Skiing in the Alps...check.

12 December 2008 - 20 December 2008

I am so. lazy. Sorry.

Dec 12, the last day of term, I departed with 175 of my LSE peers for the slopes of Tignes in the French Alps. I had only a few qualms upon departure, namely: would my knee hold up? Am I going to go insane, living with 3 Scandanavian girls - Trine, Anna, and Kim - for a week? Did I forget my toothbrush? Lucky for me, all of them proved unfounded and I had an absolutely amazing time, truly one of the best weeks of my life.

We left LSE at around 8:00pm on 12 December in coach busses - 4 of them. Ours was not full so it was a little more comfortable I'm sure, but it was only 15 minutes into our ride that we encountered difficulties. A posh lady in a BMW Z4 tried to squeeze through a narrow turn on the side of the bus and we crunched her. The damage wasn't bad enough to keep us there for a long time... but apparently she had some heart condition and went into nervous shock, requiring nearly 10, yes 10, advanced medical personnel to assist her. Perhaps it was just a boring day for the medics. In any case, it took nearly 2 hours to get everything sorted out. Needless to say, 3 hours later when we arrived in Dover, we had missed our ferry and had to wait in line with the seemingly endless rows of coaches - also filled with English university students going on ski holiday - for quite some time, but finally we boarded the gigantic boat and set off for the land of the Frogs.

The ferry itself gave me an impression of what the rest of the trip was going to be like. Everyone immediately began consuming copious amounts of alcohol, taunting other schools with English chants/songs (which are rather entertaining) and just generally getting out of hand. I saw one guy chug an entire bottle of wine. It was disgusting. I think he spewed it all back up about 5 minutes later but I didn't care to wait and see it. All in all, it was probably the least comfortable hour and a half between 3:00am-4:30am I have ever spent, sitting in awful plastic chairs and withstanding 10 foot swells. But we made it to France safely and were on our way.

Much of the next....13 hours was spent sleeping, with a brief stop at a grocery store before arriving at the chalet. We got there in the evening, and it was beginning to snow - what would be only the first of 3 days of blizzard-like conditions. Getting into the chalet was a pain: more waiting around and in the cold. Finally, we got into our room and much to our pleasant surprise, had cooking facilities and a small but workable dining area. This, I'm sure, saved us countless Euros because, like any skiier knows, food prices in a ski resort are exorbitant. We visited the supermarket nearly every night and bought more than enough bread, cheese, and wine to keep us sufficiently fed and drunk all week. And it was all cheap as dirt. Fabulous.

The first few days of skiing were pretty weak. Like I said, it was blizzarding like crazy so they only opened 2 lifts in our village for the first three days, which isn't exactly a large amount of area to ski. Fortunately, because it was damn near impossible to see further than 10 feet in front of your face, even skiing those two slopes over and over again was a remarkable adventure. Anna and I thought it would be a great idea to try the off-piste (off-trail in American lingo) run through some rocky areas and an hour and a half later, snow everywhere, we emerged swearing never to do it again. So we kept ourselves occupied for a few hours of the day.

This was probably the best opportunity for us to drink at night, because the skiing wasn't too great in the day, and we made the best of it. Each night, a ski club rep would come to our room and explain to us the planned festivities for the night. LSE would all convene at the same bar, drink for a while, and then reconvene at a club later on. It actually worked out quite well, considering there were 7-8 other English unis at the same resort and we really didn't know the other LSE kids, much less the other Englishmen. I think what made it easy to identify between the groups was A) the awful awful English accents that other university students seemed to have, without fail, as opposed to the fairly proper accent by comparison, and B) the fancy-dress themes.

