London Town Adventures

Mike's Website

2009-08-25T18:51:00.001-07:00

(Me and Mike [website designer])

A good friend of mine, Mike Flatt, has created a website dedicated to his experience abroad in London. Follow the link to go to the website and take a look around. Has some great information on there!

http://www.abroadinlondon.net/

Thanks

Twitter

2009-08-16T23:55:00.000-07:00

Hey All!

You can now follow me on Twitter!

@ albauer004

Join the revolution!

Al

Nominated!

2009-06-08T20:17:00.000-07:00

I was nominated for a contest. The competition is of logs that were written about peoples experiences as they visited Wales. If I win, the prize is a 3 night stay in this crazy cool place in Wales. Yes an excuse to go back! Keep your fingers crossed. :)

Last Day. Biggest Sad Face ever.

2009-05-29T13:44:00.000-07:00

So today is Friday, May 29th. It is 9:45pm as I write this. This means that I have 9 hours left in London before I have to leave to head to the airport. I cannot believe I just burned through 4 months. Where did the time go, seriously? I realize that I have had some amazing experiences but I have this weird feeling like tomorrow I am not going to leave. Tomorrow feels like it is just another weekend trip and I will be back here Monday morning. Do you ever get that? While I love all the people back home (there's no easy way to say this without offending people) but I don't want to go home. Going home means this semester has come to end, that it is officially over. That starting Monday I have to head back to my summer job. That this summer has begun and thus starts the count down until the end of college and furthermore the closure on a stage of my life. It bums me out to be honest. Peter Pan was right, growing up isn't fun and why would you want to?

Alrighty now that I have turned this into a cheesy editorial I will move on.

This past week I have been trying to do the last couple of things on my to-do list and revisit some of my favorite places. Yesterday I went to the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum. I had been to neither of these and they sounded like fun. The Natural History Museum was cool but just another extention of 3rd grade social studies. It contained information that I had already learned a million times over so I stuck to looking at the displays instead. IT had all kinds of displays: minerals, fossils, animals, and bunch of other things. I thought most of the displays were cool-the dinosaur stuff being my favorite. They had an actualy dinosaur only exhibit but the queue was rather long so I opted not to go in. The museum had animal which was more like walking through a zoo but with specimens with empty souls. There were tons of taxidermed animals. While a child would love this I actually found it quite sad. Just the fact that these were dead animals stuffed and put on display--i don't know, it just made me sad. I think it is the fact that my mother is an animal lover and that growing up in my household was like being a part of dr. dolittle's world that I felt this way. Seeing the staple stitches on the giraffe's stomach where they inserted the foam and stuffing is what did me in. This bummed me out a bit so I decided it was time to go. I had been there close to 2 hours and saw what I wanted to. Then I went to the Sciene Museum-thinking it would be a larger version of Robot World in the Dells. But it wasn't it had some early models of inventions likehe printing press, a loom, early automotives and space shuttles. But other than that there wasn't much so it was a bit of a let down but still cool.

This morning Dani Sam and I went to have our last meal in London. We woke up and went and had full-english breakfast. Delicious, as always and I am definitely going to miss it. I didn't really fell like going to anopther museum so Dani and I opted for going to Hyde Park and laying around there for a while. It was a gorgeous hot sunny day so I soaked up as much sun as I could. I ended up taking close to a 2 hour nap there as well. After some much needed lounging, Dani and I walked to Buckingham Palace, a few blocks away and then strolled up to the National Gallery. Trafalgar Square was very busy today so we jsut stopped for a second and then head to Leicester Square and Covent Garden (Theatreland). Also so busy so we walked around the block and headed back to Nido.

Here I have been just doing some finishing touches to packing and will prob go to bed soo nsince I have to get up so early and head to Heathrow Airport. I will be back in Chicago tomorrow at 2pm central time. Crazy stuff. Not looking forward to the almost 9 hr. flight. Not fun.

List of things I will miss most from London:
1. My friends from here.

2. Kebabs, Crown Fish, and Tesco (they kept me fed this semester)

3. The parks. (Hyde, Regent, Green, St. James, Highbury)

4. The diversity of people.

5. Walking around and seeing history left and right.

6. The tube

7. Dani talking in her sleep (quite entertaining)

8. Sam turning every word into a plural (Tescos, Convent Gardens)

9. Mike's random catch phrases ("These beans are bomb!")

10. Lady Gaga marathons and the "downstairs"

See you London, you were Amazing!

And see all of you guys soon. Thanks for reading the blog too, made the writing worth it.

