I meant to write about this a few weeks back when I heard the news, but I’m finally getting a chance now to talk about it. During my time at Penn, I was involved in an organization called Penn Relay For Life. Relay For Life is a national event that is held at locations all around the country where money is raised for the American Cancer Society. Looking at Wikipedia’s definition, Relay is “an overnight event designed to spread awareness of cancer prevention, treatments and cures, celebrate survivorship and raise money for research to find more cures for cancer.”

My mom is alive today because of the work done by organizations like the American Cancer Society. She was diagnosed with breast cancer 10 years ago, and through treatments of chemotherapy and radiation, she fought through it and is a survivor.

When I was in 10th grade, the bank my mom worked for at the time was raising money and participating in an event called “Relay For Life”. It was held at Toms River South high school and was my first Relay experience. That year, my brother and I raised money by selling straws for $3, and with every purchase you got a free root beer float.

In 2004, during my freshman year at Penn, I received an e-mail saying that Relay was going to be starting up at Penn. I jumped on board are started to get involved in the planning. It wasn’t what would be considered a banner year in any sense, as we only had about 50 participants and raised just $1,000, but it was a starting point for a period of tremendous growth. Last year, in 2007, we had over 1,000 people join us at Franklin Field as we raised $135,000.

A few weeks ago was the annual Pennsylvania Relay For Life Youth Summit, and Penn Relay For Life took home some hardware:
#1 College Event in Pennsylvania
#1 Online Fundraiser (for the entire state of Pennsylvania)
#2 Percentage Growth vs. Prior Year (174% increase)

A big congratulations to all of the Planning Committee from last year. The growth of Penn Relay For Life is charted below.

I also made liberal use of the trendline function in Excel and, assuming current trends continue and there are no limiting factors, in 2040 Penn Relay For Life will be raking in $332,534,551.02. Go Relay! For kicks, here’s that chart below, too.

Penn Relay For Life 2008
April 4, 2008, 8pm-8am
Franklin Field
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA

This year I’m involved in Relay as the Alumni Chair. My job is to get Penn Alums involved by both participating in and volunteering for the event. The Penn Alumni Team page is where we’re asking Penn Alums to sign up. If you’re interested in volunteering for the event, drop our event chairs a line at pennrelayforlife@gmail.com. I’ll be writing more about the Alum initiative and efforts later on.

Each year I give my time and my efforts to Relay because the money raised goes to research and medical breakthroughs. These breakthroughs are the things that allow my mom to still be with me today, and I’m forever thankful for that.

Since I entered college I’ve been fortunate enough to have all three of my favorite teams (Rangers, Mets, and Giants) be division rivals with Philadelphia teams (Flyers, Phillies, and Eagles), so the teams I like are in town fairly often.

While I’ve seen the Mets multiple times in Philadelphia, the Giants come to town only once a year, today the New York Giants vs. the Philadelphia Eagles here in Philadelphia. Now, I’ve been brave enough to wear a Mets shirt to a Phillies game and walk away with only slightly inappropriate names thrown at me, along with a young boy booing me as I waited in line for water ice. But if you wear anything Giants related to an Eagles home game, you must prepare yourself for abuse.

Notable things observed at the game today:

Eagles fans chanting a word similar to “brass pole” to anyone wearing a Giants jersey. This abuse extended to people of all ages, including a mom and two young kids who couldn’t have been more than eight years old.

Also notable was their hatred for any other team, and this ranged beyond football. A man saw my Penn sweatshirt and said “Man, you guys put up a fight against North Carolina.” (Penn played North Carolina in men’s basketball last week, and was crushed 71-106). “I HATE the Tarheels. I was hoping that their plane would crash on the way home and they all would have died.” Wow.

When I got home today, I saw an article in Sports Illustrated on how Philadelphia is the worst town for visiting teams to play in. From Sports Illustrated: “[Philadelphia], says Washington’s Ethan Albright, “is the only place where six-year-olds flip us off and their dads pat their backs to say ‘good job.'”

Since my travels to Europe are over (for now), I’m not quite sure what direction to take this blog. For now, I’m going to write about the things that I enjoy, which include but are not limited the following:

Food
Sports
Video Games
Funny Television Shows
Travel

Actually, come to think about it, that’s exactly what I’ve been blogging about all along.

Yesterday was my last Sunday in London. I slept in a bit, took a shower, grabbed my camera and ventured into town.

