London: Spring 2005

m,ncvm,cxnz,mn

2005-04-22T20:37:00.000+01:00

Ok, so everyone look at the title of the post? Just a bunch of jibberish, right? Well, here is the story. I come back from Barcelona, which was awesome. More on that later, and my computer is working fine for about 3 or 4 hours. Then all of a sudden, the keyboard no longer is working. Actually, it's working, but with out me touching it. All of a sudden it just starts going, "ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo....." And only the bottom row of keys work now, so if I can come up with words that contain, zxcvbnm, we can have a conversation online. Any idea's Kutko? Besides that, I'm stuck with no keyboard for the next two weeks here.

Ok, so back to barcelona. The weather there was awesome, well maybe a little two awesome. After the first day of sitting on the beach, I take a look at my legs, which are in pain. Turns out I got a little case of sun posioning. So yea, that sucked, but oh well, didn't hurt too bad. To make sure the same thing didn't happen again, I was to the local pharmacy in search for some sun screen. And I wanted the strong stuff, like SPF 3000, but I had to settle from SPF 40, which for this little tiny bottle cost me 11 euro, stupid american's not knowing how strong the sun is. So besides coming back a little tan/burned, Spain in sick. The nightlife there is crazy, people don't start going out until midnight or later. Us Londoners had enough trouble staying up till past 3 there. But we did encounter a cool shot bar, all the shots were a euro fifty each, except a few. One of which is the "Monica Lewbinski". There is a story to go along with the shot, but I can't put it on the blog, it just doesn't do it justice without seeing the pictures to go along with it. Or you can ask Scott about it, sorry pal. The hostel's in Spain were also a little weird, we woke up to techno music blaring every music, and you ask why we could hear it in our room? Well it is because the walls didn't go up to the ceiling, if you stood on the ladder to doug's "bed" you could see everyone room on our floor. "bed" was in quotes because Doug's bed was atleast a good 12 feet off the ground in this little alcove. He needed oxygen his bed was so high up there. Ok, so left Spain came back to England, computer broke. We have these tests next week, I think they are finals I'm not really sure, I'll have to ask one of the "degree students"here, we "study abroads" don't have anything on the "d.s.'s". (for those out of the loop on Richmond news, it turns out all the degree sutdents here hate all the study abroads. Maybe it is because they go to shitty school and take shitty classes? Maybe it is because aren't smart enough to go to school in the states, not really sure. But man, do they hate us STAB's (study abroads). You should see the article where they compare us to ants and roaches. I'll bring a copy home with me.)

That pretty much sums up the last week or so. I will be back home two weeks from today. Crazy how the semester flew. Plans for this summer? Summer school, 8AM, Monday and Wednesday's! Nice dude! blah blah. ok, hope everyone has a good time with finals. for all the IU kids, hope little 5 was good, I heard naughty by nature was awesome, right.....no sarcasam there or anything. See everyone in a few weeks, if you want anything from England send me an email, I won't answer because I can't type anything, but I'll still see the email.

Thanks to doug for letting me use his computer, well thanks to doug for being out to dinner so I can use his computer.

April 1st

2005-04-01T15:49:00.000+01:00

Hello all,

I haven't updated this in awhile, so I thought I would give it a go. My mom, dad, and sister were here last week. We saw all the sights around London, and then went to Paris for a few days. I liked Paris, people there aren't as rude as all americans think. Got back here last Friday, and the fam left of Saturday. Then this week we had monday off of school because of a bank holiday. Some of you may be asking what a "bank holiday" is, well I have no clue. But it was nice only have a two days of classes.

