Trista's Summer in Europe

Bienvenidos a Sevilla! Acabo de regresar de Sevilla! (I have just returned from Sevilla). Jen has been studying abroad there and I was looking for a nice hot vacation while I away on this adventure, so visiting Jen was just the thing! It was between 90 and 104 degrees Farenheit while I was there and it was so nice to always step out into warmth. Even in the middle of the night it didn't drop below 80, so evenings we're absolutley wonderful. Of course, walking all over the city and climbing a bell tower in that heat, you start to wonder if one could actually get completely used to it.

There are so many beautiful things in Sevilla and it's a picturesque Spanish city. I arrived on Friday evening and we did a few things around the city, went for drinks by the river, and saw a Flamenco performance, and had a lovely dinner in town.
Saturday was beach day and we took the train to Cadiz. I worked on my tan and went swimming. The water was a bit chilly, but it got so hot lying out that diving right in wasn't much of a problem. That night back in Sevilla we went out for drinks to this popular place that makes super gigantic Mojitos.. it was excellent.
Then on Sunday we did some touristy sights around Sevilla and had a picnic in the Castle gardnes which is really one of the prettiest places I've seen and is exactly what you would imagine Spain to be like. We also visited Plaza de Espana, which is now used as a government building. We also went to a Salsa bar and watched some natives Salsa! It was really fun and made me really want to learn how to dance it.. but it looks really hard.
On the last day, before my flight, we went into the center one more time to explore the Cathedral and to climb the Giralda (the bell tower). It gives you a lovely view of the city, about 30 stories up [phew!] Hot and sweaty, almost tempted to consider that it was too hot, we headed back to Jen's piso and I packed up for my return (brrr..) to Bristol.

Back in England I was greeted by a sweltering 65 degrees Farenheit... ugh. It looks like we're headed for proper cool, English weather all week, but hopefully it will begin to warm up for Summer Camp! I've got Summer Camp on the brain as I'm in the final stretch for planning and prep.

I can't believe I only have two more weeks left of my UK stay! I plan to be making the most of it and will hopefully be doing a day trip or two this coming weekend to some places in the UK.

Hasta luego!

The new Carsonified.com site is live! We've been anxiously awaiting all week for the launch and it was quite exciting when it was finally put up. We've have lots of good comments and positive feedback (much to the relief of the designer, Mike). They were also kind enough to include me in the teams page!

I have also been playing around with a new website builder, Moonfruit and am considering using them to host my website- you can check out what I've put together here.

I'm off to Spain for the weekend to visit Jen and work on my tan!

Yesterday I went into London again to see a few some more of the sights I missed last time and for London Pride! It was a beautifully, sunny day and I started off heading to the Tate Gallery and, like my experience at the Louvre, it was difficult to appreciate a lot of the art because I don't know anything about art... so if I go back to London again before I leave I'll probably try and visit the Tate Modern instead. After that I went to the British Museum, which is really cool. Because the British have a history of going to countries and colonizing them, they often borrow/steal really cool and famous artifacts from those countries and most of them end up in the British Museum, like the Rosetta Stone and lots of Egyptian artifacts. And the amazing thing is that both the Tate and the British Museum are free for everyone (minus a few featured exhibits) so it's really nice (unlike Paris where you can't even see dead people's tombs unless you pay).

Then I walked over to Oxford Street (big mistake) for the Parade. Because it seemed so well organized and because when Bjoern and I went to Berlin Pride there was enough space for everyone, I thought I'd hit Oxford Street right as the parade was coming though...unfortunately not only did about 300 other people think the same thing, Oxford Street is also a big shopping street so there were about 200 more people not there for the parade trying to squeeze through the side walks. This created a big problem. You could not move or walk through for about an eighth of a mile- there was space further down Oxford Street, but it was just one mass of hot, angry, squished people pushing and moving as a herd in both directions on the side walk... anyway I eventually got through and went to the other side of the street and enjoyed the parade. Then I followed the parade down to Trafalgar Square where all the festivities were taking place. There were kiosks with food and drinks all around the square, there was a big stage in the middle, and loads of people- even people sitting and wading through the fountains! There were political talks as well as a bunch of really great music performances. After staying there for a few hours I was completely knackered (British for exhausted) but had booked a late train for myself, so I forced myself to find something else in London to see. So I took the tube to Notting Hill (yes, from the movie). It is a gorgeous little neighborhood with the big marketplace on Portobello Road (also, in the movie). It's obviously a very expensive neighborhood, but there are still the cute colorful houses and apartments along Portobello Road that are very charming.

After a long stroll down Portobello Road and back to the tube, I really was looking forward to my (sitting) train ride home and made it to Paddington even for a slightly earlier train than I had booked so I got home a little earlier than planned.


Today it's another sunny day and I took a walk into town and sat out in the back garden to work on my tan and am just relaxing for the afternoon.
I hope everyone had a happy fourth of July weekend! I miss fried dough!
xoxo

After a good, full week of everyone coding, drawing, blogging, speaking, launching, and twittering for all the things we have going on at work, we were all treated to an epic night out! Starting off the evening with pints and wine at The Cork, we sat outside in the warm evening air and then made our way to Wagamama (a noodle bar) for dinner, then finished up the evening with a few more pints and Mojitos on the terrace of another cute bar in the city center. It was relaxing and fun and I'm really growing close with everyone from work.

And despite scheming and wishes to prolong my stay here, I will be coming home as scheduled and by that time will probably (well..maybe..) be more ready and looking forward to returning home.

