London Part 2

Since I'm bad at leaving TripAdvisor reviews for anything, I'll say a little more here about one of the tour guide companies we used in London.

A friend of a friend recommended Strawberry Tours to us. They're 'free' in the sense that you take the tour without paying up front, and then at the end you tip your tour guide according to how much you liked the tour (or in our case according to how broke you are on a scale of 1 to college student).

We started out with their Harry Potter tour, which was the last thing I mentioned in London Part 1.

Afterward, our guide suggested a discounted dinner at a restaurant near Leicester Square, so we took her up on the offer and had the best fish and chips of the week:

Over dinner we became BFFs with our guide, Katie, who moonlights as a theater/voice actress. In addition to being the one who created the Harry Potter tour for Strawberry Tours, she was also really knowledgeable about a whole host of other things in London, like where to eat, drink, visit, and buy the best souvenirs.

Because we loved her so much (just kidding, this was a complete coincidence) we ended up on her Jack the Ripper tour that night after dinner. We all know the story of Jack the Ripper, obviously, but Katie showed off her story-telling skills as she walked us through each murder - sometimes literally through the former crime scene.

Strawberry Tour Guides obviously do their research - again, can't say enough nice things about both tours we took with them, and the discounted meal we had with Katie was some of the best food we had while we were in London (it's tied for first with a meal we had later in the week - coming up soon).

The next day we saw an anticlimactic changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace - they were in blue coats, not red! But apparently a member of the royal family was home at the time, so who knows? Maybe I was just a few hundred feet away from the Queen.

The highlight of the changing of the guard was when this policeman came over and invited us all to pat his horse. Softest. Horse. Ever.

Then, we managed to get cheap tickets to see...

It was my first time seeing Wicked, even though I knew at least half of the songs already since it had been wickedly popular in high school (see what I did there?). It was really good, and definitely worth it considering we got a huge discount for buying last minute tickets. The website we used to get discount tickets was advertised all over the tube for a lot of different plays and musicals - sadly, nothing for Cursed Child, although we did stumble upon the theater while we were looking for antique/secondhand book shops.

The next day we took ourselves on our own walking tour....

 And then I got to meet up with an old friend from Sevilla who lives in London, which was great. We went to our 3rd Wetherspoon's of the week with her and her boyfriend and spent a good 4-5 hours catching up.

This Wetherspoon's was much fancier than the previous two we'd been in - just look at the statue in the bathroom!

Friday, we made it to Soho, where we had a traditional English Breakfast (at 2pm) in The Breakfast Club, walked around the British History museum, and then went to a few pubs to finish off the week.

Saturday we had our best meal of the week (in my opinion). We headed back to Brick Lane, which we had already seen under cover of darkness during the Jack the Ripper tour. This time, the markets were open and the neighborhood was much livelier. Out of an old reconverted World War 2 ambulance, we had buttermilk fried chicken, french fries, and a combination of homemade sauces.

Oh. My. Gosh. Check out Mother Clucker if you're ever in the Brick Lane area for lunch, because this was so good. Normally, you can dump hot sauce on anything and I'll be happy, but this was just out of this world. They have a couple of locations around London, including a stand at Camden Market, so this is not something to miss.

That ended up being the last thing I took a picture of in London - and that's probably a good thing, because how could I top that?!

We could not have had a better week, but it was just as painful to leave at the end of our stay as it was to get up at 4:30AM on Sunday for our flight.

See you next time, London!

London!!! Part 1

3 weeks ago, I fell in love with a city called London. If it weren't for that pesky thing called citizenship, I would have absolutely no problem picking up and moving to London after graduation.

The neighborhoods are interesting and diverse, the people were kind (even to tourists?! What kind of alternate universe--), the public transportation was easy to navigate, and the whole city was surprisingly cheaper than I thought it would be. 

(I mean, just look how happy we were to be getting on a Ryanair flight to London! No one is ever that happy boarding a Ryanair plane.) (Also, I am holding a to do list. I am that kind of traveller.)

So here is London, Part 1.

We arrived late Saturday night to Waterloo Station, where a friend of one of the girls I was traveling with met us and got us onto the tube and out to our Airbnb. 

Sunday we were up early for our first walking tour of the week! Can you guess what the theme was? Really, I'll give you a second to think. Have an idea?