I ended up down near Big Ben and took a nice stroll along the South side of the Thames. I stumbled upon County Hall which was hosting a Star Wars exhibit that I had seen earlier on my trip about six weeks ago, but it wasn’t open yet. Well, it was open yesterday, and I forked over my hard-earned pounds to see what it was all about. Han Solo in carbonite? OK, pretty cool. Life-size podracers? Also pretty cool. All in all, it was good, and if you’re a Star Wars fan, you kinda have to go.

Lots o’ pictures of Star Wars stuffins in the Gallery.

I also found an exhibition called “Sport in the 21st Century” which had a collection of about 200 sports photographs. It’s located right near City Hall and Tower Bridge. My favorites? A picture of two orangutans in a boxing match where one was knocked out cold and the other was triumphantly standing on the turnbuckle with his hand raised in victory. Putting aside the ethical dilemma of monkeys fighting for the enjoyment of humans (it’s hard, I understand), the picture was hilarious. My other favorite was a picture of Barry Bonds being booed by a Phillies fan holding a sign with a asterisk on it.  The picture perfectly captures Philadelphia sports fans.

Paris.

The Rundown:
Charles de Gaulle Airport, Oops Hostel, Le Boulanger de Monge, Notre Dame, the Louvre, Deux Magots, Je The Me, Eiffel Tower, Starcooker

As always, more pictures in the Gallery.

The Long Version (with my 12 Pillars of Travel that I created when writing about Scotland):

1. (Get out a map. Pick a place that you’ve never been before.) Paris. Check.

2. (Do research on the place that you’ve picked.) I was armed with a Rick Steves’ book about Paris (thanks Amanda), a French phrasebook (thanks Kristine), and eight semesters of French.

3. (Plan your travel to get there. Take an unconventional route.) Since there’s a body of water separating the UK from France, I had a few options for travel. Chunnel train? Too pricy. Ferry? Too slow. Swim? Too out-of-shape. Airplane? Decent price, decent travel time, voila! It’s not exactly unconventional, but given the other alternatives, it was the option I went with. I arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport, by far the most beautiful airport I’ve ever been in. High arched glass ceilings, intricate lattice structure holding it all together, and Orangina-a-plenty. It was also where the cover art for U2’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind album was taken.

4. (Book a hostel ahead of time so that you have a place to sleep and have a map of the city.) Booked the hostel, forgot the map. Fortunately, I remembered the road the hostel was on, and there was a Metro stop with that name. I stayed at Oops Hostel, and all in all, a pretty good hostel. It’s located in the 13th Arrondissement in the southeast corner of the city and had just recently opened. (Think of arrondissements as zip codes within a city. Paris has 20 of them.) The staff was very friendly (and bi-lingual), and the facilities were all new and shiny. Negative points on the lack of lockers in the room and the fact that anyone in the hostel could have taken anyone else’s bag in the baggage room. Positive points for the awesome croissants.

5. (Talk to everyone you can and get their opinion on what you need to do in while in town.)

It was my first excursion into a country where English wasn’t the native tongue. It was time to put eight semesters of French to the test.

Unfortunately, I failed. Fortunately, most of the people I interacted with spoke English as a second language.

For the most part, I did fine.

“Bonjour madame, je voudrais un billet pour la .”
“Hello ma’am, I would like a ticket for the third level.” – Referring to the Eiffel Tower

“Bonjour monsieur, je voudrais une baguette.”
“Hello sir, I would like a baguette.”

“Bon soir madame, je voudrais cinq billet pour le métro.”
“Good evening ma’am, I would like five tickets for the Metro.”

“Bon soir madame, où sont les toilettes?”
“Good evening ma’am, where are the toilets?”

Most of my conversations in French involved buying tickets for things, eating food, and finding out where the bathrooms were.

6. (Make friends with the local people you meet.) and 7. (Experience the nightlife.)

I’d like to start out by thanking Zeynep for being an awesome hostess and tour guide. She went to Penn with me and is now studying in Paris, and I met some of her friends (both Parisians and people from around Europe, so I guess it counts as “local”). Most of my nightlife activities all revolved around food and is covered in #11.

Paris is known as the city of lights, so at around midnight on Saturday I trekked down to the Eiffel Tower. The structure looks cool during the day, but at night the whole thing is lit up and at the top of every hour there’s a “light show”, which basically means that thousands of pulsating lights on the tower blink on and off for about 10 minutes.