Wicked

2009-05-27T04:57:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I woke up at 6am to go wait in a queue for Wicked tickets. In London, at the Wicked theatre, they have this thing where everyday, when the box office opens, they sell the entire front row for only 25 pounds. The normal price in this section of the theatre is 75 pounds. So for a third of the price you can get the best seats in the house. Having never seen the play but loved the music, I wanted to try and get these seats. So Dani and I awoke to head down to the theatre. The box office opens at 10am but we wanted to beat everyone and be at the front of the line--so 1. we could get front row and 2. to get front row center. Well we got down to the box office at 7:30ish and no one else was there. Winner! This was great, except it was freezing cold and rainy. Typical, not great, London weather. So we picked a spot outside on the steps and waited it out. It was so cold I couldnt even say. At around 8:15 we took turns going to get some breakfast. Up until about 9/ 9:15 we were the only ones in the queue. We felt kind of like idiots really. Finally one more guy showed up to join us. We talked to us a bit and we found out that we had showed up at the right time because usually people start showing up when we did, it was just a slow day. So that was reassuring. And after him a person here and there would show up until 10. The box office finally opened and Dani and I were the first in line. This was amazing. We got the tickets 2 for us and 1 for our friend Sam that couldnt come wait in line with us. We got the tickets and to our excitement we got the 3 seats that were dead center! How cool is that?! On top of the great seats the show was great. We were close enough that we saw every detail on the costumes and all of the facial expressions by the performers. I have never been that close before, I prob. never will. It was just a great way to see the show. I love musicals and this one is def. one of my favorites. If you get a chance to go see it-do.

Oxford

2009-05-26T08:02:00.000-07:00

So as my time in London is drawing to a close, Dani Sam and I are in denial. While I love all of you, I am not ready to leave London. This city is so great and I have had so many amazing experiences that I am going to miss.

Monday, Dani Sam and I went to Oxford, home of the famous university and many other things. We found extremely cheap train tickets that cost about $18 for a return ticket. So we headed up for a day trip. The day went pretty smoothly travel wise adn with my past history that was a gift itself. The train left at 10:22A and took about an hour. I napped most of the time. We arroaved and headed off. None of us did any special research as in what there was to do we just wanted to wander and we did. We started off with heading to the city center. This city seemed rather small when compared to London, as most cities would and do. We walked down there major shopping street and saw up ahead a tall building and decided to head there. We arrived at the Christ Church (also a university) and saw that the building was shut off to the public but it had a huge open, park like area. We had some great sunny weather and decided to walk around. It was so gorgeous and the building was beautiful. We learned that the author of Alice in Wonderland actually was the math professor at the college in his hay day. Alice was the Dean's daughter and he would tell her stories as well. Fun fact. Another fun fact is that the Thames River, in London, actually runs up through Oxford too. Cool stuff. We wondered how long it would take to travel by boat. After waling through here and seeing some cool wild life (a few families of ducks with fluffy babies), we headed to the covered market that Oxford is known for. But when we arrived we saw that it was closed due to the bank holiday, which is similar to our memorial day. Bummer. So we then just wandered down some random streets and came across another university and walked onto the campus and sat down on a grass patch. Very relaxing that is until a woman came up an asked us not to sit on the grass. I guess it was the kind of grass that is just for looking not enjoying. Which was obvious when we thought about it later--I mean this grass was green, nicely kept, underneath a sunny sky.....oh wait that sounds like every other grass patch on the planet. We thought it was dumb that you weren't allowed to sit there but moved on anyway. From here we went and walked through another park and decided to stop and get ice cream and popsicle. My treat was of the tropical strawberry variety and I enjoyed it quite much. After hanging around there we went back towards town and stopped and got a snack at a local place. I got a cookie bar and iced tea. Delicious. This led to more aimless wandering and my purchasing of some surf shorts and a book. I bought the book "A Wolf at the Table" by Augusten Burroughs, the same guy who wrote "Running With Scissors." I am about 85 pages in and love it. I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a new book to read. After spending time at Borders we had to head back to the train station to go back to London. The ride home was smooth and easy. Love it. I was glued to my book the whole ride anyway. Very cool city, glad I got to see it.

Dinner Time Sadness

2009-05-21T11:18:00.001-07:00

The following is what happens when a person does not know how to cook. These were the dinners that Dani and I prepared for ourselves yesterday. It was too funny so I had to share. I bet you can guess which one was mine. HA

Yay!

2009-05-19T07:32:00.000-07:00

I just handed in my last project! Woot Woot! No more classes-now we can have some fun. :)

End of the year Jolly

2009-05-17T15:56:00.000-07:00

For the end of our stay in London, the school puts on one last shindig for us. For our end of the year party they took us out to eat and then a ride on the London Eye. I had been looking forward to this all semester but now that it was here, I find myself wondering where the time went. It did have a cool view of the city but we didn't have the best weather. Nothing terrible just some typical London haze. These are some pictures from then.

