Hello loyal readers (aka immediate family, select Gtown friends, and facebook stalkers)!I'm back from my week in Sardinia and following a 15-hour sleep, I'm ready to discuss. Let me start with the week leading up to Sardinia, which was a bit of an adventure in itself. Only four days after the hospital visit, I took the Eurostar to Paris with Jared. I know what you're thinking. Questionable decisions in the wake of sickness. BUT Jared and I had already bought tickets weeks earlier and I was feeling okay to eat, so there was no sense in wasting our tickets. We hopped the yellow tour bus for convenient site-seeing and hit up Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Monmarte, Musee D'Orsay, and the Arc de Triumphe. We did drive-bys of the Champs Elysee (walked it a little), the Paris Opera House, the Louvre, and lots of things that I would butcher the pronunciation of. We witnessed a fun little scuffle between what I think was a gypsy and a French couple. Unfortunately, the only word I could understand was "Fuck" but fisticuffs nearly erupted. There was wrist-grabbing and fist-shaking and purse-pulling and money-thrusting... all you can really ask for as a spectator. Our French breakfast was top notch. Bread with more bread and coffee. Mmmm.
We met up with a Gtown friend, fellow D6-er Reed, who's studying in Science Po for the semester. We went to dinner with him... and then we missed our Eurostar back home, the last one leaving for London that night. After running through the streets of Paris to find a cab and rushing to the platform, I was a little flustered and disheartened. But my sad face plus Jared's earned some French sympathy and they did some magic with our tickets so that we wouldn't have to pay for new ones the next morning. We made the most of the unexpected night in Paris, catching the Eiffel Tower as it sparkled and squeezing another crepe into our bellies. But... I will say that I was completely exhausted the next morning arriving to London at 8AM. Whew.
Onto Sardinia. I don't necessarily know what to say about it, because the anecdotes come as naturally when the setting is nature versus cities. But it has definitely been my favorite trip of this year abroad. The other cities have been good, but it was nice to not have any sites that I was obligated to see, etc. Also, the whole trip was kind of arranged for me and I didn't have much thinking to do. I got in the car when I was told and followed the leader when we hiked to climbs. Other flatmates did the cooking (whew) and I tried not to be a bum with cleaning and other helpful activities.
I think I'll let the pictures speak for themselves (I'm the climber in the picture above). I did 5 days of climbing with 1 rest day, but some days I literally sat around the whole time and climbed only 1 route. One day we had to hike uphill for an hour and a half... and I huffed and puffed the whole way up but it was good for me. I was away from the internet for the longest time in a while and it was refreshing, for the most part, to have other things to do and think about. It softened the blow of the Hoyas loss to Davidson in the Tourney, because my heart wasn't in it for the whole thing.
I just enjoyed hanging out and eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner with people again. It felt good to have that kind of community feeling again compared to the daily isolation of life at LSE. The group that came on the trip was really international. In my flat alone, there were two Norwegians, a Polish girl, and a French girl. Other climbers were Finnish, Colombian, American, Canadian, German, Belgian, Chinese, and British. You definitely don't get this in the states, as "international" as Georgetown is.
Alright, so enjoy these pictures if you feel like looking. They're not in order somehow... but you'll get the idea. Also, if you can't recognize me from behind, I'm always wearing khaki or grey trousers with a brown-ish chalk bag and yellow shoes; my helmet is blue. Next stop: Positano, Italy. Ciao for now.
Sardinia Pictures
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