Leaving London

I didn't get a chance to write about my final days in London. My last days went by so fast! I spent Tuesday and Wednesday at my internship and when I left on Wednesday I was much sadder than I anticipated. I didn't realize until I was walking away from the school how much I really enjoyed working there and how much I learned. Those children were amazing and I wish I could see them in a few years to see what they are up to. The teachers were also really great to me and the Senior One class made me going away cards with their pictures in them that I will get to keep and remember them by!

The rest of my final days in the city were busy busy busy. Packing was not fun, at all. It really wasn't as bad as I had expected, but packing is never fun. I managed to get all of my new and old things to fit in my bad without a problem and even under the 51lb weight limit! (Quite an accomplishment!) The weather was sort of crappy the last few days which was a bummer, but Allie and I still went out and spent the day walking around. It never actually hit me that I would be leaving in a few days and then a few hours.

Our program went to Wicked the musical on Thursday night, it was amazing! The woman who played the wicked witch has a great voice, they all were so talented. It was by far my favorite theatre production out of the year, not that it had too much competition! Afterward the majority of our program went to a pub just down the street. We took over a good portion of the pub and there were more pictures being taken that you can even imagine. The walk back to Vandon was a sad one. I never fully grasped the fact that I was leaving the place I had spent the last four months living, working, and learning in. I can't believe how much I loved living in a city, but I guess London is a pretty amazing city anyway and different than those in the United States.

May update!

I just realized I haven't been blogging very frequently anymore so here is a bit of an update of my life in the past week!

I finished off all of my final exams this week and will be completely done with my sophomore year after I finish my final theatre paper... which reminds me I should work on that tonight! Anyway this week has gone by fast, just as the others have. I've spent the majority of my time out in London, enjoying my final days in the city. Allie and I did a little shopping on Friday and I bought a dress and then Saturday Jenon, Allie, and I went on a little day trip to Brighten.

Brighten is about an hours train ride south of London on the coast of England. We took the train and luckily had a seat because it was pretty busy. There was one younger married couple who didn't have a seat. The woman was a brat, she was so rude. She complained the entire time that it was ridiculous when people had to get past her because then she would have to stand up to get out of their way. She was a definite complainer and I was glad when I heard her accent and that it wasn't American. The worst of her behavior was when the cutest little baby started crying, she would plug her ears and look over at the family and shake her head. Rude. Anyway, Brighten turned out to be a very cute town and we spent most of the day sitting or laying on the rock beach. I was quite surpised, but the rocks are actually quite comfy to lay on and might even be better than sad- less mess. We also wandered around the town, which was crazy busy, and out onto the pier.

When we got back to London we headed out to the pub the Anchor with Nick and Blake. There was live piano there so we found a seat and just enjoyed the music. The piano man, who I like to call Jimmy, was wonderful. He sang and played the piano from memory and he played really good songs. He was great. This is a really nice, cute, old fashioned looking pub, so at one point in the evening when a very very drunk girl, apparently named Monica, got up and started dancing very close to the piano, it was quite entertaining. Nick asked someone at the bar if that happens often and they reply, 'not at all!' Jimmy handled Monica very well and just laughed along with her and continued playing.

Sunday Jenon, Allie, and I went to some markets one last time. I really love the markets, except for the crowds. I got all the things I was looking for and so did the other girls. I just like spending some time walking around London with my friends since I know soon I won't be able to. Besides leaving London, it will be weird leaving Allie and Jenon too. We all live in the same state so it won't be so different, but its nice how close you can become over just one semester.

Time

In one week I will be at home in Iowa with my family. It is exciting, yet sad at the same time. The last few days of this week have gone by very fast. Friday morning I had my finals and am now done with academics for this year, with the exception of the theatre paper I have yet to finish. For our British Experience class we had to write an essay about how we thought we had grown from studying abroad or what we have learned from our experiences. We also had to write down five things we will miss about London/the U.K. and five things we won't miss. Looking back over my experiences was sort of sad. I can't believe my semester in London is coming to an end - where did it go? I am so glad I was lucky enough to study abroad and I'm so glad family encouraged me and that I chose to spend a semester in the city. I never thought I would enjoy living in a city, but London is somehow different.

Things I will miss:
1. Tea whenever I want - yum.
2. Having three parks within a five-ten minute walk.
3. Not having to drive anywhere, but being able to walk
4. Easy public transportation for places not within walking distance
5. Markets
6. Always having something to do
7. Free breakfast
8. Delicious fish and chips
9. Pubs - so cute.
10. London.

I know its time for me to return home, but I'm going to miss London. I've been on a 3.5 month vacation and now it is back to reality. Luckily for me I have amazing family and friends to go home to.

Mini update.

This week has flown by so far. It is Wednesday night already and Allison and I are camped in the lounge doing homework and watch Dirty Dancing. I have become sort of sissy when it comes to doing homework. If I was at Central this term I would have five classes, most likely all with finals to be preparing for. Presently I have three classes, requiring me to take two exams and write two longer papers and yet I am struggling to stay on task. So far I have one exam finished and my next on is on Friday. I also have one of my papers completed, so I only have one more left to write. My semester sounds pretty easy huh? Well try living in London, but stay inside to study- not fun. Anyway enough complaining, it will all get finished...eventually.

This week is my second to last week of my internship and I am going to be in the Senior One class for the rest of my time at the school. I really enjoy being in that class and today was just a good day at work. I also now have a great pamphlet about the school that has a lot of pictures of my kiddies so I am excited to show them off!

Well, back to Dirty Dancing/paper writing....

My last weekend trip - Scotland

I just got back to London an hour ago from Jenon, Jill, Allie, and my weekend trip to Edinburgh, Scotland....

Friday:
We took the night bus to Edinburgh that left London at 11:15pm and arrived in Edinburgh at 8:30am. The nine hour bus ride was not fun, but not as terrible as I had anticipated. Apparently I sort of invaded Jill's space (she was the lucky one who had to sit by me) for most of the journey. It was just not a very nice bus so the seats weren't very comfortable and there was no leg room, but what can we expect for as cheap as we got the tickets? Anyway, some how we survived the bus even with the loud people and the girl eating a full meal at 3am.

Once in Edinburgh we found our hostel just down Princes Street by Haymarket, dropped off our book bags, and set of to wander. Although we are all young, we were sore. So we walked by the Edinburgh castle and found a little park area with benches and made ourselves comfortable. We laid/rested on the benches for a good 45 minutes - during which time Jill made a friend with a little boy. He was walking with his parents and he kept getting closer and closer to the bench she was laying on and then once he got to the end he hovered over her. She was completely unaware until she heard the dad say something and then looked up and saw this kid staring down at her. It was hilarious. Then as the kid walked away with his parents he continued to stare behind him at Jill- it was actually a little creepy.

After our rest we checked into our hostel and then met up with a friend of Allie's who used to live in Scotland and is now visiting her fiance. They showed us around a bit and took us to a fish and chips shop for lunch. They walked us along the Royal Mile and showed us one of the haunted graveyards. Scotland is really pretty, it is much smaller than London and has mainly all very old buildings. Everything is really green at this time of year too. After we separated from Allie's friends we walked down the Royal Mile and then climbed up this big rock/mountain. I was really not feeling this climb, but we did it anyway and it gave us a gorgeous view of the city.

Our day was a lot of walking and then more walking, but it was all very enjoyable. The people in Edinburgh were all very very nice and helpful whenever we needed anything. We booked a coach tour for Saturday and then crashed pretty early in the night - we were tired!

Saturday
Today we headed to Loch Lomond, the Trussachs, and Stirling Castle. Our first stop on the way to Loch Lomond was Glasgow where we spent approximately 15 minutes - long enough for us to take a group pictures proving we were there and giving us time to find some much needed caffeine. Our next stop on this tour was Loch Lomond. On the way to Loch Lomond we learned that it is Britain's largest expanse of water and is know for its 'bonnie bonnie banks.' Our bus driver was even kind enough to play us the song, Bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond, which you have probably heard at some point during your life. I soon learned that 'loch' is just another word for lake, 'glenn' is another word for valley, and 'ben' is another word for mountain (I think). Loch Lomond was very pretty and we took a little hour boat tour around the big lake.

The rest of the day we spent traveling around some of the mountains in the countryside of Scotland and then to Stirling Castles. The mountains were gorgeous, especially the areas where there was a lake in the valley. I wasn't a big fan of the winding roads we had to take to get us the views, but the views were well worth it. My favorite part of the day easily was the 'light' music our bus driver played on the trip back into the city. Who doesn't love listening to the bagpipe version of Amazing Grace?

