— Why We Travel, Pico Iyer. (via allisonrae)
London edition, Part II
The next weekend, a group of us traveled to London. Because we planned this excursion fairly late, our hostel was definitely more of a ‘hostel’ experience than the past ones had been. The premise was all very exciting—Clink Hostel was set in an old courthouse off of the King’s Cross (Harry Potter anyone???) Station. The reality was less so: we managed to snag rooms in the basement (lucky us) and it smelled quite literally of mold and the next-door bar. We did enjoy the computer lab set up in the old courthouse though!
Our first night there, we had dinner at Covent Gardens and walked around and found a cute little frozen yogurt store called Snog. It had multicolored lights and little cartoon figures—and very attractive staff. The next morning we headed back to Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and Parliament, this time in much better weather and clothes. We checked out Trafalgar Square with its pigeons and countdown to the Olympics sign, then had an amazing lunch at Harrod’s. We spent an unbelievable amount of time in Harrod’s for the fact that much of the store was way out of our price range. We then tried to see Wimbledon, but the actual courts were so far away from the station that we walked around the village a bit and left. We finally located the London Bridge and found another Italian place near Covent Gardens (I believe) that we ate at.
The next morning, I had a bit of a solo adventure. My sister’s fiance at the time (husband now) took me around to a park near Buckingham Palace—I forget the name—where there were supposedly strange domesticated animals. We saw none but it was a great time. I then headed to Piccadilly Circus and saw the Theater district there, which reminded me of New York’s Broadway. I then headed to Regent’s Park and had a nice picnic and quiet time. Finally, I headed to Camden Market, which was quite the opposite, and had a scrumptious crepe whose white and dark chocolate dripped on my favorite silk shirt.
Ah, the joys of traveling.
5 months ago with 5 notesLondon edition, part I!
I was in London for two weekends, one basically just a Saturday as we got there and met our advisor. After a sleepless night with our tasteful adventures with Ryanair (see earlier rant), we decided to walk around London and do a bit of sightseeing while looking homeless before we set off to Oxford the next day. We managed to see Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and Parliament before it began pouring on us. Fortunately, we were on a huge bridge so there was no shield for the rain and wind at all and we were soaked—definitely a great welcome to the UK.
We returned to our hotels to eat our first dinner as a group (fish and chips of course) and nap before watching Harry Potter. I know I should be ashamed of myself for not seeing the movie on its premiere, but I thought making up for it by seeing it in the UK’s largest IMAX theater, the BFI IMAX, which was right across the street from King’s College London, more than made up for it. I even brought my beanie & scarf to show some spirit! We caught the 3AM showing, so we returned to our hotel just as the sun was rising.
We returned to London halfway through our second week to check out medically relevant places of interest, such as Guy’s Hospital, the British Museum, the Wellcome Collection, and the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons. It still baffles me that all these museums are free of charge!! Probably my favorite place was the Hunterian Museum, mainly because of its fascinating display of preserved human (and other animal) fetuses in varying months and stages of development.
5 months ago with 6 notesHi, thank you so much for the correction! I would never have known the difference. I used to run in University Parks then—but I’d never seen anything like it before other than the botanical gardens near my city.
5 months ago with 1 noteI never wrote about my experiences at Oxford, in Summer 2011 (partially the reason I started this blog), so I figured I’d take the down time I have during break to catch up with that and other exploring I’ve done since then!
If it wasn’t clear from a previous post, I studied Global Health at the University of Oxford for three weeks over the summer. This post will be dedicated to all the sights and shenanigans I saw at Oxford in particular; I’ll post separately on London and other parts of the UK!
Because I never really participated in an official tour of the school, everything here is going to be (a little) disorganized and random; I probably don’t even remember what some of the things are. Maybe a little embarrassing, but I think those evenings in which I went out to take a stroll in the city by myself really paid off!
First, here is Lady Margaret Hall, the college we stayed and studied at! We definitely had a lot of great times in the hallways of LMH..
