Tag Archives: flying

“Just stay chipper”(pronounced chippa)

Hello again! Well, I’ve finally made it to the IES dorm and I couldn’t be happier.
I arrived in London Saturday night around 8:30 (London time); after getting my luggage together, I started on my two hour trek to my hostle. I quickly found out that I had no idea where I was headed. I walked about 5 minutes out of my way before realizing just that. Normally, I wouldn’t mind walking; however, i was carrying about 100lbs+ of luggage in an underground tunnel looking for the ticket purchasing kiosk. After purchasing a tube ticket, I hauled everything down the escalator and waited for the tube to arrive. It was about a 50 minute ride to my stop — this was a great time for me to try and relax my speeding mind (I had no idea how to get to the hostel after the tube). I must have looked pretty lost because after I got off of the tube and onto street level, a man that worked at the station came up to me and asked me where I was headed. I was pointed in the direction of the bus stop.
My next challenge was figuring out what each pence (change) was worth without looking like a mindless American. That took a while but I was finally able to get onto the correct bus. After 2 stops I was right in front of the hostel. I was so happy that I got myself there safely and for about 6 pounds total that I didn’t initially notice the 15 steps I had to climb with all of my luggage. Thankfully, there were 3 people walking into the hostle at the same time and they offered to carry my luggage up for me! I wanted to cry I was so happy. 
This was my first time in a hostel so I truly had no clue what to expect. Looking back, it wouldn’t have been bad if I were traveling with a group of people. I was unsure of leaving all of my luggage out in the open with 11 other roommates that wouldn’t even attempt to be nice to me. My first night in London, I slept about 12 hours. I was physically and mentally exhausted from my day of intense traveling and I didn’t want to move from my bed Sunday morning. Finally, I decided that I should get out of bed. I went downstairs to the common room and the computer room. I was uncomfortable leaving the hostel since I was by myself; it was on an incredibly “shady” side street. I chose to relax and de-stress while watching TV and skyping. I was overjoyed when I was able to fall asleep because it meant I was closer to arriving  at my dorm building. It took me a while to fall asleep and when I finally did, I woke up to the sound of drunken travelers at 2am. That was rather unpleasant.
I chose to wake up early and eat breakfast before my attempt to get to the dorms. I walked to the tube station because I didn’t know how to get a bus heading in that direction and then got a ticket to the correct station. After traveling 20 more minutes, I arrived at my station. This station was not equipped with an escalator or a lift which of course meant going up 2 flights of stairs with all of my luggage. By now you would think I was used to this but I was not. Finally, I got to the street level and decided I’ve had enough; I took a taxi the rest of the way. It was completely worth it — they dropped me off right in front of my dorm. I was ready to kiss the ground! I checked in and got my room key then headed up to my room. I was so happy to get here!! I got inside and started to unpack; it was amazing to finally be here. The view is really nice and even though the room is small, I really like the dorm.
After unpacking, a couple of us went on a short walking tour to the closest tube station. We all purchased phones and I stopped to get groceries. The prices truly weren’t bad! I was pleasantly surprised with the variety that was available for how small the stores were. The rest of the night was taken up with orientation and I can honestly say that I am exhausted! I can’t wait to sleep tonight.
Tomorrow morning a few of us are taking a bus ride to the nearest ASDA (UK WalMart) for some things that we need to stock up on.

I did not expect to be taken so off guard while trying to navigate around; however, I’ve learned more about traveling in 2 days then I ever have. Looking at the positives of everything so far is definitely the only way for me to learn from all of this. Well, that’s all for now! Goodnight everyone 🙂

PS- as soon as I can get my pictures to work I will upload some of the dorm room and view!


Location: London, England

Finalement, Rouen!

After days of waiting and whiling away the remaining days of my endless summer, I have finally arrived in Rouen! It feels surreal to be here and I almost have to pinch myself sporadically to remember that this IS real and that I AM here!

I flew into Charles De Gaulle airport on Monday morning. When we took off, we were running a little behind schedule, but we more than made up the distance and wound up arriving earlier than the scheduled time. We landed at 5.45 am, and I was out of the airport, with my bags, at 6.05 am. I fly several times a year, and I have NEVER disembarked from a plane, gone through immigration AND got my bags within twenty minutes of landing! It was absolutely amazing how fast everything was.

Rouen Business School had organised shuttles to take us from Paris to Rouen. I met my taxi driver, Pierre, in the lobby, and even though he knew English, we spoke in French! Not only did I understand everything he was saying, but I was actually able to hold a decent conversation! I was so ecstatic to discover that I was capable of doing that. Pierre drove me to another terminal in CDG to pick up other students, and it took us more than five minutes to get there- CDG is HUGE! We did this several times, till there were enough students to fill a taxi. It took a couple of hours but we finally left and were on our way to Rouen!

I fell asleep in the taxi for a little while, and when I woke up, we were driving through the countryside in France. All the houses we passed were similar in structure, with big gardens and flowers everywhere (even in the windowsills, which looked so pretty!) They passed by too quickly to take a picture, but I will take some when I go explore.

My dorm is five minutes away from campus. When we reached, we found French students from RBS waiting to greet us and show us our rooms. That’s when I discovered- There are NO elevators in the dorms! And of course, my room is right on the top floor. I had to lug my suitcases all the way up 4 sets of stairs (64 steps, I counted). My arms and back are still sore and it’s been 3 days! Now I know why everyone in France is so skinny- everyone takes the stairs 😉

My room is small, but it’s cosy- I have a little sink and kitchen area in the room, and I share a bathroom with another girl. When I look out my window, I can see broken cars and boats on a lawn, and a parking lot. Beyond that, there are some buildings. It’s not too interesting now, but I know it’ll get better as the fall season comes around and the trees change colours.
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The main building in Rouen, the administration wing, is a CASTLE! It’s gorgeous!
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That’s all for my first update from Rouen, keep reading and I’ll promise to try and write new updates soon!


