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.