At the Eiffel Tower we were having a problem with trying to get a good picture. If we used flash the tower was too dark, and if we didn’t use flash you couldn’t see us in the foreground. Canon PowerShots have special settings for different situations, which is where we discovered “Night Snapshot”. The icon for Night Snapshot? A person standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. We figured if THIS didn’t work we’d have to throw the camera out and sue Canon for false iconiness. We started calling it “Eiffel Tower Mode”, and much to our delight, it worked and the pictures were fantastic.

8. (Do something touristy.)

Notre Dame – Beautiful church. I tried to find the entrance to climb to the top, but for the life of me, I couldn’t find it (it’s apparently on the left side if you’re facing the entrance in case you ever go).

The Lourve – Art museum that is the home of the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, along with a bazillion other pieces of art. The Venus de Milo was pretty cool, and the Mona Lisa was very tiny. My favorite section was definitely the Egyptian collection, which featured a mummy, tons of figurines, huge statues, a false door, and lots of random Egyptian stuff. My final semester at Penn, I took a class called “Land of the Pharaohs”, and despite that fact that I fell asleep in just about every class, I apparently retained a lot of it because I was running around like a kid in a candy store recognizing the different artifacts. I saw things like that ivory boomerang which was used for warding off spirits, the little scarabs that some pharaoh had carved with stories about his greatness, and Seth, the God of Cabbage. OK, so I’m a little hazy on the details of things I saw, but I am still giving myself a high-five for remembering at least some of that class.

Le Tour Eiffel – The 90 minute wait was worth it. Beautiful views of everything for miles. Unfortunately, it was cloudy, but being 976 feet up in the air was a good tradeoff. The top level was cool, but the best views of the city were on the second level (377 ft) and the first level (187 ft) has a bunch of shops and a post office.

9. (Do something off the beaten path.) I didn’t leave the city at all, but I found Rue Mouffetard, a road just north of my hostel which was full of farmer’s market stands and had a very festive fair-like atmosphere to it. I also found a bowling alley and resisted the urge to go in. I also happened to have been on a Metro train where there was a group of guys with some horns and a synthesizer playing right on the train. Why doesn’t SEPTA have in-flight entertainment like that?

10. (Go somewhere that you’re not supposed to be.) It was a relatively non-adventurous weekend, so I didn’t feel the need to do number 10.

11. (Eat something that your place is known for.) Ahhh, the food. Très délicieux.

Le Boulanger de Monge – Delicious baguettes in the 13th Arrondissement. I picked a multigrain one with a lot of seeds.

Les Deux Magots – A café in the 6th. Back in the day, it was a hangout for many famous writers and artists, including Hemingway and Picasso. Now, it’s an overly priced café with mean waiters where I ordered a Coke and paid 5.70 € for it. That’s $8.36 for all of you playing at home.

Je The Me – A little bistro in the 15th. I had an a-maz-ing steak along with sautéed mushrooms and potatoes. To top it off, I had a dish of summer berries and crème.

Starcooker – A brunch place in the 4th. For 20 € ($29.30), it was an all-you-can-eat brunch featuring ham, salmon, breads, cheeses, ham, fruits, tuna, croissants, crab, pasta, ham, and various deserts. Did I mention there was ham? It was on everything.

12. (Try not to make enemies with a local resident. If you do, get a good story out of it.) Despite what I’ve heard other people say about the people in Paris being crazy American haters, everyone I met was very pleasant and nice.

I didn’t make any enemies, I ate good food, and finally got to use French in France after eight semesters of studying it. Très bien. More photos in the Gallery.

I saw my first ever live NFL game this past weekend.

In February, the NFL announced that they would be holding an NFL regular season game in London in late October. The two teams picked to play were the Miami Dolphins and the New York Giants. Given that my team (the Giants, in case you don’t know me or if you’ve been living in a hole behind your model home) was playing in the city I was living in, I had to get a ticket.

But, time went along, and over the summer I missed the deadline to enter into the lottery for a chance to buy the ticket.

Next, I resorted to my good friend, Mr. Google, to begin my search. I ended up being referred over to Mr. eBay, where I found a single ticket in the “upper tier” and proceeded to make my first ever eBay bid. I ended up being outbid at the last second. No worries though, because two days later I tried again, this time for a single ticket in the “lower tier near the end zone”. This time, I seemed to have been the only one trying for the ticket, since I put in another bid at the last second only to later see that I had just outbid myself.