We each had single rooms on the 4th floor of the building; I got the room at the end of the hall, which ended up being…the handicapped room. It was large, spacious, and maids came in daily to make our beds and switch out our towels! Once I figured out how to use the handicapped shower in a normal way, I was set:
Our daily schedule looked something like this:
- Wake up at 8AM (daunting, I know) to make it to breakfast at the dining hall
- Get to our lecture building at 9AM
- Listen to usually two, sometimes one, lecturer for three hours
- Lunch on our own/nap/whatever break!*
- Dinner at the dining hall
- After-dinner activities*
*sometime in here, we were required to log in three hours of research for our research projects on global health. We each worked with a partner and came up with a presentation, as well as a paper, by the end of the course.
During the break between lecture and dinner, I would often nap (pretty typical), but when I was feeling particularly adventurous or woke up early, ventured into the city usually with my classmates to grab a bite to eat, go shopping, or just walk around. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures at all of the streets we would frequent, especially High Street—definitely something I regret! Still, the streets of Oxford were a pleasure to walk in, and the photoset attached are just general places that I would walk by on an everyday basis and appreciate.
After dinner, we again had free time in the evening before most of us got to work (or pubs/clubs) at night. Here, I would take the time to go out on a run at Oxford’s beautiful botanical gardens (“designed-for-living” gracious corrected me and it is University Parks) on my own, and if I had extra time, just walk around and enjoy the sights. It was amazingly refreshing to not worry about a time constraint (just dusk, which didn’t happen until about 10PM) or a destination—I simply walked for the sake of walking. I wish I had a photo of University Parks or anywhere I walked, but I didn’t make it a habit to bring my camera with me when I went on a run. I do have a photo the park from outside the gate, but it doesn’t do it justice:
At night, when we decided to be extra adventurous, we would venture out to the cute little pubs & taverns that Oxford had to offer. Some names that pop into mind are Lamb & Flag, Eagle & Child, The King’s Arms, and White Horse.
During our last few days at Oxford, we as a group went punting, one of the classic experiences that everyone is supposed to have at Oxford. None of the boys expected to actually be the ones punting, so we had some really interesting times. I personally believe that our boat had the most amazing time, as we were blessed with two really hilarious guys… one of whom took it upon himself to paddle with the steering oar:
All in all, we were able to double back and give all the other boats hell before we were forced to dock!
Our last day, we surprised our advisor Judy, who was legitimately the best advisor I’ve ever been on a trip with. She was hilarious and just so nice—and dealt with a rowdy group of 15 as best she could.
Andd I think that sums up my Oxford adventures! My partner Kevin and I successfully completed our project titled “Comparing the Efficacy of Global Health Development Organizations” and all was well.
Stay tuned for more posts on London, Stratford-upon-Avon, and Stonehenge! I’m also going to try to backtrack and talk about what I did in Boston and the East Coast in the first half of summer with my dad and sister. I’m actually heading back to Boston next week, so hopefully I’ll be all caught up by then and will have a new set of Boston adventures to talk about!
5 months ago with 6 notes:)
9 months ago- Your checked luggage is over 15 kg. For every kg overweight your bag is, you pay 20 euro. Twenty. Euro.
- You also paid an extra lump sum to even have a checked bag.
- You forget to ‘upgrade’ to 20kg upon buying your ticket. You aren’t allowed to go back and fix it.
- You are only allowed one carryon bag. To get your checked luggage closer to weight limit, you buy a duffel bag.
- Your carryon can’t be bigger than a duffel bag. It must be dropped in a tiny shit container to be deemed safe.
- Your carryon must weigh no more than 10kg. Before you walk into the gate, the scale awaits. If your carryon is 10.5kg, you must remove your green American Apparel jacket and wear it under your peacoat in 90 degree weather to get your carryon within weight limit.
- You realize that the airport your plane departs from is not, in fact, in Amsterdam, but in Eindhoven, a 2-hour train ride away and the most dangerous city in the Netherlands.
