I fell off a horse

Yup.  On Wednesday during horsemanship.  The first time I've fallen off a horse since horse camp when I was about 10.  It was pretty scary.

I was cantering--that's what we're learning this semester, in Horsemanship II--on Dream, a big mare.  She's not that big, but she's bigger than Brooks, the horse I'd been riding.  Just a few weeks ago they switched several of us to different horses, so I'd only ridden Dream once before.  She's a lot faster than Brooks, and I'm just not used to her.  But I was cantering, and it was going well, until I was supposed to slow down.  I tried, but Dream wasn't ready to stop yet.  Megan, one of the TAs, was there to help everyone stop, and she reached for Dream to slow her down.  But that freaked Dream out, and she twisted away to the right--while I kept going to the left.

All I was aware of during this was that I had lost control of Dream.  As she rounded the corner, I felt myself shifting and realized I was going to fall off.  And then I saw where I was going to fall.  We were right next to the wooden mounting ramp that runs along one side of the arena, and as I was sliding off I knew I was going to hit the edge, and that it was going to hurt.

I hit the ramp just like I knew I would and then flipped over somehow--people said I bounced off--and then I was lying on my back.  The floor of the arena is covered with little bits of rubber, so hitting the ground was really soft.  But my legs had smacked right into the ramp, and I just lay there, not moving, because they hurt so much.  Adam told me later he was afraid I was unconscious because I didn't move for so long.

Andrea, our teacher, and the TAs came over and asked where it hurt, if my head was okay, stuff like that.  I could talk to them fine; I was completely okay except for my legs.  They mentioned ambulances, and I immediately said I didn't think it was that bad.  Andrea and Cindy, one of the TAs, helped me stand up, and I thought they were going to help me walk into the classroom, but then Andrea just picked me up and carried me out of the arena.  I was pretty impressed.

I finally got to see my legs once I was in the classroom sitting down, and they weren't pretty.  There was a huge scrape on the left one and a big bruise on the right.  Andrea got me ice and had someone come make sure that there were no worse injuries, and there weren't.  I tried to walk and I could, although it hurt.  Then for the rest of the class I just sat with my ice.  I had been kind of shaky already just from the shock of it, and having the ice on my legs didn't help.  But I did get calmed down and more relaxed.

I walked a little slower than usual the rest of that day, and the next day I was somewhat sore and it still hurt to walk, but I've been doing everything I normally do, like my cleaning jobs.  I did skip going to the gym yesterday; I didn't think running or biking was a good idea.  Although, today I went to a scavenger hunt floor event where we raced other teams, and we had to run a lot for that . . . so hopefully I won't be too sore tomorrow!

So yeah, it was scary, and not fun, and I'm going to be bruised for a while, but it hasn't made me scared to ride or anything.  Next week is the last time we're riding, so it's my last chance to get that canter right!

Alvira

I've been home on break this past week, and on Tuesday Joyce and I went out to the former town of Alvira. The short version of the story is, in 1942, the valley where Alvira was was chosen as the site of the Pennsylvania Ordnance Works, a TNT manufacturing plant meant to supply the US army. The residents of Alvira and the surrounding area were forced to sell their land for low prices and find other places to live. The government promised them that they would be able to buy the land back when the plant closed, but even though it closed after operating for only eleven months, hardly any of the people actually got their land back.  All the town buildings were destroyed, and today there are just old foundations, rubble, and tons of TNT storage bunkers.  Most of the land is now state game lands, although some of it belongs to the Allenwood Federal Prison Complex.

For the long version of the story, go here:  http://www.sungazette.com/page/content.detail/id/525751.html.

Today, you can go to the game lands and see the site of the former town.  My main purpose of this post is to share some of the photos I took, because I think they're pretty cool and there really aren't a lot of pics. of Alvira online that I've found.  So, here a few of the best.

 One of the many bunkers; most are locked up now.

 Looking down an old well . . .

 . . . which is inside here.

 The Montgomery Area Historical Society put up markers where all the houses were.

Another old well . . .

. . . with what looks like newsprint on the stone?  This really intrigues me; I don't understand it at all . . . if anyone can explain to me what this is, I would really appreciate it!

