Day 56, 57 and 58

This is the last post about my adventures "across the pond" because I'm home now!! It was the most amazing two months of my life but I am excited to be back with my family and getting excited for JMU!

Day 56 aka freeee

So I turned in my final the night before, so Thursday was truly my first entirely free day in London where I didn't have to worry about any pending coursework. I wanted to see Wicked if I could get a half price deal from TKTS or something. Regular tickets are like 55 pounds in the dress circle (balcony). So I saw online that if you go stand out in line at 10am at the theatre they have some "day seats" available. That just means they haven't sold out and want to so they sell them at discounted prices/ they also sell some front row seats for insanely cheap. I was probably 20th in line (and you can buy 2 per person)... and near the end, so I was worried that I might not get a seat. They advertised online that you could get a student ticket for 27 pounds in the best available seat, so I was hoping for that. I got up to the counter and asked for a student ticket, but the box office guy told me they didn't have any. I was preparing myself for disappointment, but I asked what the best they had was. He had a seat in the dress circle for 22.50! I was like, this has to be a joke, so I asked if it was restricted view or something. NOPE! It was the 4th to last row and in the center of the section. AWESOME.

After I got my ticket it was about 10:30 so I decided to hop one stop over to the Victoria and Albert Museum again because I wanted to see the Theatre and Performance exhibit. It used to be its own museum but it's a small collection so it moved to the V&A in 2007. My mom got me a book about it for Christmas, which is how I knew to look for it. It was sooo cool. There were scripts, scores, costumes, posters, set models, masks, a star trap and a huge rhino costume! I loved seeing all these old parts of theatre history as well as some of the more recent stuff, like a costume from Elton John and Kylie Minogue's dressing room.

I returned to the flat just as it started to rain-- I missed a downpour by a few minutes! I made lunch and made plans to go for a walk after the rain. I bought some last minute gifts that I needed for people and enjoyed my last real look at my neighborhood.

I made an early dinner and got ready to go to WICKED!!! I was so excited, especially because I know the soundtrack by heart and I've read the books, but this was my first time seeing it. And it was the only musical I saw while in London. I left at about 6:10, and I'm glad I did because the subway was PACKED. I got to the theatre at about 7 and bought a program. In the UK, they don't give you a playbill automatically. You have to buy one, but it has more information than a US program does. The ones I bought at plays were 3-4 pounds and this one was 7, so that was disappointing. But I got one anyway, because I collect programs and this was for Wicked!! I also ended up paying a pound to rent binoculars from the seat in front of me, which I'm glad I did because I could see faces and just see the whole spectacle. My seat was really good for the price and the show was fantastic! I got back to the house at 11 and no one was home, so I did some planning for my last day in London and went to bed.

Day 57 aka last day in London :(

I had reserved tickets for a masterclass on directing at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, where I saw Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. The guest director was Tamara Harvey, and there were 6 actors who had recently graduated from masters programs who were given direction on scenes. It was so interesting to watch her work and I took some great notes for when I start my first project assistant directing for the JMU mainstage production of Our Country's Good, which goes up in October!

After the masterclass I rushed back to the house in order to get ready for the final banquet. It was held in a cafe in the crypt of a church called St. Mary Lebow's. Everyone was dressed up and it was a really fancy place. Claire made everyone paper plate awards that were so sweet. And we had dinner and talked and laughed and enjoyed one another's company for the last time :( I started tearing up when everyone started to make thank you toasts and speeches.

After dinner a few of us went walking on the Thames across the Millenium Bridge. The Thames is my favorite part of the city, so it was nice to spend my last evening in London there. Until it started raining... typical. Emily and I decided to head back and we ended the night finishing packing and getting ready to head for home!

Day 58 aka get me off this damn plane

I woke up naturally at 8, even though I set my alarm for 10. In that time, Sarah and I cleaned out all the trash and recycling and made sure Pam and Emily didn't leave anything. Our box for the next semester is overflowing. You're welcome, fall semester kids. We also went to Pret A Manger and got some lunch and got ready to leave. We were the last ones in the house. I was super sad about leaving, but at this point, I just wanted to get the day over with. We left at 11:30am London time, 6:30am DC time. The cab ride took about about an hour and fifteen minutes. We got into the line for check in at 1pm London time, 8am DC time. The check in line was short, so it was really quick, much quicker than Dulles to get to London. We got to the terminal at 1:30pm London time, 8:30am DC time. It turned out that Kent was on our flight because his earlier flight was cancelled. We tried to help him connect to our next flight from Canada to the US, but he kind of blew us off, so whatever. We tried to help you. We boarded at 2:45pm London time, 9:45am DC time. The flight was actually supposed to leave a little bit early, but stupid passengers who wouldn't just stay in their seats prohibited that. So we left at about 3:30pm London time, 10:30am DC time. On the flight I was sitting next to an English woman who just wanted to talk the whole time, even though I wanted to watch a movie and sleep. I ended up sleeping for about 45 minutes out of the entire flight. Somehow the flight's screens lost an hour, so the screen said we were landing at 4:50pm eastern time, but really we (finally) landed at 10:50 London time, 5:50pm DC time in Ottawa, Canada. The nice thing about Canada was that you can go through US Customs and Borders there, so we didn't have to do that at Dulles. We got to the gate at 6:30pm DC time, 11:30pm London time. The flight got delayed by about 10 minutes, so we boarded about an hour later at 7:30pm DC time, 12:30am London time. So by this point I'm dead tired. And the plane will not freaking take off. We were grounded for at least 20 minutes. It was an express plane, so there were only like 25 people on it, but it just took forever to get going. The flight itself was only an hour and a half, so we landed and parked at 9:30pm DC time, 2:30am London time. I am so so so anxious to get off the plane and see my mom and get to my house, but the ground crew just wouldn't come. We got off the plane via the cool little like celebrity stairs instead of the tunnel thing at 9:45pm DC time, 2:45am London time. There were some people trying to make transfers that didn't make them because the flight was supposed to land at 9:15pm. After making our way through the maze that is Dulles International, we FINALLY got to the baggage claim!!! I ran to hug my mom and sister and my cousin Maria, who also came to pick me up! I said goodbye to Sarah, who I won't see for another month :( but we were both excited to get home. Since I live so close to Dulles, we were home by about 10:30pm DC time, but I was still on London time and I felt like it was 3:30am. I gave out presents and finally went to sleep at 12am DC time, 5am London time.

This was the best summer of my life. I am so excited to read this blog in the future and relive all of these wonderful experiences with wonderful people.

Cheers,

Amanda

Days 53, 54 and 55

Day 53 aka FINALS WEEK BEGINS (aka amanda even out-stresses emily)

Monday I kicked off finals week with a ton of writing. I will probs get carpel tunnel... My right arm is still sore. I ended up having to write 2 essays each for politics and theatre. I ended up writing about 20 pages in total... yuck. I sent Jay an email because we didn't have the prompt for our final paper due Thursday at this point. After the theatre exam, I met up with the Forgiones and we went to My Old Dutch, the pancake house across from the nearest tube station. WHY HAVEN'T I GONE THERE BEFORE? It was sooo good. I had the asparagus and spinach, Cait had the apple cinnamon, and Aunt Vikki and Uncle Rob both had the duck one.

These pancakes were about 2x the size of a human head. Not kidding.

Best part of the deal is that it was only 5 pounds per pancake because they do this promotional thing called Monday Madness. Awesome. After we ate we tried to find a coffee place, but apparently London is a dead city after 7pm unless you're going to a pub. Even Starbucks was closed, so we took that as a sign to go our separate ways for the evening. I opened my email and found out Jay had lost our email addresses and had emailed the prompts to Charlotte to give to us on Friday, but I guess she thought that we were not doing a take home final so she didn't show them to us. It was too late to get them at that point, so I'll have from Tuesday to Thursday at noon to finish my last final.

Day 54 aka the most hilarious movie but actually the stupidest.

