The Beginning of the Second Semester...and...THE GREAT FLOOD OF 2011!!!

And so we've reached the second semester, and within these first three weeks I've already had quite a few interesting things happen to me. Considering the fact that this is my blog and it's up to me to share these interesting things I'm going to be a mean host and only share one of the interesting things. It's a pretty long story though so don't feel like you're missing out just because I'm not sharing the details of all of my other fun adventures. And so here it is...the story that changed the course of the semester for me...

THE GREAT FLOOD OF 2011!!!!

Dun dun dun. Not a bad title for a story, right? To be perfectly honest, it wasn't exactly a great flood. It's not like my room was filled with water inches high. It was more like, "The great seepage of 2011." But that just doesn't sound as cool. Myself and my two roommates had already been back in the room for almost a week and a half, and all things seemed to be proceeding as usual...

wait....There's something else I must talk about.

One of the quirks of the house that we're living in here in London is the street that it is on. Exhibition Road. It's a great street to live on, they're even trying to make it a strictly pedestrian street. Sounds great, right? WRONG. The construction on the street isn't supposed to be done until December. That means I won't even get to appreciate it.

Now back to my story...

So everything seemed to be going the same as always in our room on the lower ground floor (which in American English means the basement...which is where I live...which isn't as bad as it sounds...well...wasn't...) with just the standard loudness of the construction in the mornings and the occasional alarm going off from the lower ground floor door being left open. Then we had a weekend of extremely heavy rains, which usually only affects you if you're going outside, but not this time. Sunday night we noticed that a couple things up against the wall on my side of the room were wet. No big deal. It was probably just a tiny leak. WRONG.

By Monday morning the water had gotten all the way to my bed, which was bad yeah, but seemed manageable. Only I had forgotten that I had clothes and some books on that side of my bed, and when I picked them up they were drenched. Not fun. It turns out the construction being done on our road had made it where all of the water was basically draining into my room, which isn't a nice place for it to drain.

Then came Tuesday morning. My blanket had slightly slid off of my bed and the tip was on the floor. When I pulled it back up to warm myself I encountered a small problem. Instead of warming myself...i had wet myself.

No. It wasn't that I had peed or done something gross like that. The end of my blanket had gotten wet from touching the extremely wet floor, which had made it all the way across below my bed at this point. It was at this point that I officially declared to our program director that I no longer felt comfortable sleeping in that room, since I ran the risk of waking up with a wet blanket every morning (something that I was totally not okay with. I had some traumatizing experiences with wet blankets growing up...).

And so, my roommates ended up having to move as well, but they still got to room together. I myself was placed in what is usually a room designated for studying (Ironic. It's like the world is telling me I should do more of that or something). When I moved all of my stuff into the room it was quite a mess and still a fixer-upper. It was only today, over a week after my move, that I finally got to fixing it up. It has now become quite acceptable as my home and I believe I may even decide to stay here permanently, considering the fact that it's dry. All in all, I can't say it was exactly the way I wanted to be welcomed back into London. But I now have my own room, actually...my own floor(though I do sleep right next to the classrooms)...but I don't have a bathroom or shower or anything, and I now have to walk down two floors to get to the kitchen. I'm trying to remain positive as you can see. But now the sun has set on this great story of mine. I'm sure you're all glad I decided to only talk about one interesting thing. Here's to the future that seems like it will never come.

The End of the First Semester Abroad...for the first time.

And so we have reached the end of my first semester abroad, and not without many amazing experiences and stories. It has been a while since I have posted anything here so I will do my best not to bore everyone who happens to read this. There are always those key moments that seem to stand out to us when we look back, those are the moments that I'll choose to focus on here. So let's take a look at the last month of my life.

PARIS: I must say that I really enjoyed spending time in Paris. It gave me a realization of some of the things I love and some of the things I don't really love. I love walking, don't like walking back and forth in a museum. I hate heights, but enjoy great views. I love good French food, hate paying for it.

In any case, Paris gave me a chance to look a little bit inside myself. Once I got past the arteries and organs I realized that inside of me is someone who just likes to appreciate the small things. I liked having a crepe, I was proud of myself for actually looking down from the top of the Eiffel Tower, and I loved watching the sunset over the gardens of the palace of Versailles. Overall, it was a good trip.