So on Tuesday we got on the tube and went to see the WImbledon Tennis center. It was kinda cool, we got to see center court. Well I thought it would be cool to get a Wimbledon tennis ball, so I asked the lady if they had any for sale. She said they were out and didn't know where they were getting more in, she was actually a bitch with an attitude. But I didn't let get me down. So we walked down the street and found a tennis shop that had the tennis balls! On the outside of the can there is a picture of a brand new slazenger Wimbledon Ultra VIS tennis ball. Now, don't you think that the picture would be what was on the tennis balls in the can? Yea, we thought that too. Turns out nope, they are just normal tennis balls. So the me and three people I split the can with were pretty pissed. We payed 9 pounds for some stupid ordinary tennis ball. We will be sending an email to Slazenger to make them send us real Wimbledon tennis balls. Stupid false advertising assholes. Ok, this story makes me mad to repeat so I will stop now.

Ben and Schneidy get here today for the weekend, so that should be fun. Dougs parents took me and Marc out for a good dinner last night, thank you Berger family. I went to a picnic in the park today with all my friends, that was fun. Played catch with a rugby ball, Shira dropped it alot, and Chelsea just ran away from the ball alot. Then Shira taught us some stupid game. If you ever want to learn a stupid camp game that just makes you frustrated because you can't figure it out, talk to Shira. Ok, this was a good talk, I'll see you out there.

cheers

Monday

2005-03-21T13:19:00.000Z

My Mom and my sister got here yesterday, my dad today. Long story, don't ask. So it's been nice seeing them and having them pay for things. You would be surprised how many times a person can go to an ATM in a week. I think I set a new record.

Growe, Spector, and Michelle were here for thier spring break. It was a good time, and nice to hang out with people from home. Growe was his normal goofy self, Spector bought alot of football (soccer) jerseys, because is what Speefer does, and Michelle, well she hung out with Doug because that is what michelle does.

Hope everything is going good back in the states. I'm going to Paris on Thursday with the fam. Hope everyone is having/had a good spring break.

cheers.

Spring Break: Italian Style

2005-03-12T16:46:00.000Z

Well, I'm not even sure where to begin this. I could probally write 5 pages on this last week, but I won't since no one besides my parents will read it. The past 10 days in Italy was amazing. We went to Rome, Venice, and Florence. I'll try to split this up by section with the highlights of the trip.

Rome:

Got to Rome on Wednesday night, and found our hostel, "Guy's Paradise". Now I know what you all are thinking, but no, it was not a guy only hostel. Once we got there they gave us all free beer and free dinner. So that was nice. That night we went out but were all a little tired, so we called it an early night. The weird thing is that we didn't have a room key for our room. So Scott came up with the idea to stack the beer cans, so if anyone came in, we would hear them. So I went to sleep, and not more than 5 minutes after going to sleep. We all hear the cans come crashing down. Scott jumped out of bed, and stopped this sketchy dude from coming in our room. He insisted that he and the 10 sweaters he was wearing we're staying in our room, and that the bed I was sleeping in was his. Scott finally convinced him it wasn't his room and he left. The next morning we were up early and got to see the colosseum, which was awesome. Pictures on shutter fly, but they don't do it justice. We also went to the Vatican city where the Pope hangs out. The weather one day sucked, and we missed the Sistine Chapel being open by like 20 minutes. So we went back the next day, met up with some people in London and had an awesome time. The Sistine chapel is really awesome, the ceiling is just amazing to sit and stare at. I got some pictures of it, but had to be pretty sneaky about it, since they yell at you for taking pictures. So, they came out so so. Also climbed up the 320 stairs to the top of St. Peters basilica. It's really 520 stairs but the guy let us take the elevator up. Saw a bunch of other stuff, but it will take too long to write about them, look at the pictures, you'll get the idea.

Venice:

Venice was my favorite city that I have been to in all of Europe. It was amazing, it was exactly what we needed. We stayed in this realy nice hostel/hotel. We had a huge room for the 6 of us, and no bunk beds which was a nice change. The weather was perfect for the whole time we were there, all three days. We walked around the city, rode on the canals, saw a few sights, and ate some good food. Thanks to Scott, we went out for a 50 euro dinner. It should have been 100 euro's a person, but Scott knew this guy named, Cha Cha. No joke, that's his name, and he wears bright yellow pants. So the dinner was good, Scott and Taz ate enough fish that buy the end of the night they had gills. Me? I stuck with pasta and steak, I know, typical. Not a bad meal at all. The next day we walked around some more, and then got on a train to Florence.