So after turning in our papers and giving our joke group presentation for Media and Society (ITS OVER!!!!!!!!), I worked on Jay's paper and waited for Cait to meet me at Holborn Station. We were going to go bowling since they had the London Pass and it was one of the activities it covered, but when we got to the bowling alley (which in London are super nice and have restaurants in them and stuff) they were "full" until 9:30pm. Even though no one there seemed to be using the lanes. So we decided it wasn't worth waiting 3 hours to bowl, so we went back to my flat. There we cooked gnocchi with pesto, drank one of the beers Cait brought for me from Germany and watched the most hilarious movie: Angus, Thongs and Snogging. It is based on a book series about a 14 year old British girl doing 14 year old things like stalking boys and practicing kissing their pillows and such. It was funny in a ridiculous way.

Day 55 aka the forgiones leave and amanda gets super stressed about finals

Uncle Rob and Cait came over early to put some clothes in the dryer and we waited for Aunt Vikki to check out of their flat. We rode a double decker bus, which Uncle Rob kept saying reminded him of Harry Potter, just a couple stops to Chipotle, which Cait really wanted to go to since they don't have them in Germany. After they left for the airport, I started working on my paper. And got really stressed about it. And it ended up being my longest paper for this semester, but I did have a lot to say. I was about halfway done by the time we got to our last weekly meeting :( and found out we were having an ice cream social that night in our flat... which was cool but I wish it was Thurs or Fri night so I could have enjoyed it instead of rushing to get back to my paper. And I never ate dinner...oops. I turned in my paper at around 11:30pm, so I didn't have to worry about it being late.

Days 48-52

Day 48 aka paperpaperpaperpaper

Wednesday started off just how I like it... with a nice sleep in :) Except I woke up pretty naturally around 10am anyway. So I worked on my paper for Jay's class and got excited about watching the seventh Harry Potter movie before the midnight release of the eighth. It was a very low key day, which was good because it's finals this upcoming week and I needed a second to work and pack and finish doing what I need done before I leave :( At the meeting we filled out course evaluations, which was good but really long. I can't believe we're already doing end of term things... I still feel like I just got here. After the meeting we took our group picture and I thought about how the next group of study abroad students will see this and not even begin to understand how close you will become with this group of people... until about halfway. When we first started going to meetings we had no idea who each other were, and now I feel like we're a big, weird, amazing family.

Day 49 aka last day of classes!

For Jay's class we went to Notting Hill Gate again, this time to go to the Museum of Brands and Advertising. It was a cool collection, but it ended up looking like someone's basement or garage threw up because of how small the space was. It was really interesting to see how the advertising and packaging have changed over the years for just one product. I especially liked the old Guinness ads that were designed around Alice in Wonderland or circus animals. After class I decided to take a nap since I had been up so late working on the paper for class and watching the 7th movie so I could go to the Harry Potter midnight showing! After sleeping for like 4 hours, I got up, made dinner and worked on my costume. I also figured out a new way to do my hair! I get frustrated with leaving it down these days because it's at a weird too-short-to-do-anything-with-but-too-long-to-leave-down length. Once Sarah got back we took some silly pics in our costumes

we're duelling with london in the background... see?

and then headed to Leicester Square! We got to see the movie in the same theatre where the London premiere was held! And since we were 8 rows back, perhaps sat in the same seats as some stars? (Probs not. But that's what we're gonna say). We ended up sitting next to a girl that Aja knew from high school... so weird!! The movie was amazing! We took a bus back and got home at around 3am. But then we were so wide awake that we just talked and hung out for a while... I think I finally went to bed around 4:30am. Good thing I didn't have classes on Friday!

Day 50 aka The Forgiones (minus 2) come to visit!!!

On Friday I naturally woke up early again... yuck. But it was a good thing, because I have a 2000 word paper due as my final on Tuesday and I needed to start it before Aunt Vikki, Uncle Rob and Cait got here. I got all of my sources ready and rewrote my thesis to better match what I think (hope) he is looking for. He didn't write any comments on my thesis when he handed it back but told me I should focus in more. So hopefully I've focused in enough. I also went to Ryman's and sent home a bunch of gifts... so no peeking Alla!! At about 8pm I went to Russell Square Station to meet up with Aunt Vikki and Uncle Rob. Turns out they had gotten there really early, but Aunt Vikki's phone died and Uncle Rob didn't have my mobile number here on his phone. We went back to my apartment to try to cancel the tickets for Harry Potter we had that night since Cait's flight was going to be late. Luckily, the call desk guy said he could refund them since I hadn't picked them up yet. They haven't put the money back on my card yet, but we did call around 9pm on a Friday so hopefully by Monday afternoon they will have refunded my debit card. Cait finally got to Russell Square at 10:30pm!! We got some Pret A Manger sandwiches (a ready made store here that is awesome and open late) and talked and it was great to see them!! Good thing we didn't keep the Harry Potter tickets because we would have been over an hour late.

Day 51 aka showtunes, perfumes and covent garden

I met Cait at their flat at 9am to go to Soho! Soho is a huge music area here with tons of record stores and jazz clubs, so I knew Cait would be interested. We found a store near Covent Garden that was called Dress Circle, The Showbiz Store. I could have spent hours in there. But we only had about 2 hours so on we went to the next. We got to a music store that sold instruments and sheet music. We still have to really hit the record stores, but we'll get to it another day that we're here. Cait can't really transport vinyls anyway, so it is more about looking around. On the way to the movie theatre, we heard a guy talking into a microphone about how he was giving away free perfumes. So we stopped, naturally. Basically if you paid half price for the one perfume, you got 4 other perfumes with it. We decided to split a bag, so it ended up being 10 pounds each for 5 perfumes. We split it when we got back to my flat based on which smells we liked. After the movie (the second time is better!) we went to get dinner and walk around Covent Garden. Unfortunately, since it was Saturday a lot of the stores were closing, but we had a nice (yet slanted) dinner and shared a pitcher of san gria (weird drinking with family, as i am still underage in the US) and had a nice time walking around. Then we went to Scoop, the favorite gelato place of the puppets. Delicious. Cait brought me a German beer with lemon in it, so we're going to drink them together and go out on Tuesday night.

Day 52 aka productivity

Today I finished my 2000 word paper that is due on Tuesday. I will have to look at it again tomorrow because I can't right now. But I know it's still a mess. I also have finished my part of our group presentation for the same class, and now I am studying for both of my finals tomorrow-- last day for media and politics and theatre-- which are both going to be in-class essays. Woohoo!!! Only one more paper after tomorrow though! We don't have a final in my last class of the week so I am so close to being done. Now if only Jay would send us the prompts so I could get started...

Days 46 and 47

Day 46 aka longest day ever.

Monday started off with politics as usual-- except that this is was last class! It's so sad... I have this week and finals and then I have to go home. :( Our outing was the Imperial War Museum where we focused on WWI and WWII propaganda. We went in the trench experience exhibit, which made me want to vomit since they added smell to the ordeal... it was awful. War is just so unreal to me. I still can't even begin to understand why we do it. What lands and ideas and material things can be worth as much as human life? The answer should be nothing, but it's not to the politicians.