Glasgow

2009-05-15T09:44:00.000-07:00

In order to complete my travels throughout the UK, I had to visit Scotland. Lucky for me, Alyssa is studying in Glasgow which gave me the perfect excuse to visit. The only downside is that my final project for my web design class is due next week, so trying to find time that I can leave and not really work on it was a bit hard. So I left for Glasgow Sunday night, my bus left at 11:00pm. The bus ride was 8hrs. or so, sounds like a ton of fun right? Well no, I will be honest, I wanted to kill myself, or others, after about 2 hrs. The beginning of the ride started out fine, I had a window seat the and one next to me was empty. But there was an odd couple sitting in front of me, old people, and children present. Individually not bad, but combined-not my favorite. I swear, if the people around me could have heard my inner thoughts they would've thought I was a crazy, homicidal maniac. It got worse halfway through when one girl decided to play musical seats and asked to sit next to me. As uninviting as I tried to make myself look, she still had the guts to ask me and I am not the kind of person who says no-so a seat buddy I gained. Yay (big sarcasm). I finally arrived to Glasgow and waited a few minutes for Alyssa. A familiar face. Yes! We walked to the nearest subway and took it to a stop closer to her flat. I have never been on such a small subway in my life! It was so tiny. Heightwise if you were above 6 ft. you'd have to duck to get in. Crazy stuff. It is quite the trek to her flat, let me tell ya. Not anything terrible but a lot longer than I would have guessed and dragging my suitcase up a hill was not the funnest thing I have ever experienced. But we arrived safely. I was incredibly tired so opted to take a nap, Alyssa agreed. We napped for a few hours and finally decided to get up and see some of the city. She went and showed me around part of her campus. It was gorgeous and the main building looked like a castle out of a Harry Potter film. The campus is also on one of the high points of the city so there was an amazing view on the edge. I could've sat there all afternoon but Alyssa insisted on showing me other places, equally as cool. We then went to go meet some her friends at a bar called Nude. They were serving mojitos for 2 pounds. It was cool to finally meet some of the people I had been hearing stories about-and they were all very nice people. From there we went to a pub called Curlers. There was a football match going on, the place was pretty busy, and there wasn't a lack of men. We hung out here for the rest of the night. It was very entertaining to say the least-watching the people surrounding me was very fun. One of Alyssa's friends sat and went on and on about how much I look like Anne Hathaway. I think it was for at least 30 min. Seriously, I get it, yes I kind of look like her at times, let it go people. Then we just headed home. Tuesday we woke up around 10 or 11. Her friends planned to have a picnic in a park, Kelvingrove. I was very lucky with weather while I was in Glasgow so the picnic was really fun. It was sunny and very green-loved it. Alyssa and some of her friends started to play frisbee-I chose to sun bathe. Afterwards, Alyssa took me down to the city center and showed me around there. Alyssa wanted to do a little shopping so we bummed around some stores. She bought a pair of pants and a shirt, I was content with being a consultant. She then showed me St. George's Square. It was cool but there was construction being done on it so it was hard to appreciate. By that time it was starting to get really cold so we headed back to Alyssa's and hung out there for the night. We went to this website called "textsfromlastnight.com" It was hilarious. You should all give it a look if you haven't already. Wednesday we slept in and by we I mean I woke up at 9:30 and Alyssa did so at 1. I pretty much just entertained myself via youtube for four hours. Don't get me wrong though-it's officially my favorite past time. When we finally headed off to great the day, Alyssa took my to the Cathedral and the necropolis. Both were really cool. The necropolis had an amazing view of the city. Even better it was another sunny day. The necropolis was my favorite thing to see. I know it sounds weird but I always thought cemeteries were cool and pretty--in a dark, emo rocker sort of way. So walking around the different grave stones was really cool. Yes I get how disturbing that sounds. From here we had to walk back towards Alyssa's campus to meet up with some of her friends and partake in what they call "Secret Wednesdays." Secret Wednesdays is where Alyssa and three of her friends go to this bar the G.U. to have one pound drinks. It is called secret wednesdays because they don't tell all of their friends of their ritual. They hoard the drinks to themselves--sounds like the startings of some great alcoholics eh? Alyssa has me worried. From there we just went back to Alyssa's flat for a couple of hours before I had to go to the bus station and take a night bus back to London. Glasgow was really fun and a nice city, but I was starting to miss London. The ride back was fine except I didn't get any sleep and was very cold on the bus. So i got back to my room around 7:30am and slept until 4pm. I had to get up at 4 so that I could get ready to go to the end of the year jolly that the school was putting on for us. Details to follow.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

2009-05-13T02:09:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday!

For everyone else: Yes my mom is lucky and has her birthday 3 days from mother's day. Yes, I like photoshop-this is what I do. Cute right?

Mum's Day

2009-05-10T08:26:00.001-07:00

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY, MOM!

Funny joke

2009-05-06T14:45:00.001-07:00

My aunt, Jody, just emailed me this joke. I thought it was funny and decided to share:

Hymn #365
This is a hoot, but I suspect the minister didn't appreciate it.
A minister was completing a temperance sermon. With great emphasis he said, 'If I had all the beer in the world, I'd take it and pour it into the river.'
With even greater emphasis he said, 'And if I had all the wine in the world, I'd take it and pour it into the river.'
And then finally, shaking his fist in the air, hesaid, 'And if I had all the whiskey in the world, I'd take it and pour it into the river.'
Sermon complete, he sat down.
The song leader stood very cautiously and announced, with a smile, nearly laughing, 'For our closing song,Let us sing Hymn #365, 'Shall We Gather at the River.'

Hope it made you smile :) Do you think this idea should be pitched to Noah's Ark? The lazy river could always use a redesign.

Art, Comments and Scotland. Oh My.

2009-05-06T14:36:00.000-07:00

So nothing too special too report. There is an art supply store that is roughly 10 blocks or so from my building and today they had student day where everything was 15% off for students even on items already discounted and with ID you got this cool bag and a couple of free items. So today I went and checked it out. It was a great store, really. So I dabbled and bought some new amazing paint brushes that are absolutely gorgeous, marker pens, and a sketch book. Then when I checked out I got this cool canvas tote with a free tube of paint, sketch pencil, and notepad. How cool is that? Well it pretty much made my day.

