzzle house, but it took us a full five minutes of our allotted hour to realize that we were supposed to start the moment we entered. We were all a bit confused at first, but then we ended up getting very into the entire game, searching through rooms for stamps, keys, and clues that let us find more keys to open locks that contained even more keys! I can't even describe the intricate process of moving through the rooms, but by the end of the hour, we were having a blast and actually hugely disappointed when we didn't completely finish in the time given. I can't fully describe it, but suffice it to say that if you ever find yourself in Hungary, you should get a group together and try one out.

We then decided that a lazy night at home was in order to round out our leisurely day, and watched several episodes of the show "Arrested Development" before falling into bed for our last night.

Rachel and Miles left early in the morning, but since Joe and I had a later flight, we decided to go see St. Stephen's Basilica, the one last item remaining on my Hungarian bucket list. It's a beautiful and very opulent church, done in the Orthodox style, with many a dome and mosaic, and a lovely square out in front:

When our necks were sore from craning to look at even more gold and colored tile, we wandered back out into the street and walked up the riverbank toward our apartment, looking for the one very last thing I'd wanted to see. It looks very innocuous, and if you were walking along and unaware of what to look for, you may well miss it completely:

It's called the "Shoes on the Danube Promenade", and is a solemn and beautiful monument to Hungarian Jews killed during WWII. The sixty pairs of iron shoes are meant to commemorate a group of people that were being harbored in the Swiss embassy, until it was stormed by a death squad and they were brought down to the river and shot, their bodies left to float away in the Danube. I'd never heard of the incident before my trip to Hungary and had only stumbled across the description of the monument in some peripheral reading, but going to see it, I was struck by its power. In the middle of a pretty frivolous weekend of eating and sightseeing, it was jarring but probably necessary to be brought back to earth and remember the darker side of Hungarian history. Although it's definitely not a happy addendum, I wanted to add it here so that you could get an idea of the full experience of Budapest, at least as I saw it.

After a heavy ending, we only had time to gather our things and head to the airport, for another travel marathon that put us back in Oxford by midnight once more.

This week is a crazy one, since I'm jetting off again on Friday to head to Malta for another travel weekend. Next week's entry should hopefully include some sun and sand, but I can at the very least promise a break in the Oxford monotony!

The (Dizzying) Swing of Things

So, I've now been back in Oxford for almost three weeks, meaning that the days are already starting to slip by increasingly rapidly and equally inexplicably.

Many of us here joke about the Oxford time warp, which is a strange and mystical phenomenon in which we never seem to be very busy with school and yet also never have enough time to finish all of our schoolwork. I always feel like I look at the date and give a start, confused as to why it's so late in the game. But then, every time I think about what I've actually been doing over that time period, it makes far too much sense.

To give an illustration of what I mean, I'll give an actual play-by-play of my day this past Friday. Now, keep in mind that I tend toward hyperbole, so this is an extreme example of a day that felt particularly busy, even in the scale of my time here.  But I think you'll understand what I mean. Ready? Deep breath? GO!

10 am: house viewing with my roommates for next year (house was horrible, by the way)
11 am: Mandarin-speaking lunch with friends from my program
12:30 pm: Meeting at Rhodes House about the marquee for the Ball in May
2 pm: Class at the China Centre
3 pm: house viewing (lovely, but expensive)
3:30 pm:house viewing (unsanitary and creepy old place)
4 pm: Psychology experiment
5 pm: American Sign Language class
6 pm: Meeting about RSSAF consultancy project
7 pm: Dinner at Joe's
9 pm: Nina's birthday party

Now do you see why I just give y'all an overview of the highlights of any given period?! If I went into all of that detail regularly, your eyes would glaze over and you'd probably never return to this page out of PTSD-like feelings of revulsion.

That's not to say that it wasn't a lovely day! Granted, it was the coldest and rainiest day we've had since I've been back, and I spent far too much time on my bike, but I got to see a lot of friends and accomplish a lot of things (except any useful schoolwork). I just want to propose a hypothesis about the genesis of the Oxford time warp: random extracurricular activities slowly pull at the threads of all the time you want to use to accomplish things, and then your whole schedule is left in shambles.

That said, there have been several highlights over the last week, so I'll zoom out from the micro level and give you the more fun and much quicker version of events.

On Saturday of first week, St. Antony's College had their traditional Aussie Bop (cheekily nomered "The Bop Down Under"). Since I know several Australian Rhodies, and almost a quarter of my program is from Oceania's largest island, I was, as they say, rather "keen" to make an appearance. Through a stroke of luck, one of my friends was able to locate a long string of mini Australian flags for my costume, and I wrapped myself up in it and made an appearance. It was a great night of accents and funny costumes (my favorite being "shrimp on the barbie", when a friend of mine printed out a picture of the doll and taped prawns to it), good dancing, and late night food truck eating. I always tell people that I never get more excited traveling than when I can find Australians, Canadians, or Germans, since they are almost always friendly and down to have adventures. Needless to say, this bop reaffirmed my faith in the nation at large, and reminded me how cool it is to have such amazingly diverse friends...even if they still can't teach me how to properly mimic an Australian accent.

In stark contrast to the international flavor of that bop is this weekend's festivities, which were heavily American. Friday was, as mentioned above, a party for our friend Nina, who was my roommate in DC when all of this craziness began. Since she wanted to have a large group over, Joe and Evan offered up their apartment for the party, but with the strong caveat that we would have to devise ways to appease the French neighbor downstairs who has previously called the cops whenever more than 20 people were in the apartment. Her main complaints were that people wearing shoes sounded like "an elephant stampede" above her head and that people made too much noise in the stairwell, so Nina brought some recruits over early and we plastered the entire building with signs. "QUIET!" banners in the stairs and "SHOES OFF NOW!" inside the apartment proved effective, and a good thing it was! We ended up having a turnout of at least 100 people (did I mention that Nina's extraordinary and extraordinarily well-liked?), and I only captured part of the crowd when I tried to go all paparazzi on her thank you speech to everyone:

The best spot to take pictures all night was in front of the American flag that we've hung prominently in Joe's common room....I'd also like to point out that he's ordered multiple others after the fact. Here's me with the birthday girl (to the right of me) and her two friends from Harvard:

Tonight, to make things even more Amerrrrrican, we're hosting a Super Bowl party. Now, keep in mind that Oxford is 5 hours ahead of EST. People are going to begin arriving around 9, and I believe that the kickoff is at 11:30. There won't be much sleeping getting done before my 10 am class, but it will be worth it! To increase the home-y vibe, we have people getting pizza and wings, the boys are making ribs, and I'm cooking pepper poppers and making other inherently American dips and snacks. As expats, we have to find a way to stay connected!

Now, I'm off to try to get as much homework done as possible, because I'll be in Budapest, Hungary all weekend. I'll actually be traveling every weekend in February (Malta for Valentine's Day and Copenhagen the weekend afterward), so stay tuned for some exotic pictures and tales of obscure European countries :)