Anyway, after the outing I went as quickly as I could to Pineapple Dance Studios, where auditions for a Royal Caribbean Cruise production of Hairspray were taking place. I obviously had none of my audition stuff with me, so I had bought some sheet music to Come to Your Senses (again) and Love Song as my pop song since it went over so well at karaoke. And I went to Rymans and bought some cardstock to staple a random facebook profile pic (thanks Paula) to double as a headshot and my resume onto. Lindsay was going to come as well, but she decided not to at the last minute because she didn't have a headshot with her and didn't have a song that she thought was good to audition for Hairspray with. I figured that since I was going for the experience, it really didn't matter if my "headshot" was on special paper or not, or whether my song was good for Hairspray. I used Come to Your Senses because it's in my rep and I love performing it. I got to the audition around 12:45pm. They were supposed to start registration for the open call at 12:30 but decided to wait until all of the private auditions had shown up. So I waited until 2:15 to sign up, but there had been people waiting in a back room since 9am, so they wanted to let them go first. But people who had even gotten there after me wormed their way into that line. They had formed three lines and we ended up merging them once everyone knew that we had all gotten there around the same time. I ended up being #164 (they started the open call at #98) so I was not happy that a lot of people had cut. When I auditioned last summer in New York (http://psamandacarlee.blogspot.com/2010/07/if-i-can-make-it-there-ill-make-it.html) they had us sign up on two different sheets so that order was kept. So London, you should learn something from the Americans. So they started taking people in one at a time and told us that to move things along we would get one song. I sat there for another 2 hours and waited my turn. I had class at 4, but I had told the professor that I was going ahead of time. They called my number at about 4:15, and I went in at 4:20. I sang my 32 bars and it went really well. I miss singing so much. Thank God for Scott Zane Smith's classes. And then they said thank you, which I pretty much knew was going to happen because they had asked for 5'3" and under for Tracy (the role I was going for) so, again, I just went for the experience. I RAN to the tube and almost all the way to class and got there around 4:45pm. So I only missed about half of the class, and like I said, she had excused me. We got ready to go see War Horse , which Julia had told me about earlier, so I was really excited to go. And we also discussed the play from last week and got our critiques back-- I got a 98% on mine!! So, as usual, I am doing the best in theatre amongst all my classes.

We walked to the theatre on Drury Lane (I now know the muffin man). Our seats were in the circle above stage left, but we still had a good view of most of the stage. I absolutely LOVED the production. The puppets were amazing, as were the actors/puppeteers playing the horses. Sitting above and house right was cool because we got to see a lot of the intricate movements of the puppets, whereas if we were in center seats but further back we would have gotten the spectacle instead of seeing the way it was done. It is a fantastic play, and I loved the musical elements to it. It's not really a musical since the songs are environmental rather than plot-driving, but the mood was set so well by them. Having gone horseback riding the day before, and to the imperial war museum that morning, everything seemed to work out perfectly since the play is about a horse that is volunteered to serve in WWI.

After the play we got together for wine and cheese in Flat C as our final theatre discussion/ party for the end of term. We ended up discussing it until past midnight! It was a great way to end the semester in terms of theatre class.

Day 47 aka here are all the americans.

The last class of Media and Society was stupid. We watched two movies and waited to have a small individual talk with the professor about our thesis and grades. I am about 99% sure he has not looked at a single thing we've done this semester because he told all of us that we were "at the B+/A- level and if [we] just gave an extra push we would probably get an A- or even an A". Aka you haven't read a single assignment we've turned in all semester. I'm really worried about my final paper because we haven't done anything but talk about art in his class, and the subject is Media and Society. It's supposed to be a SMAD class. Anyway, all I have to do is write my final paper and do my part of our group presentation on the day of the final, which is just another way for him to do nothing in the span of two hours since our final presentation is about what we felt like when we got here and how we feel now. Catherine came up with a really cool idea to get everyone in the class in one group, so we're doing that. I already made my slide for the slide show, so now I just have to write my words and figure out the stories I want to tell. More on that later.

After class, I worked on getting some postcards done and on updating this blog. We had a group movie at 7:15pm at the Master House Museum, which is a cinema museum that was built in what used to be the Master's house of the Workhouse Charlie Chaplin and his family worked at in Kennington. It was a really funny yet really weird movie called Tamara Drewe, which was apparently based on a popular comic strip from The Guardian in 2005.

Following the movie, we went to the Sports Cafe in Piccadilly Circus. It was really cool and VERY American. It was college night, so it was basically like being at JMU except for the whole buying alcohol thing. They had beer pong, but we got there too late to sign up. We started the dance party downstairs and had a ton of fun dancing and hanging out. Tomorrow I'll be writing a paper, finishing the HP movies for Thursday night (!) and taking the group picture for the Madison House portraits!

Days 41-45

So I haven't blogged in a week. Sorry. Except this is mostly for me to remember my trip, so I'm not really sorry. Also it should be noted that right now I'm blogging because I'm procrastinating. So yeah...

Day 41 aka to sleep or not to sleep? sleep. to shop or not to shop? SHOP.

I woke up not feeling well at all so I decided to go back to sleep and I slept until like 12. Which was good, but I was really hoping to go to the V&A, but no worries because Catherine and I are making plans to go on another afternoon. So I woke up and got ready to go to Primark and New Look with Sarah to see the deals and get a pair of boots for horseback riding in Edinburgh on Sunday! Primark was CRAZY-- think like good quality stuff but walmart-at-jmu-on-move-in-day experience wise. Apparently it is like that every day though. I waited 20 minutes to try things on and another 20 to pay. Sarah waited about an hour to return something because they have the customer service desks in weird places and also do checkout there as well. Then we went to New Look which was AWESOME. They have a 10% student discount, except on sale items, so I didn't get to use it. I also got the cutest pair of tan/gray boots. :) After our weekly meeting, we watched some more HP to get ready for the midnight release on Thursday!

Day 42 aka harry potter all over my newsfeed.

We went to a graffiti "gallery" with Jay for our outing in culture by design. It used to be a Eurostar terminal under the Waterloo station, but then they stopped using it. So some street artists had a big exhibit there, and now people just graffiti it all the time. It's actually a legal place to do so. Which kind of makes it less cool-- I feel like a big part of street art is the danger and the cleverness of getting away with it. After getting back from class, we watched the live stream of the Harry Potter premiere. If I hadn't had class today, then I would have gone to the premiere, because it was like 15 minutes away from my house. But you had to have been there since Wednesday morning, and I couldn't skip class to sleep on the pavement in the torrential downpour. After watching coverage of the premiere, we got ready to go to Edinburgh the next morning! It was an early night, since we had to be at King's Cross Station at 8am.

Day 43 aka EDINBURGH!!!!

Edinburgh, Scotland is the most beautiful place on Earth. Well, maybe not, but it's the most beautiful place I have ever been. See for yourself:

the castle was gorgeous.

and so was the view from its walls. including WATER :)

So the train ride was 5 hours long, but in keeping with the "this trip is mostly about harry potter" theme, Sarah and I rode the Hogwarts Express.

i thought it would be a faster way to get to scotland

Just kidding! But we did get our picture at Platform 9 3/4!

It was lameish because they're doing major reconstruction at King's Cross due to the Olympics next summer, so they had a fake brick wall, even though it is usually on a real one. But we did it anyway.

So after 5 hours on the train and a walk in the rain to the hotel, we were finally on our way to do stuff! First we went to Scottish Parliament, which is MUCH more public than the Houses in Westminster. The building was built in 2004, so it was very modern, but I think the architect tried to use way too many concepts at once. I did like that the building kind of grows out of the ground, though. And it was cool that it is on the opposite end of the Royal Mile (the nickname for High Street) from the Edinburgh Castle. We watched the final space shuttle launch live on TV in the Parliament Cafe while waiting for the second tour group to finish. Cool. After Parliament, we went on a bus tour of the city, but we were all SO tired from the long day that we started falling asleep. However, sleep is for the weak is the other motto of this trip, so we went to Mum's for dinner, which was a diner-ish place with traditional Scottish food. I did not try the haggis, but some of the group did. I had bangers and mash and a local beer. Yum! After that, we went to a bar that was really close to our hotel, because they were having karaoke night! So we all did some songs and danced and it was great fun! The Scottish people seemed to love us, even though we basically took over the scene... they even found some American flag cardboard crowns that some of us wore... it was dumb, but really fun anyway! I sang Love Song and everyone was singing along and it was really cool... and then I won the £20 raffle! And we tried to get the birthday girl (Courtney) to sing, but instead she had a shot at midnight. So, good enough.

