michigan

Seeing as Detroit has just been named the most dangerous city in America, this little entry serves as a kind of homage to my homeland...the land of some of america's best sports teams, worst roads, capital of cars and highest ratio of violent crimes, muggings, rapes and aggravated assaults. I don't make this stuff up. read for yourself:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/19/AR2007111900134.html

But i really can't complain; i'm a suburban yob. my parents heard the word detroit and covered my ears. I got lost in the car there once and nearly wept.

So i'll just get on with the journal entry, which has little to do with detroit and more to do with the rest of the great state of michigan. I almost forgot that i went home for ten days in august. between not writing my dissertation, working at starbucks and more not writing my dissertation I took a detour home, with Dave, to see friends, family and the elusive sun that people in the rest of the world said was shining. and indeed it was.

The trip was one part college reunion in multiple ways, three part family/friends reunion and many parts frozen strawberry margarita reunion. We spent the first saturday home driving up I-75 to a sorority sister's wedding in Traverse City and then spent the next day "hauling" 55mph on M127 back through Mt. Pleasant, the first time back to my alma mater since I graduated. And other than daily trips to dairy queen, Royal Oak and Rochester park, nothing too excitingly eventful happened. I did get to meet my new puppy, Winston, and i became a minor master of Bomberman and Cow Racing on the Wii and there were Katie's birthday margaritas...so generally it was really nice to be home--a place I associate with permanently being a child. No thinking allowed.

how nice.


small traverse city beach


marina in tc


The Bird! my favourite college bar in downtown mt pleasant


:0)


home


dave at stoney creek metropark


family!


puppy!

Firenze

I just realised that I never continued my Italia blogging and have neglected to post photos from Florence. I'm going to try to do this in one entry, but be warned, there are quite a few. I was obsessed with the buildings, the statues and the gelato; sadly, i took no pictures of the gelato--silly me.

i was surprised by florence, to be honest. I'm not a huge renaissance art and sculpture buff, but after two stifling hot days in rome i was ready to leave the vastly overpopulated and hugely overwhelming ancient capital. i think i need to go back to rome and give it another chance, but i'm thinking december might be a better time:0)

we took the fast eurostar train up, which got us into florence in a little over two hours. the ticket machine at termini station did a werid thing and booked our seats separately, and we ended up in cars C,D and Q. It gave me some good time to silently praise the landscape rushing past my window and drink in Frances Mayes's version of Tuscany in her travel book Under the Tuscan Sun. Though I am slightly weary of travel fiction and non-fiction due to a year of postcolonial and imperial writing coursework, i'd still highly recommend it. That might also be due to the fact that we took the slow train through Tuscany on the way back to Rome, and it really does look that beautiful.

anyway, we did nothing much other than wander around for our two days there. but the architecture and layout of the city were stunning and perfectly exotic in that way non-italians expect italia to be. probably not so much bohemian because florence is a bit too expensive for that, but i love a city where you can turn down the wrong street, get lost and find something new and exciting. like a market, or a trattoria, or a café or another statue, or a building that was once a church/cathedral. but i've said too much. i'll let the photos speak:


the famous ponte vecchio bridge...lots of gold shops and touristy stuff


the Uffizi Gallery


The Rape of Lucretius


Replica of the David (from behind) in front of the Uffizi


Piazza Duomo and the candy cane cathedral


spiraly bit of the cathedral


in between shot


another church we got lost and ran into


things to do in every direction


i couldn't help myself


scenic river shot



down the street


a urinal on busy via de machiavelli. not sure what the point of the dividing wall is seeing as you'd be peeing off a busy road anyway.

that's all she wrote!
my journal will probably be now confined to more domestic ventures around the british isles. employment calls!

Vatican City

We stumbled into the Vatican after spending the night at Birmingham airport followed by a morning/afternoon of lugging our suitcases (we packed far too many shoes) around greater Rome. We didn't really know what we were looking for, but we turned down a street, walked through a nook and found ourselves in the middle of St. Peter's Square. I've never felt so small in my life; it's massive!

We ate dinner at a mediocre italian restaurant with ridiculous prices and then further wandered around watching the priests and nuns socializing with one another...we also found amazing gelato on an anonymous side street. There wasn't enough time during the trip to see everything in the Vatican so we missed out on the Sistene Chapel and the rest of the Vatican Museum, but we went inside the Basilica and drank the holy water (there was a holy water fountain exclusively for drinking).


stumbling into the vatican for the first time


st. peter's basilica and the famous window


the saints (or former popes?) dancing on top of the basilica


post from the vatican


swiss guards, who don't look that dangerous, but are trained and dangerous potential killers!




ceiling of the basilica


st. peter's tomb


a frescoe (by michaelangelo, i think)


confessing in italian:0) there were booths for all european languages.