So I've been fairly vague about exactly what some of my projects here entail and the reason is that a part of them is their launch or their surprise value and because out audience is web folks you never know if they'll stumble across my blog and spill the beans.

But today we have officially launched "Carsonified Summer Camp" which will be a two day event in July that has been organized and fashioned by ME! You can see this site here and the blog post here and now that all of that is done the rest of the work until the actual event is all behind the scenes stuff- ordering food, goodies, choosing the winners, and creating the decorations, etc.

My other pending project, at this point is still top secret but I promise it's super cool :)

The weather here in Bath is clear, sunny, a bit humid, and in the mid 80's, perfect.

Yesterday I returned from a fabulous week in Berlin, reuniting with Bjoern and enjoying a relaxing week that was largely unscheduled and not filled with touristy things. We spent some time hanging around his local neighborhood, Tegel, but also managed to get into the city on about three of the days and we also spent a sunny, windy afternoon at the Baltic Sea in the little seaside town of Warnemünde (where I had some Danish icecream and it was awesome) and I tried to get a sun tan...It's a very cute new england-esque fishing town.
There were some nice sunny afternoons and beautiful evenings spent in the city. One of the days we began at Schloss Charlottenburg, which is one of the Palaces in Berlin that I didn't visit last summer and then we made our way to Under den Linden and to Potsdamer Platz for a nice dinner and a movie (Transformers, in English) and took the train home. On Saturday we went into the city in the late afternoon to take part in the festivities of Christopher Street Day, which is Berlin's Pride parade. The festivity grounds stretched from the Brandenburg Gate all the way to the Victory Column and the streets were lined with loads of good German food, bars, and beer kiosks and the streets were packed with people, music, crazy costumes, and happiness. We had a fantastic time there enjoying it all and being around the other cheerful people. Afterwards we went to Hackescher Markt, which is one of my favorite areas of the city, and walked along the Spree to my other favorite area which is the river and bridges area around the Berlin Dome and we had dinner outside and then ate huge desserts in beach bar chairs right on the edge of the river.
I ate massive amounts of food all week and ate more breakfast rolls than one probabaly should in one weeks time, but it was really great. Bjoern has some pictures from the beginning of the week on his flickr and I have more of the end of the week and the beach as well, here.

And although leaving was terribly difficult, I at least return to Carsonified with lots of exciting things underway, including the upcoming launch of my event, Carsonified Summer Camp! Should be launching within the next few days and I'm really excitied. I also have a few small tasks there and one other larger project that are still in the drawing board/ pricing stages.
I have only about a month left here and am already having separation anxiety, especially on these beautiful, warm summer evenings (sorry New Englanders, I had to rub it in), but really, when it's just so lovely to be out around town and walking and spending time with people from work.
This weekend I have some free time and only loose plans to go into London on Saturday to visit some of the museums and attend London Pride! But otherwise it will be a nice weekend off from traveling and I'll spend some quality time with Bath.

I have just returned from Paris! I met up with Jen there and we had quite an adventure. On the first full day we covered most of the things on the right bank of the Seine, like the Louvre, the Tuilerie Gardens, The Arc de Triomphe, The Eiffel Tower, The Sacre Coeur, and Moulin Rouge. One thing you can't really wrap your mind around until you see some of these things, like the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, or the Arc, is the size, they are all massive and took so much time to create. The Eiffel Tower of course is a whole story of it's own and essentially is kind of ugly, but when you think about the architecture and try to see it how Eiffel himself saw it, you can understand why he thought it was beautiful and when they light it up at night it is really quite amazing and glamorous. The Louvre was probably my favorite, and luckily we were able to visit it both days (as we did with the Eiffel Tower). The Louvre, is now a museum and houses items like the Mona Lisa, The Lacemaker, and the Venus de Milo, unfortunately I don't know very much about art and couldn't appreciate all the paintings in their context and technique but I enjoyed seeing them. What I really loved about the Louvre was the size and beauty of the building itself with all its courtyards, fountains, and the long stretching garden that leads straight down to the Arc, through its very own little Arc just before the garden. The Louvre itself was only built in the mid 1500's, but the site had been a fortress since the 1200's. I also really liked the Sacre Coeur (scared heart), which is a Roman Catholic Basilica, and has been kept in such perfect condition and it atop this hill over looking the city that it almost doesn't look real.

The second day we had a bit of rainy weather and had to hide out in a Subway for a while to avoid getting drenched- but after that we decided to conquer the things on the left bank of the Seine. This included also the island where Notre Dame is, then the Pantheon, and a wander around the Jewish quarter. We also spent some time back in the Tuileries Gardens enjoying the fountain and people watching, then walked over towards Hotel des Invalides where Napoleon is buried and the golden bridge to get there also provides a lovely view of the Tower. We then treated ourselves to a glass of wine, in the true spirit of being in Paris, then went to enjoy the site of the Eiffel Tower at night, which was beautiful.

Sunday before I left we ventured into Paris' underground to tour the Catacombs and the underground tunnels. It's quite the hike, but seeing the scale and number of bodies and bones down there and the care they took to arrange them and give them proper respect and organization was very interesting. We couldn't read most of the signs, quotes, and prayers (because obviously everything is in French) but we were sure they were probably very profound messages.

Once again, I am out of space on my Flickr so click here to view some of the photos through my Facebook.

Tomorrow I am off to Berlin to reunite with Bjoern and I shall be there until next Sunday (June 28).

I miss everyone lots and am looking forward to thoroughly sharing all my adventure news with everyone in person and in more detail when I get home. 5 more weeks of Trista's adventure :)