Back and forth and side to side

This is pretty much how my brain and body are feeling after a whirlwind few weeks. October has been high stress, between reading, writing and re-packing, with a few lectures thrown in amidst the planes, trains and automobiles I've been staking out seats on.

Two weeks ago, I spent a few days in the Netherlands, between Amsterdam and the countryside, in Volendam. The city is beautiful, with a dark and deep-rooted history (the Anne Frank house was fab.u.lous, and well worth the walk from our hostel between bridges over water and brigades of keeping buildings afloat and from crumbling into canals) made among the canals and curving buildings built on top of sloping brick. It brought to mind a combination of Venetian waterways and Eastern European architecture. A small city nestled in Western Europe, that makes for a great place to pass the time over two or three days.

The best part of the stay was hands down visiting the Van Gogh Museum; we spent about 4 hours in this museum, where I grew a much stronger appreciation for his work, which I had always written off as strange, eccentric and "too modern" for my taste before this visit. The museum did a great job of conveying the different periods of his work, and even though I was dodging tourists to catch quick glimpses of the pretty blues and yellows, the paintings were so engaging up close that not even a group of American high-schoolers screaming about who even knows could distract me.

After returning for 9 hours to London, I hopped on the train headed west towards Wales, along with 25 of the Arcadia students for an adventure weekend away. I had only spent 2 days in Wales when ARG and I were traveling the UK a few years ago, and it didn't really impress me. The grass was green, the air was cold, and the drives were long. This time, however, I pretty much fell in love with the quintessential country living (you know you've been in a big city too long when...). We stayed in Pembrokeshire, and from the moment we stepped off the train, the fabulous guides at Preseli Venture (http://www.preseliventure.co.uk/) took GREAT care of us! Our lodging was situated on acres and acres of farmland, and our first night was spent in the dining hall scarfing down some of the best homemade lasagna I've ever had (sorry, J). We slept like babies, tucked all into our bunkbeds with fires going in each room. We woke up to beautiful views of cows munching, sheep grazing and horses waiting for us to bring them some breakfast leftovers. The rest of the weekend was full of cliff-jumping, surfing and kayaking in the coldest water in the world. We saved hiking the beautiful coastline until late Sunday, just before we jumped back on the train towards London. Definitely one of my favorite experiences abroad!

I just returned last night from a quick trip north to Edinburgh, where CMR's smaller sister showed me through the city in the fastest 36 hours of my life. I got off the train, and immediately remembered why ARG and I loved Edinburgh more than any other city a few years back. For any HP fans...there's just no question about where the inspiration comes from. The castle peers down at you from any and all angles, and you feel like any moment a dementor is going to fly over your head towards Hogwarts. We pretty much ate our way through the weekend, with a few breaks from wine and cheese to visit the Modern Art Museum and the Museum of Scotland (a "must" if you ever enjoyed the Boston Science Museum and want to relive those moments of hands-on space, sea or science learning). The streets were filled with Halloween-ers on Saturday night, and it looked like an outdoor party with the pubs empty and the sidewalks full, people with or without costume. We breakfasted at the Elephant House on Sunday morning, read some reviews of JK Rowling while sipping lattes and looking out the bank windows onto the castle (http://www.elephanthouse.biz/), and then I caught the train (which, you should know, I treated like the Hogwarts Express the whole way home to London) back home, where I caught up on about a million hours of reading. The weekend was so much fun, and Little Ryan was so nice to host me! It's great to see a city from the perspective of someone that knows and lives it every day; the best part was seeing where she has class, where she drinks coffee, and where the best tasty treats are! Can't wait to host her in only three weeks!

After a few lectures today, I renewed all my books that I hadn't cracked since Thursday, and headed home to unpack and repack. I head out for Italy in about a half an hour! I'll be in Venice for 3 days (I'll be sad to explore the city without my fam by my side this time!) and then we'll head north to Turin (where I'll probably just be more interested in the Olympic history instead of the contemporary art scene...oops...) for 2 days. This should be it for my travel for the semester; I'll be back and blogging on the seventh, and counting the days until the visitors begin to arrive for Thanksgiving.

Hope everyone has a happy Halloween, and has been having the best kind of fall, despite the weirdest kind of weather!

Cheers!