Day 44 aka royal treatment

Today we went to the Edinburgh Castle! It was gorgeous, at the top of the Royal Mile and set into the hill. The view of the estuary and the town from there was gorgeous.

After the castle and a free taste of whiskey inside their store, we went off on a walking tour of Edinburgh led by Dr. Butt. We walked to Greenmarket and through the center of the city for a while, enjoying the (very few hours of) sunshine and the city. After eating lunch at a pub with a great view, we went shopping on the Royal Mile, and got some great gifts for people. Hint hint. After all that, we were super tired so we went back to the hotel for a nap. Good thing because then came the monsoon. It was literally raining so hard that when I stepped out to try to meet up with some people for Courtney's birthday dinner I made it about a block before I had to turn around and go back. I had pools in my sneakers and my clothes were soaked. Even with an umbrella and rain jacket. Gross. I went back to the hotel and got a small pizza on the way back. Then I finally took that nap and it lasted until about 9:30. At which point it was still raining like crazy so I stayed in and read in our comfy hotel room. No regrets.

Day 45 aka frustration. but worth it.

Sunday was finally horseback riding day! A group of us decided to get lunch around 12pm, so we could walk to the bus stop and catch the 12:56 bus. Too bad that the restaurant decided to serve us at 1:05pm. So we got the 1:30 bus, and seeing as the bus stop didn't have a complete map, I wasn't sure of the name of the stop. I only knew that we were taking the bus to the Liberton Cemetary. Apparently everything outside of the city is named Liberton. We asked the bus driver where to get off to hit Liberton Drive, but I think he thought we meant Liberton Road and told us to get off there. So then we started walking the wrong direction, got a GPS map on Jessica's phone, and finally started the right way. Then it led us in crazy places, and we were lostish again. Meanwhile, we've been walking for about 1/2 an hour uphill. We FINALLY got to the farm 15 minutes late, so we weren't able to have our full hour that we paid for. But we did have about 40 minutes, so that was good. It was SO beautiful riding along the trails and seeing the mountain (Arthur's Seat). All the frustration was worth it. It started raining the minute we got off the horses, so we took cabs back (good idea, because it took like 10 minutes and didn't involve us knowing how to get back). Then we got our suitcases and went straight to the train station for another long ride home.

Days 37, 38, 39 and 40

Wow... can't believe it's already been 40 days here :( I never want to leave!!

Day 37 aka we're from another country
The Harry Potter exhibit was a rip off. First of all, it was supposedly free if you dressed up as HP characters. Apparently our costumes weren't good enough because we didn't have official merchandise. I'm sorry we didn't A) spend tons of money to have an "official" school girl costume b) WE'RE FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY c) they totally let in a ton of British kids who were just as dressed up as we were. Then, we got in and there was a HUGE line to get your picture taken on a broom catching a golden snitch. Which is awesome but the line did not move. So we got out of it. The exhibit itself had about 10 HP film props and costumes. The rest were Legos and toy companies trying to sell you games. Luckily one lady let us pretend to ride the Nimbus2000 and Firebolt that were on display to be sold. So not the real props, but better than waiting in line.

my dork is showing so much right now.

Anyway, we left the HP room and the people who were BEHIND us in the photo op line were just getting in the door of the room. We toured the rest of the museum, which Sarah identified with a lot more than me, having never seen Batman movies before Christian Bale and not having seen Star Wars. Don't kill me. I got to pose with a giant Oscar statue and we got to sit on the couch with The Simpsons.

So that was cool. Then Sarah and I bought wands so we can bring them to the movie premiere and midnight release and just let our freak flag fly. Don't judge me...

After getting home a group of us went to a comedy club in Leicester Square and saw 5 comedians perform... the host was from New Orleans so he threw a couple of American jokes in for us. The 2nd to last guy was HILARIOUS. I thought he was even better than the headliner, who was still awesome. Afterwards we finally finished Harry Potter 2 and I went to bed early to go to church in a Russian Orthodox Cathedral in the morning.

Day 38 aka what time is it???
Well. I missed my alarm and woke up at 11 to Sarah asking me why I was still in bed. Oops. I will try to go again later... apparently they do the divine liturgy every day, so I might go on Wednesday. So instead I did nothing all day for a while. It was beautiful. Sarah and I met up with some of our friends for a "flash mob" at the Millenium Bridge.... but only like 60 people showed up. But we slow danced anyway on the bridge to our ipods and it was fun. :)

I can't really remember what we did after the flash mob... oh well.

Day 39 aka independence day!

Monday we watched the Prime Minister's questions on TV. The MPs are SO RUDE... it's like in Mean Girls when they cut to the clips where she imagines her life in the animal world. They will like talk and jeer over the PM or the opposition leader! It's ridiculous. AND we got back our papers. Mo should take a page out of Dr. Bradshaw's book because this was a 10 page paper due last week and we got it back in 7 days. Mo still has all of our papers from the 2nd day of class onwards. Afterwards Sarah and I went to Chipotle to celebrate being American! And got margaritas in the middle of the day! Nothing says America like burritos and day drinking. So then I went to TK Maxx, which was not as good as TJ Maxx at home. Then we went to theatre, and took a quiz on A Servant of Two Masters. When I heard about people having to read it for 211, they always complained... but I really liked it! And THEN we saw a British update called One Man, Two Guvn'rs. It was SO FUNNY. And in the spirit of commedia, they broke the fourth wall and improved a lot and it was just so great. The lead actor reminded me of Chris Farley and he did a fantastic job dealing with the improv and talking to the audience. At one point he (rhetorically) asked if anyone had a sandwich, and a guy threw one at him. And he just went: "This is the National Theatre!!! What are you doing??!" So funny. After we got back, Sarah and I started watching Harry Potter 3, but I went to bed before it was over since I had class in the morning.

Day 40 aka hey we're just going to walk you around in circles in a town you don't know but you can figure out how to get home on your own!

I have really come to loathe British Media and Society (the class, not the subject). I feel like we never talk about anything relevant, and if we do, it's just in passing to some digression. And we have really only done art as media. And now I'm ranting. But anyway, for the outing we went to Notting Hill Gate, which is famous as a film location for Notting Hill and other movies, and as a hangout for indie artists and famous artists of the 60s and 70s. Lindsay was going nuts because she loves the movie Notting Hill. If you remember, I commented on watching it while we were in Bath, so it was cool to see where the film was made. However, a lot of these outings are getting to be tedious because they're like "this is where this USED to be" etc. And it was SO HOT outside. After lunch and working on this blog (check out pictures/video on my older posts now!) I went with Catherine to Evensong at Westminster Abbey. Evensong is a small service that they do daily and the Westminster Boys Choir sing at it and it's really nice. I wish we had actually gotten to see it (we got there about a minute late so we had seats near the door and blocked by an altar), but we got to hear it and say the prayers anyway. Afterwards, we went to the Houses of Parliament! Which is exactly like when I went to Congress in 12th grade and sat in the gallery... they just talk and talk forever, and we walked in in the middle of a vote, which was unexciting. But I'm glad we experienced it! And they had comfier seats in the gallery in the House of Commons than in the Capitol. Tomorrow I'm heading to the V&A and going to Primark and New Look with Sarah in the afternoon.

Ta ta!

Days 34, 35 and 36

It's about 5:30 on Saturday right now and i am WIPED. I have barely even done anything today but the days and days of gogogogogogo have finally caught up with me...

Day 34 aka Mexican Fiestaaa
I took the opportunity to sleep in on Wednesday after so long and all those papers. It was nice. I'm starting to get worried that I'm not doing enough while I'm here... but I literally can barely function. So after putting off grocery shopping (yet again) and watched this wonderful montage Khyre made from footage and pictures of RENT. It was so beautiful and he made exactly the memories I have of that show come alive-- family, love, sadness, but like a bittersweet sad, HOLY SHIT WE'RE IN RENT, etc.