I think it's appropriate at this point to explain something about English party culture. Whereas Americans enjoy drinking heavily and going out and having a good time every weekend - sometimes dressing up for toga parties or semi-formals (and indeed, we take Halloween very seriously), the English, more times than not, find a reason (or no reason at all) to wear "fancy dress." This is usually themed - our themes for the week were 'West Coast Gangsters, Spandex, Rubix Cube, and Santa' - and everyone puts on silly clothes... and THEN get drunk. It's really quite silly to see people walking around London with fancy dress on the weekend evenings. It's even MORE silly to see nearly 500 English university students walking around drunk in the snow in a quaint French skiing village with facepaint, spandex, wigs, school girl costumes, ski goggles, etc. This is exactly what happened, every single night, at Tignes. You could easily determine which university someone belonged to based on what they were wearing past 8:00pm. Some even wore their costumes on the slopes, but it was cold and I wouldn't have recommended it.

Finally, the weather cleared up a few days into the trip and we got to explore the mountain. It was huge and the skiing reminded me a lot of Vail but without the trees. It also had been snowing for 3 days straight so the powder was fresh, deep, and untouched. It was actually perfect conditions, and I was ecstatic. I can't really describe the skiing itself, it was just amazing. I did get overzealous a few times and had some spectacular falls, but luckily each time someone was waiting in front of me and got to witness the carnage. Miraculously I didn't hurt anything, except my pride. But that's easily mended.

The starkest difference between the skiing in the Alps and in the States had nothing to do with the actual skiing. In the Alps, there are a number of small villages, each with lifts going to different peaks, and each with their own chalets, shops, bars, and restaurants. The cool thing is that they're all part of the same resort, so you can ski in and out of them, from one to another to the next. It was really nice, I thought, to ski clear across the resort to one of the smaller and less accessible resorts to have lunch, and then ski back to our village - the furthest away on the other side of the resort - before the lifts closed. This was exactly what happened one of the days, and we had some great French Onion Soup and some cheese dish that were to die for. Also, the waitress was the most beautiful person I have ever seen, and also very nice... I fell in love at first sight. Amazing.

In addition to our travels around Tignes, there was another entire resort within skiing distance of ours called Val D'Iseire so we upgraded our passes for a few Euros one day and headed over there for more untouched powder and excellent runs. The main reason for our visit was because we had heard, through our new friends, that there was an excellent Apres Ski bar on the side of the mountain.

Apres Ski, or After Ski, is an essential part of the skiing experience. When you're done skiing, it is completely unnecessary and indeed frowned upon to trek all the way to your room. The proper procedure is to congregate at a bar or pub and enjoy live music and happy hour deals for a few hours. This may seem like a stupid idea after not having eaten since lunch and dehydrating yourself skiing all day, but it is actually fun enough to offset the undesirable affects.

Anyway, this particular Apres Ski bar was actually a mid-mountain lodge. We visited for lunch to check out the spot and it looked quite fun. Later in the day, after having traversed the whole of Val D'Iseire, we were making our way back to the lodge on a lift and could hear, from quite far away, the thump of the bass at the bar. They were pumping mad beats, with a live DJ and even a live singer for a few songs. The bar was actually outside - they put the drinks in snow drifts to keep them cold. Because it was goddamn freezing outside, and the tables outside was where the party was, everyone was forced to start dancing, in order to keep warm. So now everyone is dancing and drinking... naturally, the next step would be dancing on the tables. In ski boots. And shirtless. Unfortunately, we were under the impression the party had just started, and were beginning to get buzzed enough to venture a trip to the top of our table when they turned the music off. Apparently they're not legally allowed to keep the party running past dusk because of the danger that could pose to our physical being, so they kicked everyone out at 5.

Let me tell you, skiing down the mountain, slightly drunk, in quickly fading and finally nonexistant light.... AWESOME. It actually was a lot of fun. We didn't HAVE to ski down - they kept the gondola open - but we did anyway because it's a great story to tell and now I'm telling it! We went very slow, and lots of laughs and jokes, but definitely a great experience and well worth upgrading our lift tickets for the day.

The next day was the last full day of Tignes action, so I skiied with some other friends for the day. On the last run, of the last day, at nearly the bottom of the slope, I re-injured my knee. I suppose it's my own fault because I went off-piste by myself to get some last knee deep powder runs and ended up skiing into a cloud, hitting a rock or something and crossing my skis. But I was close enough to the bottom where I could safely make my way straight into the bar where I found Trine and Anna so it worked out perfectly.