Other news- well I know some of you were having troubles commenting on the blog and such and I finally checked it out and made it so anyone should be able to post. you wont need to make an account at all. So feel free to do so if you wish.

And Dani's parents are getting in today, so she is pretty excited. She's actually in the process of picking them up from the airport.

Sunday I am going to Scotland, finally, to visit with my friend Alyssa. The same friend I spent part of spring break with. This will be my last trip while here and lets me complete in seeing all the countries of the UK. Excited but I have a ton of work to get done before I go. So I am going to start that now.

Ta Ta

Style?

2009-05-03T11:48:00.000-07:00

So I have been swaying back and forth over the past couple of months about whether or not I wanted to get bangs. Well, today I said what the heck, it'll grow back if I don't like it. So now I have bangs, lets hope its not like the summer before my senior year, which is when I first tried these out. My parents didn't approve--especially because my senior pictures were only a couple weeks away. Oh well.

You're still the same to me

2009-05-02T12:17:00.000-07:00

Well there's nothing new to report really. Just bored and sick of writing the mound of papers that I have to finish. Dani along with all of my friends here, except Jack, have gone away for the weekend and while my friends have flown off to France and Spain, I remain here. I have found I have an addiction to YouTube--a website where you can watch pretty much anything you can imagine; stuff from illegally posted TV shows to a short clip of a walrus doing sit-ups (yes this exists and I have watched it a few times). But I find that even that along with Facebook, email, and itunes cannot entertain me. You may ask yourself why I am not out exploring the city, mean I am in London for pete's sake, but I am not allowing myself to do anything fun until I get my work done. Well, I am a big procrastinator and even my procrastination is no fun. I mean I am writing this right now....so in essence I am procrastinating my procrastination--I live a sad life huh?
Anywho I thought I would add in some fun facts about myself just for kicks (yes I am that bored) so here are 5 things you may not know about me, yes even you mom.

1. When I was in the 6th grade I wanted to be a professional boxer.
2. My first pet was a guinea pig named Oliver.
3. I've eaten a habenero pepper for a dare. Don't do it.
4. I own a '96 Thunderbird. jealous? ha
5. I once stayed up and watched the movie Good Burger in an all night marathon with my cousin Sara. We watched it 13 times.

Ok back to work for me.

Oh and yes the swine flu crisis has reached us here. It ridiculous and no I haven't caught it.

London Marathon: 26.2 Miles of excitement.

2009-04-27T12:58:00.000-07:00

So the London marathon was yesterday and Dani and I went to go watch it. It was pretty cool. We started at mile marker 25 and watched for a while and slowly made our way tp the finish line. These people are amazing and definitely inspirational. The crowd was great too. Anytime a person would slow down, stop for a break, or just look like they were struggling the crowd would get louder and provide more support. It was so cool to witness. Even better, this marathon is based on charities, so every runner had a cause they were running for. Really great. Also, currently there is a camp of protesters that are tenting out in front of parliament and they have been for some time. So yesterday, they were in full swing. It was quite the scene, let me tell you. Then we walked to the finish line and it was nuts. Just a ton of energy. I've never seen a marathon before so this was quite the experience.

Quotes from Mike: Madrid (Spring Break part IV)