Then, the ticket got lost. It turns out that it had fallen behind a desk somewhere in my office complex. Brilliant.

However, I finally had the ticket in my hand, and on Sunday I started my day by going into Central London and eating a delicious Indian meal at Soho Spice (Spice Chicken Curry). I then bought some posterboard and made the following signs:

“HI MOM” -> For my mom
“GO FEAGLES” -> Giants Punter Jeff Feagles, has played in the league since 1988
“I PHIL PHIL” -> A nod to the I (Phil) Phil shirts that we made up my senior year honoring Phil Nichols
“BARRY, I’M DONE” -> Reference to a story about my dad, Barry

Since I didn’t want to drag my camera out for fear of it getting damaged, I took my Kodak FunSaver (Read: disposable camera) with me to the game. Thus, the pictures aren’t the best. But I’ve still posted the better ones on the Gallery.

I took the train out to Wembley, and the experience was similar to taking my first 7 train to Shea Stadium to see the Mets. We had cleared a patch of trees, and the stadium appeared in the distance, highlighted by a beautiful white arch that spans across it. It’s a new facility and only opened earlier this year. The stadium was immaculate inside. It was raining, but the design of the roof covers the spectators so I was dry as a bone. Also, the chicken tenders and fries I ate were some of the best stadium food I’ve ever eaten.

My seat was smack in the center of the end zone about 40 rows up. There were great sights of the entire field, and I felt like I had a Maddenesque view. I even ended up on TV for about two seconds during a Giants field goal attempt in the 4th Quarter.

Halftime was entertaining, as there was a marching band (who if I remember right, were the Band of the Corps of Royal Engineers). They played Rocky. Enough said. Right when the Dolphins were kicking off to start the second half, a ref from down near my end zone started blowing his whistle and running towards mid-field. Then this “ref” proceeded to take all of his clothes off, stand on the 50-yard line and do a jig.

Little kid sitting next to me: “Is he naked?”
Me: “Yes he is. Shield your eyes.”

It took the security guards a few seconds to react before giving him chase and finally grabbing him, much to the dismay of the crowd.

Since the Dolphins gave up a home game to play in London, the event was more Dolphin-centric than anything else. One benefit of this was that the Miami Dolphins cheerleaders were at the game (who, by the way, got more applause than anything else that happened at the stadium). I’d say a majority of the fans there wore Dolphins gear or were Dolphins fans, but I saw pretty much every team’s jersey represented at the game. That includes the two British gents in Jets jerseys who sat behind me and knew a heck of a lot more about football than your average fan back home.

As far as football games go, it was a terrible mess. The rain took away any air game, and it was all about pounding the ball up the field on the ground. The Giants stormed ahead early, but the Dolphins made it interesting with two minutes left by scoring a touchdown and making the score 13-10 New York. However, the attempted kickoff by Jay Feely was flubbed and shot straight out of bounds. The pro-Dolphin crowd booed as the Giants took a knee on final three downs, and the game was over.

All in all, a great day. The only downer was that I wanted to get one of the scarves that they were selling (usually something you see for soccer teams) which had the Giants and Dolphins logos on it, but by the time I got to the front of the souvenirs line, they were sold out. However, a simple talk with Mr. Google found the same scarves on the Reebok website, so I snagged one.

Go Giants!

A relatively calm weekend this past weekend.

Friday: Went south of Ealing to a town called Richmond, which has a lot of good restaurants and is located right along the Thames, making for a very picturesque scene, but it was night when I went, so I didn’t bring my camera.

Saturday: Rugby World Cup Finals. England vs. South Africa. After many very exciting quarter- and semi-final games, this game was a sleeper. If you’re a fan of field goals, then this was the game for you. There were seven penalty goals (the rugby equivalent of the field goal) and zero tries (the equivalent of the touchdown). I went into a pub in Central London which was packed wall-to-wall, and the exciting moment of the night was when England made it to the end zone and scored a try, and the entire place erupted. However, it was ruled that he was knocked out of bounds before reaching the end zone, thus negating the try.

Sunday: Took a train then a bus to get to Windsor Castle, one of the residences of the Royal Family. The Queen was busy and didn’t have time to hang out, but I did get some really nice pictures that I put up in the Gallery. I also ate a jacket potato with cheese and bacon, which is what they call a baked potato.