That evening was the last, and the ski club officers had a special event planned in which they "awarded" drinking "fines" to people for funny stories that happened. All week the officers had been giving out free drinks for one thing or another, and this time they got a microphone and made people drink for embarrassing stories they were involved in. There were only a few really good stories, but it was a fun idea. I got fined for passing out (only slightly inebriated) at 9pm one night. Luckily I only had to take a shot of Jaegermeister - some people were given dirty pints or had to chug things or funnel or what have you. So I got off easy.

Later, after having taken some time to rest, I went to the club with just about everyone else from LSE and got wild and crazy until about 3:30 when I think I fell asleep. My goal had been to stay away until we boarded the coaches to the airport at 4am, but alas! I failed, but only just. The coaches were fully boarded a bit behind schedule... maybe around 6:45, and we spent an ungodly amount of time in the Geneva Int'l Airport, but finally arrived back in London the evening of 20 December.

It was a fantastic trip on the whole - awesome skiing, great nights out, and most importantly, I made a whole bunch of new friends, most of them English, whom I hope to continue good times with in the future. Unfortunately I couldn't find the waitress in Les Brevieres (that village we had lunch in) so I couldn't ask her to marry me, but one day I'll go back. One day...

I'm off to Prague, Vienna, and Budapest tomorrow, so I wish all 1.5 of my loyal readers a very Happy New Year in 2009, and hopefully I won't wait 3 months before writing my next post like last time.

Au revoir!

My Camera Died in Barcelona

Unfortunately, when I visited Barcelona this weekend I was tragically unprepared and thus forgot to properly charge my camera. Needless to say, I snapped off about 10 pictures of surfers and a few of Sagrada Familia before it died. But I will steal my friend's pictures and *maybe* make a Flickr account to start posting everything...

But let's backtrack to the weekend of 8 Nov. As you already know, Mr. Obama was pronounced President-elect at approximately 5:00am GMT, so that was a late night for me on Wednesday. On Saturday, I had my first hockey game as a London Dragon @ Oxford. Grandma said "Oh well now you get to say you went to Oxford!" and while that is true, the game was at 11:00pm and it was pouring rain, so I didn't actually get to "see" Oxford, though I hope to make a trip out there sometime soon. The game went fairly well, but ended in a 10-8 loss, which I thought was an absurd hockey score until I saw that BC beat UNH this weekend 8-6, which isn't too far off. Anyway, the team is not too shabby. A little weak on the goaltending, and the defense needs some work, but this was apparently our toughest test of the season, and we have them coming back to our place for the last game of the season in February and I have no doubt we will stomp them when they do come. The real point I want to make though, is that this was my second super-late night of the week. The buses to Oxford only run every hour after 1:00am, and we missed the 2:10 bus, so we had to wait for the 3:10 bus. It was ridiculous, I got home at 5:30. BUT I LOVE HOCKEY SO I DON'T CARE! Seriously, it was worth it, even if we got a lot of dirty looks from people on the bus who were trying to sleep while we were having a grand time.

Then, Monday was my birthday, so I went out with the hockey team to the University of London Students Union pub, and then off to a classy establishment/club - Cheapskates. It was a good night, and though I've been drinking legally for over a month now in London, it still felt like 21, which was nice. I'm still amazed that the US is the only developed country in the world with a drinking age over 18.

