The Posh

Hello everyone!

Monday was a bank holiday here so that meant that everyone was out and about and it was the perfect time to check out the downtown area. I walked to my future workplace and almost made it without getting lost. Does someone want to explain to me why straight doesn't actually mean straight on these London city roads? Like who decided that instead of putting everything on a grid you would have to choose between straighish left, straightish right, or a leftish straightish left aka the road which isn't as far left as the straightish left. Confused? Yeah I was too. Jes mostly chuckled beside me as I tried to navigate the downtown streets. Apparently she had already memorized the way to work and let me walk almost a whole block in the wrong direction before gently suggesting I check my GPS. Don't worry guys, I'm sure I'll get it right on the actual day I report to work...but I'm leaving extra early just in case. 

After finding my future firm we decided to reward ourselves with some Duck and Waffle coffee. It's some samba sushi lounge on the 38 floor in a skyscraper. And yeah, the Brazilian and Japanese combo was super weird. No clue whose idea it was to mix the two, but rich people pay a fortune to eat snails and monkey brains...so I guess samba sushi is relatively tame. Side note: glass elevators are the best! Especially when you get to ride them twice because you missed the exit for your floor...oops? Overall the samba music was perfect, but the expensive coffee life was just not all it's cracked up to be, especially when you can get a perfectly brewed latte for 2.50 about four blocks over. 

Jes had me walk all through the next few neighborhoods, Hoxton, Shoreditch, Brick Lane, and Spitalfield. I totally failed at taking pictures for you guys, so sorry! The good news is I get to do it all over again when my friend Tanja comes into town, so I promise to take pictures. Although, some of the areas were "hipster" or "punk," so there really was not that much to see. After she had me walk 8 million miles, jet lag began to creep in hard. I was allowed an hour nap and then forced out of bed to do work on my refugee case. On the plus side, we found this really cute non-alcoholic bar! I got a fiery martini to match my dragon-breath, jet-lagged self. Jes is one brave lady who I can happily report lived to tell the tale of waking a dragon from her nap. 

 

Day 2:

If I thought London skyscrapers were posh, I was not adequately prepared for Covent Garden. Since Jes had a meeting in the area early in the morning, we took the tube during the morning work rush. Let's just say this A/C car girl will be walking to work. I did not know that many humans could fit on one subway car. All bets were off for personal space and I was absolutely sure when the doors closed Jes, who pushed me onto the car and followed behind my hesitant self, would be crushed. Don't worry, she wasn't and apparently an inch of space between her and the door was "loads of room." The tube ride was worth it, as in the end we beat everyone to the market.

Apparently if you live in the middle of the city and have loads of money and feel like you are missing out on spring, you turn the city center into a version of Descanso gardens. Like what the heck, I cannot imagine how much all these fresh flowers cost.

The whole morning tube ride was made worth it for this piano! How amazing is this? Of course I had to play at least a bit of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata...I simply could not resist, even if it was dark and broody for 8 am song hehe. 

You name the designer brand, they've got it here...kind of like Rodeo Drive, except older. It was funny, the people here were drawn to the shops whereas little ole me only cared about all these flowers! I mean seriously, it's like walking into a homey English cottage, but the cottage is everything from Burberry to Dior and spans a few blocks. 

Our day got even better with free Pret coffee!! Apparently if you're nice and treat your cashier like a human being, they have permission to give you free coffee. Also talk about socially conscious businesses, they donate the food that does not sell every night to homeless shelters across the area instead of just throwing it away and work with lots of local charities. Why can't all coffee shops be this cool? 

The rest of the day was just spent moseying around and enjoying all the greenery while window shopping. It's not that exciting I know, but honestly it was exactly the low key day I needed. Plus it's fun to pretend like I was a part of the British elite for a day. More adventures to come so stay tuned :)

Love you all!

Carolyn

LONDON

Hello Fam!