Someone found all this old glass and left it here.

The most intact thing we saw; it might've been a church?

This open bunker was set back from the main road.

Kind of spooky inside, and really echoey; Joyce had a lot of fun.

The entrance to Washington Cemetery.

It's in pretty bad shape.

I'm home!

I made it through finals and am now back in PA.  I love being able to relax--it's such a wonderful feeling to not have anything I have to do!  During the last two weeks at Houghton there was always something weighing on my mind, a paper to write or an exam to study for, and I would work and work and get one thing done only to have another to start on the next day, but now I'm free!  I think I did fairly well in all my classes; I guess I'll find out when we get our grades at the end of the month.

It's nice to be home with my family and my pets.  We don't have snow here, though, which is sad.  But that also means it isn't quite as cold as it is at Houghton, which is nice.  It's weird to think that people are still there and some still have finals to take; I got really lucky this year, having all mine on Monday and Tuesday.  It's so great to be on break!

Lanthorn update

The party last night went really well.  People actually did come, several staying the whole time (including two professors) and a bunch stopping in for a little while.  The lecture ended before the party, so some people came by afterward.  Almost all of our food got eaten, but not quite all of it, meaning we had just about the right amount.  We had readings from the book, some people reading their own work and some reading other people's.  And everyone told us we did a great job.  People especially seemed to like the cover a lot, so I was pretty happy.  A lot of the books got taken, which was good, and then Adam and I spread the rest (except the black and white ones, which are in a box in our office) around campus.  All the ones in the Chamberlain Center are gone already.  In class today, my Lit. by Women professor congratulated us on it and told us how nice it looked and told everyone they should read it.  So I'm happy with the way things turned out.  Now we just have to do it all again next semester . . .

Lanthorn craziness

So, I asked people if I should keep blogging, and my family and Hanna said yes, but I still haven't been.  Mostly that's because of time, but today I have lots of time for some reason, so I thought I would write a post (and I'm still being lazy, because most of this is copy and pasted from an email I wrote).

Adam and I are having the Lanthorn release party this Thursday.  It's been a crazy process.  First, we couldn't figure out what software we were supposed to use.  The college said they were going to get us new software, but they never did.  There was a layout/design program on the computer in our office, but it said it wasn't the full version and would put a watermark on all our pages.  So I emailed the former editor, and from her I found out that they'd never used that program, but had had access to a different program through the school newspaper.  So we ended up using Microsoft publisher, which worked fine but wasn't the best.

Putting the book together took a lot of time, and then we tried to email it to the print center, but it was too big of a file.  Because the print center lady was going to be going away for a few days, I had to leave a class to go back to my room to put The Lanthorn on a  blank CD and then bring it to her.  And then her color printer wasn't working, so we thought we were going to have to do it in black and white, but after printing 60 black and white copies she got the color to work.  So now they're all printed, but they needed to be folded and stapled, which Adam and I will be working on tomorrow.

We've also had issues with the party; we didn't hear back from the guy in charge of Java 101 (the campus coffee shop, where the party will be) that we actually had it until today, so we only just sent out the campus wide email, and there's some lecture going on at the same time, and everyone we've talked to is either going to that or has other plans already.  So we'll probably have only five people show up to the party.  It'll be okay; the book will still have been successfully published, and even if not many people get them at the party we'll still leave them around campus for people to pick up, but the whole thing has just been way more frustrating than I expected.  Having it done will be a big relief, and I'm sure I'll feel better about it then.  And at least next semester we'll know how to do things better.

Readers?

Should I post on this blog?  Does anyone read it?  I haven't been keeping up with it, but I could; it wouldn't really be worth it, though, if no one's reading.