Florence:

When we got to Florence, none other than Ben Cherry met us at the train station. It was great to see guys from school, Ben, Coach, Jacobs, Tony, Kiss, Mookie Cookie. We walked around the city alot, and went to the Prada outlets, where I picked up a tie, and some things for my mom and sister. No hints here shelbs, wait till you get here. Then we went to this place called the mall. It it a outlet mall with all the major desingers. Everyone from Armani to Gucci, was there. I got an awesome wallet from Armani, so that was fun. Because they were far away, we hired a taxi for the day, and all day we had conversations with the driver, and he didn't speak english, so that was an experience. We went out with the guys from school, met some real cool people. Which include Katie, from GW, who let us sleep on her couch and couch coushins. Other than that we went to go see Michalenglo's statue of David. The thing is huge, got some good pictures, even though we aren't allowed to take picture of it.

Post Spring Break:

On Friday we flew back to London, where we were supposed to pick up Michelle, Growe Growe, and Spector from the airport. But there flight cancelled and didn't end up getting here till this morning. It's nice that they are here and should be a fun week. Next week the fam comes, also looking forward to that. Ok, I left alot of stuff out of this, so IM me if you want to hear about anything we didn.

Spring Break

2005-03-02T11:02:00.000Z

Ok, the time has come we're all been waiting for. A vacation.....as if I hadn't been on one since January. Well anyways, we are leaving for Italy today. Rome to Venice to Florence, a total of 9 days. What stressful lives we live here in jolly ol' England. Can't wait for Florence when we see a bunch of friends from school, Bob and Da Coach in particular. Ok time to finish packing, Growe Spector and Michelle, come the day we get back from Italia. This is gonna be a crazy few weeks. Ok peace out.

cheers

Quizno's??

2005-02-20T00:03:00.000Z

So tonight Doug, Lee, and I decided we would take the tube up a few stops so Doug could take care of his Quizno's deprevation he's been going through. So when we first get to the tube, we find out that the train line we need isnt running all night, so we have to take another, and then transfer to two different train lines to finally get to Quizno's. At this point, all doug can think about is a turkey sandwhich, yes a little weird, I know. So once we walk out of the tube, we start our treck to Quizno's, after a 15 minute walk, we finally see it. With a huge lit up sign, "Quizno's"!!! And then we look in the window, CLOSED! Yep, thats right, all the way to Quizno's and the stupid thing was closed. Doug cried. Well not really, but ok. But he was a pretty pissed off, and I'm sure he will drag me back their sometime soon, and this time before 7 PM. Isn't that a little early for a sandwhich place to be closing? Crazy british folk. Ok, that is all, night everyone.

Windsor

2005-02-19T15:37:00.000Z

So yesterday we took the train over to the town of Windsor where the Queen and the Royal Family have their castle. And it's one hell of a castle. It's huge, we couldn't even get through the whole thing because we ran out of time. So that was cool, I was supposed to go see the changing of the guards this morning, but I've been sick for the last few days and didn't feel good when we woke up, so I went back to sleep. So i'm spending the day today watching some movies and resting so I can get over this cold before we leave for Italy for 10 at the beginning of March. Hope everything is having fun at home.