THEATER: There are always cool stories that come from being spontaneous. I'm not very spontaneous, so I suppose that's why I didn't get many cool stories. But there was one weekend in particular where my personal spontaneity ended with a cool story. I woke up on one Saturday morning at around one in the afternoon (yes, I noticed what I just wrote) and decided that I wanted to do something productive with my afternoon.

I was planning on seeing Les Mis the next weekend so I figured I'd hit the half-price ticket booth to see what kind of deals I could get if I went the day of. The man at the booth said the cheapest ticket for that night was 25 pounds, which I thought was a bit much for a seat that had 25 percent of the view blocked. As sadness began to appear upon my humble countenance the man behind the counter said one final thing. "If you get there in 30 minutes there's an unblocked seat for 12.50 for the matinée." 30 minutes later I was sitting in my seat in the balcony as the curtain rose for the London performance of Les Mis.

MORE THEATER: The next weekend, since I had just seen Les Mis the weekend before, I decided to enjoy more theater by going to see We Will Rock You, the musical based on Queen music. It was absolutely awesome. It was practically like a concert towards the end, with everyone standing up for We Will Rock You, We Are the Champions, and Bohemian Rhapsody.

It was really cool. I even had relatively good seats too. It's funny to think of how this blog has come full circle this semester. My first post I talked about going to church inside the theater where I saw this show. Yup. The semester has come full circle, and I didn't even plan it that way... or did I?

WINTER WONDERLAND: In the two weeks that the Winter Wonderland was in Hyde Park I visited it nine times. Yeah. It was that awesome. I had a wide variety of foods there. I walked around in the snow (which was awesome. I can finally sing "White Christmas" and actually mean it). I became a regular at a booth. That was actually pretty cool.

The woman who worked at the almond nougat and cookie place recognized me after the 3rd time I went there. She always gave me like five free samples and by the last time I bought something from her (which was earlier today) she had given me about ten pounds in discounts. It was a sad good-bye when I told her today that it would be my last purchase, but I will always look back with joy on the stand run by my Italian friend.

THE END OF THE SEMESTER: It's hard to believe how fast this semester has flown by. I've been to six countries that I'd never been before (and skipped stones in every one of them), I have eaten foods I never thought I'd eat (not to say it was extremely adventurous, but small victories nonetheless), and most of all I learned a lot about patience and how to take changes in stride. A lot has changed in this one semester I've been away. A lot has remained the same. But I've learned that a level head conquers all. Let's just hope that this aura of calmness transfers over to all aspects of my life. For now, it seems that the sun has set on what has been an amazing semester. Here's to the future that seems like it will never come.

The Eighth and Ninth Weeks...again...for the first time...in Spain and Portugal.

And so we've made it through another week. It would appear that I have become a mild world traveler. I still haven't caught the travel bug, but I've definitely been getting more accustomed to the thrills of seeing the world and managing the stress that may come along with it. With every new place I go I get more accustomed to running around like mad trying to see things and then sleeping as much as I can at night (which honestly isn't that much). I do enjoy the peace that comes when I finally get back to London. Even right now I'm just sitting on a couch in the lounge just winding down before house church. Small moments of peace make the running around just a little bit easier.

WEEK 8: The week leading up to my five days in Barcelona and Lisbon made me realize one thing... London seems way less exciting now that I've traveled around a bit. You'd think that it would be super exciting to be in a different country and all that, but after a little bit of time you just stop noticing all of the awesome things and it just seems like I'm walking down a street I see all the time (which is true).

I still love London, and I'm really glad that it's beginning to feel like home, but it's a weird feeling to be in a foreign country and feel at home. This doesn't mean I'm not incredibly anxious to be in the grand US of A once again, but I have enjoyed not seeing all of the political ads. Oh, and for Halloween I was an old man. All it took was hairspray and absolutely no makeup. And now for the time in Barcelona and Lisbon.

WEDNESDAY: We left for the airport at 4:30 in the morning, which was quite the thrill because I love waking up early so much. So much so actually that I stayed up all night so that I didn't have to wait for the feeling. Yeah, that's my explanation for it. But I slept on the three hour flight to Barcelona and in no time at all (except for the three hours of course) we were in Spain.

