Rome (if you want to)

Inside the Colosseum

Sorry for the cheesy title, but I seriously had that song in my head the entire time we were in Rome.

Anywho...Brandon and I just got back from an amazing trip to Italy and Greece. I have been wanting to visit these countries for a very long time, and it took some sweet talking to get Brandon to agree, as he wanted to visit Northern Europe instead (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, etc.) But in the end, I won out and we planned a trip to visit Rome for a few days, take a train to Venice, then visit a few Greek Islands.

Rome was breathtaking! So much history, so many stories, so beautiful. While we were slightly disappointed by the Trevi Fountain, which is currently being restored, everything else was magnificent. At least I appreciate that the Roman authorities feel responsible enough to take care of their relics, just sad that we could not see the fountain in its full glory.

Trevi Fountain under restoration

No water to throw in our coins

We wondered around Rome on our first evening, without a map or a plan, and managed to stumble upon some of the best sites! Just a few minutes after finding the Trevi Fountain, we found the Pantheon. According to Wikipedia, the Pantheon was built in 126AD and its dome is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome, even though it's two thousand years old! Don't know about you, but I'm impressed.

Pantheon selfie!

126AD and every bit of it is still standing!

Artsy shot

Inside the dome

Following our escapade through downtown Rome, we enjoyed a lovely Italian meal of pasta and fried pumpkin flowers, before heading off to bed for an early morning.

We purposely woke up very early the next morning so we could visit the Colosseum with few visitors to get better pictures (and to try and beat the heat!). It was worth it, because our pictures are amazing. Seeing the Colosseum for the first time was really breathtaking for me.We took the metro from our hotel, because the monument was on the other side of town. When you walk out of the 'Colosseo' metro station, the historic building stands directly in front of you, and surprises you with its grandeur and breadth. That is the third time this year I have felt that surprise of finally seeing a building I have only ever seen in pictures, for the first time in person. (The first was when I walked out of Westminster station and saw Big Ben standing directly in front of me, and the second was when I saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time, while on the metro coming out of a tunnel over the Seine River). Anyway, here are some pictures of the Colosseum, we literally took hundreds, so here are some of my favorites:

The view from the Metro station

Inside

Where the audience would sit

Later that day we visited the Vatican City, the smallest recognized independent country in the world by both area and population. After waiting in a line for 45 minutes, we got to visit St. Peter's Basilica, which is the most decorated and opulent church I have ever seen. The Roman Catholics definitely wanted to show off their wealth when it was built. Later in the evening we visited to Vatican museums, during their special Friday late night hours, and saw Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel (no pictures are allowed within the chapel, but here are some pictures of our visit to the Vatican).

St. Peter's Basilica

St. Peter's Square

Inside St. Peter's Basilica

St. Peter's by night

Overall, I was so mesmerized by Rome and all it had to offer. The city is steeped in history and everywhere you turn you find Roman ruins and beautiful architecture. In the next blog post, we will share stories and pictures from our cruise to Greece and Montenegro.

The Making of Harry Potter (and other things)

Yesterday, the Stovers made a trek out to to boonies of London...Watford Junction which is in zone 9.  London has 6 zones for the tube/overground/DLR trains.  In the far North West of London, they extend the zones to have a special zone 7, 8, & 9.  In other words, it's a long way away from central London.

Why were we out that far you may ask?  The answer to that comes in just two letters.  WB.  The Warner Brothers studio is located in North West London and they have an exhibition on "The Making of Harry Potter".  They had lots of sets from the movie, costumes, props, and videos explaining the making of the movie.  It was very much like the Dr. Who Experience we went to in October in Cardiff.  We walked through the great hall (without it's famous ceiling), walked down Diagon Alley, took a ride on the night bus through Privet Drive (which looks remarkably like the street we live on!), and drank some butterbeer.  This is only a quarter of the pictures we took that day, but take a look at some of the things we saw...

Welcome to the HP Studios!

Harry's cupboard under the stairs at the Dursley Home

The Great Hall

Dumbledore and Snape

Gryffindor costumes, including Daniel Radcliffe's first set of robes on the far left

The Gryffindor boys bedroom

Gryffindor common room

Dumbledore's office

The chamber of secrets door

Enjoying butterbeer in front of the Hogwarts bridge

Butterbeer and the Knight Bus

Diagon Alley

In front of the Hogwarts model

The Hogwarts model covered in snow

In other news, classes are moving right along (already on Week 4!).  We attended 'American Psycho' a brand new musical at the Almeida Theatre featuring Matt Smith (Yes, former Dr. Who Matt Smith). We waited afterwards for an autograph, but he didn't sign any that night as he was meeting a friend for a drink afterwards... oh well.  At least we picked up a prop business card from the show to keep as a souvenir (found it on the ground!).