A disclaimer

I hope I don't come across as complaining in my posts about Europe; I just like to emphasize the unfortunate things that happen because they make good stories. :)

Part of Prague

It was cool driving through Germany and the Czech Republic on the way to Prague.  It was funny, there would be all these signs/ads in German or Czech and then randomly one in English.  Germany had lots of pine forests, France had lots of fields, and when we reached Prague I found that it had lots of cool buildings.  The bus station wasn't in the best shape, though.  Because it had been hard to sleep on the bus, when we arrived at the station, a little before 6am, I was exhausted and couldn't wait to get to Nora's friend's house, where we were staying.  But that wouldn't happen for over an hour.  For one thing, the bus had gotten in a little early.  Worse than that, though, I had told Nora's friend the wrong time to meet us at the bus station.  I had assumed there was a time difference between Paris and Prague, and I didn't find out otherwise until right before the trip.  Consequently, I'd had Nora tell her friend the bus would get in at 7:15, when it was actually supposed to arrive at 6:15.  We had no way to contact her, so we just had to wait.

We sat inside the bus station, but it was still cold.  Around 7 the bus station food shops began to open.  I kept watching the people who came in, wondering if each woman was Lucie, Nora's friend.  At 7:30 the real Lucie came, and we took the Prague metro to her apartment (which was on the other side of the city from the bus station).  Once there we ate breakfast; I was so tired I ate with my eyes closed, practically sleep-eating.  Afterward I took a much-needed nap.  A few hours later Nora woke me up so we could go into the city center.  I was still pretty tired, but the sleep had definitely helped.

Lucie had the day off from work, so she took us around, which was good because I at least wasn't up to navigating a new city by myself (Nora was much more awake that day than I was).  Now that the sun was up it was really hot out.  First we went to the castle area, which was a complex of buildings (like a palace and a huge cathedral) and not an actual castle.  It was on a hill, so we had a good view of the city.  Later on we walked across Charles Bridge, which has lots of statues of saints on it.

I don't really remember a lot about that day except walking a lot and being tired, hot, hungry, and thirsty.  Besides Czech Lucie spoke Swedish and English, and since her Swedish was the better of the two, she mostly talked to Nora in that language.  Because I know absolutely no Swedish, I couldn't really follow the conversation, so I didn't always know what we were seeing or where we were headed.  Eventually we went to a pizzeria for lunch.  I was so looking forward to drinking a glass of water--but when the water came, it was fizzy water, which was pretty disappointing.  Apparently that's the norm there, and regular water is pretty expensive.  I swished it around to take some of the fizz out, and that helped, but it still wasn't the same.

After lunch we rode around on trams some and got gelato at one point (I had peach, which was awesome) and later got citronada, which was like lemonade.  At 5-something we headed back to Lucie's apartment.  We got back to her neighborhood after the long metro ride and went to the grocery store.  Although Lucie only got a few things, we were there for a while because the checkout line was so long.  When we finally made it out we went to the post office to buy stamps for the postcards Nora and I had bought in Paris.  Again, we had to wait a really long time, although there we at least got to sit down.  At last we got the stamps and went back to the apartment, around 6:30, and Nora and I both lay down and went right to sleep.

I woke up several times while it was still evening, once because there was a thunderstorm, but I always fell back asleep quickly.  I also woke up a few times overnight and early in the morning, but I ended up sleeping past 10am, and the only reason I woke up then was because there were lots of noisy kids outside (there was a school next door).  I must've gotten over 12 hours of sleep, maybe as many as 13 or 14.  I felt really weird when I woke up, but that wore off, and I felt so much more awake and alive than the day before.

Paris

My flight arrived in Paris only a little late, somehow.  We didn't have to go through customs or anything as far as I remember.  I came out to where all the people were waiting for their friends who'd been on the plane and looked for Nora, but she wasn't there.  I was hungry and tired and in a foreign country, so I freaked out a little.  I just stood off to the side and waited, but all the time I was wondering if something had happened to Nora and trying to think of what I would do if she didn't come.

Then I saw her in the crowd of people, and everything was okay.  She was just late because she'd missed the first train to the airport.  I felt much better, and we went off to our hostel. Nora and the two friends she'd been in Paris with for the past week were staying in a three-person room, and I was in a four-person women-only room upstairs.  I rested a little, and then Nora and I went out to Victor Hugo's house.  It took us a long time to find it, even though we had a map and there were signs supposedly pointing the way.  I didn't mind, though, because I enjoyed just wandering around Paris.  We happened upon a big market and looked at stuff there for a while.  Pretty soon after that we did make it to the house; it was interesting to see, but not that exciting.