Location: Mont Saint-Aignan

First taste of in-flight vodka, creepy taxi drivers and party hostels

You know what’s really time-consuming? Keeping a blog. Ha.

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So yeah, I’m finally here, and I have to say, being alone in another country feels great.

You’ll have to pardon me not taking many more pictures, as I want to take pictures of anything and everything, but I don’t exactly want to go flashing around to the whole known world that I have an expensive DSLR camera with me, and that I’m a clueless foreigner at that. Once I get my bearings a bit better and look like I know what I’m doing, I’ll take more environmental shots, etc, etc.

For now, though, I’m taking pictures in the privacy of my own dorm and whenever I deem it safe enough to do so. As in this above photo I shot of myself in the bathroom of the Milhouse Avenue Hostel:

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So this hostel is pretty awesome. If by chance you ever come to Buenos Aires, I highly recommend it. As soon as I walked in, a 20-something-year-old hippie dude called out to me from behind the counter. The most prominent sign when you walk in reads, “PARTY – Tonight at 11:30.” Staff is really hospitable. They play awesome music (Led Zeppelin when I walked through the door, right now some kind of jazz-rock fusion stuff). Oh, and the security is through the roof. You’re most likely only going to find other foreigners here, I’d say. I ran into several people speaking Portuguese. It felt good, not being able to understand what they were talking about. Like I was in a real cosmopolitan community.

So my Tio Rico thought I was going to arrive on the flight tomorrow, not today. I waited for him for about an hour, being heckled by a helpful, perhaps overbearing or even creepy old guy who kept offering me a ride in his taxi. He was missing some teeth and was a wiry man. He seemed pretty trustworthy, though. Regardless, Lesson #1: Don’t accept rides from overenthusiastic strangers that hang near airport exit terminals.

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LAN Chile Airlines comes highly recommended from me. It was hard to understand the English, so I can honestly say you might miss some really important directions if you didn’t have a handle on Spanish as well. But there were televisions on every seat, great foodstuffs and cute, crying babies to boot. I waved to Matheus, the little guy next to me, and he then kept waving back at me the whole ride, staring at me with wide black eyes.

I tried to teach him the peace sign, but sigh, to no avail. He’ll have to wait a few years for his inner hippie to arise.

Anyway, I got served in-flight vodka. Drinking age is 18 in Chile and Argentina. We weren’t quite out of the US when they offered me wine, beer or hard liquor, but maybe the drinking age up in the air on LAN Chile is 18, no matter where you are.

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In any case, it was good. And you see that cheesecake in the corner of the picture there? Delicious. How about the TV screen? Movies, TV shows, music, and much more in both English and Spanish, sometimes Portuguese. EDIT: You can’t see the TV in this pic, I apologize, but you can probably imagine what it looks like.

As soon as the plane landed, I realized it was raining. Oh no! So I didn’t get to see Buenos Aires from above.

I did get to experience winter in Santiago, though. Man, they’re not kidding when they say it’s winter down there – it was snowing! More like flurrying, but you get the idea.

Well, I’m off to traverse the unknown and find a cell phone, as well as see if I can contact two IES students who happened to arrive early as well. In any case, there’s a party tonight, so I’m sure there’ll be plenty of dancing, as well as opportunity to meet people from around the world. Woot.

Last note: If you ever travel internationally, make sure you take off all of your metal chains and apparatuses, shoving them into your bag beforehand. Of course, I’ve taken care to be conservative with necklaces, etc., before on flights, but lo and behold I spent several minutes stripping at security this time around… Yeah. Don’t be that guy.


Location: Avenida de Mayo 1245, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Getting there 5-18-10

Getting through the Washington Tunnel bridge was horrible, making a four hour trip six hours long and demonstrating NYC’s desperate need for Landscape Architects!

The 12 hour flight from JFK to Dubai on Emirates was A-mazing!  Aisle seat with no one beside me.  Amazing multi-course meals, free wine and candy bars.  All the movies you could ever want to watch on your touch screen.  Also flight infor, music, and news.  Same carrier from Dubai to Dar es Salaam – smaller & not as new + more passengers = uncomfortable!  What do you expect when traveling 19 hours?

It was a blessing to land in Tanzania though it is bloody HOT here!  Piled all 13 of us into an air conditioned van (thank God!) and made our way from southern Dar es Salaam (Dar) to the northern side.  We are staying in a super nice hostel on Old Bagamoyo Road.  It took much time to make it through the city.  Rush hour.  Groups of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people waiting for buses. to return home for the day.  Finally made it to the hostel and very ipressed.  Large, white, clean, 3 story building with outdoor hallways, tiled floors, hand painted floor and room signs.  Staying in a separate little building – air conditioning, the mattress is memory foam – king size!  I did not expect this in Africa…little did I know.

Best thing: I saw a skinny bus driver stop a bus and leap out, taking a tall and portly woman by the wrist.  He led her to the rear door of the bus (like the escape door on American school buses).  He opened that door and literally pushed people back to make room for her, a huge smile on his face the entire time, as if to say “there is ALWAYS more room on my bus”.  He then picked the lady up from behind, her butt on his chest and spilling over his arms, lifting her over 3′ up into the bus!!!  Classic.  Both were smiling the whole time!

Worst thing: Child with polio or other crippling leg deformity crossing an extremely large and busy intersection by dragging himself with is arms.


Location: Dar es Salaam, Tanzania