Oxford

Christ Church in Oxford

During my trip to London I also took one day to visit the city of Oxford (population: 143,000). Oxford is a rather small city located north of London and about an hour to an hour and twenty minutes away by bus. I got there just around noon and fell in love with the place immediately. It is such a charming city. WOW…I was impressed. I walked all over the place stopping at some of the University buildings, churches and even the natural science museum. I walked its many narrow streets and walked into many of its small but very quaint shops and made lots of pictures. Being a university town I found Oxford to be a very vibrant and lively city and walking thru the university buildings makes you want to go back to school and study something….well, maybe not. But the place is really inspiring.

Buildings belonging to Oxford University

The city of Oxford

London's Redemption

The Parliament and the Big Ben

When I went to London back in 2006 (my first and only one time in that city until now) I said it was going to be many years before I’d return back there. I know it is awful to say this but back then London did not really do it for me. I can’t really explain why: maybe my expectations were set very high (so many people had told me so many wonderful things about London I don’t know what I was expecting anymore) or I was tired from some very hectic days in York and Edinburgh at the beginning of that vacation (you know, when you try to do 4 European cities in 5 days) or maybe I was just so traumatized by how expensive everything was that I could not get past the currency exchange. I could not see beyond the bagel and tea for 5-6 British pounds which back then represented 7.50 to 9 dollars. But I definitely spoke to soon. An opportunity presented itself for me to go back to London, something I was not really contemplating on this trip, and give this city a second chance. My uncle and his wife are moving from Madrid to London and she is already living there so after she offered me a place to stay I decided to go visit her and spend some time in London. This time around my companion was with my “Europe on a shoestring” book which gives a lot of good information on places to visit and things to do in many European cities when you are on a budget. So I started looking for the most economical way to get from Paris to London and lucked out with what I found. Since the inauguration of the Channel Tunnel (the undersea tunnel which allows trains to cross from France to England under the English Channel) I had always dreamt of being able to experience being on that train. Thank God I found a great deal on the Eurostar (77 Euros for a roundtrip ticket) and was able to finally be on it. The train left Paris at around 1o’clock in the afternoon and took 2 hours and 20 minutes to reach London after stopping in 2 cities in France (Lile and Calais) and one in England. The terminal for the Eurostar in Paris is very similar to an airport terminal. You have to go thru security and have your bags scanned, then get your passport stamped by a French immigration officer and then be questioned and stamped by a British immigration officer. After that you walk into a small version of an airport’s waiting area with chairs on one side and small shops and pastry shops on the other. About 20 minutes before the schedule departure they start boarding the train and you hand your ticket to an agent at the door right before the escalators/stairs leading to the train. The train itself does not look as high-tech or from an episode of the Jetsons as you would expect…or at least as I had expected. However, it is very comfortable inside and I loved the fact that everyone boarded and got seated in a very civilized way. I knew that the train would stop in Calais, a city right on the French coast, and afterwards it would cross the channel into England. So once the train left Calais I was on the lookout for that moment the train would start to enter the channel. I was hoping for some sort of signal that would warn me. But to my disappointment there is really nothing that anticipates the entrance into the tunnel: no announcement from the captain (Captaint!! Ja ja ja..as if this was a plane or a ship; but I don’t really know what to call him/her), no music, no fireworks. So here is how I experienced it: I kept seeing more of a suburban area (green fields) as the train left Calais but saw no water. All of a sudden the train enters a tunnel (just like you experience in many train journeys here in Europe) and I also felt the train speeding up. Since I was on the lookout for the moment we would enter the tunnel I reached for my cellphone and looked at the time. The train continued its journey and nothing could be seen on either side, everything was pitch dark. After I while my ears began to get clogged. A couple of minutes into the darkness I assumed we were crossing the channel and I just continued with my reading instead of thinking that I was inside this tunnel underneath the pressure of who knows how much water and what if something went wrong or if the train had to stop for a reason and stay inside the tunnel for who knows how long, etc (I tend to be claustrophobic) When I finally saw the light (no I wasn’t having a near death experience) and saw land I looked at my cellphone again. 20 minutes had elapsed and my service provider had changed from France SFR to UK Telecom. How cool is that?!?!? I had crossed the channel and was now in the UK. About 20-30 minutes later the train arrived at the new St. Pancras station in London where my aunt was waiting for me.