I'm traveling again and you know what that means, the blog is back in action. This time I'm a little older, a little wiser, and still the same traveling procrastinator. Literally packed my bags at 10 am before my evening flight. You think I would learn from all my travels but nope, spent five days before my flight putting everything in order and calling in the village for reinforcements when booking hotels and packing my apartment seemed impossible. 10 hours and a whole ocean later; Voila! I'm in London!

Jes picked me up in style with a homemade cardboard sign and all. For those of you who don't read bangla (a group in which I myself am included) the bottom of my sign says "don't get kidnapped," a throwback to our 2014 days of working in Bangladesh where that phrase was the best BRAC had to give us during our preventative security measures lecture -.- At least I can thank them for helping me find a British best friend, five years later and we can still tolerate one another (just kidding, love you Jes hehe).

For those of you who have yet to meet Jes, let me tell you one thing, she's a walker. So my very first day in London, after this 10 hour flight, I arrived at noon and stayed out until midnight. Not only did we take a train and three subway lines to get from the airport to our airbnb, but also we walked six miles along the canal. Looks like there's no more A/C car girl here. The weather was actually phenomenal, as in sunny and 75, so we just lazed in the grass, ate ice cream, and checked out the house boats. There was even a bookstore boat! (which is pictured below)

Day 2: Jet lag isn't too bad, but that didn't stop me from waking up at the crack of dawn today. I forced myself to go back to bed for a few more hours, especially since early wake-up calls will be the norm once work starts. Around 9:30 we decided to get dressed and adventure! Not even 24 hours together and we are already accidentally matching.

We started our morning at the Sunday flower market. Trust me when I say I will be back EVERY Sunday. They had orchids for five pounds! ORCHIDS. I'm talking the potted plant kind that you pay twenty-five dollars for in the grocery store when you're running late to a party and need a quick gift for the hostess but BIGGER. Seven pound bouquets of roses and four pound peonies! This girl is going to have fresh flowers every week hehehe.

I think Jes really wanted me to appreciate her country bumpkin roots, because we went to a city farm next! It is literally just as it is named, a farm in the middle of city.

For those of you that remember my Paso Robles County Fair days, you know that pigs aren't really my thing. So imagine my terror when the farmers asked us to stand behind the gate as they moved the two hundred pound pig into another pen. I was on the other side of the farm faster than you can imagine! I'm not about to wait around and see if cujo the pig wanted to crash the gate and eat me for breakfast. I promise you the pig was massive and the picture just does not do her justice. 

Okay the next part is my favorite because I GOT TO PET THE FILLY AND SHE LOVED ME. Also hilarious to watch her prance around because she still couldn't quite figure out how to handle her legs yet, hence the weird stance she took while grazing. 

We had lunch at the farm next and I had real coffee...finally! I seriously need to figure out why it is just so much better in Europe. Maybe I need to up my barista skills because really there is nothing like a European latte or cortado. 

Found this cute scenery on our walk home. Don't be fooled though, most of London is just a regular city. But I'm hoping to find more spaces like these during my time here.  

That's about it for now, it's raining, so I'm inside sipping my tea and blogging through the afternoon. I think that makes me practically British now. I'll keep you guys posted!

Love you lots,
Carolyn

Venezia

Welcome to Venice!!

Mom and I had 30 hours to see the San Marco District and boy did we rise to the challenge. While I think Tuscany might always have a special place in my heart (until I visit Sicily that is!! Have to stay true to my heritage thanks to Auntie Carole), Venice is wonderful.

I think my absolute favorite part of being in Spain and Europe is that people think I am actually from there. Until I open my mouth that is, then either my accent or my lack of any Italian vocabulary give me away. But for that one fleeting second, it’s like I belong somewhere. The US might be my home, but despite my lack of any accent or response that I’m from LA, it’s always followed up by the classic “where are you really from?” Which, I must admit can get annoying after a while. So these past two weeks, when people are shocked that I’m not from there? A pretty nice change of pace.

I think I’m most proud of the fact that Mom and I navigated Venice using local transport only! We caught a water bus to San Angelo and then got very, very lost looking for our hotel lol. But look at these pictures we got in return!!