We spent the first day on a walking tour that took us around to see quite a few of the interesting cathedrals and monuments. After the tour all of the drinks at the bar cost only a euro since we took the tour so I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to try some "grape juice" with fruit in it. It was pretty good. Had a slightly funny aftertaste though. Grape juice.

THURSDAY: On Thursday we decided it would be really nice to see what the coast was like in Barcelona. I must say that the coast in Barcelona reminded me a whole lot of the coast in San Diego. The weather too actually. 24 and sunny the whole trip (that's in Celcius, in case you didn't notice. I wanted to be authentic).

I skipped stones, which made four different countries I've skipped stones in while abroad, I've decided it's gonna be a thing. Mom would also be proud of me. I ate fajitas, but I didn't take out all of the peppers and onions. I actually ate everything together. That's not to say I liked it, but I did it, and that says something. I also had some more grape juice with fruit that night, which was much better than the grape juice from the day before. Grape juice.

FRIDAY: We left Barcelona at 5 in the morning and were in our hostel in Lisbon, Portugal, and were at our hostel by 10:30. The hostel could possibly have been the highlight of Lisbon, or Lisboa. The man who ran the hostel was absolutely hilarious. His sense of humor was amazing. Dry, sarcastic, stone faced, though maybe slightly more appealing with his accent.

He had a policy of free tea all day, so I had about 15 to 20 cups of tea over the course of two days. Not to shabby, not too healthy. Pedro (the manager of the hostel) also was a great story teller. Someday he hopes to be one in Argentina, hopefully he'll pass me on his way there. Lisbon itself was a great city, quite similar to San Francisco, but with cobblestone streets. I had swordfish for dinner. It was very tasty.

SATURDAY: Saturday was more of the same for Lisbon. Drank a lot more tea, talked with Pedro the hostel manager, walked around the city. I did end up skipping stones in Lisbon as well, bumping my total up to five countries now. I'm so proud. It's a very weird thing to be proud of, skipping stones, but I don't think it's a thing that just anyone chooses to do.

Only those of us who don't have better things to do. Saturday night we all sat around and listened to Pedro as he told us stories, sometimes stories we'd heard before, and other times just coming up with brand new interesting stuff to talk about. If I ever write a screenplay about being abroad he will most certainly be in it. In a good way.

SUNDAY: As I left Portugal there was one grand thing that I'll always be able to look back upon. Being offered marijuana by eleven different people when no one else around me got offered any: zero dollars. Having two of them walk with me and offer me other drugs, like cocaine: zero dollars. Saving money and braincells by turning them all down: Priceless. And now the sun has set on my time in Spain and Portugal, in a few weeks it shall be France. Here's to the future that seems like it will never come.

the Seventh Week...again...for the first time...in Ireland.

And so we've made it through yet another week, this time with a taste of Ireland mixed in. It was a great experience. It's so weird to be here, go to a different country over the weekend, and then come back and actually have to go to school. I say that a lot, but the feeling never goes away. I still wouldn't say that I have a travel bug that gets me to want to go to every country I can possibly go to, but I do know that I have found the traveling to be a rather enjoyable experience. Surprisingly, I've been able to keep my stress level relatively low even with all of the checking in, checking out, passports, and hostels. Now, I didn't spend all of my week in Ireland, but for the sake of the reading public I'll just skim through the week until Ireland. (By the way, take note of the irony of me saying that it's for the sake of the "reading" public)

SATURDAY-WEDNESDAY: All that really happened during this period was school and getting back grades for tests, as well as taking a few. I doubt any of you read this to keep up with my grades, so you probably don't need to know all of that boring stuff.

The important thing was that I didn't fail anything, and for the most part I stayed relatively consistent. One funny story. I went to the convenience store on Saturday and spent 30 minutes looking at 3 items not being able to decide what to get. So I went with something completely different.

THURSDAY: Thursday was the day I left for Ireland, though I did have to take a science test right before we left (got a B+ on it by the way). The test itself was not very fun. The flight to Ireland wasn't much fun either actually. But it was extremely short.

The one thing I will say is that it's not amazingly fun to show up at a new place at midnight when it's around 35 degrees and you get dropped off from the bus about six blocks from where your hostel is. But somehow we made it through alive and I was able to get a relatively decent nights sleep before the long day ahead.