Fast forward to the weekend - Friday evening I left for Barcelona with 4 friends, Anna Allie Lauren and Andrew, from LSE. It was a rather long trip because we took Ryanair and had to travel 45 minutes to Stansted Airport in London, and then another 1.5 hours from Girona airport in Spain to Barcelona, with the 1.5 hour flight in between, but we ended up getting to Barca at a reasonable time as far as the Spaniards are concerned: 11:00pm. Checked into the hostel (which was literally on the boardwalk) and went out to dinner which was surprisingly full. I ate seafood (and continued to all weekend) and we drank some delicious Sangria - really the way to go if you ever go to Spain (we later learned that the Spaniards don't eat dinner until 10, and don't go out until at least 12, so the nights are very long there). Friday night I called up my roommate Chris who is studying there and he took us to the Absinthe bar, but it was packed and had an hour wait, so we went to a different and really old bar that ended up being pretty fun. Saturday morning we woke up relatively early and I got to sit outside in the beautiful sunshine and clear blue skies in just a t-shirt (because it was 65 degrees) and watch the surfers ride shore break for a while. I really wanted to get out there, and the water was really warm, but I didn't pack a suit and we had an agenda.

The first thing on the above mentioned agenda was the Picasso museum, which didn't hold many of his most-famous works, but did have a lot of his stuff and was organised in a way that chronicled his life and the progression of his works, which was really interesting. Unfortunately all the captions of the paintings were in Catalan and Spanish, so I couldn't understand anything, but it was still cool. Next was the Museu de Xocholata - The Museum of Chocolate. It was amazing. They gave me a bar of chocolate when I walked in, and there were gigantic chocolate sculptures of all sorts of things, ranging from a gorilla to a model of Sagrada Familia, which I'll get to later. Anyways, it was delicious, and I bought a 90% pure cocoa chocolate bar which I plan to enjoy sometime soon.

Next we made our way towards the Temple de Sagrada Familia - Gaudi's most famous (and still ongoing) project. Gaudi was really a revolutionary in construction and design, and all of his works in some way mimic something in nature - animals, plants growing, beehives, etc. I would say, if there is any cathedral you NEED to see before you die, this is the one. Unfortunately it is not finished, even though it begun in 1882, but it is still some serious architecture. They just finished the front facade, which is a sculpture of the Passion of the Christ, and the back was finished just after Gaudi died in 1928, which is a depiction of the Nativity Scene. It's clearly got Gothic elements to the overall construction, but the design is one of a kind. If it's finished before I die, I will most certainly return - the main part, the Facade of Glory - is to be 170 metres tall. For comparison, the St. Louis Arch is 192 metres tall, and the spires currently in place at Sagrada Familia are 100 metres. I'm doubtful that they'll finish anytime soon, perhaps not even in another 100 years, but there were a ton of cranes and it looked like they were getting a lot done, so keep your fingers crossed!

That night while the girls shopped, Andrew and I walked back to the hostel by way of Las Ramblas, the touristy part of town. It was packed with people, and we were encountered by a great number of whack-job mimes(ish?) dressed up in silly costumes, painted skin and faces, and lots of them were making weird noises. One guy had a figure of a man dressed and painted in all silver sitting on a chair, but no head, and next to it was a big box with a man's head sticking out, also painted silver, and he was making really weird high pitched noises at everyone. Really crazy stuff. Also they sold live chickens and birds on the street. Weird. But we did make it back to the hostel and ended up playing drinking games with a bunch of Kiwis who were going on a grand European adventure of their own. They were all really nice and a lot of fun to hang out with, and they said they will be in London later this month so hopefully they'll give me a call. Afterwards, we met up with Chris again and he took us to a Tapas restaurant (sans kiwis) that was fabulous, and then to another bar where we stayed and chatted until the wee hours of the morning.

The next day, again woke up early and watched the surfers, and then proceeded to the Catedral de Barcelona, an older Gothic cathedral, which was actually holding a service when we got there so we couldn't go all the way into it and check it out. Also, there was scaffolding over the entire front of the place, so it didn't look as grand as it might have. The service was in Catalan, so it wasn't even worth sitting down to watch the priests speak on the jumbotron because we were so far back (the place is huge and they wanted everyone to be able to see what was going on apparently). Next we made the best decision of the weekend, which I'll attribute to Anna, and rented bikes for three hours. Not only did it let us rest our walking muscles, but we were able to cover a whole lot more ground in very little time, and made our way through the Arc de Triumf (the Spanish version of le Arc du Triomphe in Paris) and up to Park Guell - one of the many parks in the city. It is situated literally on the peak of a hill and has many Gaudi buildings and architecture, but the best part was at the very top after a long climb: a view of the entire city and beyond. It was amazing, you could see literally every building and then some, and the Mediterranean Sea in the background. Sagrada Familia was especially cool, and you can tell already that it is the centerpiece, biggest, and most extravagant building in Barcelona even though it is not finished. We could see in the distance where our tiny hostel was, and it was really a breathtaking picturesque view. This was not the only time I cursed myself for not charging my camera.