St. Pancras Station in London

St. Pancras Station - Eurostar train

The weather in London was colder than in Paris, actually it was much colder and very windy. It turns out there was an artic front entering the UK right the same week I was there and the temperature dropped significantly to the low 30’s and high 20’s. But having London the reputation of a city where it always rains I lucked out because it only rained one morning from the 7 days I spent there.

Tragalgar Square and the Big Ben in the back

Picadilly - Buckingham Palace

In London I had a fantastic week. I spent time with Esperanza and the family she shares a “flat” with. They were extremely nice and welcoming, so it felt very good to be once again surrounded by the warmness of a whole family, sitting down with them to chat, watch a movie, laugh, eat and enjoy a couple of wine glasses. Since they are all from Colombia they cooked some Colombian dishes which I loved and savored: sancocho, empanadas, arepa made from cooked corn, and yuca frita. While in London I visited a lot of museums since all of them were free: the British Museum, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery (this one I really loved. It has portraits from British royals and celebrities from the 16th century until today), the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Science Museum. I also took my time to revisit the places I visited the first time around (this time I was not willing to pay the high prices to go in so I just enjoyed them from the outside) like the Tower of London (15 British pounds = 30 USD), the Wesminster Abbey (10 pounds = 20 USD) and St. Paul Cathedral. I also took my time strolling down Hyde Park, Picadilly, Trafalgar Square, the Parliament and the Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, the Tower Bridge, the London Bridge (is falling down, falling down, falling down…lalalala). A friend who I met in my German class in Munich was also in London that week as her family is from there so I met up with her to walk a little bit around Covent Garden and have a coffee. I also had time to visit a friend of the family who invited me to a home cooked lunch and where I also had a wonderful time talking. I took one day to visit the city of Oxford (I’m putting a separate story and separate pictures for Oxford) and another one to visit two small suburban towns: Richmond and Wimbledon. All and all I had a wonderful time and really enjoyed the city. I had the chance and the time to fall in love with it. I left wanting more of it, wanting to go back and realizing that sometimes it is worth to give a second chance!!!

Westminster Abbey - London's architecture

The Tower Bridge -- With Esperanza

"My" French graduation

I get asked frequently how my french is going, whether or not is improving, how much I understand and how I'm communicating with people. Here is a little story on that:

I consider myself, and therefore declare it official, as having graduated from French (the language). In other words, I feel I can checkmark the French language box …for now. Of course there is still a lot I have to learn and practice in order to master and be up to par with the language of great writers such as Dumas, Victor Hugo, Maupassant, Moliere and Camus and the language which has left us those words that we always squeeze into our mother language to make us sound so “chic”: déjà-vu, cul-de sac, avant-garde, chic, RSVP, etc etc etc. But during 2 days of the week prior to my trip to London I had to deal with a French plumber who spoke no Spanish, no English and no German. It so happens that one of the hoses on the kitchen sink broke and water started to leak. On Monday morning the bell rang and I opened the door to a lady (one who looked like “la Bruja del 71” from El Chavo or Samantha’s mother in “Bewitched”) and a gentleman. They came to figure out why there was water leaking from our apartment into hers. She even asked me to accompany her to her apartment so I could see myself the water leaking into her kitchen wall and the damage it was causing to her allegedly “just painted” wall. Of course!!! It never fails: they’ve always just painted the wall when something from your apartment leaks into their’s; people always have a small baby or a dying relative when they are out of power and are talking to you, an employee of the electric utility company; and passengers always have their most expensive and valuable object or the medicine they need to take every 8 hours or else they will die, in the bag that they checked-in and did not arrive on their flight and you are an employee of the airline’s baggage service. But I guess that is a whole other story on its own. In any case, the plumber looked at the sink and gave me his first diagnosis: Mademoiselle, one of the sides of the sink is broken; don’t use it for now and just use the other side which is OK. He later came back, checked to make sure the leaking had stopped. It hadn’t, so he checked it again and gave me his second diagnosis and the information I needed to provide to my roommate as to what needed to be done: replace one of the little hose that carries the water to the sink valve. Please mind you that all of these conversations were taking place in French. I wasn’t really prepared to discuss plumbing issues in French. I don’t even recall learning any “plumbing” words or the “plumbing” language in class…or maybe I just missed class that day…ja ja ja!!.
The following day he came back to change out the hose but he ran into a small problem and that is when he gave me his third and final diagnosis: The whole piece (the faucet) had to be replaced as this one was not a standard one which could just take any hose. To make a long story short I had to go with him to the “Sherwin Williams’ type of store across from my building and purchase the piece. 30 minutes later he had fixed the sink, the leaking had stopped and I was very happy to have communicated with him in French all the time. Not bad, is what I say!