FRIDAY: We spent all of Friday checking out the sights on the south side of the Liffey. It was pretty cool. I had fun noticing a couple locations from the movie Once while I was there, though I probably looked kind of dumb when I was pointing at random spots and saying,

"He played guitar right here and then a guy stole his money and ran right through there and then he chased him and caught him right there." Yeah. I felt mildly nerdy. But it was about a movie, so that makes it okay. We had dinner with some people from Spain and a guy from Italy. It was really fun and probably the most interesting dinner conversation I've had in quite some time.

SATURDAY: I spent Saturday on my own walking around the north side of the Liffey. It was my first experience walking around a different country on my own, but it was a great way to get my feet wet as a world traveler. I got to eat at a little plaza area that had small independent bands playing, which was really fun for me to watch. Then I walked in Phoenix park, which is about 1750 acres.

Needless to say I didn't actually see the whole park. After two and a half hours in the park I decided I'd seen enough green grass and fun stuff like that. My day on my own was everything I could have hoped it would be, especially the freedom of being able to see something random and just change my direction to go check it out. Freedom is a good thing. Someone should tell important people that.

SUNDAY: We had to leave for the airport at 4 in the morning, which wasn't exactly the most fun part of the trip. What made it interesting was that I decided just to stay up all night so that I didn't have to worry about waking up.

I hung out with some guys from San Francisco who happened to be staying in the hostel and we watched the Giants game online. I didn't get to see the end though because I had to leave. We got back to the house in London around 9:30 and I must say that it really did feel like home. Thinking back on my first trip that wasn't planned by Pepperdine I must say that it went about as well as it possibly could go. And that's all you can ask for.

MONDAY: Here's a day that isn't super interesting. Going back to school was absolutely no fun, but it was weird to realize that I am now officially over half way done with my time in London this semester. How far can a dog walk into a forest? Halfway. After that it's walking out. And that's me for studying abroad. Except I'm a human, not a dog. And I'm studying abroad, not walking into a forest. Yeah. I suppose I'll allow the rest of the world to continue with it's business now that I've caught everyone up to my own world. It seems that the sun has now set on my time in Ireland. Here's to the future that seems like it will never come.

The Sixth Week...again...for the first time...in Greece.

And so we've made it to another week and with that another country. This past week has been spent in Greece, which was...pretty alright. In all honesty it was one of the highlights of studying abroad thus far. Not only was it interesting to see all of the amazing monuments and statues and buildings that I had read about, but it was a great chance to stand in the places of so many great people that came before me. I looked in a mirror where Socrates spoke, I recollected stuff where Plato spoke, I read a Bible where Paul spoke, and every once in a while... I spoke. And now, instead of speaking, I will write...for you.

MONDAY: We left the house at 5:15 (not too long after I posted my latest blog) and arrived in Athens at around 2 Greek time. Athens was a bit different than I expected. It is a very packed town to say the least. In any case, our hotel had a view of the

Parthenon. It was an amazing view. Quite pleasing to the eye. I spent quite a good portion of the day just staring at the Parthenon from the roof of the hotel. No big deal. Just an interesting broken down building to look at.

TUESDAY: On this day we actually went up to the Acropolis, and the Parthenon. It was very exciting. It made me feel very small. The real highlight for me was going to Mars Hill where Paul made his speech about the unknown god that the Greeks had. It was interesting to look out and think that he stood feet from where I stood and walked up the same steps that I had walked up.

After we did that I went shopping in the Plaka, where I realized that I'm a terrible haggler. I did get a chess set for 17 euro that was originally 20. But a pro probably could have done much better. If I were really good the guy would have paid me 17 euro just to take it off his hands. But it was really a girl so that's my excuse for not getting it cheaper. I would have felt guilty.

WEDNESDAY: This had to be the absolute longest day of the trip (once again, just a feeling of length. Actual duration was the same as any other day). We spent six hours of the day on a bus going to and from Delphi. It's so awful to go to Greece and have to go on a bus to Delphi to see a bunch of two thousand five hundred year old artifacts. The day was made whole by the fact that I was able to have my first gyro. It was 2 euros for a gyro. Just the fact that it was possible to say that made impossible not to get. Also, had an extremely good tomato. Yes... tomato. Liked it. As a friend. And then I ate it.