After Park Guell, we rode our bikes (this time downhill - the ride up was a difficult and sweaty one) rather leisurely and went for a ride through the Park Zoologicia which was where they held the World Exposition in 1898 which was pretty cool. And from there, returned the bikes, ate some more seafood, and headed home for dark, unsunny, freezing (literally, 1 degree Celsius), foggy Londontown.

It was a great adventure and an awesome (and sunny!) trip. I would definitely recommend Barcelona to anyone and everyone, even if only to experience some legitimate sun and warmth while getting away from crap weather. But luckily we decided to forgo sleep in favor of being able to do as much as possible in 2 days, and I'm really glad we did.

I hope I didn't bore anyone during this obnoxiously long post. Really it was just a reason for me to procrastinate reading for my Foreign Policy Analysis paper this week. Ugh.

I have a hockey game again this week, and I've recently started trying to figure out what to do with my life this summer, so maybe another post is in order for this week, but no promises!

Muchas gracias amigos, adios!

Obama!!!

Obama won! Woo! Queue up Hail to the Chief!

So yeah, I was and still am a very committed Barack Obama supporter and fan, and I watched eagerly the election results on Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning. The problem, of course, was that the first polls didn't close until 12am London time, and Obama wasn't projected as the winner until 4:30am. I think a combination of nerves, excitement, and probably copious amounts of alcohol contributed to my ability to stay up that late...

I spent my time in what turned out to be a huge party at one of the LSE's cafes on campus. It had been a stressful week because, as External Liaison of the Democrats Society, I was delegated the responsibility of receiving emails from people who wanted to join in on the festivities. Our society is actually quite badly organised, which is discouraging, and I only ran for the position because it's going to look good on my resume, and it turns out I actually have to do something! Fancy that. So someone put my email address on the Democrats Abroad UK website, along with the event information, and I received roughly 70 emails over the course of the week - about half within the 36 hours prior to the party - and I had a bit of a time answering all of their questions, in part because I wasn't informed of half the answers. Finally, 12 hours from go time, I got everything down and was able to send out a huge mass email and releive my stress once and for all.

Why I felt the need to tell you all of that just now is beyond me, but it turned out that the party had around 500 people. When I got there, they weren't even letting people in because it had reached max capacity - I sweet-talked the guard though and he let me in because I had two cases of champagne that we (the Dems Society) were going to sell later in the night. It was a great atmosphere, with students and people from all over. I would say only about 50% of the party was Americans, which gave it an interesting vibe and it was nice to get differing perspectives. Almost everyone was an Obama supporter, and when he won a state there was massive cheering... as opposed to the loud boos when McCain was projected winning a state. Also, I got interveiwed by an Iranian TV station. Check it out: http://www.presstv.com/Detail.aspx?id=74402&sectionid=3510301 (click the link, and then click the little video camera next to the title)

When Obama was projected winner mayhem ensued, and it was not unlike the scenes you must have witnessed in the press all over the country and the world. I was very impressed with John McCain's concession speech, and I hope his legacy isn't tarnished by the fact he sold his soul to the Devil in order to win the Republican primary. The victory speech was amazing, which is expected by Barack at this point, but I think he did an excellent job of keeping it sober (he cancelled the fireworks even before he knew he had won) and, what I like most, reiterating his call on young people to serve their country in some way shape or form.

But now it's story time. Yay!