- Your plane leaves at 9AM. The earliest train in the morning does not run until 7AM. The last train at night runs at midnight. You forgo your last night in Amsterdam to sit at the airport overnight to wait for your plane.
- The airport in Eindhoven is so small that it is not open 24/7. The bus you take to the airport is the last one running. The bus driver kind-heartedly takes you back to the city center.
- You are stuck in the most dangerous city in the Netherlands without a roof over your head at night. The train station you departed from is full of thugs and prostitutes. Even though this is, in hindsight, a great story to tell, you are scared shitless.
- The Asian girl you meet who had the same idea is unwilling to share a hotel room. She chooses to tough it out in the train station, which, incidentally, also closes from 3AM-5AM.
- You see a Holiday Inn sign flash at you from the train station. You decide that you will pay 30 euro a night. You walk inside and find that they have no openings for the night. The manager declines letting you stay in its lounge or outside area overnight.
- The Holiday Inn receptionist informs you that you can only stay two to a room, not four. He tells you that the price will be about 45 euro for the night. The receptionist reserves you a room at a similar hotel “through the tunnel and to the left.”
- You walk with all your luggage through the tunnel and to the left. You are lost. Passerby you ask do not know what you are talking about. All around you are shouting men and bars. One of your companions suggests going to a club and putting your luggage in coat check instead.
- You finally come across the hotel. It was straight through the tunnel and not to the left. You fork over your 45 euro for a few hours of sleep. It is 3AM.
- After four hours, you force yourself to awaken. You walk to the train station and catch the 7:15AM bus.
- The airport only has one terminal, and three gates.
- Your luggage is 3kg overweight. You fork over 60 euro.
- You pay a 10 pound fee for the train from the podunk airport in London to central London.
- The Asian girl you met last night is alive and well.
- There is no tunnel for you to walk through to your tiny ass jet. You walk on the ground next to the lone jet on the runway, then up a set of ghetto stairs to your seat.
- The seats are made for people with eating disorders. There is no leg room, even for someone standing 5’2”. The 6’0”+ person next to you sleeps on your tray because his torso is too long. The seats are colored a garish bright yellow and blue. The flight attendants look like they may imminently commit suicide.
- You are surprised when the jet lands.
- Coming off the ghetto stairs, a combination of your exhaustion, your 10kg duffel bag on your shoulder, your wearing Rainbows, the amount of clothing you are wearing, and the rainy London weather causes you to slip all the way down the ghetto stairs. Your friends get a full frontal view. The entire plane stares.
- You are harassed at Customs the ghetto ass airport about proof of acceptance into your summer program at Oxford. Another girl from your trip coming through the same airport, through RyanAir, was almost detained and sent back.
How fitting for a travel blog! :)
Now that I’ve gotten Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, and London (and a bunch of cities in the US) crossed off my list, I would love to see:
- Hawaii-I do feel that it is a shame that I’ve lived my whole life on the West Coast but never yet been to Hawaii. I’d love to take a family trip there one day!
- Edinburgh-I missed my chance to go in order for me to take in more of London, but I’d love to see the castles and the famed glory here. It was my original choice study abroad location, and is still on my list. We shall see!
- Switzerland, Luxembourg, Monaco-I have a thing for small Western European countries. They seem to have a sort of charm that the others lack, and now that I’ve seen part of Belgium, I want more! I would also love to see Bruges this time.
- All of Italy (for obvious reasons). Also I love pasta.
- Budapest and Prague-for any Central European trips I’ll take in the future
- Greece! Another option for study abroad.
- Peru and Brazil (Lima and Rio preferred, obviously, but I would love to see other sites too)
- More parts of China. Even though I’ve been to Shanghai countless times, I have never been to Beijing or seen the Great Wall or done anything remotely touristy!