THURSDAY: This was what I would consider the most exciting day of the week. We went to Aegena, which is an island in Greece. I got to skip more stones. I've now skipped stones in three different countries. Let's hope that number increases.

The exciting part was when we were exploring the island and it started raining. Pouring actually. It was pretty awesome. Plus I discovered what could be my new favorite candy bar. It's called a Kinder Bueno. Chocolate with a wafter and light fluffy milk and hazelnut filling. Basically heaven in my mouth. Very good stuff indeed.

FRIDAY: This was the last day in Greece. We saw the canal, where about half of the group went bungee jumping, not including me. I'm afraid of heights, plus it was 60 euro. The combination of those two things made the adventure a no-go for me. We went to Corinth after that, which was much more interesting than watching twenty people jump off of a bridge. We got to see where Paul likely spent time selling tents and stuff like that. It was very interesting. This was the only day of the week that we really had any sun, which is sad because it was the last one. But just as a good way to say good-bye, right as we were getting on the bus to go to the airport from Corinth...it rained again. With lightning and everything. Zeus was saying good-bye. I feel like you all must know that the most difficult part of this blog was deciding which pictures to put up. If you crave more, just check facebook. If you got to this blog through facebook then you probably don't have to. If you don't have a facebook then get one, friend request me, and then look at the pictures. Yeah...they're that important. The sun has now set on my week in Greece. Here's to the future that seems like it will never come.

The Fifth Week...again...for the first time...in London.

And so we've made it through yet another week, though this one is actually shorter than a week. Inconsistency is so fun. But I don't know if I can be consistently inconsistent. I feel that my attempts to be inconsistent could prove to be inconsistent leading to a consistent state of blah. It's a sad thought really. Don't ask me to explain what I've just said, just take the time to acknowledge that I said it. It's been a relatively exciting past few days, with some big news and small victories mixed in the midst of it all. I suppose I'll tell you about it. Since I assume that's why you read this. Unless it's just to look at the pictures.

WEDNESDAY: I had my last midterm of this period on Wednesday. I must say that it was one of the more not fun experiences I've had here thus far. The good thing was that once I finished it I had the rest of the day to relax and wind down knowing that I had survived the day. Sleeping was most certainly involved, but the true joy came in having an Even Stevens marathon with some other people in the house. There's no better way to mentally withdraw from society.

THURSDAY: It was on this day that I made an amazing discovery which will probably lead to many nights of unhealthy eating for me. There's a convenient store basically right in our backyard here. Two oven baked pizzas for four pounds. Score. Now I can have the unhealthy food without having to walk a mile to get it. I may actually gain weight now.

FRIDAY: This was my first experience geo-caching in London. It was quite fun actually. We went to the Natural History Museum and spent the day looking for clues to tell us where the magic box was. It wasn't actually magic, in fact it was hardly even a box, but it was still very exciting. Perhaps the more exciting part was when we saw the name above ours in the ledger of who had found the box. It was only later we found out the first name was actually Ben. Not Bear.

SATURDAY: I actually got a new job on Friday. Forgot to mention that (yet I clearly remembered here and was just to lazy to write this on that day). My new job basically just gives me a lot of added responsibility in the house and that kind of thing. That night my friends and I decided to go out and celebrate. We stayed up 'til ten at night doing shots of chocolate milk. We all felt so well nourished and enriched with the calcium that promotes healthy teeth and bones. Everyone thanked me for teaching them that we didn't need alcohol to have fun. I responded in the only way I could. "Oh, don't thank me. Thank my parents for teaching me good values."

SUNDAY: I went to Chipotle. It was a very good experience. I had really missed the taste of good salsa. The food I had there was absolutely amazing. It was even run by a guy from the States, which made me feel like it was much more authentic. I'm certain that I will go back there many times this semester, despite the fact that I know it will probably hurt me in the end. Maybe I shouldn't go. It's such a good experience having something for the first time in what seems like ages. I can't wait to have like a million experiences like that when I come home from London. But now the sun has set on this week of mine. When the sun rises I shall be in Greece (How's that for a cliffhanger?). Here's to the future that seems like it will never come.