After the party was over... 5:30am? A bunch of my friends and I decided it would be a great idea to wander through Westminster (London) to find a breakfast place to eat. Somehow we ended up in Trafalgar Square, which is an amazing place in itself. Go check out pictures on google. Anyway, I thought it vastly appropriate to pop a champagne bottle right in the middle of the square. It was perfect! Great place, a bunch of crazy drunk Americans... and cops. Lots of cops. In fact, one of them decided to let us have a piece of his mind. I've roughly reconstructed the conversation:

"Hey! Listen up!

1. This is not America. This is Great Britain.

2. You are way too loud and bothering people.

3. I don't care about America.

4. I don't care who won the American election.

5. I am not American, I am English.

(and this is when he looked me in the eyes because I was holding an open bottle of champagne, which is apparently legal everywhere except Westminster?)

6. If I see any of you drinking alcohol, I will write you a ticket right here for 300 pounds.

Go away right now or I will arrest you."

Besides the redundancy and blatant disrespect, not to mention the fact that Trafalgar square is entirely composed of stores, museums, and gigantic concrete statues (exactly whom were we bothering?), I found the man quite charming... and persuasive.

We did end up finding an eatery in Leicester Square, and I arrived home roughly around 8:00am. It was a wonderful night, and I don't think I'll ever forget it.

I think that's probably the most exciting thing that's happened to me in the last week. This weekend is my first hockey game at Oxford, Monday is birthday extravaganza, and next weekend I'm going to Barcelona.

Other than that, school work is getting a little out of hand. I mean, I'm keeping up OK, but the amount of work is seriously stupid. When are we students supposed to have time to party and travel? In fact, I've written this post entirely on the premise of procrastinating finishing an essay due tomorrow afternoon!

...And on that note, I bid you adieu.

Fine English Hospitality

Hello and welcome again to the second installment of: Alex Goes to England, the new hit series that Roger Ebert gives "two thumbs way up!"

First for a little story I feel compelled to share: I don't know how many of you are familiar with the greatest place on Earth, but it's called Chipotle, and they have delicious burritos. Every year, the Chipotle in Cleveland Circle (near Boston College, that is) has a "Free Burrito Day" which is pretty self-explanatory. The lines are usually quite long, but the burritos taste even better when you don't have to pay for them and can ask for guacamole without feeling guilty about paying the extra $1.75. Anyway, I was walking down Fleet Street back home from class on Friday when I happened upon the grand opening of Chilangos, which looks oddly like Chipotle. And guess what, they were handing out free burritos! My lucky day! I decided to wait and was glad that I did, because upon entering the store from the queue outside (that's 'line' in British) I was greeted by the most beautiful Corona Girls I've ever encountered. And they gave me a free Mexican beer, in addition to my free Chilango Burrito. And I must say, that was the best free burrito ever. Which brings me to my conclusion that Chilangos > Chipotle. What a nice way to end a hard day's work!

Moving on...

After having enjoyed my burrito + beer in the garden at St. Paul's Cathedral, which I must walk through to get home everyday, it was time to pack up my belongings and head on out for the English countryside. My friend Anna, another BC student at LSE, and I hopped on the next bus out of London to Bristol, where Mom's old college buddy Wayne picked us up and took us to his house. Wayne, funny enough, studied with Mom when she studied abroad in England way back in the stone ages (sorry Mom). Anyway, Wayne and his roomie Arek generously put us up for the weekend, and they are fabulous hosts. English breakfast for two mornings, delicious meals at night, and just a grand old time on the whole.

We arrived late Friday so they heated up some pizzas for us and then we chatted over a few drinks before hitting the hay. Saturday though, we woke up to find a delicious and filling English breakfast, with way too much of everything, waiting for us. Wayne's English breakfast consisted of eggs, sausage, ham, tomato, and freshly baked bread. And it was fantastic. We then got a guided tour around the city of Bristol for about an hour before coming back home to prepare for the long journey to Bath and the countryside. In Bath we had tea under an extremely old and beautiful bridge and go into the Roman Baths which were built literally millenia ago around a hot spring that still keeps the pools warm. The roofs have fallen down so the water is really disgusting, but it was still really cool to see stone carvings and pools that were created such a long time ago. Not to mention that from the upper level, as in the picture above, you can see so much of the city including the magnificent cathedral above my head.

