The Itch

Sometimes I get the itch.  It comes out of nowhere.  Something just clicks in my brain, and it goes, “hey! do you remember when you were there?”  And when that happens it doesn’t matter where I am, even if I’m living in an awesome city I love, doing an internship I always dreamed of. Or that I’ve just been to New York City and Hawaii and Houston.  I mean, I always want to go there.  Really bad.  Back to the magical city where I spent the best four months of my life in the fall of 2008  (I can’t believe it’s already been almost three years). But when I have the itch I want to go really, REALLY bad.  And it’s all I can think about.

I may have that itch right now.  Anyone know how to teleport?  Because that could be really handy.  For a lot of things, actually.

*song = London Calling by the Clash

Can’t Handle It

My History of Creativity professor is trained in the ways of torture – he’s shown pictures of the British Museum, the Louvre, and Europe in general, reminding me of the days when I would actually be going to these places for class instead of looking at pictures of them in PowerPoint. And today he showed pictures of cathedrals in Paris. Did he know I was there exactly two years ago this Wednesday? I think so. He’s out to get me, and he knows exactly how to do it*. I mean, is showing pictures of him eating crepes while discussing them in great length really necessary?? There can’t be any other plausible reason for doing this.

Places he talked about in great detail and length:

He even talked about our exact tour guide at Chartres. Really?

And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, he started talking about these places in England, because he knew that would be the final straw.

Specifically, he mentioned these places:

Dear professor,

A class from 4-6:3o on a Monday evening is already bad enough. Please don’t make me want to be somewhere else even more.

Sincerely, Natalie

*In case you’re wondering why this is one of the highest forms of torture for me when it’s one of my favorite topics, it’s because it used to be oh so close. And it still seems so close. But it’s not.

The Pomegranate Season

All of a sudden the Thanksgiving/Christmas excitement hit me yesterday. For some reason it came a little late this year. I’d still love for it to be warm outside, but I’m starting to remember why the chill can be nice too. A lot of good, cozy things happen when it’s cold, like hot apple cider and bundling up in scarves and foggy breath. To celebrate last night I bought my first pomegranate of the season – the first time I ever had one was when I stayed at Kristen Thornbrue’s house for Thanksgiving freshman year. Now it’s always connected in my mind to holiday cheer. The next year when I was in London for the holiday I treated myself to a grab-and-go package of pomegranate from Tesco and was perfectly content.

(yes, I did make my sister hold my pomegranate outside so I could take a picture)

Also, happy veterans day. I really wish everyone here wore poppies like they did in London and elsewhere to celebrate remembrance day. I feel like it gets a little forgotten here sometimes, and it really deserves a lot of attention.

Get Out the Vote!

Because I am a total nerd, I absolutely love elections. I always have. So today is a really exciting day for me, and since I’m one of the metro editors I’ll be spending it all in the newsroom. Which is magical. We have the deadline pushed to around 11, so we’ll see how many results we can get in before then! Oh I am so excited. Check The Daily Universe tomorrow for our coverage.

I mailed my Oregon ballot last week, but I have to say that it wasn’t nearly as exciting as last time. While most may assume I say that because it isn’t a presidential election, I actually attribute it to the fact that my mailbox was way less cool. In 2008 I got to stick my ballot in an awesome London mailbox on my awesome London street. This is me mailing my ballot last time:

This year my mailbox was next to a construction site. Not as cool.

Now, the moral of the story is that you should all go and vote right now! Although it’s probably to late to use a mailbox, so do it in person.

The Tour

Well, after two months I am officially all moved into my apartment. And it’s such a wonderful apartment. It feels so much more homey and peaceful; I can actually relax here. Going home to my old apartment would often just make me more stressed out… So, after many requests (all of which may have come from my mom), here is the grand tour of my apartment. I labeled some fun things in my room because lets face it, pictures of walls are really boring.

The nice and spacious kitchen:

The living room:

Two of my favorite features:

The fireplace.

And real carpet! Don’t underestimate how wonderful it is.

Here’s a dorky picture of me in the apartment:

And that is all.

Daydream Travels

Today was a beautiful fall day in Provo, but as I was stuck in forever-long classes I found myself wishing I was somewhere else. That it was still this summer when I was in these cities.

Here are the top 5 places I would like to be back at now:

#1 Washington, D.C.

#2 New York City (fab photo stolen from Peter Carroll)

#3 Philadelphia (let’s admit it, this sandwich alone would be reason enough to go back and stay)

#4 Baltimore

#5 Ocean City, Md. (who doesn’t want to be at the beach?)