American Psycho poster

Matt Smith in the musical (pic taken from the internet, as we were not allowed to take any during the performance)

The Stover Sr. family have come back from their trip to Key West and have booked their tickets to come to London so we are busily planning that trip. They will be coming in May.

In a few weeks we head to Canterbury, stay tuned for an update about our trip!

Amsterdam with the Fam

After Christmas in London, our adventures headed over the channel and to The Netherlands.  Our journey to get there was a lovely one.  We sat in a train station for a while, then got on a train, then sat in another train station for a longer while, then boarded a ferry.  This was not your typical ferry, however, it was like a mini cruise ship.  Emily and I decided it counted as our cruise for 2013 and we have now been on a cruise every year we have been married (and yes, we are planning one for 2014, and maybe 2015 already).  We slept on the ferry/mini cruise ship and arrived in The Netherlands the next morning.

The city slogan

However, when we arrived we were still about 50 miles from Amsterdam so that meant taking the train through the Dutch countryside and seeing everything fly by the windows. 

When we arrived in the city, our host was not ready, as he runs a bar and is up very late each night.  We went to lunch, trying to find a cafe.  With our luck, Emily and her mother stumbled into a 'coffee shop,' which we learned very quickly is a term for a special store in Amsterdam where you can buy and smoke marijuana.  Needless to say, we moved on and ate at a cafe down the road, lesson learned.

The Royal Palace in Dam Square

We then had a wonderful guided tour thanks to our friend from university.  She used to be a bike tour guide in Amsterdam so she knew the city well and she make sure we stayed clear of the cycle paths, which when said quickly, sounds like psychopaths, quite scary in Amsterdam :) If you ever visit Amsterdam, one word of warning... watch out when walking.  There are half a million bikes riding around, cars, and an above ground tram network that goes right across the road.  Look twice each direction before walking, and you will inevitably still be in someone's way. 

So many bikes!

We woke up early the next morning to stand in line.  Every place had lines (unlike most in London) because you had to buy tickets and that took time.  We stood in line on a back road, next to a canal, by a building which would not have been noticed if it were not for the 300+ people standing out in front of it every day.  It was the Anne Frank house.  It was a great museum telling the story of Nazi occupation in Amsterdam and one man's attempt to tell this daughter's story.  Otto Frank (Anne's father) was the only member of the family to survive the war and was the one who published her diary.  It was very interesting and touching to see the actual spaces where they hid, and how prolific of a writer she was at her young age. We even got to see her real diary, along with many of her other journals that she filled with her thoughts and dreams.

The best way to see the city is by canal cruise because there are so many canals!!  It's amazing how those big boats go down some tiny little canals, but there are so many you get to see the whole city.  We took a glass topped boat tour while there and saw the Christmas lights (although it was after Christmas day but still the official "Christmas" season according to the church).

The top of our boat and Amsterdam Central Station

One of our final stops was at the Heineken Experience.  Here you saw lots of adds and information about the company and drank lots of beer (or soda, in my case).  It was interesting if you are into beer and such but it did feel like a big tourist trap type of place. 

Dave and Kathy (Emily's parents)

Our final day in Amsterdam was rather short as we boarded on train to head to Paris!  But until our Paris update gets posted, check out some more pics of beautiful Amsterdam!

Our flat, which was above a bar

Amsterdam Canals

The famous flower market

~Brandon

London with the Sundins

Since the Christmas holidays have come and gone, and we are starting up lectures again tomorrow, we thought we would do a little blog update about the exciting things that happened over our break.

First, many of you know that my (Emily's) family came over to celebrate with us.  My mom, dad, brother (Andy) and his girlfriend (Macey) all made the long trip across the pond to see us, as well as travel a bit around Europe.

The Sundins in Trafalgar Square

The first week we spent in London, with Brandon and I as the official tour guides.  We took them to all the well-known sites, as well as a few of our favorite spots.

Some highlights of our week in London:
Edge Bar - On the first afternoon the Sundins were in town, we first took them Oxford Circus and Soho.  They were pretty much starving since they had been on a flight all night and spent over a hour on the tube getting to their flat.  So we walked into the first decent looking pub we found.  After being seated and ordering our food from a well-dressed, well-groomed waiter, we began to notice the signage and noticing the interesting videos playing on the big screens.  Then my dad mentioned, "Is this a gay bar!?!?" And yes, the first pub experience for my family was at a gay bar.  However, the food was good and decently priced and the waiters were friendly, so overall we had a nice experience.