Except none of the pain of my bruised finger! Which is still purple and yellow under the nail. I pretended to start working on homework for a while (aka facebook) and actually did work on some Lord and Taylor logistics for the Back to School fashion show I'm helping Lana put together. Then I CLEANED. I cleaned my room, I threw out all the papers I kept for posterity and knew I wouldn't read again. I cleaned my closet. I cleaned the living room with the girls. Why all this cleaning, you ask? BECAUSE IT WAS FIESTA NIGHT AT THE MAD HOUSE. :) Actually this evening was one of my favorites of being in London simply because of good friends and good food and lots of laughs. After the roomies got home, it was time to start prepping our house and dish (we were hosting because of our huge, beautiful common room and proximity to the lobby of the house). We were to cook the tacos. Sarah to the rescue! She basically ran the kitchen as the four of us worked to make the meat, veggies and sides for these bad boys, and to make enough for 28 people. Each floor had a different job. So we had the main dish, flat a had chips and homemade salsa, queso and guacamole dips, flat c had rice and beans and brought some chilli peppers, flat d made san gria (alcoholic and non alcoholic) and flat e made chicken and cheese or just cheese quesadillas. Now, Mexican food is not normally my favorite, but with so many options, no matter what, everyone was satisfied from the vegetarians to the gluten free to the people who did not want alcohol but wanted yummy sangria. It also was Alissa's 21st birthday, so a bunch of people went to a club afterwards. I didn't really feel like going out since I had class in the morning and Emily was feeling sick so I stayed in and cleaned the pots and counters so we wouldn't have a gross mess to deal with in the morning. Good thing I didn't go because they ended up not finding the club and walking a mile away from it.

Day 35 aka coolest (non)outing ever.
In Culture by Design, Jay left and brought in a friend and colleague who is a television writer and playwright named Stephen Lally. He did a masterclass with us on TV shows. We examined the visual components of the teaser (the opening part of the show, after the previously on... and before the opening credits) and the differences in some real life examples, comparing British and American directors. After that, we got the opportunity to create our own tv show teasers in groups, using a brainstorm session from the whole class. It was so much fun. I think Haylie even said she had found her calling. It was fast paced, we got a lot of feedback, and it was really fun to create entire rules about these people's personalities and behavior within like two hours in order to create a three minute sequence. After class I finally went grocery shopping and bought enough food to hopefully last me until we go to Edinburgh on the July 8th. At 7:30 we went to St. Martin in the Fields, which is a church that is really a music venue for classical musicians. It was very plain and Protestanty inside but the music was nice... the concert was super long though. Afterwards, Sarah and I watched the second Harry Potter movie, since we are attempting to finish watching all seven before the midnight release of the final movie. And then we made some plans for the upcoming free weekend!

Day 36 aka Camden take 2
I have to be honest, I do not really enjoy Camden as much as Sarah does. But I went because I wanted to go see what it was about besides when we went in Jay's class. I think mostly because all the clothes are either really weird, really tiny or really expensive. I did get some cool and cheap jewelry and used my boss haggling skills to lower the prices. We also bought some Chinese food, which was better than what we've had around the rest of London but definitely not as good as in the US... so July 24th I am definitely getting some sesame chicken or something. I got back around 3 and actually started my homework for Monday, which is a review of the production of Macbeth we saw in Stratford. I am about a quarter of the way done with it.. oops. Emily started feeling sick today so we're hoping she doesn't have anything too bad and that the rest of us don't get sick. :( I met up with Catherine, Gina, Jessica, Courtney and Allison for dinner at a place called Spaghetti House, which was awesome. I had sun-dried tomato noodles with chicken and asparagus. Delish. After dinner, a few of us went to a pub called The Crown, which has its own off-site brewery. I got cider, which was good but really strong... I felt tipsy after one pint. Although, I did drink it in only about 20 minutes and I usually take longer than that. After the pub, Sarah and I finished watching the second Harry Potter movie since we didn't finish it the night before and got excited about dressing up as Harry Potter characters and going to the London Film Museum's special, one day Harry Potter exhibit in the morning.

Days 29, 30, 31, 32 and 33

Hello from back in the UK... finally. I fell in love with the idea of Paris, but while actually there, I felt homesick for London and its clean streets and its friendly people. BUT had a great time and great adventures while in Paris!

Day 29 aka bread bread bread and more bread.
The morning started out with a French continental breakfast which consisted of mini baguettes and croissants. That's all they eat in Paris, apparently. Sarah and I left early to get to the area around the Musee D'Orsay and to get some Euros out so we could actually pay for things. Our hotel was in the strip club district, so no shopping there. When we got to the Musee D'Orsay, we saw tons of furniture and home goods stores, but no clothes. Weird. The museum highlights: Degas ballerina statue/ paintings, Monet everywhere, the design for the Paris Opera building (aka the real life Phantom of the Opera setting) and lots of French art all over the place-- basically all art comes from France, I'm pretty sure. I bought a crepe outside the museum-- SO DELICIOUS. After meeting up with the group we went on to the Louvre!

locks on the bridge to the louvre.. you're supposed to leave one there with your true love <3

Did you know that you are allowed to take pics in the Louvre but not the Musee D'Orsay? Weird. There we saw the Mona Lisa (La Jaconde in French), the Athena nike and Venus de Milo statues and some amazing artwork including 4 other Leonardo da Vinci paintings (out of the like 20 that exist). Not to mention the effect of the building itself. Gorgeous.

roomies at le louvre

After the Louvre we had free time and went to dinner at a (pretty empty) cafe. They took forever, so we didn't go to the eiffel tower light show that night. Instead, we went back and got ready to go out! We went to a dance club called Cafe Oz and had a great time, even though it was PACKED. I decided to head inside early when we went back towards the hotel, but my friends went walking around Paris looking for more clubs and ended up just walking for an hour and coming back.

Day 30 aka SO HOT and dehydrated but who cares because it was awesome
The day started off with a large headache and 80 degree weather but I was still excited for the day's activities. First up was Notre Dame. It was so huge!

no quasimoto sightings, unfortunately. but the pope was inside!

We couldn't go inside unfortunately because they were doing a HUGE ordaining service. After listening to the service on the loudspeaker for a while, we went to the Eiffel Tower. To be honest, I wasn't really THAT impressed with standing below it during the day (more on this later). We also went to the Musee di Quai Branly, "which is like the British Museum on crack" according to Jay, the culture by design professor. It had basically French conquest and imperialism stuff from around the world. Afterwards, we met up with some of the group and stood in line for going up the Eiffel Tower. NOW I was impressed. The view was beautiful! And it was the only time I got to see the Arc de Triomphe, but it's huge-- I could find it from the skyline.

crepe i bought outside the eiffel tower right before the whipped cream splatted on the ground.

After the Eiffel Tower, we went back to the hotel and napped. I ended up accidentally missing dinner, but that's ok because my friends spent a lot on their meals. We met up again at 9:45pm and headed back to the Eiffel Tower for the light show!

It was beautiful at night, and way cooler than during the day. We drank wine and watched it light up several times. Then I realized I hadn't actually eaten anything all day, but when I went to go get something, all the stands were closed, so I ended up just going to the only open stand and bought a bag of chips and a pistachio ice cream cone. Perfect dinner. We realized that it was almost 1am and we needed to catch the metro. We made it back around 2am. It was a great last night in Paris.

Day 31 aka you thought yesterday was hot?!
Sunday was an entirely free day to walk around Paris and we decided to go shopping in Montmartre, which was just north of the sex district where we were staying. It was so cute, we walked up the hill to the Sacre Coeur cathedral, stopping to shop or eat croissants along the way. Once we got to the cathedral we sat on the hill and got another view of the skyline of Paris.

sacre coeur church

It was gorgeous. But so hot. Emily, Haylie and I lost the rest of the group and tried to walk back down the hill, but we got lost. So we walked part of the way back up and eventually met up with our friends. We walked back down the right way and got dinner at a cafe near the hotel. By 7 we were back at the Gare du Nord ready to go back to London, exhausted and sweaty. We got back around 11pm and then I had to work on my Media and Politics term paper. I worked on it from the minute we got home (minus a cold shower) to about 3:30am. It was SO HOT in the apartment I could barely sleep.