Unfortunately the coach we took on our day tour was much more comfortable than the coach we had to take nine hours back to London. The nine hours back were far worse than the nine hours to Edinburgh. The four of us were wide awake at 3:30am, Allie and I almost in tears because we had another four hours to go. It was freezing and just not good, but we all survived and I can say that I will never take a night bus to Edinburgh again.

Night bus

As of now I have experienced sleeping in an airport, a train station, and tonight I will experience sleeping (hopefully) on a 8-9 hour night bus to Edinburgh, Scotland. Jenon, Jill, Allie, and I leave in about 30 minutes to catch our bus and will arrive in Scotland at around 7:30am tomorrow. We are spending Friday and Saturday there and will head back on another night bus Saturday night to arrive back in London early Sunday morning. This will be my last trip of the semester. :(

This week has flown by and two weeks from tomorrow I will be on a plane to America. I am trying to take everything in these last few weeks and am working on my checklist of things to do while I'm in London. It's just sad to check things off though. Today Allie and I did some souvenir shopping and then got ice cream from one of the ice cream vans (check off the list). We walked from Picadilly Circus to Trafalgar Square and talked about how now that we finally feel like we know our way around the city we leave, sweet. If I decide to live in a city when I am an adult, I know I will miss the tube or even the buses. They are just so handy. I don't know if another city will top my time in London, so far no other European cities have.

Snails

This is the start week 15 of my time in London. It is nice to be back to a routine after the craziness of spring break, although waking up for Monday morning classes was still a drag. We are down to the final class periods, meaning I need to get to work on my final papers. The director of the London program was in Pella a couple weeks ago and it was really funny listening to him talk about his time in Iowa. He was there during the random snow storms and apparently Sunday was the only day they had off and it was also the day there was a blizzard. I believe his words were "It was bloody cold!" He also said that starting work at 7:30am was new to him and that they worked him hard! It sort of made me love Iowa even more, don't ask me why.

Anyway, today I was back at my internship and I now only have 5 more days at the Jack Taylor School. Today I worked in the Senior One classroom which is my favorite. They are fun and today I got to do a lot with them. I'm really excited too because Emma, the teacher of Senior One, does reading activities with about five pupils - all from different classes- during playground time. These five students are ones that they think have the potential to learn to read. So for the rest of my time I will get to do that one-on-one with some of the children.

This week and the rest of the term the school's theme is all about nature and being outside. So this afternoon, the senior one class spent the afternoon outside in one of the gardens pulling weeds. Mostly it was me and the teachers and sometimes the students would help out. As I was pulling out these weeds that had completely overtaken whatever flowers used to be there, I found snails! Okay, probably not a big deal, but I have never seen a snail before. There was one little guy and then two big ones that I found. I was pretty entertained with them for a while, but then thought that the teachers probably thought I was crazy for never having seen a snail before. Apparently snails and slugs are all over gardens.

That was about the excitement of my day. The weather was gorgeous today so I went for a run and then Allie and I made hamburger helper her parents had sent her. Now I am waiting to have a group skype date with my friends at Central and then I will convince myself to write a paper about the monarchy.

It hit me on the walk to work today how I am running out of time in London and I'll be honest it scares me. I just with London and Iowa were a little closer.

When in... Venice, Florence, Rome, and the Cinque Terre...Italy = Spring Break

For spring break- Friday April 10- Saturday April 18- Jenon, Jill, Billy, Nick, Blake, and I spent a wonderful week traveling around Italy. Here are some of my more entertaining stories from the trip:

Venice : Fri. April 10- Sat. April 11
Jenon, Blake, and I left for Venice early, early Friday morning and were meeting the other three at our hotel/hostel in Venice. We made it to Venice without a problem, but getting to our hotel was another story. We had a few problems finding the right bus and were told the bus we wanted didn't exist, which was a downer. Finally we figured out which bus to take and at one point we were supposed to switch buses. Well Blake and I made it off bus #1 without a problem, but people started boarding the bus as Jenon was trying to exit and then the doors closed and there went Jenon, suck on the bus. Luckily it stopped just a few blocks down and we found the next bus easily.

The weather in Venice was beautiful. I didn't know what to expect, but the city was beautiful as well. There were canals and little bridges all over and we took boats from place to place more than we took buses. The first night in Venice I had my first taste of Italian gelato, and it was delicious. I had to use self-control to not get gelato every night.

Florence: Sat. April 11- Mon. April 13
We arrived in Florence Saturday evening after spending the day in Venice. Our accommodation in Florence was called Camping Michelangelo. I envisioned we would be out in the wilderness with bears, way up on top of a hill a ways away from the city. Luckily, I was completely wrong. When we got off the bus that took us from the train station to a stop called 'camping.' We didn't know which direction to go and almost started just walking up the hill until the bus moved and we saw that Camping Michelangelo was right there. It turned out to be a really nice camp ground and pretty big as well. There were campers and house tents, which we stayed in. They also had a little market and a restaurant/bar. The best part of camping we the view. Right outside our house tents we had an amazing view overlooking the city and just a few blocks away was a look out point where you could see the entire city and the hills surrounding it.

Our only full day in Florence was Easter Sunday. Jenon, Billy, and I woke up early and went for a morning run first in an area with a view of the city and then we ran more within the city. It was amazing. I didn't sleep so well the first night, the house tent got pretty cold. We spent Easter Sunday looking around Florence. We went to mass at one of the five largest Cathedrals in the world (I think). I only knew what was going on about 5% of the time during the service, but it was a once-in-a-lifetime type thing and the cathedral was pretty, especially the painted dome. We spent part of the night watching the sun set while sitting on the stairs of the lookout point drinking a glass of wine.

Rome: Mon. April 13-Tue. April 14
We left for Rome early Monday morning and got in at about 10:30am. Our hostel was really nice and we dropped off our bags before heading out to explore. Rome was definitely the most tiring of the cities we visited - there is so much to see! Practically everywhere you look is a Roman ruin, a fountain, or a monument of some sort. We did the Colosseum first (way cool) and during our little lunch break we had about seven 16 year old Italian boys talk to the six of us. They didn't speak very good English so most of the time I didn't know what they were trying to say. Billy being Billy jokingly tried to sell a picture with Jenon for five Euros. They took a picture with us, but we didn't get any Euros out of the deal. It was pretty awkward actually, but we just laughed it off. After being in the Colosseum for quite a while we went over the the area that has a lot of Roman ruins, which we spent about three hours wandering around. There was so much to see. We pretty much kicked Rome's butt and didn't get back to our hostel until 11:30pm. A Rome street also attempted to kick my butt. We were sort of jogging/walking fast across a street, which had the trolley lines through it so sort of like railway tracks, to avoid being hit by the on coming vehicles. Well somehow my foot got caught in one of the little tracks, more or less I stubbed my big toe and then it almost got stuck causing me to stumble forward.... a lot. I thought I was going to face plant in the middle of the street, but luckily I somehow caught myself. Jenon was right beside me and was trying to ask me if I was okay while telling me we needed to keep walking so we didn't get hit my a car. On a positive note: my toe is not broken and I didn't completely face plant.

Tuesday we went to Vatican City. It was a beautiful day and it was really cool to see all of the sites. Most of the places I have been this semester, I never thought I would get to see - I truly am lucky.

Sailing off the Western coast of Italy: Wed. April 15
Back in the fall Billy researched sailing companies or people who take customers out sailing for a day in Italy. He found a middle aged couple and emailed them from then all the way up to now and I am so glad he did. After our tourist days in Venice, Florence, and Rome a day sailing on the sea is exactly what we all needed. Their sailboat was pretty big and only a little over a year old so it was really nice. It was an older/middle aged couple who has been sailing for years and we were their first customers of the season this year. They were from Scotland so talking to them was no problem at all. We sailed for the whole day from about 9:30am to 7:30pm. It was just beautiful and so was the weather. It was a relaxing day on the sea.