And of course, I always would love love love to go back here:

It’s crazy to think that exactly two years ago last Monday I arrived at 27 Palace Court. If anyone happens to invent a way to teleport before me, pretty please let me know?

Retro Tunes

I’ve been saving up rewards from my credit card for months, and it finally paid off. Yesterday my awesome new record player arrived in the mail.

My desire to own a record player began in earnest sophomore year when my then roommate Christy Witt entered my life. See below. She’s the gorgeous one on the far right.

She’s a sound recording technology major, and she had a beautiful record record player that sat on our kitchen table with endless stacks of records. I know I can play music on my computer or iPod, but this was different. It was a conversation piece, it was interactive, it was classic. And I wanted one of my own.

It’s a bigger purchase then I can usually justify, but with all of the gift cards I got from my credit card company it wasn’t bad at all. It’s at this point that I’m really wishing I bought more of those records I walked past all of the time in London, though. They were all over the place -- at markets and in music stores of all sizes. But I was paranoid they would break in my suitcase, and at the time the only thing I had to play them on was my parent’s old record player at home in Portland. So I just bought one for my dad for Christmas and left the rest sitting on the shelf. I guess I’ll just have to go back… somehow I am very ok with that idea. I’m always looking for excuses.

Right now I only have three records though, and they have absolutely nothing in common with each other: The Shins, Rick Springfield, and the Dark Knight Soundtrack. I’m sure I need to go to the store. One album I really want is this old Air Supply record below because we had some quality times with it in my old apartment. Let me know if you see it anywhere!

Here’s a glimpse of some of the excitement of opening my package up while I was “doing my homework,” because I know you are all just absolutely riveted by this blog post.

Just so you know, listening to the Dark Knight soundtrack while doing family finance homework makes it way more intense.

A couple more pictures because I’m a nerd and I can.

I can already tell we have some good times ahead of us.

Winner!

Since I never ever win anything I figured I had to write about this. While I was at the Embassy open house shindig they had a drawing for a year membership to the Rosetta Stone online package (usually$1,200) and I actually won! So now I’m going to learn French. It seemed like a good idea because I felt like a total idiot when I could only communicate by pointing to things while in Paris.

So basically I’m excited. I’ve done some of the Spanish Rosetta Stone (got it for a great price on craigslist last summer) and it’s thoroughly addicting.

Here’s a picture of me with the actual Rosetta Stone:

(It’s bizarre that will have been two years ago this fall…)

The Call of a Cookie

Today, amid the insanity that is the last two weeks before finals, Annie and I took the time to drive 45 minutes all the way to Salt Lake City and then back for some cookies. Now, these aren't your ordinary cookies. They're Ben's Cookies. And they were totally and completely worth the drive, in case you were wondering.

Ben's Cookies were a special treat and weakness during our study abroad in London. There was a stand for them at our favorite destination, Covent Garden, that always had a way long line. We'd try to tell ourselves that we didn't need another one, but it never worked. On a cold winter day in London the warm, thick cookies were perfection. So, with all the crazy things going on right now, and even though I have no time to spare, getting these cookies was the perfect escape from it all. It's been almost a year since we returned home, and any little taste of London we can get is more than welcome.

We did also have a legitimate reason to go tonight, but I'm not going to put it here in case the person it concerns reads this. Although, I'm fairly certain they have no idea this blog exists. However, I think that even though these little breaks aren't always reasonable given the limited amount of time we have right now to finish important school work sometimes they're necessary to relieve a little stress and maintain our sanity. And I still have some cookies left to eat tomorrow!

On the way back we also stopped by In-N-Out, Provo's new Mecca, because neither of us had eaten dinner and we were starving. This was not London-like at all, but still fun. And it was a good way to put off the studying a little bit longer. Kind of like writing this blog entry now...

Also this is one of my all-time favorite relaxation songs that I'm listening to now: Don't Miss You At All, by Norah Jones

Alright, I Give In

We all know that I miss London like heck, but it turns out that I've missed blogging as well, and while I can't teleport back to London right now the blog thing is an easy fix. So here it is. I make no promises as to how often I will write or what I will write about, but this does have the potential to be a lot of fun. Also, I've been feeling kind of like a hypocrite for not having a blog since I'm a print journalism major on the new media track. This is what I study, so it should probably be something I do.

Sometimes there might be only writing or only pictures, but either way I hope you enjoy. Even if there are only two of you. Brace yourself for my random thoughts! If nothing else, my mom is constantly begging for pictures and this should help with that.