That’s a sizeable list already, and I’m itching to hit as many as I can as soon as possible! Maybe I’ll make this a running list of places I want to go and places I’ve been :)
9 months agoEurotrip Summer 2011, Days 5-7-Amsterdam: Canals, monsoons, and pub crawls
I know I’ve been super behind on this blog and basically everything that is real life, but now that I’m safe and back to the US, I’m hoping to catch up on blogging everything from the past month. I’m also going to make a concerted effort not to ramble on and on and to let the pictures speak for themselves, both for the sake of my time and for any readers’ convenience. This shouldn’t be too hard since it’s been about a month since these pictures were taken!
Where do I even start with Amsterdam? The city was gorgeous. I had known that there were canals and seen some pictures of the houses there, but reality really trumped all the expectations I had ever had. Even with the monsoon going on while we were there, it was possibly my favorite city out of all of the ones we visited. I always shy away from making definite decisions, but in hindsight if I absolutely had to pick one, I think Amsterdam would be my choice.
We stayed at Hostel Van Gogh, which ended up being an extension of Hotel Van Gogh. It was very nice; we had room service daily, even though we did have an 8-person room. It was also very conveniently located in the Southwest part of Amsterdam, literally across the street from the Van Gogh Museum. They provided safes with customized locks and had great customer service when I messed my combination up! They also recommended some great pub crawls; I have nothing but good things to say about this hostel-and it was a much cleaner and safer pick than many of the other ones we were considering.
Anyway, the first day we got there, it was raining lightly (but we were starving), so we decided to take a stroll near Leidseplein, which was only a 5-10 minute walk from our hostel. After gawking at all the “coffeeshops” in the area, we stopped at a Thai restaurant and then continued along our way. Coincidentally (it was really as if we were in a movie), right as Neal said, “I really want to take a picture with the I amsterdam sign,” we saw the sign right in front of us!
We had randomly walked to the Rijksmuseum, which after all was really close to our area. Next to it was one of the I amsterdam signs, so of course we took photos! It was definitely a lot bigger than we thought it would be, so it was a chore getting the entire sign into the pictures. (We later found out that there are probably many locations of the sign, and in some of them the sign is smaller..)
That night, while Tav tried out the pub crawl that the hostel recommended (typs), Neal, Sara, and I checked out The Bulldog Cafe and Coffeeship, which was exactly as it sounded. Even though we were initially really confused about what to do and where to go, we got it all figured out in the end with three Space Cakes to our names. After some great games of Egyptian Ratscrew (yeah, we really partied hard), we satisfied our munchies at Chipsy King, perhaps the best food we had all trip. Sara and I indulged in “chips” (fries for Americans) with garlic sauce, and Neal got some kind of hot sauce that tasted like the hot sauce they give out at Asian restaurants.
The next day, we took Rick Steves’ city walk tour—thanks again Rick! We got to see the famous Sex Museum (from the outside of course) on Damrak; Dam Square with the phallic National Monument, Royal Palace and New Church; Kalverstraat, an awesome pedestrian shopping lane; and many more! One of my favorite places that we stopped at briefly was Begijnhof, a beautiful courtyard that housed female refugees for centuries. For lunch, we stopped at La Place, inside the department store V&D! Highly, highly recommended—super cheap but super healthy and so much variety. Also, delicious fruit tarts!
We walked out of lunch into the pouring rain, so we ran briefly by the Flower Market, as well as the Mint Tower. From there, we took the fastest way home—back to Leidesplein, and stopped in a store called When Nature Calls Smartshop with all these naturally-created drug alternatives. I’d never seen such a huge selection of bongs and pipes…and drugs. We finally caved after this to the downpour and took the tram two stops back to our hostel.
After drying off a bit, Neal, Sara, and I attempted to do Rick Steves’ Red Light District Walk. I’m not sure if we got there too early or if the rain scares away prostitutes too, but we only saw a few women in the windows. I don’t have many pictures because 1) no pictures of the women are allowed or else someone comes and kills you apparently and 2) it was raining too hard. I do, however, have a nice shot of the red lights signaling where you’re about to go!