As great as the day was on Wednesday, the night was not so great. Wednesday evening was when our group of six headed out in different directions- Billy to Greece, Nick and Jill to Nice, and Jenon, Blake, and I to the Cinque Terre. We all had pretty crappy night trains and schedules in order to get to our next destination. Jenon, Blake, and I took our first train at Midnight which lasted only about a half hour, then we had to wait for 1.5 hours until our next train to La Spezia (a bigger town close to the Cinque Terre). This part of the journey went fine although we were pretty tired. Our train to La Spezia arrived at about 2:00 am and as we were boarding we were looking forward to sleeping until it arrived in La Spezia at 4:30am. Unfortunately for us we didn't know we were getting on the train from hell. We got on and since it is a sleeper train it had little cabins to the left of a two foot wide corridor. Although we had seat reservations all of the seats and cabins were filled and people lined the walls of the narrow corridor. We didn't know what to do when we got the train and saw people everywhere. We walked to the end of the corridor, found a little tiny area and sat with our bags between our legs in the corridor. My knees were at my chest it was such a small place. The first thing Jenon and I did when we sat down was look at each other and laugh. We didn't know what else to do because we had no idea what was going on. Jenon and I dozed off a couple times only to be woken by pains in my neck or back from how I was sitting or by people trying to get by. Finally with only 45 minutes left of the 2.5 hour train ride two seats in the cabin in front of us opened up and we took them as soon as we could. I immediately passed out and woke up drooling... a lot.

So we finally made it to La Spezia and I wish this was where my story ended, unfortunately it's not. Our next train to our final destination of Manarola didn't leave until 7am and it was only 4:40am. So we layed down on the hard, freezing floor of the La Spezia train station and tried to get some rest. I dozed a little, but woke up because it was so cold. Jenon was using one of her scarfs as a blanket so we shared that for a little bit, but it didn't help too much. I officially fell in love with McDonald's when it opened at 6am and gave us some American coffee and a warm place to stand. Later I found out that it was actually a little cafe that shares the space with McDonald's, but whatever, either way it was coffee and the room was heated.

Cinque Terre: Thurs. April 16-Fri. April 17
The Cinque Terre is comprised of five small towns built into cliffs along the western coast of Italy. They are the most adorable towns with the most amazing view. We spent all/most of Friday hiking the paths that link the five towns together. We hiked for about 4 hours and covered over seven miles. I had the impression that these paths were very simple easy ones, I was wrong. Most of them consisted of stairs, lots and lots of stairs - good for the butt and tiring. The weather was a little chillier these two days and at one point during the middle of one of the paths it started to rain and then hail for a little bit. It sounds bad, but it wasn't. Even the rain couldn't take away from the view we had. The Cinque Terre was probably my favorite part of Italy and the place I would really like to go back to one day.

Overall spring break was wonderfully amazing. I loved every second of it, even the trains didn't take away from having a good time. There were only a few things I would change about Italy: they don't have toilet seats on their toilets, don't ask me why and their trains suck as you read earlier.

I ate enough pizza and pasta and gelato to last me a lifetime, but now I'm happy to be back in my city aka London.

My day with the Soukup Family

Yesterday (Wednesday) I spend the day away from the city and with family friends Alison and Joel. I took the tube all the way to Epping where Alison picked me up - in a car! She then drove me, on the left/wrong side of the road to Bury St. Edmonds. At Bury we met Joel and their cute kids - Taylor and Tessa. Driving on the wrong side of the road wasn't as weird as I thought it would be, it was the round-a-bouts that freaked me out a little, and they are everywhere. Once in Bury, we went to a tea cafe/restaurant where we ate a lunch consisting of yummy sandwiches, tea, and scones. After lunch we were going to look at the gardens in Bury, but the Queen is there today which unfortunately meant the gardens were closed yesterday when I was in town. As a lady on the street said, "How dare that Queen." Although I didn't get to see the gardens in Bury, I did get to experience walking around a smaller English town. The market was going on so we wandered about that, we saw the smallest pub in England which only holds about five or six customers and the brewery in that area.

After Bury, the five of us got in their car and headed for Cambridge. It was so nice to just get in a car and go, not having to worry about bus or train times. It's sort of sad that I miss being in cars, especially since I never really enjoyed it when I was home. The drive to Cambridge was really pretty because everything is becoming green and the sun was shining. I learned that new drivers have to have a big sticker on the back of their vehicle that is just a big L - for learner. Apparently it is harder to get your licence over here, or you are just supposed to watch out for new drivers more. There are also not many police on their main roads because they have speed cameras set up along the roadways and if your speeding you get a ticket in the mail, if all goes as planned. The squiggly lines mean something along the lines of - there may be pedestrians crossing and you are coming up to a stoplight. Alison said that it was a little weird driving at first, but no round-a-bouts are wonderful things.

Once in Cambridge, we walked to the area where the majority of the college buildings are located. Then we went punting on the CAM river. A punt is a little boat that they just use a long stick to move it along the river. It was a really nice way to spend the afternoon. Our guy that was steering the boat told us a little about the college buildings along the river, he grew up in Cambridge but home on holiday from Uni just outside of London. Cambridge is a really pretty town as well, I'm glad I got the chance to see both Oxford and Cambridge. After our punting trip, we walked around the town a bit more and then went to La Tasca (a Spanish restaurant) for dinner. I'm glad Joel and Alison knew what they were doing because I definitely didn't. We got a couple tapas and then paella as the main part of our meal. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it. There is a La Tasca on Victoria Street so I may have to go again before the term is over! I took a train back to London from Cambridge which took me to King's Cross Station. I had a really great time with Alison and her family, it was nice to see some familiar faces from home.

Today I have a lot on my 'to-do' list. I leave for Italy on spring break very early tomorrow morning. I am excited for traveling around Italy, I just hope everything falls into place. I will be very behind on my blog when I get back to London after 9 days away! Happy Easter everyone!

Another sunny day

Yesterday was my last theatre visit. Sad to say, I was pretty excited for this day. I have come to learn that I enjoy musicals much more than plays. It was a good experience and now I just have to write an 8 page paper and take an exam and I will be done with my theatre class!

Today I had the day off because the schools in London are on their mid-term/Easter break. For some reason I thought it would be really great for me to get up and go to a museum in the morning. So I woke up earlier than I wanted and headed off to the Victoria and Albert Museum. This is pretty much a huge museum of random random art things. They have statues, paintings, things from China and Japan, jewelry, stained glass, pretty much you name it they have it. Queen Victoria and her husband Albert collected all of this art. It was interesting, but some of the time I felt I didn't really know what I was looking at or why it was of importance. My favorite part was all the old jewelry and fashion. After that museum I though I might as well go across the road to the Science Museum. I don't really know what I was thinking this morning because I am not really a huge fan of museums. It's all about the experience though right? So I went and I experienced them and now I am done.

I decided to walk back from the museums. I always underestimate how far away things are from Vandon so this turned out to be quite the walk. This afternoon Allie wanted to get a new swimsuit before she headed off to Greece for spring break so I went along with her and did a little shopping. I have been going shopping a lot lately which is justified by the fact that I hardly ever find anything. We went to Primark first which had ridiculous crowds. It was a Tuesday afternoon and it was packed beyond its capacity it seemed. I wanted in a really long line to return a shirt and then another line to buy a different one. Goodness. Oxford Street was very very busy today with more crowds than I think are usual. I feel like there must have been a spring sale going on at a lot of stores right now. Allie and I are trying to save money by taking the bus places and I think we are getting quite good. I feel much more comfortable with the bus system now, although it is a little trickier than the underground.

Tomorrow I head off to visit Alison, a family friend, which should be really good. I'm excited to see a familiar face! :)

I love day trips

Yesterday (Saturday) Jenon, Allie, Erin, Cody, Ryan, Austin, and I went on a day trip to Windsor Castle, Bath, and Stonehenge. We went with the coach tour company Evan Evan's which took us to all of those places beginning at 8:45am. This time we found our coach without much of a problem, although the guys who left after us had a little issue finding which one, but we all made it! Our bus drivers name was Martyn and our tour guides name was Rosalyn.

We started our day by going to Windsor Castle which is only about 20 miles from London, I didn't realize it was that close - it still took about 45 minutes to get to though. Windsor Castle is huge, I knew it would be big, but it was much bigger than I expected. It has 1,500 rooms. Each person in my home town could have their own room in the castle and there would still be about 400 extra rooms available. It was a beautiful day we walked with Rosalyn around the inside of the castle where it is outside and open space and then once we got into the castle we had audio guides. The first room we saw in Windsor was the Queen's doll house room. This room holds a very very large, ornate doll house, which no one ever played with. It looks perfect, like a little model of rooms in the castle. The doll house is also complete with electricity and working plumbing. I wish I could have taken a picture! Next we walked around the state rooms which were just as impressive. We saw the biggest state room, the Wellington Room I believe it is called. The Queen still holds events in that room and that is where Prince William's 21st birthday was held. It was fun seeing a castle that is still used so much and the Queen was even there that day, but unfortunately we didn't get to meet her - darn. Along with the state rooms we also got to tour St. George's Chapel where Henry the VIII and other Kings and Queens are buried. After our tour of the rooms we were allowed to go in at the castle we walked through the town just a bit and then had to make sure to get back to the coach on time.

