My Flatmate Lives in a Hamlet

     I've been wanting to write a post with that title for months now and with my time here in England racing to an end I figured now was the time. The past 6 months I've done a lot of traveling around Europe and in England, which has been the focus of most of my posts. But where I called home was Ainsty Flat D2 Garrowby Way. When I arrived in York, it was dark and rainy. I had no idea where I was living, what my room would be like, if it had a bathroom, how many people I was living with or who I was living with. Similarly, the people I was to live with had no idea I was coming or who I was. One of my flatmates even thought I was German at first! At least we were all in the same boat. Surprisingly, I really wasn't too concerned. I'd just had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's in Germany and was feeling ready for my next adventure.
   Within the first few days, I met my new flatmates and, as we all learned, I was American and the four of them were British. And yes, one of them does live in a hamlet! At first I was a bit overwhelmed as they all knew each other already (and the campus and the country!). Week by week though I started spending a bit more time in the kitchen hanging out with them. By the end of my time, I had to force myself to get out of the kitchen to go study. I learned so much about British culture, words, food, and holidays and I taught them a bit about American culture as well. More than that though, I had a place to call home... friends to eat ice cream out of the tub with and to help me with spider infestations at 1am.  I couldn't have asked for a better place to call home and better group of people to call family here. Unfortunately, each of them has left for home already and I find myself in our kitchen already missing them. My time in England wouldn't have been the same without you. This is not a goodbye, just a see you in a few years. Most of all, Millie, Martha, Olivia, and Megan, thank you. I am so grateful to have met you and while America may be far, the pilgrims made it and so I'm sure with a Boeing-747 so can you.

My British Family 

     I've been lucky enough to travel to 12 different countries in the past year, but the most amazing part of my journey has been the people I've met along the way, many of whom I met on the Camino and then got to visit over Christmas break, spring break, and summer. To everyone who I've been lucky to meet, walk the Camino with, live with, visit, and travel with: you are always welcome to visit me America. I hope to see you all again one day. Thank you for being a part of my year.
     And for those of you at home who I said goodbye to last summer, I'm coming home tomorrow! A year older, a year wiser? We have a year's worth of missed holidays, birthdays, hikes, hugs, and laughs to make up for.

Last Trip of the Year

     I've just returned to York for the last time this year. I spent the past 4 days exploring Belgium. The first day I was in Brussels by myself and went on a lovely free walking tour. I learned lots of random things about food and beer on my tour, such as that there are actually 2 kinds of waffles! The Brussels waffle is crispier and not too sweet and thus you can put loads of sugary toppings on it. The Liege waffle is sweet itself and so you don't put toppings on it. I also learned that fries were invented in Belgium. There was a little fishing village that would catch and fry fish as their main food, but one year it was too cold and the lake froze over so they couldn't fish. Instead, they cut up potatoes in the shape of fish and fried them... and that's how we get fries (according to random Belgian tour guide). Pralines were also invented in Belgium when a doctor decided to coat medicine in chocolate to make it go down easier, then his son/someone I can't remember had the idea to replace the pills with cream. In just 2 short steps they managed to go from a pill to a chocolate dessert.
     Their sugary specialties are not only their specialties, but more like their dietary staples. Brussels was a cool city, but I wasn't too keen on the food options. Basically every block has a waffle place, a Belgian fries place, a chocolate shop, and ice cream. As you all know, I love all of those things and have quite a sweet tooth (I have eaten ice cream for breakfast before... Steamboat Kutandara 2009). Even so, I also do need real food and like eating healthy as well, so dining in Belgium was a tad limited as everywhere you turn all you can find are waffles! I did love my hostel though. In the picture below you can see that the beds were kind of like little wooden caves that you crawled in. Inside, there were even shelves for your stuff and a light. When you left you put your stuff inside and slid the door shut and locked it.
     My second day I went to Bruge which is in the Dutch speaking part (really makes no different to me since I can only say about 5 words in both French and Dutch). The town was so pretty. I went on a boat tour and got to see so many different styles of buildings. Apparently, Bruge was once the richest city in Europe, and it was also once the poorest city in Europe. Now it's doing pretty well with the flocks of tourists. In the afternoon, I took a quick train to the beach in Oostende. I had imagined myself laying on the beach in the sun, but alas it was a bit too cold, so I just enjoyed a long beach walk.
     The next day it was time to go to Antwerp to meet up with Danielle and some of her exchange friends. We had some Thai food and then walked around in some direction I don't remember. They'd been there before so sort of knew their way around. We made a valiant attempt to go to the American Food Store, which requires a walk, a tram and a walk since it's in some odd suburb, but it was closed. Guess I'll just have to wait a week to get American food. We went back to Liege in the French speaking part where Danielle lives and I stayed in a nice hotel in the city. Unfortunately, it ended up a not so pleasant experience since 2 guys tried to get to my room at 1 a.m. (apparently they were incapable of reading numbers or using their brains and thus scared the living daylights out of me). Thankfully the day improved once I met up with Danielle and her friend Emma in the morning. We walked down this 1k long market and then had Chinese food from a mini Chinese festival in the main square. I had sushi and lychee juice! We took the bus up to the citadel and took in the views while eating animal crackers (technically not animal crackers as they were letter shaped). Belgium is an odd place I must say, but it made for a good last adventure (and a waffle dinner of course) and best of all, seeing Danielle again. Thankfully, soon we'll both be home and I won't have to go all the way to Belgium to see her (though the one hour flight for £15 from Manchester was pretty convenient).