Last week, it was announced that Sonic the Hedgehog would be included in Smash Bros. Brawl, the updated Wii version of the Smash Bros. franchise (due out in February 2008).

This got me thinking about what other characters and items I would like to see included in the game.

Characters (Listed in likeliness that I think they’ll actually include them in the game)

Toad

First Nintendo Appearance: Super Mario Bros. (1985)

Seriously, aren’t you tired of him always telling you that the princess is in another castle? It’s time to unleash a beating on the little pipsqueak.

Proposed Smash Attack: Something involving the vegetables from Super Mario Bros. 2

Dry Bones

First Nintendo Appearance: Super Mario Bros. 3 (1989)

Dry Bones is arguably the best sidekick in Mario Strikers Charged. My roommate and I both agree that this celebration dances are clearly the most entertaining, and it’s about time that they included a skeleton into Smash Bros.

Proposed Smash Attack: Cranium Crunch (Throwing his head at opponents)

Mega Man

First Nintendo Appearance: Mega Man (1987)

Mega Man would be have the highest probably of being another third-party character included in Smash. This is based on complete scientific fact (and by “scientific fact” I mean “my personal preference based on no research whatsoever”). He would be about the same size as Ness, he has all sorts of random attacks he can do, and would be a great compliment to the Smash family.

Proposed Smash Attack: The ability to use some of the various weapons he gets after defeating the Robot Masters

Black Mage

First Nintendo Appearance: Final Fantasy (1990)

This one isn’t that much of a stretch considering that you could play as Black Mage in Mario Hoops 3-on-3.

Proposed Smash Attack: FIR3 and ICE3

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

First Nintendo Appearance: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989)

This would be ridiculously awesome, and you know it. Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael are perfect for this game. They fight, they all have weapons already, and their taunt would be “Cowabunga”. You can even add the pizza power-up as a damage reducer. Nintendo, just go ahead and put all four of them in the game, please.

Proposed Smash Attack: Katana, Bo Staff, Nunchuck, and Sai

Chun-Li

First Nintendo Appearance: Street Fighter II (1992)

She has fighting skills, lightning kicks, and her taunt can be that “Yatta!” thing she does after defeating an opponent.

Proposed Smash Attack: Spinning Bird Kick and Lightning Kick

Assist Trophies

These are a new concept to the Smash Bros. World, but as the game continues to grow in scope and size and randomness, I propose the following things be added as Assist Trophies.

Tetris Pieces

With this Assist Trophy, random Tetris pieces would fall from the sky, building a temporary wall between you and your opponents. You would then have to break down the wall with a smash attack, or maybe a magical long piece would fall from the sky, completing a Tetris, and clearing the blocks from your path. In other news, www.gamefaqs.com is doing their annual character battle, and the L-Block from Tetris has made it into the Round of 32. Go L-Block!

Kung-Fu

The Kung-Fu Master from the Nintendo game Kung Fu will come out, kick a few enemies, and then disappear to go fight more ninjas.

Paperboy

The Paperboy will come riding in on his bike, throw a few papers through windows, and then get chased away by the dog.

Tecmo Super Bowl Football

This Assist Trophy wouldn’t do anything to anyone on the stage, but the game would pause and the Tecmo Super Bowl halftime routine would play. Once it was over, play would resume.

Items

1-up Mushroom

The 1-up mushroom would give the player an extra life in stock battle, and would knock down a player’s KO number in timed mode. You wouldn’t restore any health with it, but you would get to hear that cool 1-up sound every time someone got one.

Warp Whistle

From Super Mario Bros. 3, this item would transport you to a random part of the stage.

That’s all I can muster up for now. I’ll probably think of more as the launch of the game gets closer.

1. Get out a map. Pick a place that you’ve never been before.
2. Do research on the place that you’ve picked.
3. Plan your travel to get there. Take an unconventional route.
4. Book a hostel ahead of time so that you have a place to sleep and have a map of the city.
5. Talk to everyone you can and get their opinion on what you need to do in while in town.
6. Make friends with the local people you meet.
7. Experience the nightlife.
8. Do something touristy.
9. Do something off the beaten path.
10. Go somewhere that you’re not supposed to be.
11. Eat something that your place is known for.
12. Try not to make enemies with a local resident. If you do, get a good story out of it.

Here’s how I attempted to accomplish the things listed in the guide. As always, pictures are in the Gallery. Unfortunately, it was cloud-cover for most of the weekend, so I was not happy with the quality of the pictures.