Our next stop was Bath. It was a really pretty drive on the way to Bath from Windsor. We could see Wales in the distance because we were so far East. Bath is a really cute English town, probably my favorite little town so far. It was already really green there, which made it even prettier. Once at Bath we spent the majority of our short time at the Roman Bath museum area looking at the very old Roman baths. You could see the steam rising off of the bath and it was really neat to see all the stages the Romans went through. We even got to taste the spring water at the end of our tour, which smelled very gross and was warm, but we drank it anyway. I feel healthier already! With our remaining time before we were due back to the coach we walked around a little bit of the town of Bath which was adorable and then headed back to the coach.

Our final stop of the day was Stonehenge. It was actually really cool to see, since I have seen a lot of pictures. We were only there for 45 minutes, which was enough, but we had a lot of fun. Our group took a lot of pictures and enjoyed the rocks. It is just amazing how old they are and the fact that no one knows exactly why they are there. I am glad I went!

I thought this day trip was going to be a lot crammed into not enough time, but really it was perfect. I didn't have to worry about anything and I just got to enjoy each place we went to. I would definitely recommend taking a coach tour, we got so much into one day! I could have spent more time in a few of the places, but we made it back to London around 7pm, which gave Allison and I enough time to go to Westfields, which is a huge shopping center. I have become a terrible shopper, I don't know what happened. We spent only an hour or so at Westfields and before we left we enjoyed some amazing chips and salsa and just talked. Saturday was a very good day in England.

Today, I slept in and then went for a run. Afterwards a group of us attempted to go to Wimbleton. One would think that the tube station Wimbleton would be the one needed for Wimbleton courts and museum - wrong. Big fail on our part for the day. Long story but it took us about 2.5 hours to find Wimbleton taking a few wrong buses in the process. Even though it sounds like a drag it was actually a fun day with my friends, just a little bit longer of a day than planned. Luckily it was a lovely day and the first day that I didn't need my coat. I am really liking this whole 'spring in London' idea.

Start of the weekend - Oxford and a day in London

Thursday:

Today Allie and I made a day trip to Oxford. We booked our tickets the night before on megabus.com and everything worked out fine. We left in the morning with what we thought was plenty of time to catch our 9:50am bus, wrong. Once we got to the Victoria Coach Station, where the website told us it was, we didn't see our bus on the departure board, so we asked the man at information who pointed us in the right direction. Wrong again. He pointed us in the wrong direction and we ended up missing our first bus. Now, I probably can't completely blame the information desk-man, although I really want to, because Allie and I probably should have left earlier. Anyway, we caught the next bus, which we had to pay for again, and then we were off. Also, the bus was not a 'megabus' it was an 'Oxford Tube' bus, how were we supposed to know?!

Our bus was a double decker bus so Allie and I chose to sit at the very front of the top of the bus. It was the best view in the house. At first it kind of made me feel a little car sick because the bus drivers can be kind of crazy, but once we got onto the highway it was really cool. Pretty much you can see everything. It took us about two hours to get into Oxford. First, we climbed up Carfax Tower to get a view of the city. Then we walked down the street to Christ Church College which is one of the oldest colleges that are part of Oxford University. I think it's one of the biggest too. Luckily, Christ Church was open and we got to go inside. The dining hall is where many scenes from Harry Potter are filmed so we checked that out and walked around the open area. It was really pretty and probably my favorite building of the day. After seeing Christ Church we went to a little market area where we got some ice cream shakes and then made our way to the Bodleian Library which was established in 1450 and is the oldest and one of the largest libraries in Europe. That was fun because we got to see some actual Oxford University students. I'm sure they get annoyed with all of the tourists, but it was fun for us! Then we went to Blackwell's Bookstore which is also very very huge. In the basement it has three miles of books. It was very overwhelming and impressive. We continued to wander around the city which has so many beautiful old buildings and also continued our mission to find a good Oxford University sweatshirt. Although you can buy Oxford sweatshirts in London, its just much better to say you've been there. As we continued walking down one of the busy streets in Oxford a low flying pigeon decided to run into my head. It flew up from behind me and definitely hit its wing on my face. It was disgusting, gross, sick. I dislike pigeons a lot. To top that off, two boys who looked like they were 14 years old came up to Allie and I with free hugs signs. No thank you. Our day wasn't very long, but it was good. We found our bus home and got our favorite seat again.

Once back from Oxford, our program went to a philharmonic orchestra concert at Cadogan Hall. This was my first orchestra concert and it was really good. I felt bad because it made me tired towards the end, but they were so talented. I do enjoy some good classical music every once and a while.

Friday:

This morning involved sleeping in, that is until the construction workers next door started. Usually the noise is bearable, but today it sounded like a jackhammer was going to come through our wall. I am not exaggerating, it was terrible. So once awake from that I got ready and our program went to for an Indian lunch at a restaurant on Brick Lane. It was... interesting. I was a little hesitant when trying the food, but I did try it all. We had some tortilla looking thing with a mixture of different sauces you could put on it first. Then we had, what looked like, a fried ball of onion that tasted like an odd mixture of onion and sausage. For the main part we had chicken with some form of orange colored sauce and lamb with some form of red sauce with rice and pita bread. The lamb wasn't my favorite and the chicken wasn't terrible. Luckily, they gave us some chocolate for dessert that was a little after eight bite size bar. I probably won't be eating Indian food again soon, but at least I've tried it.

After lunch, we wandered around Brick Lane a little and went into Whitechapel Bell Foundry where Big Ben, Liberty Bell, a big one in Russia, and other big ones were made. It was actually really interesting. Apparently they are working on some bells for somewhere in Massachusetts right now!

This afternoon we went on a tour of Parliament, unfortunately you can't take pictures, but the building is just gorgeous on the inside. It is all a replica of the original because of a fire in 1834. We went into the House of Commons and the House of Lords and saw where the Queen will sit when she comes once a year. Apparently the Queen isn't allowed into the House of Commons area (not just her, any King or Queen of England) because years and years ago one of the Kings tried to arrest members of Parliament. So today I was somewhere who even the Queen herself can't go. Crazy. The tour lasted about an hour and then Allie, Jenon, Erin, and I went to a Mexican restaurant in Covent Gardens for dinner. We ate a quick dinner of quesadillas which were very good and now we are hanging out in our room. Tomorrow a group of us heads to Winsor, Stonehendge, and Bath!

April 1

Today is April 1 which means April Fool's Day and also Wednesday. I went to my internship and when I got there the teachers were being rushed into a meeting. Being brilliant, like all teachers, they immediately thought it was an April Fool's joke. The head guy had them all sitting in the hall (their common area) and told them that they had had a meeting last night and with the financial level they are at, the teachers are all going to have to experience a 5% pay cut. April Fool's! Pretty clever actually.

I worked in Senior One class today. It was fun being with the older students again and I had a really good day. I took the bus back to Vandon again today and got off at Trafalgar Square where there was a big protest going on. I didn't get close enough to see what it was about, but there were people everywhere and lots of yelling and then cheering. When I was on my run I saw cops everywhere. Today is one of the main days for the protests. Apparently President Obama was at Buckingham Palace, but I think I was there too early to see him. Jenon saw him through the car though, so that is fun.

Tomorrow Allie and I head to Oxford for the day!

The last days of March

Monday was a busy busy day for me. I had my normal four classes, two of which I had to present in. During our BES class I told the group about my internship, what I do every day, how I like it (not very difficult). In Contemporary Britain we discussed health. A lot of English people think of the U.S. and think of overweight people. Sweet. Apparently that phenomenon is moving into England as well and is becoming more of a problem in Great Britain. Although really in London I haven't seen many overweight people, our professor said that probably outside of the city is where you would be more likely to find not so thin people. Anyway, that is beside the point of my day. After my morning classes I had about an hour break which I used to work on my theatre presentation and then I had theatre class. My presentation went well although I had the cheesy topic of "Describe your imagined perfect visit to a theatre." After the presentations were finished, Imelba Staunton who played Kath in the production, "Entertaining Mr. Sloane." Imelba is also in: Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix as Professor Umbridge, Freedom Writers, Nanny McPhee, and many many many other movies/films/tele. As you can she she is pretty cool. Imelba came in and is a very small, adorable woman. She was so cute as she talked to us and very modest. She talked to us about many different things from how she got started to what she is working on now. When she was telling us about the different films she had been in she said, I don't know if you know about Harry Potter, but I played professor Umbridge. She was just adorable and it was my favorite theatre class.