It's a no-brainer really; we took a walking tour of Harry Potter landmarks in London. We met at King's Cross station - fun fact, in the movies they filmed the facade of St. Pancras station, which is right next door, and which is also where we went first by accident because, hey, we recognize that place!

Our Sunday morning tour was with a company called Get Your Guide, and to be honest it wasn't my cup of tea. The guide was enthusiastic but obviously not a Harry Potter fan, which was a huge disappointment.

Hey, maybe that's what I'll move to London to do...give Harry Potter tours. ;)

The tour ended right outside of Shakespeare's Globe theater, so we hopped inside to the gift shop (sadly, there were no cheap tickets for sale at this point in the season) and then headed to Starbucks to strategize the rest of the day. I have never been so happy to be in a Starbucks where they speak a language which includes the phrase "Skinny Vanilla Latte." #basic

We spent the rest of Sunday at Camden Market, which was eclectic and cool and had some amazing Chinese food. It was also the only place in London I got carded for a beer - so what's up, Camden Market?

 

Monday morning we took a walk around the neighborhood we were staying in (or should I say, neighbourhood?) and went shopping. Please contain your excitement - I bought socks, a travel pillow, and a jacket. Really exciting stuff.

Monday afternoon I had to race back to the Airbnb for a co-op Skype interview with a company in New York City - didn't end up getting offered the position, so that'll teach me to schedule an interview at 9:30am EST on a Monday. (Only kidding! Real co-op news coming soon...I hope!)

After that, we had a very important visit to make just North of London at Leavesden Studios.

Can you guess what film lot we were visiting? Really, I'll give you a moment to think. It's not hard if you know me at all.

We, by some stroke of luck, managed to get last minute tickets to see The Making of Harry Potter Studio Tour. All the tickets for our visit had been sold out weeks in advance - yes I cried real tears when I found out - but we hung in there, kept checking the website, and managed to snag three returned tickets for that Monday. What better way to spend Halloween night?

#byemuggles

I usually travel solo, so not a lot of people know my traveling quirks - but one of them is that I like to have an ice cream cone whenever I'm on vacation. I don't know why, and I don't know how I started that tradition, but it's something that I look for whenever I'm traveling. And luckily, we were able to have Butterbeer ice cream at the Studio Tour. It was amazing - I highly, highly recommend it.

Tuesday, we took our second of three walking tours. Can you guess what the theme of this tour was? (Are you sensing a pattern yet?)

 I won't even make you guess this time - it was a Harry Potter walking tour. Why, you might ask, would you take two Harry Potter walking tours in the same city? Well, I will answer, because these tours were very different, and one was free. We all know what a sacred word that is for college students.

This tour, which was the free tour, I recommend 500%. I could not say enough good things about this tour. The guide was super nice, very knowledgeable about the subject matter, and very good at her job. So, shout out to Katie at Strawberry Tours - we had a great time!

You're all probably sick of reading about Harry Potter at this point, so here's where I'll finish (and we won't talk about it again, I solemnly swear). 

Our tour guide stopped us in Trafalgar Square, where they held the premiere for the final Harry Potter film five and a half years ago. I remember watching the red carpet interviews and speeches given at the premiere, live, online on the film studio's website. I was 16, nearly 17, headed swiftly toward adulthood but still stuck in High school drafting essays for College applications.  

JK Rowling ended her premiere speech with this quote, which is hung at the end of the Harry Potter Studio Tour:

 

And that is a very fitting sentiment, considering 5 and a half years later I've just been to the theater to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Okay, we're finished with Harry Potter! I promise. We crammed everything Potter-related into the first few days so we could get it out of our systems. And also so we could orient ourselves to the city by taking walking tours! It's amazing how easy it is to get around London.

When we got back from the studio tour we made our first trip to Wetherspoon's, a chain of pubs in London. There are something like 11 of them with various atmospheres all over the city, and (surprise) we ended up going to 3. 

This one was called The Masque Haunt, and it was our first - but not our greatest- experience with fish and chips while we were there. . 

For the rest, and some other food related adventures, you'll have to wait for Part 2.

Thanks for reading!

Chez le Médecin

This hiatus was brought to you by Fall break and the ensuing onslaught of work due the weeks after. I have at least 1 blog post on London coming next week once my last essay is turned in for the semester.

But for today, I thought I would talk about something that I was hoping NOT to have to do while I was here; go to the doctor. 

I got sick back in October after my trip to Barcelona where we stayed in a 10 bed hostel room that cost 8euro a night (not my choice, guys!). But at least I came home with a cold and not bed bugs, am I right?