We got pizza for lunch and then went to the Louvre, which is free the first Sunday of the month, exactly the day we happened to be there.  We just wanted to see the most famous things, but we kept making mistakes and going the wrong way (the map confused me), so we ended up walking a lot more than we needed to.  Every time we sat down to rest I started to fall asleep.  But it was cool to see so much famous art, and we really barely saw any of what's there, because the Louvre is such a huge place.  I would love to go back for a whole day sometime when I'm not exhausted.

We went back to the hostel when the museum closed, and I finally got to relax.  My sense of time was really skewed, and it felt like it had been a really long day even though it was only early evening.  I went to bed around 9 and slept pretty well.

The next morning I got up and had breakfast with Nora at the hostel.  After the other two girls came down and ate we checked out of our rooms.  I accidentally left my pajamas in my room, but before we left one of the ladies who'd been in the room with me came and found me and told me, which was nice.  We left our luggage at the hostel and headed off to Sacre Coeur, a big white church, which was pretty close by.  It's on a hill, and the view of Paris got better and better as we went up.  When we reached the top we were so high; it was like we were on top of Paris.  Nora and I looked inside and then walked along the edge of the hill until we could see the Eiffel Tower, which was blocked by trees before.

We walked around Sacre Coeur, and as soon as we left the front area there were practically no other people around, which was nice.  We then met back up with the other two girls and walked around the area, Montmarte, which had nice cobblestones streets and pretty houses.  We got crepes at La Maison Rose, a tiny pink cafe.  The weather was beautiful, so it was really nice just walking around.

Nora and I had to be at the bus station to check in for our bus ride to Prague at 3, so we left Montmarte before long and picked up our luggage at the hostel before heading to the bus station.  On the way we stopped at a grocery store to buy dinner, spending only 4.23 total on drinkable yogurt (which Nora introduced me to and I love), a baguette, an apple, and brie.  We made it to the bus station right on time and checked in, and then we just had to wait till our bus left at 4.

Nora had realized that she'd left her iPod charger in the room at the hostel, so she went to look for a place to get internet (on her iPod touch) to email one of her friends, who was staying at the hostel another night, and ask if she could get it.  I stayed with the luggage and ate some brie on rolls we'd taken from the hostel (it was quite good) and then just waited.

After a while our bus pulled up and people started getting on.  Nora had said she would try to be back within half an hour, so after half an hour had passed I started getting worried, both about whether something had happened to Nora and about missing the bus.  I had a plan to ask the bus driver to wait and then tell one of the bus station workers that Nora was missing if she wasn't back by five of 4.  But then, around 3:50, Nora came in.  She'd had a hard time finding somewhere where she got internet, but she finally had, and then she'd hurried back.  We got on the bus, and pretty soon we were off to Prague.

Airport adventure

So, I went to Europe.  It was my first time flying alone, and after I went through security and left my family behind I felt very independent and a little nervous.  I quickly got way more nervous when my backpack didn't come out of the security scanner and the lady watching the scans called someone else over.  I waited while they talked, wondering what in the world could be in my backpack that could cause a problem.  I'd packed everything I needed for 10 days in Europe in there--clothes, a few small guidebooks, shampoo and toothpaste in 3-ounce containers sealed in a plastic bag.  There was nothing wrong with any of that, was there?

They let my backpack out, and a man felt around inside.  "Do you have maple syrup in here?" he asked, and I suddenly remembered that Nora's mom had sent a quart of maple syrup with me as a gift for the friend of Nora's we would be staying with in Prague.  None of us, not Nora's mom, not my mom, not me, had realized that I wouldn't be able to bring that in a carry-on.  I wondered if they would confiscate it, leaving Nora's friend gift-less, but the man just told me, "Next time, put that in your checked luggage" and let me take my backpack back.

Very relieved that I wasn't unwittingly carrying explosives or illegal drugs, I headed to my gate, where I found that my flight had been delayed.  Even after everyone boarded, it still didn't take off for a while; I actually fell asleep while waiting.  So began my trip to Europe.