Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

London Calling

I know, I know, I've been away for like a month.  Whoever's reading this.  Anyways.
So I got accepted to the London Fall Study Abroad at my school, and it plays out like this:
Land in Paris, spend a deliriously delicious week and a half.  Take another week and travel through the Loire Valley, Normandy, etc., etc.  See Mt. St. Michel, which of course is fabulous. Spend a day hitting up Brussels, and then a weekend in Amsterdam.  Go back down to la cité la plus belle dans le monde, take the Chunnel across to London.  Live in flats by Hyde Park for two months, traverse around and fall in love with London, and visit amazing places like Ireland on the weekend, Bath, Dover, Stonehenge, The Lake District, etc., on day trips, Edinburgh one week. And then a weekish in London and Paris again with my best friend, who's flying over from Memphis to paaarty.
Oh, also classes, etc., but...they are heartily groovy.
When I found out, I stammered like a stuck record "Grammagrammagrammagrammagrammagrammagrreegrammagrammagrammagrammejeggrammagrammagramma"...and so forth, you get the idea I hope, my little chumettes.  And then bounced - fairly literally - around the house, looking for said gramma, and then finally found  her in the driveway, and invented, on the spot, a sort of shimmy dance that entailed shimmying, jumping, and a little dose of "HOOOOOORN!" a la Georgia Nicolson. (And this is reason #4734384 that I am glad we don't really have neighbors.)
After said fffffreak-out, my first thought was:
Now what in the name of God's green earth am I going to wear?
I am not, per say, a light packer.  At all.  And for this, I must absolutely be.  As our groovy Australian program director said, "Pack the absolute essentials. Leave half of those behind and bring twice as much money."
The money I can do...the packing bit?  Well, I'll try. 
The next six months will consist of me figuring out the ten most stylish pieces in my closet, looking up loads of stuff about where we're visiting (I know a lot, yet there's only a ton more to learn, it's cool, whatever), working to have lots of money to blow on macaroons, cool stationery, clothes, and Christmas pressies; and having nightmares about either a) missing my plane, etc. (Check!) or b) Looking like a fool in front of chic Parisians and Londoners and Scots and Amsterdam...ians, and Belgians, and...
And of course, mes amies, I will keep you updated on everything as best I can.  I will be too busy living la vie fantastique to write every day but weekly, I can handle. 
I think the hardest part for me will be to not constantly be behind my camera, because as my prof pointed out, "so many tourists experience things only through the lens of their camera."  Which is a shame.

But no worries.  I will immerse myself and hit the pubs like the best of them.
(And have ginger ale, mais oui.  This is BYU we're talking about!)
xxx and all that jazz,
Tabby

And in really random news, I didn't realize I'd never listened to all of 21 until yesterday, when I had to borrow my mum's car and I popped in her Adele CD. 
There is possibly nothing groovier than Adele covering The Cure.  (Lovesong, mes petits nincompoops.  But I love you.  Even if you'd heard that song but didn't know it was The Cure.)

Monday, July 25, 2011

Turns out...

...my obsession with all things Australian is not just a fling.  Case in point: Old Man River's track L.A.  (Focus:  Old Man River is Australian, never mind the misleading song name, which suggests all things American.) (For a free download of this tune, go HERE.)   And when you consider that there is to be no getting over fantastic people like Angus and Julia Stone, Lisa Mitchell, and Jaclyn Moriarty...well, darlings, the Aussies are here to stay.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Lumberjacks, Melbourne, and Albert Hammond Jr.

So. I really like this. (Yes, really.) And it's less than twenty bucks - come again? LESS THAN 20 DOLARES. etc.


And it's from Australia.  Which is especially groovy because my favorite books are set there.  And I'm reading one of them AHORA.  that is to say, right now.  Unfortunately, there's no website for this shop...and I DON'T live in Melbourne.  Yes, that would be terribly fantastic, though, I agree.

Melbourne!  Just in case you wanted to know where a) this marvy jacket came from and b) i totally wish I did live.


Ok.  Focus.  The real reason I started writing today was to post a song.  Really, just so I had an excuse to listen to it instead of the classical stuff I should be listening to for my Humanities exam.  Which is tomorrow.  Cheers.  But anyways!
Albert Hammond Jr. (of The Strokes.  FANTASTIC.  You know, only my favorite band.)
Gfc, off his album ¿Cómo Te Llama?
(way to go on the question marks, hombre.)