I’m currently back from London (where I had a great time) and in my last week in Paris. My friend Eliana Silva from Munich came to visit me and just got here last night. Giving her a tour of Paris for the next couple of days will give me a chance to visit my favorite places one last time before leaving and to say good by to this amazing city which I will miss tremendously. This morning, as I was coming back home from my jogging it dawned on me how much I will miss Paris. I don’t get tired of saying how amazing, wonderful and spectacular this city is to me.

The London story and the pictures to come soon!!!

2008 so far & Future Plans

In front of the Ritz Hotel

So what have I been up to in the New Year? Well, for one thing I’m done with school. Classes did not begin until January 8th. I was originally planning on staying in Paris until the twenty-something so I figured I saved the money from those 2-3 weeks and just spend it doing some tourism in Paris or maybe even nearby cities now that I had the time. But those plans have changed a bit…not much…but just a bit. For once I decided to stay most of this time in Paris. I’m still enjoying being in this city so much and living such a tranquil, stress-free and quiet life that I do not really want to give it up; at least not yet. I realized that for the longest time (just like most of us) I’ve been always busy and even stressed between school (college), going to school and working at the same time, jumping from school and a part-time job to a full time job at FPL, and almost 8 years of working different jobs at FPL (sometimes 2 jobs simultaneously) plus working through a couple of hurricanes. In other words it has been non-stop. Even when vacationing: wake up at a decent time in the morning to be able to see as much of the visiting city as possible, walk all day long, go to museums, take trains, planes and buses, wake up early to catch a train/plane and so on. So in 2008 I’ve been just enjoying this time by myself without all the hustle and running around; doing things at my own pace: total relaxation. And it has been great!!! In the morning I wake up whenever I feel like waking up; usually between 10-11AM. I always say I think I’m still recuperating all the lost sleep from the last year or couple of years in Miami where I was getting an average of 5-6 hours of sleep per day during the week. Ok, so I wake up and go for my morning jog which now lasts between 1 hour and 1hour and 20 minutes depending on the weather and my energy level. On the way back from jogging I stop at the supermarket, which is located on the first floor of my building, and I buy whatever it is I’m going to cook for lunch. I get home and have something quick to eat to recuperate the energy lost in the jog, take a shower, and finally cook lunch. I then go out for my tour of the day. I either go to a museum, a monument, an exhibition, the stores, a church, a concert, or just simply a walk to discover a new area or new neighborhood in the city. Sometimes I go to Carolina’s house to have some tea and watch a movie (I’ve been getting caught up with a bunch of movies I had pending to watch) or we just get together to chit chat. At night I come back home, have something for dinner and depending on what I feel like doing I go out to one of the free concerts offered throughout the city or I just stay home chatting with my roommate, surfing the web, reading, or writing. So as you see, I’m living a very stress-free and relaxed life. I don’t think that I could live like this all my life but for now
I’m trying to enjoy it as much as I can while it lasts. I know that once I get back to the real world and begin working again this life will seem surreal.