After class, I had about an hour before we had to head to the theatre performance for the night. Our professor told us it took over an hour to get to the theatre, plus we needed to be there early because the seats weren't reserved. So we left at 6pm to a performance that started at 8pm. It only took about 40 minutes to get there so we were WAY early. The play was titled, Victory. It is probably the darkest, most vulgar play I have been to. The acting was good, but the idea of the play was not my favorite. Through this course I have decided that I like happy musicals.

Today, Tuesday, I had my internship as usual and was in the Yellow Class. I only have five more days left at the Jack Taylor School and the days go so fast. I took the bus home and then went for a run around St. James's Park, Buckingham Palace, and Hyde Park. London is sort of craziness at the moment with the G20 in town. I saw way more police on motorcycles than ever and at one point I saw about seven police motorcycle men leading a group of important cars as another police stopped traffic. I also saw a herd of about 200 motorcycles ride down the road honking. I guess they are part of some protest, I'm not sure against what- a tax maybe. After I got back I made the best dinner for one: chicken, veggies, and rice stirfry thingy. Yum. Now we are booking hostels for spring break. Gross.

The last of Barcelona - Saturday & Sunday

Saturday in Barcelona was rainy, but not terribly cold. In the morning it rained off and on. We took the metro up to see the Gaudi architecture: Sagrada Familia and a few other buildings designed by him. They were really interesting to see and much different from any architecture I have seen previously. After seeing the Sagrada Familia we walked more along what seemed like the main city area of Barcelona. It was really nice and there was a walk way down the middle of the road with the trees that curve inward and make sort of a balcony. The trees were all green so it made it even prettier. After walking around the city we headed back to la Rambla to check out the market again and then we attempted to find a gondola that would take us up to the top of this big hill/mountain. Unfortunately the gondolas weren't running because of the rain so we were out of luck. By this point it started raining harder and was windy so we grumpily headed back to the apartment to change our soaking socks.

That night we went to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe Barcelona. On the way we stopped for our first and only margarita in Spain. The food at Hard Rock was delicious and our waiter was very helpful. We ended the night walking in the pouring rain to find this fountain that we had seen in lots of brochures that had music and lights. We walked for at least a half hour in the rain and as we got close, we found out it wasn't running due to the weather. Super. So we got on the metro, found an ice cream place, and went back to the apartment.

We woke up Sunday morning about about 3:45am to head to the airport. We decided to get a taxi because it would be easier and it was still raining a bit out. We called the taxi service, but the woman on the other end could not understand anything Allie was saying to her. We even tried to use the Spanish alphabet to spell out the street we were staying at, and I think we did quite good. Since that didn't work we walked to one of the main roads and waved down a cab. Our driver played Spanish music and hummed along as he took us to the airport without a problem. It was way worth the money.

Sunday = back in London. I arrived back in London after a fabulous weekend in Barcelona and was exhausted. Early flights just take it out of me! I took a little nap and showered when I got back to Vandon. The highlight of my Sunday afternoon was grocery shopping (which I am becoming quite good at) and going to the Muffin Man. Jenon, Allie, and I decided we needed some tea and scones to make our Sunday afternoon even better. Jenon and I shared tea and scones with jam and cream and Allie opted for the hot chocolate and a scone. The Muffin Man is just a cute little tea place and it was so good! I think we are going to make this a normal outing. Yummm... Sunday evening was spent, well part of it, working on my theatre presentation that I presented on Monday. Early to bed, early Monday class.

Salsa please.

Yesterday (Friday) was a beautiful day in Barcelona, Spain. Jenon, Allie, Erin, and I woke up at a decent time and headed out to find some breakfast. We were pretty unsuccessful for a while and could only locate sandwich places. Since it was nice we wanted to eat outside and found a little cafe that had outdoor seating. We all ordered spanish omlets and they were very good, but much smaller than expected. Next we headed to la Rambla which is a street in Barcelona that is very busy and has several little stands set up, mostly with souveniers. On la Rambla we found the best market ever. It had the best looking fruits and veggies I've ever seen in my young life and it had chocolate and nuts too. Our favorite part may have been the ice cream/gelato stand. We each splurged and got three scoops - I went with chocolate, ferrero, and a yogurt and berries one. Yum! Definitely enough to tide us over until supper. After the market we headed to the beach! Although it wasn't nice enough for our swim suits, we changed into comfy clothes and layed out on the sand. It was perfect.

The beach was pretty busy and there were definitely some interesting characters close to us. There was one European woman with quite hairy armpits and legs and then behind us was a topless woman giving another woman a massage. This was almost too much for us so we turned the other way and enjoyed the rest of our afternoon. It got a little colder later in the afternoon so we headed back to the apartment and then on a mission to find sangria. I've never had sangria before, but Jenon had it last week at the mexican restaurant in Greenwich and said it was good. Aparently four blonde girls walking together quite the thing, because everywhere we went people looked and stared and even a few quite old guys tried talking to us. We found a little bar/pub and shared a pitcher of sangria. It was good, but tasted quite a bit like wine. I did enjoy the pieces of orange in it though. Afterward, Jenon had to head back to the apartment to register for classes so Erin, Allie, and I went on a mission to find salsa. I had it in my head that I was going to be able to have some really good chips and salsa while I was in Barcelona, I forgot that that is more of a Mexico thing not Spain. We eventually found an actually grocery store instead of little nugget convenient stores and seached for salsa. We ended up with frozen pizza, chicken nuggets, pop, ketchup, chips, and... spaghetti sauce. It said salsa on the outside of the jar. like most other jars did. We couldn't decide which 'salsa' to go with so we chose the one that looked the most like salsa. Fail. We got back to the apartment to taste our chips and salsa and discovered it was spaghetti sauce. Bummer. We did also pick up ingredients to make guacamole, so that part was successful and we had good guacamole to use for our chips.

We spent the majority of Friday night hanging out in the apartment, sort of having a much needed girls night. Today has been quite busy and rainy. More on that later...

Yo no hablo espanol. Darn.

Yesterday (Thursday) was full of traveling. Jenon, Allie, Erin, and I left Vandon at about 1:30pm to take the extremely busy tube to Heathrow. We arrived at the airport without a problem, checked in with the help of a nice man and then checked our luggage. The man who checked Jenon's luggage told her it was about an hours walk to our terminal so we took off. We got split up as we went through security with Jenon and Allie in one area and Erin and I in another. Erin and I found the other two once past security only to find out that Jenon's favorite Iowa State water bottle had gotten tossed by the mean security man. She was pretty upset about it and apparently the security people were not very kind. When we looked at a sign telling us departures it said our flight was boarding so we took off running. We were half-sprinting to our gate and when we got to the desk where they check our boarding passes, the lady said to Jenon "No rush." Turns out we still had about 30-40 minutes before our flight would board and we had run past people just waiting patiently for our flight. Whoops.

Once one the plane, we saw that a guy had taken pictures with these two younger boys and then went into first class, so we assumed he was famous of some sort. The two younger boys continued to try to go to first class and were carrying paper and pens to get his signiature. Erin stopped one of them and apparently the guy is a football player - Sans Fabia or something similar to that. This was our entertainment as our flight was delayed and we had to sit on the plane for about 50 minutes before take-off. Our flight was normal and we arrived safely in Barcelona, Spain. Once off the plane we headed toward the baggage claim that our luggage was supposed to be at. We waited at one of the information signs for our flight to appear so we would know which baggage claim to go to. This probably went on for about ten minutes or so before someone came up and told us the London flight had been switched to a different baggage claim. So we headed around the airport to where our luggage was only to find out we had to turn around and go back through security to get to our luggage. In the process of turning around to find this area we ran into two girls who were on our same flight, not to be judgemental but I'm guessing they were sort of wealthy and princesses. They continued to complain saying that, this shouldn't be happening because they chose to fly British Airways and British Airways owes us a free flight for this, I'm going to call them and complain....on and on. Anyway, we made it through securtiy once and again and found our luggage just fine after the minor set back.