Day 32 aka exhausted.
I woke up at 8:30 and scrambled to get ready for Media and Politics. I ended up being a couple minutes late, but my paper was printed and ready. I was also late because poor Catherine has pink eye so I printed her paper and brought it as well. We watched a movie as our outing and you could tell everyone had been up so late doing this paper (I started on Wednesday, worked on it on Thursday afternoon and night on the train to Paris, and all night on Sunday) and even our professor fell asleep during the video. I came back to work on my theatre presentation on The Cherry Orchard, which we saw last week. I ended up not taking a nap because it was so hot outside, I didn't even want to move. I went to class and gave the presentation with Catherine and I think it went really well. Class got out about 15 minutes late, so I had just enough time to make dinner before heading to the Young Vic for their The Government Inspector. I did not really have a good attitude going in because it had been such a long day, but I ended up really enjoying it! We got back at around 11pm and I started to work on the two papers due at 9am. I worked on them until 3 am and then decided to get up and finish the rest in the morning.

Day 33 aka you thought you were exhausted yesterday?
I woke up around 7:15 to finish my paper. Good thing, because it literally took the entire time I had to work on it and get ready to finish it. I was late again, this time because mine was the only computer working for the printer and so I eventually just told people to use it and bring it to class so I wouldn't be so late. We literally answered 8 questions the whole time and then went on an outing to the London Greek Radio station, which was cool, but pretty far away, especially for being so tired. But! I did find out about a Russian Orthodox CATHEDRAL (and some churches, but I want to go to the cathedral) in London not too far from me so I will be trying to go to church on Sunday if someone will go with me. If not, I might go anyway on my day off since they have the services like every morning and vespers or a vigil every evening. After class I took a nice hour and half nap, which is exactly what I needed before going to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at the Haymarket Royal. I absolutely loved it. Tom Stoppard is such a word genius and Trevor Nunn's direction focused on the death themes and pointed out the ties to Waiting for Godot in a really good way. I especially liked the way they handled the Shakespearean scenes and the way that the set actually was a box. A wooden stage with a wooden ceiling with a fixed viewpoint. Tomorrow we'll be having a Mexican fiesta in our apartment with the whole group! So excited! Ta ta for now!

Days 25, 26, 27 and 28

Bon soir! Je suis en Paris! More about that later... but I still must update on this week!

Day 25 aka Throw him in the Thames
Media and Politics started off with a bang as we were reminded that our term paper is due on this upcoming Monday... oops. So I've been working on that ALL week. Then we went to the Old Bailey, which is a courthouse near St. Paul's Cathedral (more on that later). Before we were allowed into the public gallery, a bailiff told us about how you can't talk in the public gallery, and how some judges will find you in contempt of court if you do. He told us that one judge fines 200 quid in cash on the spot-- and if you don't have it? Jail time. With the murderers and rapists, so he said. So that shut me up. I always get more anxious about being quiet when I'm not allowed to talk. Anyway, we went in to listen to a mortgage fraud case.. super boring. So boring, in fact, that our professor was actually falling asleep and we spent more time watching him catch himself than listening to the barister (who wears a robe and wig!!) ask the banker a lot of questions. Neither of them really had a case against the other. It was a little ridiculous-- even the judge was getting fed up. After about 45 minutes we left and headed back to Madison House.

Our theatre professor was 10 minutes late to class so we played a game of telephone pictionary. Catherine taught us the game: everyone writes a sentence on a piece of paper and then hands it to the next person (in a circle). Then, the next person reads the sentence and draws it, then folds back the sentence so only their drawing is visible, then hands it to the next person. They write a sentence that they think the drawing represents, then hand it off again. Ideally, this goes on until you get your own back and see how far your sentence has been translated from the original! Mine started with "The Queen is on the pound" and came back with "Put your two cents in." A very fun game, and all you need is paper and pencils! We talked about Macbeth, which we had seen on Thursday in Stratford, and about Chekhov since we were seeing The Cherry Orchard at the National Theatre later that night.

We left straight from class to get to the National Theatre by 5:15pm to take a backstage tour! We were led through all 3 theatres and the backstage areas, and even got to see a horse puppet from War Horse, which we're seeing later in July! I asked a ton of questions and had a really good experience. We broke for dinner. With our backstage tour ticket, we got a discount on the 10 quid wine and main meal special at the National Theatre's Olivier Cafe and Bar. So I only paid like 8 for it. :) And it was some of the best non-Italian food I've had in London so far-- just roasted chicken with a kind of asian glaze? and salad. We went into the theatre to see The Cherry Orchard at 7:30pm. I was one of the 4 people doing a presentation on the production, so we got to sit in closer seats than the rest of the class. I loved the production elements of the show, and the acting was very well done for the most part. BUT. The version was an updated script. But all the production elements were left in the original 1904 setting. I agreed with the critic who wanted to throw the updater and his script into the Thames because it completely ruined the play for me. They were using words like "bloody fricking" and "bozo" and it was just so misplaced that it sounded ridiculous. The language of Chekhov is hard to access, but if they were going to update the language, they needed to keep to the spirit of the play, instead of going for cheap laughs. Chekhov definitely throws in a bit of comedy, but it should not be the kind that causes uproarious laughter by any means. But I digress...

Stayed up until 2:30am doing Media and Society homework. I am starting to get a little ticked that we have been here for 4 weeks and I haven't gotten a single assignment back from ANY class. I know that it is rough to grade so many papers (though none of my classes have over 20 students), but they have a week to do it from when we turn it in... and now it's just piling up because they won't turn back any of it, and we keep turning things in. This might seem trivial given that this is study abroad, but with so few assignments I just want to know how I'm doing!

Day 26 aka London is such a maze!
We went to Fleet Street for Media and Society, which is where Sweeney Todd takes place. It is also where the newspaper industry used to be, before all the streets got bought out and they had to move to the docklands. There are also courts there. That was about as interesting as the walk got. I know there is some sort of plaque or house or something about Sweeney Todd, so I'll have to go back and find it. It was very close to Madison House. After class, I made lunch and did homework before going out to dinner for Claire's birthday! We went to Zizzi's, an Italian place, and I had delicious spinach and goat cheese ravioli with tomato and pesto sauce and a sweet but dry white wine. Afterwards, we went to Scoop, the best gelato place in the area. It's in Covent Garden, which is a short walk from the house as well. I had peppermint and tiramisu (you get two scoops in a small, three in a medium and four in a large). Then we RAN to the Odeon Cinema thinking that Bad Teacher started at 9:15, but it actually started at 9:45. SUCH A GOOD MOVIE. GO SEE IT. I might actually buy it on DVD when it comes out. That's how funny it was. We then walked back to Madison House in the freezing cold and got ready for bed.

Day 27 aka homework party!
I spent the entire day Wednesday working on the aforementioned Media and Politics term paper. Still have about half left. But I did gather and cite all my sources so that I can work on it without internet and on the train. I should be doing it now... but this is more fun at 1am. At 6:30pm we had our weekly meeting, where we got our Paris itinerary and stuff for the week! Gina and Alli orchestrated a birthday celebration for everyone who had/has a birthday for the time we are together in London! Everyone got a cupcake and we got to blow out candles and they had bought each of us cards that were passed around for everyone to sign! It was so sweet and a great cupcake too! At 9pm we had a social committee meeting where we planned out our potluck Mexican food dinner for next Wednesday! We are also going to all go bowling and to some other free events later in the summer. After the meeting, a bunch of us met up in our flat to work on the various essays we were all completing. Except Sarah, who never seems to have homework... lucky. I finally finished going over sources and decided against reading for Culture by Design because it was late-- don't tell Jay!