Ciao Roma!

I've officially finished my MA dissertation! wohooo! The year has gone far too quickly, but i'm not complaining about that. I fit in a quick couple of travels between writing, editing and working over the summer, and it's probabaly high time that I posted some photos. Seeing as i'm currently unemployed, i've got plenty of time. plus, there probably won't be many photos after this...i'm strapped to my phone in the hopes of interviews!

last week happened to be my one year anniversary of moving to England. So i guess this is no longer my first year as an expat...

Anyway, these are photos from Italy--I went with my friend Natalie and my flatmate Sophie at the end of July for six days. We mostly hid out in the shade/besides the pool eating gelato, but we mustered up enough energy for a little sightseeing around Rome and Florence. Temperatures were around 90 degrees, but the bodies and people in Rome made it feel much stickier. We open top bus toured, threw our coins into the Trevi fountain and got suckered into eating really expensive italian food near the Vatican. We looked for the Pope but didn't find him and laughed at the women in spaghetti straps and mini-skirts who complained because they were barred entry into St. Peter's Basilica.

i've pretty much decided that i could move to italy and change my lifestyle pace. everything in rome pretty much closes down for the month of august, and the city people head to the beach because it's far too hot. the food was fab--olives and wine and bread and pasta. away from england, the sun shone every day:0)



outside the forum


the pretty arch that mimics other famous arches (i cannot remember the name or anything historical about it right now)


the Tiber River


outside the Colloseum (and the two hour queue)


the guts of the Colloseum


extortionate roman soldier (5 euros for a photo op!)


inside the forum



old temple turned court building in the forum


something important...with Caesar, I think (the heat impaired my ability to listen to the verbose tour guide)


the Trevi fountain!


natalie and me throwing our coins into the fountain (throw one and you'll return to rome, throw two and you'll fall in love with an italian, throw three and you'll marry that italian and live happily ever after!)

the vatican and florence to come!

Norwich (still cricket tour)

These are my last photos from cricket tour--mostly just of Norwich cathedral and surroundings. nothing too important to say; just photos.



Norwich Castle (v. uncute)


The outside of Norwich Cathedral (unimpressive from this view...it was really beautiful, actually)


ceiling of the cloisters


side view and the prayer maze on the side


from the side of the cathedral


our last meal of bad tapas

Great Yarmouth (Cricket Tour)

At the beginning of the year I had this newfangled notion that I should get involved with campus life and the whole "university experience". I figured, when in England do as the English and signed myself up for the ladies cricket club. A few things about it and british sport in general:

1. when bored, create a sport that has so many rules that no one will ever remember them all.
2. make it "dignified".
3. make it wholly unplayable in the rain.

that sums up the gist of cricket. First, it is NOT like baseball at all. there are no bases, just a strip of sand that you run back and forth across when you've hit the ball far enough to score. the batter does not swing the bat over her shoulders, pitchers are called bowlers, the things they are aiming to hit are called stumps, if they hit them they've got a wicket, the average game takes about six hours to play and there's a tea break in the middle. players often wear white--all white.

aaanyway. I spent many tuesday and thursday evenings at cricket practice learning how to windmill a ball and not die when i got hit by a pitch. I eventually graduated to playing two games for the club and finally found myself going "on tour" at the end of the undergraduate year. Fourteen of us headed to Norwich in the East of England, about a three hour drive from the university. During the drive up it rained. It continued that night and into the next morning. So we weren't surprised when we got a phone call saying the pitch (field) was far too waterlogged to play any proper cricket. Actually, the pitch was flooded--all of our matches would be cancelled for the entire tour.

We were disappointed but received a small respite; the sun peeked out for a couple of hours. We headed to the seaside instead and played some improptu cricket on the beach. In hoodies and jeans with the wind kicking up sand behind us, but still. Great Yarmouth is about a thirty minute drive from Norwich and is an ugly hybrid of Las Vegas meets Atlantic City meets the Kmart Carnival of my youth. Think Santa Monica pier but ten thousand times tackier.

we still had fun.


Annie and me, representing "diversity" on the team (she's norwegian!)


impromptu cricket



if i were good, i would have hit that ball


getting ready to bowl


chicketers!


skipping stones on the beach



a rare glimpse of blue skies


really sad:0(

we spent the next day dodging the rain and wandering around norwich and its castle and cathedral. photos soon.