2009-04-27T07:52:00.001-07:00

We arrived in Madrid without a hitch. Katie was quite thoughtful and wrote out thorough directions for us in how to get to our hostel. We stayed in Hostel One located in Puerta del Sol, which is the city center. We took the metro which included switching lines a few times but no problem. That is until Mike went rogue and decided to walk off in the opposite direction of needed. I had to go catch him and lead him the right way. Both of us decided that we weren't sure what his train of thought was. Isn't it nice to have a male leader? After having some very minor confusion of which street we wanted, we found the hostel. We made plans to meet Katie at 6:30p which only gave us a few minutes to rest before we had to go meet her. After waiting for a few minutes, Katie found us and showed us some of the iconic parts of Madrid. This included the eact center of Madrid, the famous Tio Pepe sign, and the Bear and tree statue. These were all in Puerta del Sol. She then took us on a mimi tour and showed us the royal palace and Plaza Mayor. Afterwards, she took us to where she lives. Katie has a host family where she lives with Concha (her host mom), Pablo (Concha's son), Jill (another study abroad student like Katie), and Trufa (the dog, means truffle in Spanish). Concha was the most welcoming, cutest lady. She doesn't know English that well, so I had to use Katie to help me translate when I couldn't think of how to say something. Truffa is a yellow lab and was adorable, made me miss my dog tons. We sat aroundand talked for a while, like we hadn't just spent the last 8 days together, or something. Mika and I didn't want to impose on dinner (they eat around 11pm there) so we headed back to the hostel. When we got back, I hopped on the computer and hung out in the tv room. This has been my favorite hostel I have stayed in so far. The bathroom was amazing, beds comfortable, and in the common room they had a flat screen tv with a playstation and a DVD collection. Awesome! So I sat and read Wicked for a little bit and then went to bed. We awoke next morning with plans to meet Katie and Mike's friend, Alyssa at 12:30. We decided to walk around and do some souvenir shopping before we met them, and I was able to get myself an authentic Spanish fan along with some other items for the family. We met up with Katie and alyssa and headed to lunch at a place I forgot the name of but they have these great little sandwiches called bocadillos. Spain is known for there ham so naturally I had a ham sandwich. I think my favorite was the chorizo ham if I am remembering the name correctly. We then walked arounf for a little and Alyssa took us back to show us her apartment. Katie had to head off and go to a class btu we were going to meet up with her later. Alyssa's apartment was small, but cute. They had a balcony they had a cool view considering it was on the top floor and all. After a while, mike and I headed off and went to this park that had an Egyptian tomb-that was a gift from Egypt as a thank you for Spain restoring it or something of that nature. The park was pretty and it had been cloudy and rainy most of the day and it was finally getting sunny out. From there we walked to Plaza Espana which is where the famous Don Quixote fountain. The is pretty cool and the flowers around it were gorgeous. From there we walk Gran Via, one of the main streets, back to the hostel and bummed around there for a little while. We then went to meet Katie and since Mike and I were hungry we stopped at a cafe that was close by and had dinner. We were having some fun chatting with each other and it even led to another quote from Mike. We were talking about friends and he thought it was cool that Katie and I have been friends since we were 7. He then said how he felt he had known Katie for longer than the realistic week by saying, "I feel that I've known you for so long. Who knows, maybe we were lizards together in a past life." Taken out of context that statement may not be funny but believe me if you were sitting at that table you wouldn't have been able to keep a straight face. We were at the cafe for about 3 hours or so when Katie had to head home so Mike and I said goodbye and went back to the hostel. We woke up the next day and while Mike slept in again, I bummed around and watched tv and went on the computer. After we checked out, we headed to the airport using the metro. We arrived at the airport too early apparently. This is what I was told after I had been waiting for about 30 min. We had to wait another 40 min. or so and then finally were able to check in. This went pretty smoothly and we made our way to the gate. We were caught off guard when we saw that we had to go through a police check point and have our passports check again. But I got excited because this meant that I finally got my Spain stamp in my passport. I still can't figure out why they give you one when you leave but, I'm not going to complain. At the gate, we ran into Mike's friend Alyssa. She was coming to London the same day and staying for the weekend with Mike. But we thought she was on the plane after ours so it was a surprise to see her. Well, we boarded the flight and off we went. I just started readin Wicked and eventually fell asleep. Apparently at one point Mike tried to talk to me before he saw that I was completely konked out. We arrived at London Stansted Airport around 6pm or so and caught a bus to take us into the city. I was so relieved to arrive to Baker Street and know exactly where I was. Love it. Well that ends my crazy 10 day extravaganza. It was a ton of fun and I was so glad that everyone got along so well. And while, Mike may not have been able to make his own bed, read a map, plug in a heater he sure made the trip a lot funnier. Plus Katie and Alyssa are two of my best friends from home, so I can easily say this was the best spring break ever.

Quotes from Mike: Barcelona (Spring Break part III)