So what does the immediate future hold for me? This weekend I’m going to London for a week. I will be visiting Esperanza (my uncle’s wife). I’m super excited because I will be taking the Eurostar: the train that crosses the English Channel (under water) and which places you in the new St. Pancras station in London only 2 hours and 30 minutes after leaving Paris. I booked my trip the first week in January and got a very good deal. Actually I’ve learned that if you plan your trips ahead of time and purchase your tickets (air or train) ahead of time you can get some very good deals anywhere in Europe. I’m paying 77 Euros for the round trip ticket to London on the Eurostar. If you purchase a one way ticket only a couple of days in advance you will end up paying around 200 Euros. So it does pay to plan ahead; especially when you are on a budget. Once I get back from London I will be in Paris for about 10 days. A friend is coming from Munich to visit me so I will have he opportunity of now being a Paris tour guide. I will then head to Madrid with my 2 bags on February 13th. Yeap!!! Only 2 bags left to move to Madrid. My friend Marelys, who came to Paris for a business meeting at the beginning of the month, took one of my bags with her to Madrid which left me here with only 2 bags to carry once I re-locate to that city.

In the meantime, here are some more pictures of gorgeous Paris which I have been taking these days of Exploring Paris.

Louvre Museum -- Opera Garnier

St. Chapelle -- La Concergerie

(prison where Maria Antoinette spent her last days before being decapitated)

Pont Alexander

To understand or not to understand...

...that is the other question.

Thanks to my roommate I’ve discovered a little magazine called “Pariscope” which lists, on a weekly basis, all the cultural events in the city of Paris and its surroundings. The magazine costs only 40 cents and it is available every Wednesday in all the kiosks spread throughout the city which sell magazines and newspapers. It lists everything from plays, concerts, art exhibitions, festivals and all other sort of cultural activities. It gives you the location, the time, the nearest metro station and the fee. Some of these activities are free (entrée libre) and of course those are the ones that I’ve been highlighting and attending. Being Paris one of the most cultural cities in the world I’m trying to make the most out of my time here and become more cultural. On Tuesday night for example I went to the Czech Cultural Center as they, together with the Paris conservatory, were offering a concert called “Young soloists”. The purpose of the concert was to promote young soloists (piano, guitar, a soprano and a mezzo soprano) who are currently studying at the conservatory in Paris but who do have experience performing in other cities in France. The first performance was by one of the pianists and the soprano singer. She sang beautifully. I love it when people can sing; as a matter of fact I admire anyone who can sing, at least decently. Especially because I’m a music lover and would love to be able to sing; but as many good things as God has given me a singing voice was definitely not one of them. Clémentine, the mezzo-soprano, sang pieces of the opera Carmen as well as other ancient songs in French and Italian. The 2 pianists would take turns in playing the songs and she would always sing. The second performance was the guitar player and the soprano: Céline. As soon as the guitarist started to play I got goose bumps. The sound of that sole guitar and the voice of the soprano singing were so beautiful and so moving that I swear I almost cried: my eyes became watery as did the eyes of the person sitting next to me. Céline sang a couple of very old English songs (I say very old because they were songs from the 19th century) as well as traditional and very old French songs. Since the English songs were sang with an accent and very opera-like the lyrics were not very clear to me. I caught a word here and there and more or less the meaning of the song: a man singing to his lovely and beautiful girlfriend who abandoned him. The French songs were much much harder to understand: I only caught some words here and there but did not really understand the meaning of the song as a whole. However, the mixture of the guitar and her voice were so beautiful I was just enjoying the whole thing for what it was (the beautiful sound of the guitar accompanied but an amazing voice) and did not care about the rest. But then came the songs in Spanish…and those I could understand. The song was also one from the 19th century and it went something like this: “Dime muchacha, a donde van las cucarachas?, vienen conmigo las cucarachas? Muchacha mientes porque las cucarachas no tienen dientes.” (Tell me girl, where do cockroaches go? Do the cockroaches come with me? Girl you are lying because cockroaches don’t have teeth”. No, no no no no!!! I couldn’t believe it. Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with the lyrics, but just thinking that just as I did with the previous songs, the women sitting next to me could be all moved, getting goose bumps and about to cry about a song that talks about cockroaches not having teeth made me laugh, and made me stop and think if maybe I was also getting all emotional about a song that talked about cockroaches or any other kind of disgusting insect…but in French.