The canals may be green, but you have to admit they have a quirky charm.

We found random statues and musicians in stone and frankly I’ve been so happy I couldn’t help but dance everywhere I go. I felt like Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, except this was my Venetian Holiday.

Here’s Saint Marcos Basilica. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed inside. But it was your average church, with gold mosaics as the background of all the images. Impressive for sure. I almost thought of sneaking a picture, but it’s kinda hard to break the rules inside a holy place hahaha. Honestly I don’t think Big G would mind, but there were so many monitors that they would have made me go to confession and I would get so many Hail Mary's to make up for my sins haha.

Next Mom and I ventured into the Doge’s Palace. What’s a Doge? Basically a Duke, but wears a fancy gold hat that looks like a rip off from the Persian ones.

I had fun playing around in the overly ornate halls. Basically we only got to see the formal council rooms where Venice curators tried to convince us that Venice was reigned by a republic. I’m not so sure I’m convinced....maybe a republic of rich Italian aristocrats?

Here is one of the council rooms. The middle chair being a throne for the Doge. But here’s the real question, if it looks like a republic and talks like a republic, is it actually a republic? I think my favorite part is all these council members commissioned portraits of themselves into biblical scenes which you can see in the background, I guess alluding to the fact that they uphold the highest virtues in this room? Hmmm I’d like to see the list of how many people were condemned to death, I’m pretty sure Jesus didn’t hand out the death penalty and chilled with the thieves.

It’s so pretty looking up, sometimes I forget to look where I’m going. So you can imagine me bumping into a huge crowd of stationary humans immediately after this picture and trying to apologize. I think they understood though, it’s kind of hard not to be distracted around these rooms. I wonder if they put so much art in this room especially on the ceilings so you could be a council member for 30 or 40 years and still find new things to distract you during the boring, day-long meetings. I’m pretty sure no one was paying attention to the speaker when they held council in this room!

We got to visit the dungeons and well Mom decided she wanted the hotel room to herself for the night and locked me inside!! Those iron bars were no joke.

Finally at the end of the palace tour and I had fun channeling my Funny Face around these stairs.

My new favorite thing? Finding old mirrors and taking selfies in them. I even got Mom in this one!! Remind me to look up next time though. I’m not so good at this millennial thing.

T-5 hours to go before we have to catch the water bus to the airport and Mom and I head back to San Marcos Plaza. I don’t get it, but zodiac clocks are a total thing here. I imagine old Venetians going “what time is it?” And the response being, “oh half past Leo” or “quarter after Pieces”.

We then made our way to the Correr Museum, which was basically an entire palace built for visiting Italian royalty who only stayed there for two years. Nice. However, I did finally get to see a ballroom and dance across the floor!!!

This was the “unofficial” dining room. I can’t wait for them to restore the official one. Imagine how much more ostentatious that one is!

This is a classic Venetian glass chandelier. Apparently people pay thousands of dollars for these things...they’re pretty? I guess? I wouldn’t spend my money on that. But I guess when you’re royalty it doesn’t really matter.

For our last two hours in Venice we just walked around, with nothing to do but be present. We found amazing hidden views...

And made friends with local street artists, including an  amazing water color which will be featured in my apartment!...

And just stood on bridges watching he gondolas go by. Shout out to this guy for seeing my camera and totally posing for this picture!!!

And with a last farewell to Italy we ordered two gelatos at a fancy place (I’d like to add that it was still cheaper than two single scoops at an LA place). And man was it a great sendoff.

Bellies full and hearts heavy, Mom and I ended our Italian adventure. And what an adventure it was. I already can’t wait to be back in Europe. Mom is excited to go home, but me? Well I’ve got three days before I head off to the East Coast for my last trip before law school. So stay tuned for the next adventure. And Italy, well arrivederci and thanks for not taking me out to get some cannolis ;).

Love you lots and see you stateside!

Carolyn