Amsterdam

2005-02-13T22:12:00.000Z

Ok, so we just got back from Amsterdam a couple of hours ago. It was one hell of an experience. We got there on Thursday night and basically had no idea where we were going. On the train to the city, Emily and Stacy made friends with an American who lives in Amsterdam. So he basically got us all together and led us to a train. Yea, we were a little bit sketched out, following a american in amsterdam on a train in a city we had no idea where we were going, but sure enough he got us to our hostel safe and sound.
I realize I should keep these short, since you guys have better things to do than read my blog. So I will just go with the highlights of the trip:

-Caitlyn got shit on by a bird on the dock of the canal.
-Our peddle boat ride through the canals.
-Getting lost on our peddle boat ride through the canals. (See picture on Shutterfly)
-Finding ear plugs to by, since I travel with snorers, which they claim include me, es falso.
- The red light district, more weird than a highlight.
- The Heinken Experince, three beers, a tour, a Heniken glass, for 10 euro, awesome time

Ok, so those are some highlights, keep reading if you'd like. The weird thing about Amsterdam is their public transportation. See, people don't pay for it, well you can pay for it, but everyone else just sneaks on when the doors open. So we didn't want to look stupid, so we snuk on as well, rather weird. I wondered how the hell they get money for those things then. So if you ever go to the Red Light Disctrict im Amsterdam, it's an experience. First of all, people approach you asking if you want drugs, I was offered coke twice and X once. Don't worry Mom, I said no all three times. Besides the drugs of coruse, their are the hookers dancing in the windows. We didn't stay long in the red light disctrict, it was making the girls pretty uncomfortable considering some of the trashy guys in the area. So today we hoped on our plane and flew back to jolly old england. Good to be back, it's starting to feel like a 2nd home here, which is nice. Back to "school" tomorrow, keep in touch, drop me an IM or email.

Cheers.

Pictures of Amsterdam

Leaving today

2005-02-10T11:06:00.000Z

Ok folks,

I'm on my way to amsterdam later today. Hope everyone has a good weekend, and I will post more when I get back. If you guys are bored email me and tell me whats going in ur lives. I feel out of the loop over here. Ok peace out. greg.cherniet@gmail.com

cheers

Edinburgh, Scotland

2005-02-07T09:39:00.000Z

Hello again,

Our plan to take the train to scotland was changed late on Thursday to a bus ride. Our director said it was gonna take some where between 7-8 hours. Well, he was a little off, the ride ended up taking 11 hours. We left London at 6 AM and got into scotland around 5 PM local time. Other than the bus ride to and from Scotland. The city was absolutely amazing. We went on some ghost walk thing when we got there on Friday night, that kinda sucked, but oh well. After that we went out for a little while, but we're pretty tired so we called it an early night.

On Saturday morning we got up, had the continental breakfast that the hostel gave to us, in other words, I have two pieces of toast. After that we went to go to the Palace of the Holyrood House. The Holyrood house, is where the queen stays when she comes to Scotland. She usually stays there for a extended amount of time sometime in July with her family. It's a pretty sick house, as you would expect considering who lives there. After that we made are up to Edinburgh Castle. It was amazing, I think I have a bunch of good pictures up on my pic website. The castle is huge, and it sits on top of a volcano. The view from up on top of the castle is awesome. After that we went and walked around the city and went out to some pubs and bars that night, got some cheap food and drank with friends. On sunday we went to see the Queen's Yaht. It was much bigger than a Yaht, but cool none the less. However, the queen doesn't use it anymore, the British Parliment thought it was a little for flashy for the Queen and the Royal Family. I would be pissed if someone took my boat away from me after all those years. We then hopped back on the bus for another long and annoying bus ride. Three movies later and a few rest breaks we were back in London.

Thursday we leave for Amsterdam.
Here is the link to my pictures: http://share.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=EeAMmTRqzat27y4

Cheers!

Back from Bath

2005-01-30T01:21:00.000Z

Hello,

We went to Stonehedge and to Bath today. Stonehedge was pretty cool to actually see in person, but we could only sit and stare a the rocks for so long. The best thing to do is too look at the pictures I put up on shutterfly. After we looked at the rocks for a little we hopped back on the bus and took a ride down the road to the city of Bath. We had no idea what to really expect, but the city is really cool. We took a quick bus tour around the city, and then went into the Roman Bath's. The baths are hot spings that the romans used to bath in. Kind of like a heated swimming pool. After the baths in Bath we took a walk around the city where Doug was happy to find a much needed turkey sandwhich. Then we hopped back on the bus and took the three hour bus ride back to here, that sucked. Tomorrow I'm having dinner with my Aunt who lives in Kensington, so it will be nice to have a home cooked meal rather than eat this shitty dorm food anymore. So now I'm headed to sleep, hope everyone had a good weekend.

cheers.