We then returned to our hostel to reconvene with Tavish for the night’s plans. In this monsoon-like weather, we decided, the best option would obviously be to go for a Pub Crawl at the clubs in Amsterdam. So off we set, with hoodies, scarves, and boots (flats in my sad case) on us. The four (of six) clubs that Neal, Sara and I stayed for had good music and-more importantly-two free drinks (one poured down our throats at the door, one at the bar) each. We rounded off our night with another trip to our favorite location..Chipsy King.
The next day, we got a pretty late start…late as in the PMs. To our dismay, the one day we got out late, the sun was out!! We tried to cherish it as best we could and jumped into a store called Pancakes! and wow oh wow were they good. They were like a combination of crepes and pancakes. I got the lemon+sugar one and it blew my mind! We then waited in line for the Anne Frank House, saw it, and headed back to hit the department store for goodies before we hit London.
So concluded our time in Amsterdam. I will post a separate blog on Eindhoven, the reason we were there, and why I hate Ryanair shortly!
9 months ago with 5 notesNote: I’m submitting this entry (without the pictures) to my trip advisor, Judy Haw, to go up on our trip’s official USC Dornsife: Oxford Global Health blog.
I won’t pretend that I didn’t enter the summer of 2011 with a certain feeling of dread. I had just made it out of my 2nd year in college with my lowest cumulative GPA to date. I had woken up every morning for the past year reluctant to go to any courses whose names began with BISC, CHEM, or PHYS; reluctant even to volunteer at the molecular biology research laboratory for which I had signed up. Even Physiology, a course that came with the highest of recommendations, taught by arguably one of the best professors of the department, failed to help push me to continue on my chosen pre-medical path.
There had never been a time before in which I had needed more of a push. I felt stagnant, uninspired. In my personal journal, I wrote that I was going through a “mid-college, quarter-life crisis.”
This was the reason I felt a sinking feeling every time I thought of my plans for the summer. To any student of sound mind, they were good-no, better than good-phenomenal plans. I was to shadow my sister, an emergency medicine resident, at Massachusetts General Hospital for a month. From Boston, I would fly to Europe, arriving at my final summer destination: the BISC 499 Global Health program at the University of Oxford.
To me, however, the summer seemed fraught with impending disaster. After a long semester of studying Physiology, shadowing my sister and watching her make diagnoses and provide treatment sounded about as appealing as drinking a gallon of milk (and coming from someone who is lactose intolerant, that is pretty unappealing). And as for the Oxford Global Health program, I was afraid. Afraid of the BISC header, and afraid of the implications of the program.
It had always been a habit of mine to tell myself that the reason I wasn’t interested in my science courses, or doing as well as I would have liked, was that they weren’t directly related to medicine. As a medical student, I told myself, it would be better-I would have courses I’d be 150% interested in. I would take courses in the pathology of diseases and their treatment; I would be able to interact with patients instead of sitting in lecture all day.
As I looked at the syllabus of the lectures for the Global Health course, however, I realized that in this case, I would no longer have my go-to excuse to dislike the course. Every single one of the lectures would be clinically relevant. That, combined with the fact that it incorporated topics such as Maternal and Public Health, in which I had long fancied myself interested, meant that this would be about as close as I would get as an undergraduate to a medical school course. In fact, many of the lecturers deliver the same lectures to Masters of Global Health students, and-you guessed it-medical students as well. With this course, I would no longer be able to tell myself that it would get better-if even real medical lectures in global health, a subject I was genuinely interested in, did not provide me with sufficient motivation to wake myself up every morning, then I would need to, for the first time in my life, fully consider a change in my future career plans.
In my few dead weeks before my summer plans began, I did begin to consider what I would do if I were no longer interested in pre-health, just to detract from the shock value if I truly were disappointed by the Global Health course. What I came up with, teaching, was a passion that two years before could not hold a flame to my passion for medicine. Now, I seriously considered it.
Fortunately, both my sister’s preceptorship and the Global Health program have, in literally the most cliched manner possible, inspired me to plod on in my way to the only career I can now imagine for myself-medicine.