1. (Get out a map. Pick a place that you’ve never been before.) Looking at cities on Google Maps, I picked Edinburgh with no particular reason in mind, expect for the vague idea of playing golf in Scotland.

2. (Do research on the place that you’ve picked.) My friend Jess had studied at the University of St. Andrews and said it was a cool place to go. Most of my “research” was done from talking to the people from the UK that I work with, by reading the Rick Steves website, and by clicking around Wikipedia.

3. (Plan your travel to get there. Take an unconventional route.) To get to Edinburgh, I took the Tube into Central London, a regional rail train to Luton, a bus to Luton Airport, a plane to Edinburgh, and a bus into Edinburgh. This doesn’t really fulfill this standard because it wasn’t THAT unconventional, but I flew from a different airport than the one closest to my flat because it was a boatload cheaper. In the terminal of the airport, I met a very nice Jamaican woman who was born and raised in England. She was a fashion designer, and her specialty was shoes. We had the same flight, and she told me gave me a list of things that I needed to do while I was there. On my return flight, I flew into a different airport than the one I departed from, and plotted a different route back to my flat.

4. (Book a hostel ahead of time so that you have a place to sleep and have a map of the city.) I used hostelworld and I HIGHLY recommend it for anyone who might be going abroad and is looking for cheap places to stay. I found Budget Backpackers, a very funky hostel with bright colors, clean rooms, and a very friendly staff. I did not have a map of Edinburgh, only a vague paragraph of how to find the hostel. If I had printed a map from home, it would have been much easier to navigate the streets instead of taking wrong turns and walking down the wrong streets. In addition, Edinburgh is VERY hilly, so when I made a wrong turn going downhill, I had to trek back uphill. In short, take a map.

5, 6, and 7, (Talk to everyone you can and get their opinion on what you need to do in while in town/ Make friends with the local people you meet/ Experience the nightlife.) I need to combine these three together to make a sequential story. I didn’t arrive at my hostel until 11:30pm. I asked the staff about where to go on 11:30pm on a Friday night. They directed me to a bar/club down the road called Frankenstein. As you might have imagined, it was a Frankenstein-themed bar, complete with black and green balloons, old horror movie posters, and clips from old black-and-white Frankenstein movies looping on the video screens. There was loud rock/dance music and a good number of younger people, including a segment near closing time when the female bartenders get on the bar and shake a tambourine to Robbie Williams’ “Let Me Entertain You” while a giant Frankenstein falls from the ceiling.

While I was at the bar, I made a “hate friend”. (Sidebar: I heard a comedian once do a routine about making “hate friends”. The concept is that you bond with someone because a third person is being an idiot. One example is that you’re second in line at a checkout, and the person in front of you takes out a bag of pennies and starts counting them to pay for their groceries. You turn to the person behind and make a gesture saying “WHAT is this guy doing?!” When the person behind you silently nods their head in agreement, congratulations, you have just made yourself a “hate friend”.) I made my new hate friend when the bartender kept ignoring us and serving the attractive ladies down at the other end. Not that I could blame him, but I was thirsty. I made a comment about the bartender to the guy standing next to me, and he agreed. Bam, new hate friend. I asked him about fun stuff to do in Edinburgh, and so him and his newlywed wife of three weeks gave me more things to my list of things that I needed to accomplish both in Edinburgh and in London. We hung out at Frankenstein until 1am when they closed, and the couple invited me to come along with them to Espionage.

Espionage is a nightclub down the road from Frankenstein. As I said before, Edinburgh is very hilly. You enter into Espionage on the top floor, but because the whole street is built into a hill, the club has four floors, each going down another level, each with its own atmosphere. The second floor was a chill lounge area and the bottom level was a rave-type party with crazy flashing lights and huge video screens playing 80s and 90s rock music videos. I met some of their friends and listened to Welcome to the Jungle, Basket Case, and Don’t Stop Believin’.

While at Espionage, I found a list carved in the wall of a bathroom stall:

We left the club at 2:30am and parted ways. At that point, I was not tired yet, so I started roaming the streets near my hostel and was giving high-fives to everyone. One of the groups I met were a group of four girls who were all from the area. I started talking to them about America and about where I bought my green shirt from. A random group of guys from Ireland also came up to us, and I partied with them all until 5am.