2009-04-20T11:39:00.000-07:00

We awoke early Sunday morning to head off to Barcelona. The campsite had an airport shuttle service so the three of us took advantage of it. Alyssa did not come with us to Spain so that morning she headed back to Glasgow instead. This was a pretty smooth ride to the airport and we arrived a little early for check-in so we had to grab some seats for a while. We spotted some and as we were walking to them I noticed that there was a stray cat sitting on one. These are all over Italy so it didn't surprise me really. Well Mike sat down and went to move the cat on the seat next to him so I could sit down. The problem was that he thought it was a fur hat so when it moved when he touched he freaked out a jumped a bit. It was rather funny and the people around us got a good laugh out of it to. When it came time for check in Mike and I had no problems but Katie had some issues with her bag, again, which led to eventually having to check it. Super annoying. There is a funny story though. Katie knew that she was over weight in her carry-on she to prevent that she wore 7 shirts that day to the airport just to find out she was still over the limit and had to check the bag anyway. So she then took out her folder she had her flight information and checked everything else. So imagine this tiny girl with a million shirts on carrying a folder with a print of a puppy on it. Call me insensitive but I got a good chuckle out of it. But we got to the gate and bummed around waiting for boarding. On the flight, I once again semi-succeeded in taking a nap. When we landed in Barcelona, I was super excited, especially because it meant another stamp in my passport. Well to my sadness, no one was at customs to check our passports. No fun. So we then had to catch a bus to the city center and did so, more napping. I didn't have directions to the hostel, only the address so when we got off the bus we jumped on the metro adn estimated where it was. we were wrong. So we stopped at a cafe that was nearby and asked for some help. By we I mean Katie. She is studying in Madrid and was much better off than myself-even with my 7 years of Spanish. But the people in Spain were so nice and Katie had 4 people helping her. During this I came to realize that I did have directions to the hostel-they were on my confirmation page, and I had forgotten about them. So then it made it much easier and we realized we weren't too far away so we headed off. We made it a couple of blocks and decided to check our map to make sure we were fine and as we bagan o take out the map an elderly man stopped and offered his help. Seriously, they are so nice there. So he gave us some more directions and back to walking we went. It was too difficult to find the hostel. We finally arrived and I was so relieved. It was called Sea Point and was right on the boardwalk. I stepped outside, walked 20 feet, and I was standing in sand. AMAZING! We showered and then decied to do some walking around and went dinner. We found one close by and decied to try there "menu del dia". (menu of the day). This included bread, salad, traditional paella, chocolate mousse, and a drink. It was delicious. I had never had paella but it was awesome. I recommend it to all. After wards we checked out some more of the city. This led us to the acquarium that we decided to go to-Mike said he ahd heard it was supposed to be a really good one. And it was great. We got to see all types of sea creatures-penguins, octopi, stingrays, sharks, sea horses, the entire cast of Finding Nemo and a tons more. They even had a room where you were surrounded on all sides by the tank, as in you walk underneath it in this tunnel. It was so cool. I have always been a fan of water and its inhabitants so this was a real treat. Afterwards we decided to try and find the "Magical Fountain" which is an iconic landmark in Barcelona. Along the way we walked past a theatre that was playing Spamelot (the monty python and the holy grail musical). The box office was open and it looked fun so we decided to ask how much tickets would be. With a student discount they were 21 euros so we impulsively purchased them. We went off to find the fountain but failed and had to give up so we could make it back to the theatre in time for the show. The show was spectacular, if you like Monty Python, you would like this. It's great and has all of the classic jokes of the movie and then some. After the play we opted for heading back to the hostel and calling it a night. The next morning, Katie and I woke up and had breakfast while Mike slept in a bit. Afterwards, we went and sat on the bech for a little bit and then I walked Katie to the metro stop. She headed to Madrid on Monday because she had a class the next day. Once I got back to the hostel, Mike and I made a mini itinerary for the day. We decided to start by going to the top of Mount. Montjuic which is the high point in Barcelona. To get there you have the option to ride these cable car/ ski lift things to the top. It looked pretty cool so we thought we'd give it a shot and walked to the starting point tower. This looked like a mini Eiffel and was very cool. We waited in line for a while and then rode an elevator to the top of the tower, where we got on the car. This had an amazing view of the city and was really neat. But my fear of heights reared its ugly head and I started geaking out a little. Good thing I had a strong man like Mike for support, right? Well no, he chose to laugh at me instead. But this ride dropped is off about half way up the mountain so we looked around for a little bit and took in the amazing view. There was mini lift to take you to the top so we then walked up a little ways to get to that. On our way, we happened to walk past the swimming pool arena that was built for the '92 summer olympics and that was pretty neat to see. A bit rustic-definitely not worried about the up-keep. Well, we hopped on the lift and and rode it to the top. What a view, I cannot even describe. Also on top was a castle that still had some tanks and warheads from a war, we thought one of the world wars maybe. And you could walk around and see it all. So we spent some time at the top and finally decided to head back to the hostel and then hit the beach. The beach was amazing but, hey I love a good beach and probably wouldn't have been disappointed if there was a hurricane. While I worked on getting a little tan, Mike worked on adding to his sunburn and succeeded. His neck got so red it looked like someone tried to dye him with beet juice. I have a friend that I use to work with over the summer, Ashley. She is studying in Barcelona so we arranged to meet her that night, she was taking us to her favorite sangria bar. But that wasnt until 10 so we had a few hours to get some food and wander around the dock somemore. Finally we headed off to meet Ashley. The bar was just off a street called Las Ramblas, which is the main tourist drag in the city. We arrived and it was a little creepy at first because from the outside it looked like a dungeon but the interior was really neat, with little caverns and such. So we met up with Ashley, some of her friends, and some of her friend's friends. We talked for quite a while until we realized the time and decided to head back to the hostel. I was exhausted. In the morning we did the same drill of me getting up for breakfast and Mike sleeping in. We bummed around for a little bit but then headed off to the metro to go to the bus terminal to go to the airport. Along the way I bought a postcard and 2 bracelets. Wanted to have something to prove I had been to the city. We arrived at the airport and used the kiosks to get our tickets and then headed of to the gate with no problems. Since we were there so early we were the first ones at the gate. Perfect. The flight company we flow through doesnt assign the passengers seats. You have to hop in line and it becomes a free for all to find a seat and space for your luggage, so we knew we wouldn't be having problems this time. After boarding got delayed for 30 min. we hopped on and jetted off to Madrid. It was a very short flight that went pretty smoothly.