Neat hostel bed in Brussels

The beach at Oostende 

 Me and Danielle in Liege

Summer in Poland

     Since about March, my friend Wendy and I had been planning to take a trip together to Poland. Finally, I finished my last exam and it was time to take off to celebrate by exploring Warsaw and Krakow. I was lucky enough to have a few Polish friends to give me loads of recommendations. My Polish flatmate even taught me some Polish, so I was all set to say things like "hello", "goodbye" "please", "thank you", and "I don't speak Polish" (the most important of them all). These are the basic phrases I try to get down for each country I visit, and they usually end up coming quite in handy.
    We started off in Warsaw, which was a fairly sizable city, but we could get most places walking still. Since most of it was burned to the ground in WWII, the city actually has a really modern feel. There are loads of skyscrapers, highways, and shopping malls surrounding the landmark Palace of Culture and Science. The building was a "gift" from the Soviet Union, so it's a bit controversial in that while the building is pretty cool, it's also from the country that controlled Poland until about 1989 and has historically been seen as their enemy. While impressive, my favorite part of that area was actually a crosswalk that was painted to look like a piano keyboard! Another one of my favorite things was the University of Warsaw library which has a cool exterior with giant copper panels with passages in different languages carved onto them. It also has an amazing rooftop garden where we had a lovely picnic. We also visited Old Town, which has some cute narrow streets, squares, colorful old buildings, and wonderfully touristy restaurants. While in Warsaw we tried to do some sampling of Polish food. We tried pierogi, which is typically a savory dumpling filled with meat or potato, but we went for the strawberry! We also tried zapiekanka, which is a food you can get from food carts that is essentially half an open baguette with cheese and mushroom.
     After a few days in Warsaw, we took the train to Krakow. Since Krakow wasn't damaged as much in the war, it has a much more old historic feel with most things centered around the main square in old town. The first day we explored Krakow and went to an underground museum beneath the main square. Around dinner time, we went to a chocolate café and I had an iced chocolate and some mystery truffles (the menu was only in Polish so I just looked at the pictures and picked a few). We may have ruined our appetite for dinner a tad, but it was worth it. We also explored Kazimierz which is the area of town that was historically the Jewish Quarter. Now it's quite a happening part of town with lots of new hipster food places. There are some synagogues and the old Jewish cemetery as well, which has gotten quite overgrown but now there's a lot of refurbishment work happening. One evening, we went to a special restaurant with Jewish food and Klezmer music (though we just went for dessert and the music). While 100% touristy, the music was actually amazing. I'd been wanting to see Klezmer music for quite some time actually after seeing a presentation at Grinnell about its revival in Poland.
   We also took some day trips from Krakow. We went to Wieliczka, which is famous for its massive salt mine that even has chapels, statues, and ballrooms inside. It is altogether 9 underground levels. After a three hour tour, we'd only seen 1% of the mine. We also went to Zakopane, which was a cute little mountain town sort of similar to Estes Park. It's well-known for its oscypek, which is a special kind of smoked sheep cheese shaped like christmas ornaments. Our last day trip was to the concentration camp Auschwitz in the town of Osvięcim. It was certainly a very erie and somber place to visit, but I'm also very glad to have had the opportunity to visit there. I was also amazed to see how many people from so many different countries take the time out of their vacation to visit such a place.
     I didn't have any idea what Poland would be like, but it turned out to be the best place to celebrate the end of exams. There was absolutely so much to do there and I hope to go back one day and visit new cities and also go back to Warsaw and Krakow again. After returning to home sweet York, it was time to get a move on with my very last assignment... a 3500 word essay for my archaeology class. Somehow I managed and I've just turned it in (hence I've now got time to write another obscenely long blog post), so I've officially finished my 3rd year. Tomorrow I'm off to Belgium for a weekend of well, who really knows, but I think I'll go relax on the beach and then I'm going over to Liége to see my now brilliantly-french-speaking little sis.

View of the piano crosswalk from the top of the Palace of Culture and Science 

Climbing the flying pink horse in front of the national library

Zapiekanka snack time 

My first time to a cat café

23 plaques - each written in a language spoken by the Jews