Day 28 aka more steps than i have ever seen before
Today I climbed over 1000 steps. We went to St. Paul's Cathedral for our Culture by Design outing to observe the architecture and what makes it a symbol of London. I saw no feed the birds lady... but I did see the steps she sat on! As part of our guided tour, we got to see the beautiful cathedral (which randomly has Russian Orthodox icons and Byzantine mosaic work in it) and got to climb up to the Whispering, Stone and Golden Galleries. We didn't get to go to the VERY top, but we got all the way up to the tallest outside balcony. It was beautiful-- a clear, sunny (but windy) day, with a great view of almost the entire city.

me at the top(ish) of st. paul's. you can tell i had 2 papers due that week and had just climbed over 500 steps.

The cathedral's view is actually protected by law-- no one can build anything to obstruct the view in the area. It is 528 steps to that point, and 528 more on the way back down.

view of the floor of the church from the 2nd to top stairwell.

Nice workout for the day, but we were all feeling it afterwards. After class, it was time to pack for Paris!!! And finally we left at about 6pm for the train station. We left St. Pancras Int'l at 7pm for the Gare du Nord in Paris. I worked on my essay for the majority of the 2 1/2 hour train ride. I got two pages written, so a little less than half done! I bought a hot dog on the train for dinner. It was actually not bad-- but I had really wanted a cheeseburger. They ran out, though. Oh well. We rode the Paris Metro to the Piagalle station and walked to the hotel, where I am typing this now. We were finally let into our rooms at 11:30ish. This place has continental breakfast AND they give you a boxed lunch. Sarah and I are definitely going to a crepe stand tomorrow though. Tomorrow we'll be seeing the Musee D'Orsay and Le Louvre!!! Then we will be walking down the Champs Elysee (big shopping street) and seeing the Arc de Triomphe!! Bon soir!

Days 18-24

Bloody 'ell! It's been a week since I've updated! This is due to A) being super busy B) having loads of fun and C) our first group weekend trip and no internet!

Day 18 aka mannequins are creepier underground
Monday we went to the Cabinet War Rooms with the Media and Politics class. This is where Winston Churchill ran WWII as Prime Minister from 1939 to 1945. So the museum shows all the rooms in this tiny bunker... and they have mannequins in quite a few of them.... super creepy. But it was cool to see the museum about his life and the working/living conditions of the people working down there. Then for theatre class we talked about School for Scandal (which seems SO long ago) and Macbeth (which we would see the next Thursday in Stratford Upon Avon). Then we had our first social activity at Mad House... the bakeoff!!

It got pretty competitive over facebook between the flats... but we all know flat B was the CLEAR winner.

We made Shame Truffles-- the recipe Emma and I created for Shane when he was going to drive us to VT but then didn't. Basically they are SO DELICIOUS.

But then all 4 of us were in a chocolate coma for the rest of the night. Bleh.

Day 19 aka what is going on.....
Tuesday started off with a normal trip to an art museum-- or so we thought.

What is going on #1: The Saatchi Gallery is owned by an advertising company and houses a lot of modern, VERY contemporary works. Some were cool, like the oil room, which is literally a floor covered in used fuel.

the oil room. it isnt that deep, but it reflects the ceiling.

Some were not, like the large orgy sculpture and the statue covered with real dead horse hair.

Ok so then we got back and got ready for the film we were all seeing as a group with the film class. It was called Cria Cuervos and it is a Spanish film from 1975... supposedly very critically acclaimed.

What is going on #2: This movie was SO WEIRD. This little girl thinks she's poisoned her father because she thinks he was responsible for her mother dying. Pro tip: he wasn't. and she didn't. So then she tries to poison her aunt who is trying to take care of her. Oh and this is after she almost shoots her. The dead mom also keeps showing up every five minutes. And they keep flashing forward to the future, but never say why she's there, or where she is, or who she's confessing only HALF of the story to. And they kept focusing on this girl's big, beautiful brown eyes. But the actress who plays her when she's older as well as the dead mom has blue eyes. Only redeemingish quality of the movie was the soundtrack. Oh by the way, the whole movie only had TWO songs in it. The piano song that the dead mom played and then this really awesome song called Porque te vas, which definitely got stuck in my head.

Then we went to the LONDON EYE!!!!! FINALLY!!!!!! It was so cool-- first there was a 4d experience where they snowed and sprayed and had things flying at you. We got into a pod just in time to see the sunset as we reached the top of the Eye. It was beautiful. On the way down all the buildings started to light up and we were over the river and it was marvelous.

just chillin over the thames

Day 20 aka 3 H&Ms in less than half a mile
I woke up late on Wednesday because it's my free day. I spent most of it doing homework and reading. Once the flat mates got home, Pam and I decided to go shopping on Oxford Street. Mostly because I needed a bathing suit for the spa in Bath. But then we ended up buying clothes. Anyway, we were looking for an H&M that had a particular line of clothes, but only one of the three in the area had them. Literally, you could SEE the third H&M from the second one. And of course, we started at the wrong side of the street and had to find the right one. Once we got there, we accidentally lost each other, and I ran out of minutes so I couldn't call Pam and then lost service in the basement of the store so when she called me it didn't work. Crazy. So we finally found each other and went home. I got a cute bathing suit from a store called Marks and Spencer, which is basically a Marshalls-ish place... but it also has a food market in the bottom.

Day 21 aka STRATFORD UPON AVON
Thursday was soggy and gross... we had to walk for our outing all the way to the National Portrait Gallery. That's a place I have to hit again, because we only saw one exhibit- Ida Kar's photography. It was very interesting to see what you can tell about what a person wants you to know based on their portrait. After we tried to figure out how to get home and ended up going a super long way, in the rain, we had just enough time to make sure we had everything we needed for our weekend trip! We were on our way to Stratford Upon Avon, home of Shakespeare, by 2pm! Once we got there we headed to Cox's Yard, a pub on the way to the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company). I got fish and chips and a pimm's lemonade. Quite British. Although this one put cucumber slices in the pimm's lemonade, which I was not really a fan of... they're better with mint. Then we walked to the RSC and saw Macbeth!!!! It was a fantastic production that I won't even go into details right now because it would take FOREVER. After the show, Jonathan Slinger, the actor who played Macbeth, came to the Craig Cleeve House (where we were staying) and talked with us for about an hour! He was really nice and a very down to earth guy.

Day 22 aka where are we again? aka the day we did stratford, oxford AND bath
Friday was CRAZY because we toured a million places all in one day. Geography-wise, they were all west of London. Stratford is about 2 hours northwest of London, Oxford about an hour south of Stratford, and Bath about 2 hours south of Oxford. So we really traveled around. In Stratford, we went to Anne Hathaway's house. Highlights: getting to sit on the bench where William Shakespeare courted her, and pics in the beautiful garden. Then we went to Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare was baptized as well as buried with his family.

holy trinity church

He has a cool epitaph.

"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear to dig the dust enclosed here.

Blessed be the man that spares these stones, and cursed by he who moves my bones."

Then we walked around the town to see all the original homes and finally the house in which Shakespeare was born. Also cool: they had a window pane that visitors in the 1800s had etched their names on, including Ellen Terry, a renowned English Shakespearean actress.

We left almost right after that in order to get to Oxford for our tour of the town and some of the colleges.

these statues were built to keep out the townies... i think jmu should get some of that.

Those were amazing. They all looked like Hogwarts... and that's because a lot of the colleges were film locations of outside scenes in the movies. Some members of our group got to see the set of the hospital wing from the Harry Potter movies since it is in Oxford. Sadly, I was in the other group. After the tour, we went inside the market and bought Ben's Cookies, which are SO GOOD, then almost everyone bought an Oxford tshirt or sweatshirt and we got on the bus to head to Bath.