Quotes from Mike: Rome (Spring Break part II)

2009-04-19T05:55:00.001-07:00

We awoke at 4 am Thursday morning to head off to Rome. We had all packed before we went to sleep so basically just had to grab our stuff and go. We went to reception and had the midnight watchmen call us a taxi. It seemed he had some trouble which made the four of us nervous, especially with our past history. But the man assured us the taxi was coming so we popped a squat and waited for it. I don't know what came over Alyssa and I but we got into one of the biggest giggle fits I have ever been involved in. I don't remember what was so funny, but some scenario we made up in our heads was hilarious. I assure you we were not on drugs of any kind or under the influence of alcohol-this was some pure PG fun. A few minutes after we were able to control ourselves the taxi comes flying around the corner. I seriously thought he was going to kill us and he zoomed and whipped his car in a 180. We loaded up our bags and he drove us into the bus terminal which was about a 10 minute ride that cost us 40 euro (55 dollars). Insane, but we were too tired to care. We arrived at the bus terminal a little early so had to sit around for a little while. Which would have been fine if I hadn't been hit on by some weird Italian man and had another short sweaty creeper stare at us while we waited. Again, Mike, the man, didn't stand up for us--good thing women need a man to travel with, especially for security reasons. So the bus pulled up, we loaded the gear and headed to the airport. Check-in went much smoother this time, sort of. The flight company we chose has a crazy rule about only 1 cabin baggage is allowed and it has to weigh under 10kg. So if you area girl you cant have a back pack and a purse-only 1. So i was fine but Katie had some problems with her bag. They wanted her to check even though it fit the dimensions specified by them. Annoying but we got it figure out and headed to the gate. When we sat down I had a little bit of a panic because I couldn't find my passport. It then hit me that I had set it down in security and left it there. Four letter curse word. So I jaunted back to find that a security officer was coming to find me at my gate, phew. So I calmed down and went back and sat at the gate. It wasn't long after that we heard an announcement over the PA system. Our flight was cancelled. I will write it again, CANCELLED. Seriously, WTF. Our flight was terminated due to the foggy conditions outside. Yes it was foggy but not that bad and they cancelled the flight a whole hour before boarding-didn't try to wait it out or anything. Super annoyed. So we had to go back and wait in this long line so that we could get our flight refunded and to be told that all of their flights were booked until tomorrow night. So we had to go back to the bus terminal and to try and catch a train to Rome. We got there to find our the we couldn't catch a train until 1:00pm. We had to wait at a stupid train station with crappy, overpriced food until then. We popped out a deck of cards to try and pass the time but a worker came up to us and told us that cards were not allowed. I have yet to understand that logic. But we got on the train and made it to Rome in time to check in to our hostel. But we arrived in Rome at 5:10pm versus 9am, which is when our flight would have landed. We then had to catch a couple of metros and overground trains to reach our hostel where we were able to check-in right away. We went to our rooms to see that they were very similar to our Venice ones. This hostel, Tiber Village, was a sister campsite to ours in Rome. We had another cabin with 2 conjoined rooms but this time we had 2 bathrooms, which was great. In Venice we had community bathrooms shared by a bunch of people. We pretty much bummed around the campsite for the rest of the day, took advantage of the free internet, and went to bed. In our rooms blankets and such were provided and we were given 1 plug in heater and their was another on the wall that looked like an air conditioner. We had the heater plugged in for a while but unplugged it before we went to bed because of safety reasons. I woke up in the middle of the night and it was freezing, I can't describe how cold it was in the cabin. I desperately wanted to plug in the heater but didn't dare leave the somewhat warmth of my blankets. The cold kept my from falling completely asleep so when my alarm went off in the morning I was pretty much awake. As soon as me alarm went off, Mike and I woke up (we shared a room and Katie and Alyssa were in the other), we all started verbalizing our thoughts of the cold. Mike, a passive-aggressive baby, said off the cuff, "Do you think the heater will turn on if it gets plugged in?" Which was his way of saying he wanted me to get up and plug it in. What a man right? He also made note of how cold his nose was and that he needed another pair of socks. I couldn't even get mad, he was so pathetic, and funny to hear. So I jumped out of bed and ran over to plug the heater in and jumped back under my covers. A few minutes later he got up and jumped in the shower which helped heat the room with the steam. After we got over the shock of the temperature we got up and headed into the city. It was Good Friday. This led us to the decision to start the day off with a tour of Vatican City, we had to earn some brownie points for Heaven somehow. We began by touring St. Peter's Basilica. It is gorgeous with amazing mosaic, tile floors and painted ceilings. Sculptures of Martyrs and former Popes decorated the walls. Amazing stuff. From here we headed over to the Vatican Museum-this place was/is filled with many paintings, sculptures and artifacts. Most of which was stolen, probably during the Crusades. The self guided tour ended in the Sistine Chapel to see Michelangelo's masterpiece. While it wasn't permitted I did happen to sneak a picture of it. Yes, I have already been scolded for my actions and have had some brownie points taken away. But the chapel was amazing but I would it is a lot smaller than you would guess it it. Well we stood and gawked for awhile but then decided to move on to see some of the other hot spots that were close by. From here we walked all around and saw things like the Castel de Angelo, Pantheon (Raphael's tomb is there!), Piazza de Venezia, Piazza Nuova Four Rivers Fountain, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps and a park that I have forgotten the name of. In a nut shell if you have read Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, the same author as the Da Vinci Code, you may recognise some of the places. I think my favorite was trevi Fountain, but each place had different architecture and atmosphere so it was hard to compare them. Seeing all of these sights took up the entire afternoon/ day. We ended the day in the park and then headed back to our hostel. The hostel had a restaurant, bar and market like the Venice one so we decided we were going to eat dinner there. They had delicious food. After dinner we hopped on the internet and just hung around the area and eventually made our way to the cabin to bum around there. It led to another night of fun conversation and again Mike making an ass out of himself. at one point he mentioned that great Spanish song, "Habla Nagila Habla." You may have never heard of it, and that would be because it doesn't exist. What Mike meant was the Jewish song, Hava Nagila. We still cannot figure out the train of thought he was using but, I mean we shouldn't question him because males are the superior species, right? ;) Well that capped off the evening and we headed for bed. This time we decided to keep the heater on all night, if the place caught fire at least it would have been warm. After some inspection we also found out that what we thought was a air conditioner was actually a second heater in our so we cranked that up as well. This combined with the extra blankets we got from reception led to a very cozy, comfortable night of sleep.
We awoke the next morning around 9:30ish. Today on the agenda was to tour and see all of the ancient Rome places that we didn't get to Friday. We shuttle over to the Coliseum and the Roman Forum. We knew that if we went to the Roman Forum first because we knew we could buy us tickets there that would get us into all the attractions. So we started the day off by walking up/ on Palatine Hill. This is where the birth of Rome is said to take place. If you've heard the Romulus and Remus myth, it is said to take place on this hill. We were standing on history-so unbelievably cool, I cannot even tell you. This hill is a part of and kind of attached to the Roman Forum. The Roman Forum is in essence old ruins of ancient Rome. Your allowed to walk around and climb on these things, so amazing. There are tons of old buildings where the only thing that really remains are some columns and walls. It's in here that you can also go in and tour Augustus' house. We spent a few hours in here-with amazing weather and I took advantage of the sun completely. From here we headed over to the Coliseum. We and another funny situation here. The girls and I paused on the side of the street to take some pictures and the next thing I know Mike is gone. I couldn't seem him anywhere until I looked about 150 feet up the sidewalk to see him making a bee line for the Coliseum. We were confused and thought maybe he thought we had left him and he was trying to catch up to us? Well we practically had to run up to catch him and when we did we asked where the fire was and said, "I don't know, I was just really excited." Well we hoped in the line and were able to jump part of it because we had already bought our ticket at the Roman Forum. We toured around here for a while. We had a system over break though. Once we got in we would let ourselves get split up so everyone could go at there own pace and not feel rushed. We just meet the group at the exit when we were ready to leave. Katie and I went at our pace which seemed to be the fastest. So we exited out of the Coliseum and waited, a few minutes later came Alyssa. We were waiting outside for close to an hour when we came to the decision that there was no way Mike was still looking around. So we finally spotted him. He was waiting for us inside the Coliseum and the rest of us were outside. It took some effort to get his attention but we finally did. No big deal, it was only 45 min worth of miscommunication. After the tours, we were extremely hungry and Rome is very expensive so, apologetically we chose to eat at McDonald's. We had passed one the previous day somewhere near the Pantheon so off in search of it we went. As we were looking for it we ran back into the Trevi Fountain. This is actually a bit funny. Well, you know how you're supposed to throw a coin in the fountain-well you do this so that one day you will come back to it. For us it was a mere 24 hours for most it years. We laughed, I guess throwing a coin in works eh? So we had dinner and bought some souvenirs and then headed back to the hostel. We arrived back and celebrated our last night in Rome with a happy hour and chatting it up, sitting in the outdoor patio. we had to go to bed a bit early since we had an early flight to Barcelona the next day. Espana here we come!