I'm right. 

After that first week of being really sick, I started to get better. And, as usual, I had a lingering cough that wouldn't go away. For the past month I've had the same cold off and on - it gets better, then it gets worse, but the cough always remains. Always. 

So finally after waking myself up 3 times last night because I was coughing in my sleep (sorry, roommate) I decided to see a French doctor. 

I already had an advantage over most sick, struggling Americans in France because I didn't have to do any research on doctors in Aix or make my own appointment - CEA, my study abroad program, did that all for me. I was told to show up at 2pm and ask for Dr. Somny, and that's what I did. 

Pro-tip: You don't need to show up early for a doctor's appointment here because there's no waiting room paperwork to fill out, even if you're a first time client. Also, the doctor is likely to be either running late with a previous client or (as in my case) returning late from a 2 and a half hour lunch break.  I know, right?

I didn't have to wait too long though; by 2:15 she was ready to see me. She took my name, my birth date, and my email address. Then, we talked symptoms. I had already made sure (thanks google) that I knew how to describe all of my symptoms, but luckily she asked a lot of leading questions so I didn't have to rely on my own memory very much. There was also a lot of miming and charades-playing until she realized that I understood everything that she was saying.

We did the usual heart rate and blood pressure - interestingly enough, it's a bit opposite of how they do things in the US. At my GP in the US they take your blood pressure by machine, and your heart rate manually. Here the doctor used a little finger-clip machine to take my heart rate and did the blood pressure cuff manually. I'm not sure why that stood out to me, but it did.

Finally, she listened to my lungs since my main complaint was the ever present cough. 

Afterward, she explained to me (still in French, mind you) what she thought was wrong, and what she didn't think was wrong - probably to ease my Web-MDing mind (do I have lung cancer? No). 

Then, she started to write me some scripts and she suggested three things: 1, a simple nasal spray to be picked up at the pharmacy. 2, a blood test to rule out anything serious. 3, a chest X-ray to rule out anything even more serious.

Here, I paused. She asked if I needed her to repeat what she'd said, if I was confused. 

No, I said...But I knew I had to pay for everything up front before I could submit claims to my insurance company for reimbursement, and I wasn't sure if I could afford a chest X-ray out of pocket.  In the US, you could be paying anywhere upwards of $300 for something like that.

Quickly, she said, "Oh no! French medicine is cheap! Don't worry. It will probably be 15, 20 euro." 

15 or 20 euro for a chest X-ray without insurance?! As if I needed another reason to move to Europe, sign me up! 

In reality, it ended up being 35euro, and since I've lived this long and had this problem before without getting a chest X ray, I opted out of that. She agreed, it was just precautionary. 

So she wrote out two scripts, one for the medicine and one for the blood test. (Side note, it took me three tries to spell medicine correctly in English - the curse of learning a second language.)

Then, another interesting thing I noted was that you pay the doctor directly in the exam room, rather than paying at the reception desk. In the US, I can't imagine doing this - American doctors would probably think that 1) they're above that task and 2) it would be a waste of their time. Although, maybe this is why French doctors are always running behind. 

I left the doctor's office and went straight to the lab to get my blood work done, and was told that for a basic test it would be 20 euro. For a Whooping Cough test, which my doctor had suggested for some crazy reason, it would be an additional 35euro because they would have to send the blood all the way to Paris to be tested. 

I'm pretty confident that I don't have Whooping Cough, so I opted out of that one, too, and paid the 20 euro for a basic test which I'm almost positive will also come back absolutely normal. 

Finally, I hopped over to the pharmacy (to give you an idea - the doctor's office address is 19 Cours Mirabeau, the lab was 15 Cours Mirabeau, and the Pharmacy was in between the two) and picked up the medicine the doctor had ordered.

All in all it took less than an hour, probably around 45 minutes in total (mostly because of a language barrier at the Blood Lab - sorry I don't speak much medical French!) and all the combined costs (57euro) will be reimbursed next month by my insurance. 

If I had been on my own to find a doctor and make an appointment, the process probably would have been a lot more difficult. And if I had done all the suggested tests/procedures, my bill would have been double what it was. I have a feeling that the French like to be thorough simply because everything is so cheap if you do have insurance. All in all, I found the doctor very thorough and hope to finally be on the mend once and for all. 

Although, if it turns out that I'm dying based on the results of my blood work, I'll let you know.