Bath was founded by the Romans in the third century AD around a hot spring. We got there on Friday night and had free time to explore. We tried to go to a Thai place but it was super crowded, so we ended up going to Strada, an Italian food chain in England. It was very delicious. Afterwards, we went to a pub called Flan O'Brien's. Don't go there if you are American, because they jacked up the prices for us and laughed about it. It was raining miserably, but we tried to go find another pub. We didn't find one, so we just went home and Sarah and I watched Made in Chelsea for a while. Made in Chelsea is like a British Laguna Beach/The Hills etc. Hilariously cheesy rich people having rich people problems.

Day 23 aka the day the weather needed to MAKE UP ITS MIND
We went on a city sightseeing bus tour of Bath. It started POURING halfway through, so everyone tried to come downstairs. Then someone puked so it was gross and we didn't pay attention to any of the tour. BUT I got a free pair of headphones out of it! After the bus tour ended, we went to the Bath Abbey. It was a beautiful church and full of lots of historical stained glass and churchy things. After that, we toured the Roman baths.

same water that's been there since the 200s... gross.

They were built in the third century as the center of the town. The hot spring provided water for the like 8 baths in the one area. It was very cool but a shame that we were inside the entire time it was nice outside. Then we went shopping for a bit in the town and checked out the flea market. It probably would have been better if it hadn't been raining, as most people had packed up their stands already. After the markets, we went to lunch and afternoon tea at Sally Lunn's. The Sally Lunn house is the oldest known house in Bath, dating back to 1482. Which was before America was even an idea. Crazy. We had delicious chicken sandwiches and tea, as well as splitting some famous Lunn Buns, which we had covered in cinnamon butter and clotted cream.

yummmmmmmm

It was so so so good. Sam needs to make this pronto. We spent half of lunch trying to read our tea grounds ala Harry Potter. Apparently mine looked like a kangaroo.

P.S. Speaking of food that I want my family to try, we had traditional English breakfasts at all of these B&Bs. The components: a fried egg, a tomato, a sausage, 2 pieces of very thick ham-bacon, baked beans and mushrooms. All served with toast, butter and jam, as well as English breakfast tea. I am making that for all of them when I get back.

After lunch, we went to the Jane Austen Centre. Apparently, Jane Austen lived with her family in Bath for a few years. Both Northanger Abbey and Persuasion take place in Bath, and it is believed that many of her superficial characters in all of her novels may have been based on the people she met in Bath. She didn't like it there very much. We went into the exhibit, which had a lot of info about her life and her novels. We also learned the fan language. It was adorbs. Following the Jane Austen exhibit, Sarah and I did some more window shopping and headed back to the room to nap before our (failed) pub crawl. We went a cool live band place called Market, which was fun. We tried to go to another place called The Porter, but Sarah only had her student ID, so she couldn't get in and we decided to get dinner. We looked for open places all over, and eventually decided on a place called Southern Fried Chicken, which actually was awesome. The burger was HUGE and the fries were delicious. They even made it plain for me! Then we went back to the room and ate it there while watching Notting Hill, which was such a cute movie!

Day 24 aka the second day we did three places and returned to London!
The day started with another traditional English breakfast and then we were off to Stonehenge! Well, kind of, because first we had two stops to make. The first was Castle Combe, a beautiful medieval town that has had very little alterations on the exterior since the 13th century. It was small and quiet and lovely.

tiny door on a house built in like 1200something

Then it was back on the bus for Wilton House, which is the home of the 18th Earl of Pembrooke, as well as the filming location of the recent Pride and Prejudice movie and some other movie of which I've never heard.

how come my dad wasn't born an earl, huh?

It was a gorgeous estate, and I really enjoyed walking around in the garden pretending I had the lucky accident of noble birth. But alas, I don't even fulfill the nationality requirement for that.

After lunch and ice creams for pretty much everyone, we got back on the bus for Stonehenge! Did you know that it costs £6.50 to see some rocks-- and that's the student price! It was kind of dumb, because even though there was an audio guide, there is so little known about the reasons behind Stonehenge that all that information was speculation. But we had fun doing the photo op portion!

the whole jmu program at stonehenge!

We finally got back on the bus once it started raining (again) to go back home. Which is weird that London is now home. But I love it.

Also, on a weird note, this trip made us all a little cranky. i think this is because we have all known each other for three weeks now, so people are starting to rub other people the wrong way, and that we were all suddenly taken out of our brand new comfort zone of London and given a lot of free time and a very misleading map. Tensions were high for a while, but everything worked out in the end. I think we're all excited to be back in our city and ready for Paris next weekend!!!!!

Days 15, 16 and 17

First free weekend! Not quite as action-packed as I might have hoped, but all in all a nice (but rainy) 3 days.

Day 15 aka the rocket

I literally have been sitting here asking Sarah, my roommate, "What did we do on Friday before we went to The Rocket?" Not because I got so drunk that I lost my memory, but because I actually do not remember what I did two days ago. I do remember that we got together some of the ladies who were home (a lot of people traveled over the free weekend, including our flatmates, Pam and Emily) and picked up some pizzas from Pizza Hut. Shameful, I know. But they had a deal where 2 pizzas and 2 sides was £20 so it came out to dinner for £4 each. Then we got ready and went to The Rocket, one of our favorite places to hang out with a younger crowd and buy cheap drinks. It also has a dance floor and really loud music alternating between (presumably) British hits I had never heard of and the all too well known American dance variety and then some more classic (but not soft) rock thrown in there.

Day 16 aka Happy Birthday Queen Elizabeth (but really Prince Phillip)!

We got up early and at first, debated whether or not to go to the Trooping the Colour parade or to watch it on TV. We realized that we would not ever forgive ourselves if we missed this annual event the one time we're here. We met up with some others in the house at 9 and left for The Mall, the street between the Horse Guard and Buckingham Palace, and St James'Park and Green Park are along it. We got there early enough to get a good spot, only behind one row of people (and lucky enough that they were kids). We saw tons of guards walk by in the ceremonial uniform, and then the carriages came with the royals! Sitting in the first carriage was Kate Middleton, Prince Harry, Prince Andrew and Camilla Parker-Bowles.
The second carriage had Prince Edward's wife, their children and Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie. The third carriage that came later held Queen Elizabeth and her consort, Prince Phillip ( in full ceremonial guard uniform).

Directly behind her carriage on horseback rode Prince Charles, Prince William, Prince Edward and Princess Anne. It was too cool to see them in person and have them waving at the crowd! I wish I was a princess. But not like directly in line to the throne. Just the super overprivileged and doing charity fundraising part. We got home at about 12 and I fell into an incredibly deep sleep for 3 hours. We watched Love Actually with some of the girls in Flat A and then watched Harry Potter 1 about halfway through until we decided to go to sleep.

Day 17 aka Lazy Sunday

I woke up with a big headache, so I decided not to venture to Columbia Road's weekly flower market. It was also raining, so I am sure I will go on a more sunny Sunday. I slept until about 11:30, when I woke up to the return of Pam and Emily, who went to Amsterdam and Brussels this weekend. Thus started the cycle of reading and procrastination. Which I am doing right now (for the homework that's due on Tuesday, don't worry family members reading this). Also notable about today was the time when there was no toilet paper so I had to walk to the supermarket and buy toilet paper and back all while holding my pee. In the rain. Attractive, I know. Good thing the grocery store is like, .25 miles-- sorry, .4 kilometres-- away. I then spent the entire day reading EIGHT chapters of politics homework. And skyping Michelle Kay Smith and skype touring Kasey's new apartment :) Sarah and I finished watching Harry Potter and now are continuing to procrastinate haha. Goodnight readers! PS this is the 3rd year in a row I am missing the Tony Awards! So NO TELLING until I can get up and read them in the morning. UPDATE: we watched Harry Potter 5 and then Andrew Levy left me a link on my facebook to stream the Tony's live!!! But then as it was from 1-4, I fell asleep around 3am and missed most of what I wanted to see... thank goodness for youtube :)