Now was the misson of finding our apartment. We talked to information who told us to take the train and then the Metro. They gave us a few maps so we figured we'd be good to go. We waited a while for the train, which seemed to go quite slow. After we got off the train, we had a few issues trying to find the Metro. Since we only speak un poco espanol, the fact that all the signs are in spanish is tricky. We asked a couple and they literally pointed us in the right direction. Once we got to the Metro finding platform L4 was a hike. It took us at least a fifteen minute walk up and down stairs and around corners before we finally got to the right platform. This definitely made me appreciate London's underground system. It is just so easy to use and get around and all seems very well put together. Plus one of the first things I noticed about some parts of Barcelona is the odd smell of rotten eggs in some places, London does not smell this way. Anyway we make it to platform L4 at about 9:55pm, note that our plane landed at 7:30pm. Our Metro ride was quick and once we got off we were a bit disoriented and since we don't know our way around Barcelona it was a bit of a struggle, especially in the dark. We looked at our map and then just started walking. It was really cute at night because it was right by the marina.

We finally made it to Whotells, the apartment building we are staying in, and then our next dilema happened. We couldn't get in. You need a key to get into the building and well, we didn't have one. So we stood there for a couple minutes contemplating what to do, we attempted to call the woman who was in charge, but none of our mobile phones would make calls. Now, picture this: four bright blonde girls standing outside a building, looking tired, lost, and with luggage in a dodgy neighborhood in Barcelona, where it is dark and the only little businesses around are closed for the night. I pushed one of the call buttons and then Jenon tried a few and a lady who lives in one of the apartments let us in. Okay so now we were in the building, but there was no one around and we didn't know where to go. We walked up the first flight of stairs and knocked on the woman's door who let us in. She opened the door, dressed in her pink night robe - slippers and all, dyied reddish/pink hair, dog barking, and knowing pretty much no english. We tried to tell her how our phones wouldn't work and that we were staying in the building and that we knew very very little spanish. She yelled up to Juan and all I could understand was 'las chickas.' Juan was not much help, for he wouldn't even come down to help. Erin gave her a couple phone numbers to try to call the head woman, but they didn't work so then we had to explain to her that our mobile phones wouldn't work and we tried one last number. Winner! The woman was on her way. So we finally got in our room, approximately 11:00pm. Our apartment is a little nugget, but very nice. We have two bedrooms, one with two twin beds and one with a queen bed, a bathroom, kitchen, and little eating/living room. We headed out on a search for some snacks and food for breakfast in the morning. We stopped in the first place we could find and bought some biscuits, crackers and cheese, and water. The man working there was from Pakistan and was quite friendly. While we were checking out Jenon just said that these little waffel things with chocolate on them looked good and he said, "gift" and gave each of us one. It was very nice of him! So we headed back to the apartment for the night, ate our crackers and made some popcorn. The waffel with chocolate tasted like a hoho without the cream filling, it was good- but not great. Then bed.

Back to Normal..... Mon-Wed.

Remember what I said about the weather on Sunday, well forget it. The past few days have been a bit colder and it rained off and on yesterday and today.

Monday was a normal day of classes, we are giving presentations in my theatre class so that was a bit more entertaining than usual. I don't go until next Monday and mine is probably the best topic of all (sarcasm) : ...your imagined perfect visit to the theatre. I'm pretty excited to present. Along with class, we went to the play 'Entertaining Mr. Sloane.' I give it 3.5/5 stars.

Tuesday I was in Yellow Class again. It was sort of an exhausting day overall. Although I have been in this classroom for almost 8 weeks now, I am still learning new things about the children all the time. After my internship I did a little shopping, it was practically on my way home. I got a couple new things all which I can completely justify if I need to :)

Today I was in a new classroom called 'Senior One.' It is a class of about six/seven students between the ages of 12-16. It was a really good day. They can't verbally communicate but they are so good at their pecs and symbols. The girl who forced me to play kick ball with her the first day is in this class and I think she likes me, then again I think she likes everyone. I did kick the ball with her for a long time today, so that probably helped. Since these children are older and more advanced they do a lot more work with numbers and matching things. It was actually quite impressive since I have been in Yellow Class so long and I hope that the younger children can get to the stage that these kids are at. Tonight there is not much going on, I have a few things to catch up on and I need to pack for Spain!

Sun

I cannot believe the weather, it has been gorgeous here. Okay so it's not 70 degrees yet, but it is getting warmer. Thursday through Saturday I spend with Katie, a friend from Central, who is visiting London with her aunt and uncle. She spent the mornings with her aunt and uncle and then we met up every afternoon. On Thursday we did normal touristy things such as Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, National Gallery, Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster, and the London Eye. We walked a lot on Thursday, I think we may have only taken the tube once. The London Eye was cool, but it didn't quite make my expectations. I thought it was going to be amazing, it was pretty, but I must have had my expectations too high. The coolest part was that we could see St. James's Park from the top! Thursday evening, Katie and I went to Nando's to eat. It is a semi-nice, but also fast place to eat that has all chicken dishes. It was really good, but confusing and we had some awkward moments with a couple of the people who worked there. Overall we ended up fed and happy so it worked out and I think I will go back sometime. Thursday was also karaoke night at the International Student House. Usually I don't take part in the singing, but I found an Nsync song that my friends were willing to sing with me, so six of us got up on stage and sang the great song "bye bye bye" by Nsync. It was pretty hilarious and we were pretty good :)

On Friday, Katie and I spent the majority of the day in the Oxford Circus area. I had been on Oxford Street a few times, but I had never just wandered around. We did a little shopping and looked in a lot of stores that I had never heard of before. There are some really cute areas around Oxford Street. During our wandering we saw a huge store that looked interesting so we though we'd check it out. It was the most expensive store I have ever seen. A thin little dinky scarf was 165 pounds, I don't even like buying a scarf for 10 pounds! My goodness! Some of the purses were just ridiculous. The craziest part is that their were a lot of people in the store buying these outrageous priced items. We did a little people watching in a nice little cafe across the street. We continued wandering and ended up at Piccadilly Circus and then back to Leicester Square. Friday evening, Erin, Katie, and I went to Garfunkel's which is more along the lines of an Apple Bee's. It was pretty good and quite fast. We all got hamburgers and fries. The hamburgers were good, but they are just not the same as the ones in Iowa. They do have good food over here, but we win the hamburger contest by far. America also wins the dill pickle contest too. Anyway, later on Jenon, Mark, Erin, Katie, and I headed to the zoo bar for the rest of our evening. It was fun and loud and overall funny.

Today Katie and I went to Camden Market and then to the London Zoo. The first time I went to Camden Market I didn't like it at all. The people there were not people I was used too and I just felt really out of place. This time I really liked it and I want to go back. Katie and I spent probably close to two hours there. They had really cute clothes shops/boutiques and random shops. The food area was pure craziness. It had mostly Mexican, Chinese, and Japanese food. The people were practically throwing their food at you so you could taste it. We tried a piece of chicken from one and it was decently good so we just opted for that because the piece we tried from the next place was cold - gross. I got chicken and rice, which was a little questionable. I ate it and then later worried a little about what I was eating. So far neither Katie nor I have gotten food poisoning so I think it was okay. After the market we headed to the London Zoo. It may seem weird of all the things there is to do in London we would go to a zoo, but Katie really wanted too and I like zoos so I didn't object. It was sort of weird that all these exotic animals are in the middle of the huge city of London. Our favorites were the giraffes, monkeys, and penguins. I still think the Omaha Zoo is the best, sorry London Zoo. I was exhausted today so tonight has consisted of organizing some things on my computer and making a list of things I still want to see in London. Exciting, I know. Katie came over and hung out for a bit too, it was really fun having her around and I'm glad I got to help show her around a little.

It's Wednesday!

A recap of St. Patrick's Day:

I had my internship and was in the Yellow Class again. Everything went really well, with the exception of play time after lunch where a couple of the assistants got into an argument with one of the cooks (or I think she is one of the cooks). It was entertaining and very awkward to witness. Anyway, with the lovely spring/sunny weather, we spent a lot of time outside. Yay. After my internship, I forced myself to run and then get ready to go out since it was St. Patrick's Day. Actually at my internship they played some Irish music because of the holiday and because one of the teachers is Irish so she did a little Irish dancing for us which made me want to do some Irish dancing. A pretty large group of us headed to O'Neils which is about a 20 minute tube ride or so. As the name suggests it is an Irish pub. It was a fun atmosphere right when we walked in the door. People were wearing fun hats and the pub was decorated with anything green. Erin and I tried the Irish cider which was not terrible, I still don't know how people can drink Guinness. I was only disappointed by the fact that they played only one or two Irish songs and the rest were American, lame. Since I had work the next day, Erin and I headed out at about 11:20pm to go home. We made it to the tube station and waited patiently for our train. We got on the train, which was completely empty besides us, and soon discovered we were going the wrong direction. Whoops. So we got off at the next stop only to find out the trains were severely delayed. This was probably around 12:35 or so. For the next half and hour we sat at the station waiting for a train. During this time, we made some pretty funny videos and shared a granola bar. When the train decided to show up, we then had to wait another ten minutes or so for it to move. So the 20 minute commute home turned into an 1 hour and about 20 minutes. The only not fun part of our adventure was the creepy older man who talked like Austin Powers who thought it would be a good idea to talk to us or hit on us, I don't know what he was doing. He asked too many questions and tried to hard and then followed us off the train. As you are well aware I am still alive so nothing happened. But after we got out of the station, Erin and I ran all the way to Vandon.

Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday:

Today has been a brilliant day :) Although I didn't get much sleep because of Erin and my little tube mishap last night, my internship went well. We spent the majority of the afternoon outside because it was so nice/sunny/warm. I love it and so did the children. On my way back from my internship I ran into a obstacle. The nearest tube station is Swiss Cottage and it is about a 5 minute walk from my school. I walked to the tube station to get home like I normally do, only to find that it was closed down. I still don't know why, but there were about 5-8 emergency vehicles outside the main entrance to the station. Unfortunately, I have no sense of direction and didn't have a map. I looked around a bit, not entirely sure where to go, I considered calling one of my friends but decided I should figure it out myself. This was not as hard as I thought although at first when I saw the station I was a little nervous. I saw a sign that pointed toward Camden and walked the opposite way. I looked at a bus map and figured out what number bus I needed and continued to look for that bus stop. I found it not long after and my bus soon came. It was pretty full because I think a lot of people had turned to the bus when they saw the station was closed. I made it back without any problems! I was pretty happy I had done it myself, it may seem like a little thing, but oh well. About a block away from Vandon, an older couple also stopped me and asked me for directions. I am choosing to take this as a sign that I look like competent and normal. :)

I went on a run in the parks today and have decided that spring in London is the perfect time to be one of two things: homeless or in love. Homeless because the parks are so pretty and it is the perfect temperature (well maybe a little warmer would be okay). Obviously the latter would be better. I have never seen so many couples as I do in the parks. It's sort of depressing actually, but whatever they can be happy. I'm hoping the sun continues to shine for the rest of the week.

My new found talent

Today started off on a sad note. This morning at about 5:45 am I took my family on the tube to Paddington to catch their train the airport. They got back to the Midwest about an hour or so ago. It was more sad more me leaving them this time than it was when I left at the start of the term. I am not terribly homesick, I really love London. I just like having my family around, they are pretty great.

This morning was the usual with classes, but today it was sunny! I think this is the true start of London's spring/summer weather and I LOVE it. In the afternoon my theatre class took a tour of the Globe Theatre. Our tour was sort of pathetic, the guide talked for a bit outside of the theatre, mostly quizzing us on facts, and then we went into the theatre and sat while he talked for about then minutes. I did learn that the original Globe Theatre was not actually in London, but on the other side of the Thames River. This was because somethings the theatre did was not looked well upon by the Church and the majority of the people I think. Also back in the day, all kinds and classes of people went to the theatre. After our little nug tour, we were forced, yes forced to do an 'actors' workshop. Our tour guide, who was also an actor, led this workshop which lasted about an hour and fifteen minutes. It consisted of us running around the room, yelling lines at each other, learning about iambic pentameter, and reciting some lines from "Twelfth Night." As much as I wasn't enjoying it at the time, it was sort of cool to be in a real workshop at the Globe Theatre. Unfortunately I didn't get discovered for my outstanding acting skills.

This evening was actually sort of busy for a Monday. I went to a bigger grocery store a little ways away and found some good deals, or I hope they are good deals. I got a chance to talk to a friend from back home and then I went to a pub near Covent Gardens with Billy, Nick, Allie, and her bf Brandon. Tomorrow is back to work!

Weekend in Wales: buses do not wait for people, people wait for buses.

Thursday 12th:
Today we took a train from Euston Station to Conwy, Wales. Luckily we didn’t have any issues finding the right train. The train ride was nice, I forced my dad to listen to my new ipod with me, no worries I played good oldies for him. That was my entertainment before I fell asleep. We arrived in Wales a little before 3pm. Conwy is a little town that is very cute. There is a castle with castle walls surrounding much of the town. We are staying in a little flat that has a small balcony with a view of the castle. I can also see the ocean and a river from our flat. We dropped our stuff off and went wandering around the town. We ended up eating dinner at a local fish and chips place. I think I have had my share of fish and chips and will now stick with other foods, probably hamburger. Jessica and I pretty much crashed after eating. We were extremely tired for some reason so we put in Madagascar and watched a movie in our little closet of a room. The flat has a down stairs with a living room and a kitchen and then the upstairs has a nugget room that can only fit bunk beds where Jessica and I sleep, a bathroom, and a master bedroom for my parents. Jessica soon decided she enjoyed imitating the lemur on Madagascar. She was pretty good at doing the voice, but after about the 20th time she continued to get worse.

Friday 13th:
Today we went to the Conwy Castle. It was build for more of a fort type of castle to protect people or fight off other people rather than for the royalty to live in. It was really old and cool to walk through. Apparently it wasn’t made for very tall people either because I hit my head on one of the entrances. Jessica thought it was quite funny, it wasn’t. Most of the ceiling was gone, except for a couple archways. It was sort of hard to imagine what it looked like back in the day, but I’m sure it was fancy. After wandering the castle we went to eat at a local place and then found a bus that took us to Betws y Coed. The roads are so narrow around here that it is more like a death trap when you’re on a bus. Some of the roads look more like a one way road, although many times a car will be coming right at us. The scenery was pretty, there are literally sheep everywhere. The lambs are the cutest and the bigger sheep have ugly tails. Since it was a chilly day and kind of dreary outside we wandered around Betws y Coed and decided to go to a little place for afternoon tea. Actually, we all got hot chocolate. J My mom got her fruit scone and clotted cream, which she had been wanting the whole time she has been in the U.K. We looked around in the little Welsh shops and walked along a river than ran through the town. Then we headed back to Conwy. Right now we are sitting in our living room, listening to some MJ and figuring out our day for tomorrow.

Saturday 14th:
Today we took a trip to Caernarfon which is east of Conwy just past Bangor. We took a bus on this trip, the morning bus took us all the way there which was about an hours trek. This bus ride was fairly normal compared with the bus ride we took in the afternoon. We went through many little nugget towns on the way there, and we saw lots and lots of sheep. Caernarfon is a smallish town that had more ‘townies’ than I am used to seeing. We went to the castle in the middle of town which as much bigger than the Conwy castle. It is better preserved too and had more rooms and such that we could go into. This castle is where Edward the prince of wales was crowed in 19599? At the castle we saw the cutest little boy with red curly hair. He was dressed as a Knight and was running around with his sword hitting random things. At certain times he would fall over pretending he had been wounded. No worries I took a picture as he was definitely part of our entertainment for the day.

After the castle we ate at a local pub, which was showing the Manchester United vs. Liverpool football match. We all got the bacon cheeseburgers, sound good right? Wrong. They tasted a little funny and definitely not like our Iowa beef. Anyway, after lunch we proceeded to wander around the little Welsh town, going in and out of random little shops. Many of the locals actually spoke Welsh, I understood none of it. After enough ‘shopping’ we found our bus home aka to Conwy. We hopped on the first bus that was going the general direction of Conwy, this one stopped in Bangor and then we would have to switch to a different bus. This first bus was full of local crazies. We had one woman who was talking to herself, angrily I might add, something about her daughter and how she had be pregnant for 9 months, yada, yada. There was also another man who continued to talk/annoy the bus driver and then speak in Welsh to a random girl. The third was a younger boy who was talking about how he was out on bail right now and the final man was intoxicated and his pants were falling down. Luckily the trip to Bangor was the shortest leg of our trip. We got off that bus as fast as we could and found our next one without a problem and not full of crazies.

For our last evening in Wales, we went out to eat at a pizza and pasta restaurant down the street. It was very tasty and we all ended up getting meals we enjoyed. We finished the weekend by watching Madagascar... again. Jessica has become very fond of that movie. Tomorrow we take a train back into London.