"Andy is Out, Macey is In" - When we took the family to St. Catherine's for their Christmas Carols service, Macey got confused as being my sister, apparently we look more alike than Andy and I do! So we decided that she is now in the family and Andy is out. Also at the service, Brandon and I performed a jazzy version of The Holly and the Ivy for saxophone and piano.

Christmas Eve at Westminster -  Beautiful church, beautiful service, a great way to spend Christmas eve!  Even though pictures are not allowed, Dad was sneaky and took this great one of us with the candles!

Carols and Candlelight at Westminster

Boris Bikes on Christmas Day - Since all public transport in London shuts down on Christmas day, we had no way of getting around town.  So we decided to rent a few bikes from the nearby bike stand and rode bikes around the Hackney area on Christmas day.  We also had tacos for Christmas dinner, not the traditional, but still very tasty!

In addition, we toured the Tower of London in the rain, ate at lots and lots of pubs and sort-of saw the changing of the guards at Buckingham (which it is not really worth seeing and was rather disappointing...).  We also walked across the famous Abbey Road and enjoyed cheese, bread, chocolates and mulled cider at Borough Market.

The fam at the Tower of London, with Tower Bridge in the background

Abbey Road

Check back soon to hear about our adventures in Amsterdam!

Em and B

Cardiff

When Brandon approached me a few weeks ago and said, "Would you like to go to Cardiff for an ethnomusicology conference?"  I said, "Yes, as long as we can go to the Dr. Who Experience!" So we planned a trip to Cardiff, Wales.

But let me backtrack, last weekend Brandon asked me if we could go to a geocaching event, and the way he talked me into that one was by telling me that the Tardis was nearby.  So...I've been a total Dr. Who fangirl this week!

The Tardis in London

 Back to Cardiff...we took the train from London Paddington (which is just about the complete opposite side of London from us and was an hour bus ride just to get to the station).  Upon arriving in Cardiff we took a few minutes to find our bus to get to our Air B&B homestay (Air B&B is a website where people rent out their extra rooms and apartments).  Once on the bus we had no idea what stop to get off, since the buses there do not announce where they are...so we went one stop to far and had to backtrack.  We did find the place, thankfully, and dropped off our bags to head to the Cardiff Bay. A spin-off show of Dr. Who, called Torchwood, is filmed in Cardiff and according to the show, the Torchwood headquarters is located at the Bay. So we were pleasantly surprised to find a Ianto Shrine and Memorial at the fictional location of the Torchwood visitor entrance. (Ianto is a well-loved character of the show...)

Entrance to Torchwood, where there is a Ianto Shrine and Memorial

 

The Millennium Centre at Cardiff Bay, a giant performing arts theatre

Following a short walk through the bay area we found the Dr. Who Experience!  The first part of the exhibit is an interactive walk through "experience" including video filmed by Matt Smith (the current Doctor) in which we helped free the doctor from a slew of his enemies (weeping angels and Daleks included).  The second part is a display of authentic costumes and props used in the show.

Costumes of the ninth and tenth doctors

In the Tardis of the ninth and tenth doctors

Evolution of the Dalek

Jack and Rose (she is still my favorite companion!)

Amy and Rory

 Following our Experience, we went on a nice walking tour of the Bay Area, which was provided free of charge by the Ethno conference.  We learned a lot about the rich coal history that made Cardiff the town it is today as well as we got to see where the Welsh government happens.  Wales is a part of the UK, but is allowed to make their own laws and have a governing body just like states in the US.

Cardiff Bay

The conference was the next day at Cardiff University.  Once again we were confused by the bus system and got off at the wrong stop, but eventually made it just in time for a cup of tea before the first session.  We attended many interesting (some boring) paper presentations on "Music in the Atlantic Rim," and ended the day at a dynamic performance by an African ballet and drum ensemble called Ballet Nimba.

The final day of our trip included exploring the city centre and Cardiff Castle (a fort built about 1050AD on top of a roman fort from about 50AD... you could still see some of the old Roman wall).  At this point we gave up on the bus system and just walked the whole day!

The following are all pictures from Cardiff Castle.

At the top of the Castle Keep looking out over the city

Our trip home was also interesting, our train was delayed by 30 minutes due to lightning striking some track signals in our path causing a back of trains ahead of us.  Thankfully it was only 30 minutes, because they were originally predicting two hours!  Back at Paddington station we once again had to take the hour long bus journey home.  As we walked outside we could see out bus coming so we literally ran waving our arms to catch it at the stop before it took off, only to get stuck in some construction traffic one block later...oh London bus routes!  But we are now home and have some wonderful memories of our first visit to Wales!

Hwyl am nawr!  (Welsh for "Bye for now!")