Also there was a man juggling fire sticks and balancing a pick axe on his head. At the same time.

After Bath we were taken to an old English village in the country side that may as well have been a movie set. In fact, it is a movie set, but that's not its main purpose. It's called Castle Comb, and they filmed the old Dr. Doolittle there, but it was quite beautiful and quite old. The chapel has a monument/tomb inside of it to a Sir Walter de Dustanville, warrior in two crusades which dates back to 1270. Amazing. Following Bath we drove through Cheddar, which proudly advertises "The Only Cheddar Made in Cheddar," referring to the cheese of course, and saw some really 'lovely' rock formations and a lot of mountain goats.

Dinner was again fabulous, this time a homemade curry and rice. We then enjoyed some Little Britain, a show you may recognize from HBO in the states. Theirs has been running for a few years now though, and it's absolutely rediculous. Wayne's friend Bob came over and they talked about all the silly things they used to do when they were younger, and Anna and I just sat back and enjoyed the conversation - again all over drinks.

In all, I must say that Wayne and Arek's hospitality was unquestionably spectacular, they really made a fine weekend for us and we quite enjoyed ourselves and the parts of England that aren't anything like London. We also learned that 'cool' and 'awesome' are unacceptable parts of speech in England and should be replaced with 'lovely' or 'splendid,' a cot is something that babies sleep in, not to confuse 'pants' (underwear) with trousers, and that if you kick someone in the 'fannie,' well... I'm not at liberty to discuss.

Well I think that's all for now. I've got a busy week ahead of... writing essays, reading, going to the pubs, and figuring out how to cook food the right way. And now I'm off to discuss in 1500 words or less why Great Britain decided to abandon partition in Palestine following World War II! Don't they know people have written entire books on this?...

I am now an acquaintance of the Queen of England

OK, blogging. Interesting. Let's give it a go, shall we?

This past weekend I went on a little 'retreat' to the Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park. It was a really great environment, there were a bunch of cool speakers and panels about the US presidential election, but my favorite part was definitely the atmosphere of the place we were staying. Basically, the Lodge is a former residence of a Prince (Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein to be precise) and it's been converted into a conference center where all the attendees get to stay in their very nice, albeit very pink rooms. But the park is gorgeous, streches for miles in every direction, and you actually don't feel your lungs breathing in the pollution of London. Lovely.

Anyway, I made a few new friends and we walked to Windsor Castle, about 4 miles through cow pastures, past a gigantic statue of King George III rearing on his horse (probably upset about losing the Colonies to those damn rebels), and then through a deer park where the deer roam freely and occasionally show off their gigantic antlers up to 20 feet away from you across your walking path. Which happened. Then it's a straight shot to the castle, which was awesome in itself, and the little town surrounding it had some clever pub signs, a crooked house, and delicious ice cream. The best part though, was that the Queen's standard was flying, which means she was chillin' in the castle for the weekend and would be at Royal Chapel on Sunday.

I attended said Royal Chapel with a number of students in the Lodge and a bunch of locals as well. When we exited the service, Queen Elizabeth II was standing just to the right, not more than 10 feet away. We locked eyes... it was magical... I got her number. No, but seriously, it was cool. She is very tiny, not more than 5 feet tall, and wore a really silly blue Queen hat. But I did go to chapel with the Queen of England, and I'm sure not many Americans, much less Englishmen can claim that particular feat. Unfortunately she didn't stay to chat, instead just hopping into her range rover with her body guards and peacin' out. Maybe next time.

I think that's all for my first blog post ever in the history of Alex Cohen. If anyone wants to sign me up for some book deals just shoot me an email or something. I'll try to update as much as possible and/or when I do cool things. Maybe I'll even figure out how to post pictures...

Cheers mates!