Saturday 15th:
We made it back to London safely! Today was a beautiful day. Once the Rabe's hauled their luggage to Vandon, we set out to find some lunch. We decided to grab a quick sandwich and then take it to a park to eat. All of the parks were filled with people on this lovely Sunday afternoon so there weren't many benches available. Once we saw one, we grabbed it. After eating we just wandered around Green Park and then over to Hyde Park. Some of the flowers are blooming so it is extra pretty. After my family finished packing, I took them to eat at Albert's which is a pub just down the street. It is a really cute pub and our last meal was definitely a good one. Tomorrow will be another early morning and is also my sister's birthday.

Happy Birthday Jessica!!

The start of Jessica's new obsession with royalty.

Today was a long day, but a good day. We started out the day taking extra clothes of ours that didn't need to make the trip to Wales to Vandon. From Vandon, we walked along St. James's Park heading to Trafalgar Square. On the way we saw a procession of guards on horses. I'm not really sure what they were doing, but it looked cool. Next we made our way to Trafalgar Square where Jessica and I did the normal climb on the lions and take a picture. Apparently the lions body is based off a great dane, and you can tell because cats don't sit like the lions are shown sitting. The face is unmistakable a lion and they are huge. After Trafalgar Square we walked to Covent Garden's. There we walked through the little market and bought some fruit. Yum. We did quite a bit of walking today, at least to the places I knew how to walk to. Note: I did not get us lost at all today or lock us out of any buildings.

Next we went to the Tower of London. Luckily it was a really nice day today, although the sun wasn't out it was moderately warm and not raining. On the way to the Tower, my mom almost got hit by a car. She claims she was just following me and I say if she was she needed to be quicker. :) We waited to take a guided tour with a 'beefeater' I don't know why they are called that and apparently they don't either. They live in the Tower of London and there are even 11 children who live there as well. I totally recommend that if you go to the Tower of London that you get a guide. You could tell our guide really enjoyed his job. He was also pretty entertaining because he would give one of the women in our group a hard time because she wouldn't stop talking. After the tour was over, we went into the tower where the prisoners were held and then to see the crown jewels. This is the point where Jessica's new obsession started. In order to try to understand the story of a King's brother who somehow (either he did or he hired someone else) suffocated the two heirs (the King's sons) to the throne. Jessica connected this with the Lion King and how Scar tried to off Simba to become King. This really does make sense if you think about it. Anyway, after the Tower of London we found a pub to get some food and then headed off to St. Paul's Cathedral. It was at the same time as their evensong service so we sat in on that and got to see a little of the inside.

After that we were pretty much ready to crash. We made a few stops on the way back, picking up some pastries at a local bakery. :) Tomorrow we will be in Wales!!

Crocus is a flower, not to be mistaken for a bird

Monday:
Yesterday was a full day for my family, they went on a guided walk that ended up at the Globe Theatre, ate lunch at The Anchor pub, and then went to the Imperial War Museum. I met them after my classes. It was such a bummer to be in class when I knew my family was here, but oh well. I was almost late for class on Monday as I underestimated the time it took to get to Goodge Street from Baker Street. Whoops.

When I met up with my family, my mom and Jessica had just returned from taking an adventure to find some delicious chocolate milk shakes. The last time my mom and Jessica and I were in London two summers ago we fell in love with these chocolate milkshakes that were at Victoria Station at a little kiosk. Unfortunately they are no longer at Victoria but we found them at Bond Street. They are still as good as I remember them and I will be going back for more at some point in the semester! Yum. After our milkshakes we wandered around the neighborhood here and looked at the blue plaques that are all over on the sides of buildings representing famous people who lived on the site. It is fun to find random ones and even more fun when you recognize the name of the person. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle creator of Sherlock Holmes lived on the street where our apartment is. After that we went to eat at the Golden Hind, which I highly recommend. They get fresh fish daily and we had the best fish and chips I've had so far. My dad said he hasn't had any better fish than what we had and I'm sure he's had his share of fish. It is a very small restaurant, but tasty.

After dinner, we headed to Westminster where a group was meeting for a guided walking tour called, 'London by Gaslight.' Right when you walk up the steps to exit Westminster tube station, you see Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. It is quite the sight. The first time I stepped out and saw them I was just amazed and now I don't even think twice. I almost forgot that it was my dad's first time seeing them. I think they are even prettier at night, so I'm glad he got to see them like that. The walk lasted about two hours and took us around the neighborhood of Westminster. The guide talked a lot about Parliament and the two sections of it -the House of Commons and the House of Lords. During daytime you can tell if Parliament is still in session by whether or not a flag is flying on the building, but at night you can tell by a light that will be toward the top of Big Ben. Big Ben is also just the name for the bell, not the bell tower. So although we talk about Big Ben all the time, really we never see it. It is one of the most accurate clocks in London and it is cracked which is the reason for its unique sound. The walk took us behind Westminster Abbey and to a really nice neighborhood where some of the members of Parliament may live because it is a good distance from the House.

After the walk we headed back to our flat and crashed.

Tuesday:
Today I was at my internship all day and my family made the trip to Leed's Castle which is about an hour from London. It is sort of between London and Canterbury and I think it may be the castle I saw out of the coach window when I was on my way back from Canterbury. Anyway, my internship was the usual. I got to talk to the speech therapist a lot so I feel like I am getting the experience I need. The only good story from the day is: one of the children bit on of the teachers, and she said "ouch that really hurt" in a British accent. I had to hold back from laughing because the only thing I could think of was "ouch Charlie, that really hurt" (also said in a British accent). I'm assuming the youtube video Charlie Bit my finger is not popular over here so I kept it too myself.

I beat my family back to the flat, but I had the keys so I was able to get in. They got back sooner than I thought and pounded on the window so I would hear to let them in. There are two doors that lock automatically to get into our apartment. The first is the one from the outside that lets you into the apartment building and the second door which is approximately 10 feet or less from the first door lets you into our actual apartment. Anyway, I let them in the door from the outside only to turn around and realize I had locked us out of the apartment with the keys inside. Whoops. I went up to the main level to use the intercom system to try to get a hold of the man who we rented the apartment from, I must have pushed the wrong one because I got a lady. The first time I couldn't really understand what she was saying and so about five minutes later I tried again and got the same lady. I proceeded to tell her how we were locked out the of apartment and she asked, "well how do you expect to get into your apartment?" and I said, "Well I was hoping you could help us with that". She was very confused and apparently she was not the person who would have extra keys but a resident of the building. Again, whoops. So I called the guy and he laughed at me as I told him the story and said he would bring the spare keys to us, but he wouldn't be back for an hour. So, we headed out to find a bookshop for Jessica and then some dinner. We ended up eating at a pub just down the street. It was a really cute pub that served only typical 'English' pub food. I had a chicken and mushroom pie, which was actually quite tasty although the name would suggest otherwise. We also tried a cherry beer which is not so tasty. It was odd because it tasted as though it would be cherry cola but with a beer after taste. We finished the night off with brownies and ice cream and planned our day for tomorrow. :)

Family Time!

Today was the day the Rabe's arrived in London. I woke up early to meet my parents and my sister at Paddington where they would be arriving by train from the airport. I got there a little early which gave me enough time to pace the train station and get even more excited. When they arrived our reunion (which makes it sound like I've been away for ages) was full of big hugs that are probably the best ever. I love my family.

Anyway, we headed back to the underground station and to Bond Street which is the station I thought was the one I knew how to get to the apartment we would be staying from. Wrong. I needed to take them to Baker Street. Baker, Bond, don't they sound the same? Whoops. So on my family's first day in London, I got us lost. This wouldn't have been so difficult except that the street where the apartment is, is only a short block long. Meaning, most locals don't even know where it is or that it exists so they were no help when asking for directions. Luckily, we found some very nice and helpful tube worker people who helped us. Although they didn't know where the street was, they called other workers until they could help - who says Londoners aren't friendly? Anyway after what ended up being a long morning we found the apartment. I felt absolutely terrible for being such a sucky tour guide my first morning on the job.

Since my family had been up since Saturday morning at about 6:30 am they were exhausted. We took it easy the remainder of the day. We ate lunch in Regent's Park at a little cafe and made our own dinner in the apartment. The apartment is very cute and nice. My parents have a bedroom and then Jessica and I share the living room. It is bigger than I though and is a nice little place to stay for the next few days. To top the evening off we had brownies and ice cream to celebrate my dad's birthday which was in February and my sister's which is next week. Yummmmy.

Tomorrow is going to be a full day for my family and I can't wait to see them after class. Too bad I can't take the week off..