The Weekend

2005-01-27T17:28:00.000Z

Hello all,

No classes for the rest of the week which is nice. Today Doug, Emily, Stacy, and I took a walk around kensington. Then I read my book for awhile, not that any of you guys care about that. We booked a trip to Amsterdam last night for next month. On Saturday we are going to Stonehenge and to Bath, so that should be fun. Will only be gone on Saturday, so we will be in London for most of the weekend. Then next weekend is Scotland, and we are all looking forward to that. Besides that it's pretty quiet around here, doug went to the grocery store to pick up some food and liquor for tonight, and we will probally go out into the city for the night. Hope everyone is having a good week at home, send me an email greg.cherniet@gmail.com and let me know what is going on and what I'm missing. Have a good one. Cheers!

A quick hello

2005-01-24T19:17:00.000Z

Hello people who actually read this:

Just thought I would say a quick hello. Classes were good today, we had our computer class where we just play with adobe photoshop for three hours. Doug gets bored because he is a photoshop nerd. Other than that today was good, some of the classes put me to sleep but that can be expected. Tomorrow no class till around noon, so we get to sleep in. Probally head out to the sports cafe tomorrow night for pound pints. Last week they ran out of beer, so any drink you could think of was a pound, that was nice. We are in the process of deciding if we are going to Amsterdamn in February. On Saturday we are going to Stonehenge for the day and then next weekend we go to Scottland to see Betsy hopefully, so betsy if you read this IM or call my cell phone. Ok, time to rest for a little, i've only had a few people IM me to tell me if they read this, so let me know. Hope everything is well in the states, I heard its cold and it's been snowing alot. Maybe IU will actually make the tourney this year!

Back From Ireland

2005-01-23T15:31:00.000Z

Well, we just got back from Dublin Ireland not too long ago. The trip was pretty good, and the guys I went with made it alot of fun. The weather in Dublin, well, it sucked. It rained, alot. It made our trip out into the country side a wet experience. When we first got Dublin we had to find the hostel that the girls were staying at, it was called "Browns Hostel". Well, I guess I will just say, it was not the nicest place in the world, and at times we feared for their safety. But anyways, after that we went and found our hostel.
There were 7 guys, and we had a 10 person room all to ourselves. It was clean and in a good area, so we ended up pretty happy with it. Some of the things we did on the trip were, a walking tour guided by Taz and Marc, a tour of the Jameson Whiskey Destillery, Guiness Factory, South Country side tour in a small town (name to come later), we went to a bunch of bars, but somehow ended up in a Hard Rock Cafe two nights, one of which we got alot of free drinks thanks to the girls, we also saw a bunch of different tourist attractions if Dublin, which included this stupid giant spike in the middle of the city, see pictures for picture of said stupid spike. Other than that it was a good time. We are all very tired and are gonna spend the rest of the day resting up for our three day week of class. I'll add more later if I can think of anything good.

Cheers!

ps. here are the pictures from ireland

http://share.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=EeAMmTRqzat27vI

First Trip

2005-01-19T21:40:00.000Z

Alright,

The first week of classes are over, and we are in the process of packing for our first weekend trip. We only have class monday- wednesday, so we get to leave to breaks on thursday. And tomorrow we are leaving for Dublin, Ireland. Should be awesome, there are 11 of us going that are all pretty good friends so it should be a good time, I will take lots of pictures for people to look at if people want to see. Other than that things are awesome, school isn't do bad, we got on lots of outside trips, so it's a good time. My question is, do people actually read this blog? Cause I have no idea if anyone besides my parents actually read this. So if you do, drop me an IM and let me know. The only people I know who read this is my family, so let me know.