The next night I looked for a pub that was showing the France vs. England Rugby World Cup game, but the first few places I looked were only showing the Ireland vs. Germany soccer match. I ended up back at Frankenstein and met a guy who had a placed a 20-1 bet on England winning the World Cup. Needless to say, he was very excited when England won.

8. (Do something touristy.) I went to Edinburgh Castle. According to Wikipedia, “Edinburgh Castle is an ancient fortress which, from its position atop Castle Rock, dominates the sky-line of the city of Edinburgh. The Castle stands upon the basalt plug of an extinct volcano which is estimated to have risen some 340 million years ago during the lower Carboniferous age.” There were amazing views of both the city below and the surrounding countryside. Highlights of the castle included the Crowned Jewels of Scotland, The Scottish National War Memorial, and an exhibition of kilts throughout the years.

The castle also plays host to an event called the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, which is a yearly month-long show which hosts the military drill teams from a number of different nations (including the good ol’ USA). It takes place every year in August so I didn’t see it, but the gift shop has a looping DVD of last year’s show, and it looked incredible. I think I’ve added a new life goal to my list.

The other very touristy thing that I did was climb to the top of Arthur’s Seat. “Arthur’s Seat is the main peak of the group of hills which form most of Holyrood Park, a remarkably wild piece of highland landscape in the centre of the city of Edinburgh, about a mile to the east of Edinburgh Castle. The hill rises above the city to a height of 251 m (823 feet), provides excellent panoramic views of the city, is quite easy to climb, and is a popular walk.” I would disagree with the “easy to climb” part, but that’s because I’m fat and out of shape. I got up early on Saturday morning and trekked down from my hostel to the bottom of the hill. Again, I didn’t have a map, so I picked a random path that looked like it was going up and I started walking. I was climbing higher and higher, when I suddenly turned a corner and discovered that the path I was on was now going down. I apparently picked the wrong path to start out on, and took a grand tour up and down the outside ring of the hill. Now that I was back at the bottom, but on the opposite site of the hill. I saw the ACTUAL path that I was supposed to take, and began the climb up a zig-zagging path. I made it to what I hoped would be the top, and then…

Oh crap, more hill. The angle that I was on was very deceiving and when I reached the top, it revealed a gorgeous view of the city and one more small mound to climb to reach the true top of the seat. I finally reached the top and took the required celebratory pictures and listened to Third Eye Blind’s “Motorcycle Drive-By”. I felt very proud of accomplishing the climb and was wallowing in self-awesomeness when I saw a kid who couldn’t have been more than five come trekking up to the summit with his family. Oh well, I still thought what I did was cool. I sat up there for about 45 minutes and watched as some clouds started to roll in, engulfing the hill. It started to rain, and I started the climb down.

9. (Do something off the beaten path.) Number 9 comes into play here on my trip back down the hill. I took a wrong turn somewhere near the top and started to climb down. At this point, I looked down and realized that I really wasn’t on a path but was instead on a rather steep rock face. I looked back up and realized that there was no way back up, so the only way was down. Wearing my trusty tweed blazer and my Stouffer College House bag, I called upon my rock climbing skills I learned in Adventure Bound back at Jackson Memorial High School and slowly made my way down the rocks. It was not at all graceful, and at one point a group of tourists down below all had their cameras pointed up at me as I slowly made my decent. Good times for everyone involved. By the time I reached the bottom, I was soaked, but I made friends with a goose swan I found at the bottom of the hill.

My second off-the-beaten path adventure was hopping on a bus, traveling south of the city, getting off, and walking until I found a golf course. Granted, I was in Scotland, so golf wasn’t hard to find. The placed I stumbled upon (Hermitage) was a twelve-hole course in a green valley in between two bigger hills, and £15 ($30) got me all-day access to the course, club rentals, tees, and balls. I played my best (and only) round of 12 ever. I made par twice (my first two times ever making par) but on the 12th hole I scored a 12. However, I didn’t care too much, because I was still playing golf in the middle of the birthplace of the sport. Life was good.

10. (Go somewhere that you’re not supposed to be.) I didn’t do a very good job fulfilling this one, but I did manage to work my way into a University of Edinburgh student union party where they converted the basement into a crazy night club and the library into a bar. A message to the University of Pennsylvania: You’re “on-notice” for converting Houston Hall from a student union into a catering facility to host weddings and bar mitzvahs.