I could talk about day-to-day life following a crazed second-year resident around and keeping up with her shifts. I could talk about each of the lectures we have heard, ranging from Obesity to HIV to even Dematology, and what I learned from each one. I could talk about how much I loved Boston, am still loving Oxford. Instead, I will leave my detailed (and wordy) accounts of those experiences to another day, another blog, and sum up everything that I have learned and been inspired by this summer by waxing on about just one lecture-lucky you.
This lecture was held on July 25, a Monday after our group had been to Stratford-upon-Avon, or for me as I write, just yesterday. Interestingly enough, the topic that had been provided to us was “Nutrition.” What Dr. Peter Sullivan did with the topic, though, exceeded my greatest expectations for a “Nutrition” lecture.
I had by then, a week into the course, been used to hearing of fairly hard-hitting and depressing global medical problems, their long-term consequences, and how integral it was that these problems received the proper amount of funding to carry out the costly solutions proposed for the status quo. This, Dr. Sullivan did no differently from his colleagues. He began by speaking of various forms of malnutrition in children of under-developed countries and the future medical problems caused by mineral deficiencies at such young ages, then of the great need for those of us in developed countries to reach out to the less fortunate.
What struck me about Dr. Sullivan and his talk was not so much the majority of his content, but the way he spoke to us-the optimism with which he presented. To conclude, he encouraged each and every one of us to take a stand in global health and poverty, because those in third-world countries are not so different from us in any way but geography. When asked about the feasibility of something so idealistic as spreading what he deemed the ultimate success: “longer, healthier, happier lives without functional losses,” to all parts of the world considering the exponential population boom versus the linear growth of food supply, he answered that we as humanitarians should not let such statistics deter us from doing what is, in essence, the right thing. (He also pointed out that, besides, global epidemics and wars would do their job at population control).
Dr. Sullivan’s brand of realistic optimism was, to me, a much-needed and welcomed contrast to the cynicism that has surrounded me since I began thinking about entering medicine. This cynicism comes in the form of whispers all around of pre-medical students only being in it for the future job stability or salary, or because of our parents; whispers that service trips during the breaks-I have personally been to two, one of which I am coordinating the coming school year-and other such ‘good causes’ are simply resume builders with no lasting effects; whispers that I have tried my best to ignore but permeate into the air of every pre-medical core curriculum class I take. In Dr. Sullivan, however, was a certainty that we in the course were all “good” people with humanity’s best interests in mind; a certainty that we should, and will, strive our hardest to fight global health inequalities; and a certainty that this fight can be won.
“Does anyone know what the word ‘doctor’ means?” Dr. Sullivan asked. “You all want to be one; do you know what the word means?..in one word.”
Silence.
“The word doctor,” he lectured, “is derived from the Latin word docere. It means ‘to teach.’ A doctor is a teacher.”
Twenty-four hours after Dr. Sullivan’s lecture, I sit in my dorm room at the end of the hall, certain that in the light of all that I have experienced and learned this summer, medicine will continue to be in my future. What has changed, I believe, is the hope with which I am now imbued. I have hope for the fact that my future medical school courses, just as these Global Health course is, will be engaging, enlightening, and inspiring. I have hope for myself as a future medical professional, when so recently the likelihood of my continuing down the former path seemed subzero. I have hope that inequalities in health can be fought successfully in the form of education, and that I can, should, and will engage myself in this fight.
After all, according to Dr. Sullivan and Latin epidemiology, I will not be sacrificing my passion for teaching at all; to the contrary, every day I will be educating my patients, both domestically and globally, in what I will be most knowledgeable about-health.
Thank you BISC 499 in Global Health and everyone affiliated with it: Dr. Sullivan and all his colleagues, Dr. Gellar, Ms. Haw, Dornsife College, my classmates etc. for inspiring me this summer so that I can walk out of it and into my second half of undergraduate with my head held high, dreading nothing except, perhaps, Organic Chemistry B.
10 months ago