I've met some awesome people over here, including my neighbor, Scott from New York. He's a good kid and we all have a good time going out together. He is comign with us on the trip tomorrow to ireland. "Oh, scuzi, mi scuzi." Other cool people we have met include: Emily, Stacy, Marcus, Courtney, Jackie, and more people than I can really name here. So hi to all my fellow AIFS people. Doug is good, he got his computer phone working, so doug is happy. We cannot wait until we have people come visit us in March. Meesh, Growe Growe, and Speef Speef. Other than, everything is still going great here, and I will be in touch again after we get back from Ireland. CHEERS!

1st Day of Class

2005-01-17T19:29:00.000Z

Hello all,

It was the first day of class today, not too bad. Little bit of work, some reading, but overall not that bad. We're gonna go out for a girls birthday here to a pub called, the black widow. Other than that, thats all that is really going on right now. No class till 6:30 tomorrow, and my school week is already half over. We are planning a trip this weekend possibly to Ireland. But we shall see. Keep in touch over email greg.cherniet@gmail.com

Sunday Night

2005-01-16T20:04:00.000Z

So, welcome week is over, and it was exhausting. Today we went for another two and a half hour walk around London. We went by a place called billionaire's row, where all the houses go for millions and millions of dollars. Including one house, which is made out of the same stone that the taj mahal, it cost 150 million dollars to build, and the owner doesn't even live in it, he leases it out or something. Then we went on a walk around Kensington Palace and into Kensington Gardens for awhile. The park is huge, it actually merges with Hyde park to build a super park.

Last night we went to a club called Equinox, pretty cool club. I got my dance on, because we all know how much I love to dance. We drank a lil at the dorm and then took the tube a few stops to the club. We left around 2:30 AM, when we tired to find the bus to get us home. Marc went home alone to his dorm on another bus, and well, it was the wrong bus. And ended up in the wrong part of the London. He had to get off the bus and find a taxi, which ended up being 15 pounds, it was an expensive night for Marc. Got home, and passed out. Doug snored for the first few days here, but he stopped. Good work Doug. Keep it up! So now are just sitting around, school starts tomorrow. What I realized is that my school week is three days, and my weekend is four days. So that's always fun. We are looking into traveling somewhere this weekend, but I hear that Pmut and Brad may come here to London, I guess we will have to see.

I posted some pics up on Shutterfly so feel free to take a look. If you want to call me for a stupidly large amount of money dial (011 44 7910 507 466) Or get a calling card and it will be cheaper. I think that is it for now, I'm gonna try to keep this updated, but we will see how long that goes on for. Go here to see my pictures http://share.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=EeAMmTRqzat27rY
Alright, hope everything is good with everyone else around the world!

First Week

2005-01-15T17:46:00.000Z

Greetings from London,

I figured I would make one of these instead of writing constant emails to everyone. Got here on Tuesday morning, and besides for being extremely tired, we were all very exicted to be here. We then took a bus to our dorm, which is about a half hour drive, on the wrong side of the road which is a little weird. We then got to Kensington, one of the richest area's in London. There is even a street called "Billionaire's Row", right across the street from Kensington Palace, where Princess Di lived.

Our room here, well it's small. It doesn't really compare to our room from last semester. Its really long with two desks, two closests, and a sink, which is a nice addition. The bed also sucks, but oh well.

We then went on a tour with a lady that reminded Doug and I of Marry Poppins, but she certainly knew her shit. Over the next few days, we took some tours, the best was the open top bus tour, the worst was the pub walk, because we didn't go into a pub. We walk a lot here, and are learning all the stops on "the tube" (the subway). It's nice being legal to drink here and not have to worry about things. Tonight we are going to some club with people from the program, then probally out to some bar out by Picidilly Circus. There is alot to see here, and we are trying to plan our first trip next weekend hopefully. I'll write more later.