11. (Eat something that your place is known for.) Edinburgh always smelled like food. Sometimes the city smelled like sugar, but most of the time the city smelled like pulled pork. Edinburgh apparently has a large Italian immigrant population, so of course I had to sample the cuisine. I found Vittoria, a place close to my hostel. The decor had a very funky red squares theme and they played Italian pop music over the speakers. I ordered asparagus chicken in a white sauce with sautéed vegetables. In true UK fashion, the default side dish was “chips” (french fries). The chicken was very tender and tasty, and the white sauce was a great accompaniment to both the vegetables and the potatoes. I topped off the meal with two scoops of ice cream, mint-chip and mango-passion fruit. The mint-chip was spot-on, but the mango-passion fruit was too much passion fruit, not enough mango.

12. (Try not to make enemies with a local resident. If you do, get a good story out of it.) I did indeed get a good story out of it, but I will save it and tell it at parties and fun social events so that I can properly re-enact all of the appropriate events that took place.

And that my friends, was my weekend in Edinburgh. Pictures are in the Gallery.

Yesterday was the second day-trip into London. Here are some highlights, and the pictures have been posted on the Gallery.

Short List: Financial District, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Globe Theater, Millennium Bridge, St. Paul’s Cathedral, The George Inn, Royal Courts of Justice

Extended Thoughts:
Financial District – I had to get off the Tube here because the train line we were trying to use to get to the Tower of London was shut down. It was a Saturday , and the whole area was very quiet.
Tower of London – A complex of buildings revolving around the White Tower, a fortress built by William the Conqueror in 1078. I didn’t go in because the tours cost a fortune, although I might go back. It’s been used for all sorts of things, including “a place of execution and torture, an armoury, a treasury, a zoo, a mint, a public records office, an observatory, and since 1303, the home of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom” (Wikipedia). It’s also home to a random tennis court, which was built in the moat that surrounds the complex.
Tower Bridge – This is what most Americans know as “London Bridge”. London Bridge is actually a smaller, less awesome bridge upstream from Tower Bridge. I got to the bridge right before a boat was passing through, so I took a few shots of the bridge up (along with the throngs of other tourists there). I also went up to the observation decks that connect the two towers together. Unfortunately, the sun ducked behind some clouds while I was up there, but it was still a beautiful site.
Globe Theater – Shakespeare and a few of his actor friends formed a company that invested a bunch of money into a playhouse to be build on the Thames. In 1613, the place went up in flames after a stage cannon sparked a fire during a performance. In 1989, the discovered the remains in an archeological dig and in 1997 they built a replica of it near the same site.
Millennium Bridge – As a correction to my first day-trip, what I reported as the Millennium Bridge last week was NOT the Millennium Bridge. This week, I went on the actual Millennium Bridge.
St. Paul’s Cathedral – HUGE cathedral built in the 17th Century. Famous for surviving The Blitz (bombing of the UK by Germany during World War II).
The George Inn – See Sidebar on food review.
Royal Courts of Justice – Home to the High Court of Justice. It was already after sunset, so I didn’t go in.

Sidebar: The George Inn
My flatmate and I walked literally for miles trying to find a pub that both served food and had sports on. We found plenty of pubs that had games on, but were only serving drinks, and we passed a ton of restaurants along the way. Finally, we found a place on The Strand (a road in Central London) called The George Inn, and it had food and TV, but all the TVs had some game show on, and the Rugby World Cup match for that evening didn’t start for a few hours. We were very hungry though, so we decided to deal with it and eat there. It’s a typical pub, except that it was a much older building and had a rustic old-world feel to it. I don’t remember the exact address, but it’s located on The Strand near the Royal Courts of Justice.

And it’s delicious. I decided to get chicken parm (does that surprise anyone?) and it was amazing. The piece of chicken was perfectly cooked, and was very tender inside. It was topped by a sauce that was chunkier than I prefer in my sauces, but the flavor of it was very robust and the tomato bits had a much sweeter taste than what I’ve had in typical sauces. Layered on top of the sauce was a slice of ham and a thick helping of melted mozzarella cheese. The whole thing was placed on a bed of thick-cut french fries and accompanied by a simple side salad of sprouts and cucumber slices with balsamic dressing. If that doesn’t make you hungry, then you don’t have a stomach. Or you’re a vegan.

After that fun day, I went back to my flat in Ealing and watched Rubgy at the pub near me. All in all, a great day