3 King's Day

Galette des Rois figurines

The 3 King’s day or “Jour des Rois” is a very traditional and celebrated catholic holiday in France. The tradition on that day (January 6th) is to get together with family and friends to eat the Galette des Rois: a cake made with layers of pastry with a filling of an almond paste (similar to the Spanish torta Santiago). The cake, which you can either buy ready to eat in a box from your local supermarket, from a bakery or even bake your own, is usually accompanied by a glass of cider and it comes with a little surprise inside. Each galette comes with a little ceramic or plastic figurine. The person who gets the piece of cake with the figurine inside becomes the king or queen for the day, gets to wear the crown that comes with every galette and gets to host the same party the following year. That day I was invited to Carolina’s home to eat the Galette des Rois with hers and her husband’s relatives. Even though we not follow the whole process that is involved in eating the cake it was explained to me and here it is:
-The cake is cut into pieces.
-The youngest person in the room goes underneath the table with his/her back facing opposite the attendees.
-The person sitting underneath the table dictates the order in which the other people will get their piece of cake. This will ensure the randomness of the process.
-Once all the pieces have been distributed everyone gets to eat and enjoy the cake hoping not to break their teeth by chewing up on the figurine.
-Lastly, whomever gets the figurine in his/hers piece of cake gets to wear the crown for the remainder of the party.

The cake is really, really good. There were a couple of them at the party, one of which was home made by one of Loic’s cousin. They have promised to get me the recipe so I can attempt to reproduce it next year…ja ja ja!!, even though I was not the one who got any one of the figurines.

Enjoying the Galette -- The winner of the crown

Enjoying more gallette and an intersting discussion/information session on the political situation in Colombia

Bonne Anne

Wishing you a wonderful, happy and healthy 2008!!

with love...from Paris

So this is how I spent my New Year's Eve. On Monday morning (Dec 31st) I went for my usual jog by the Champs de Mars and Eiffel tower. The place was packed with tourists making the long lines to climb up to the last floor of the tower, lots of street vendors who sell you the typical key chains of the Eiffel tower and also lots of police. Usually you do see what I think is military presence around the tower: uniformed man who walk around with their M-something (I have no clue when it comes to weapons) and who guard the place from possible terrorist attacks. But certainly on the 31st there was a lot more of military and police presence not only in the tower but in the city as a whole. The people I’ve met in Paris and have become friends with were all gone for the holiday season so I was basically by myself here to spend New Year’s. But ever since I made plans to be in Paris around this time of the year I was determined to welcome in the New Year in the city of lights, next to the Eiffel tower. When else would I have the chance to spend New Year’s in Paris? Right in front of the Eiffel tower? Who knows.....So I made some research that afternoon and found out that a lot of Parisians gather around the Champs Elysee to receive in the New Year. However, I wanted to be right in front of the tower at the stroke of midnight. Sometime around 9 o’clock I headed to the Champs Elysee and in fact the place was super crowded. The atmosphere was great. Everyone was happy, smiling, very well dressed and with a bottle of champagne in their hands. Small groups of people were gathered all along the wide sidewalks drinking and singing. Many stores looked as if they were waiting for a hurricane: they had covered their windows with plywood in what I think was a preventive measure in case people got rowdy after an explosive mixture of alcohol and the excitement of the New Year and decided to break the windows .

People gathered at Champs-Élysées--Police at the Arc de Triomphe

I walked all the way from Champs Elysee to Trocadero and placed myself right in front of the Eiffel tower somewhere around 11 o’clock after stopping to have a Crepe of Nutella as my last dessert of 2007. The place was very crowded as well. The ambiance continued to be great: some people were wearing customs or wigs, some others were waving flags of their countries and some others just continued to sing, dance and have some good old fun. Just before 12 o’clock the fireworks’ show started. I have to admit my expectations for the fireworks were very high and I was left somewhat disappointed. However, they were still good and at the stroke of midnight everyone just started to scream Bonne Anne (literally Good Year).

The Eiffel Tower from Trocadero

The fireworks were finished about 5 minutes into the New Year and at that time I began to walk back home. The streets were so crowded it took me a little bit over an hour to get home, a walk which on any other day would take about 25-30 minutes. The problem is that the shortcut I take of walking underneath the tower was closed and I had to go around to find another bridge that would allow me cross the Seine River to get back home. I arrived home exhausted from all the walking and from not having sat down since 9 o’clock that night. When I arrived home I went straight to bed thanking God for a wonderful and many times blessed 2007 and looking forward to what will hopefully be a great 2008.

Bonne Anne (video)

Trying to walk back home