Quotes from Mike: Venice (Spring Break part I)

2009-04-18T11:49:00.000-07:00

Well what a whirlwind of the last 2 weeks. As you know, I have been out of the country becoming a worldy traveler-adding stamps to my passport. 10 days involves a boat load of stories so I am going to break this up city by city-like chapters in a book. Wow, this blog is becoming pretty legit.

Here we go.

Monday April 6th, marked the beginnings of my ten day journey. Along with my companions, Mike, Alyssa and Katie, I was heading off to Italy, Venice to be exact. We had an early morning flight and rolled out of NIDO (mike katie and I)at roughly 3:30 am. We had the front desk call us a taxi which we took to Baker Street (Yes, the very same street as Sherlock Holmes) and from their we were catching a coach bus to the airport. Alyssa was staying at a hostel not to far from there so we met her there. We didn't know exactly where the bus was picking us up but we ran into this random girl that was getting on the same bus and she had a map. Once we looked at it Mike said he remembered where the stop was because a buddy of his had to go there a week before. So off the the bus stop we went, we thought. About 8 blocks later we decided we were heading in the wrong direction and after a girl assesed the map we decided that Mike had taken us in the opposite direction. So we jaunted back to where the stop officially was. It normally wouldn't be an important fact to point out that a girl found the correct way but it was just the night before when Mike tried to convince Katie and I that, "girls need a man to travel with." Mike is from the south so we excuse his idiotic, traditional ways of thinking and taken pleasure often when he eats his words; times like these for example. Anyway, we got to the bus stop and our bus pulled up about 3 min. later. We hopped on the bus and arrived at the airport about an hour later. Walking into the airport it was a little chaotic because it was the morning rush. Alyssa and I checked in at the kiosks provide and had no problem. With Katie's ticket she had to go to the ticket counter and get a stamp (same rule that I had to deal with in Ireland). Mike on the other hand had a rough time. When he bought his ticket online he didnt chose his ticket option. Like between aiport check-in (Alyssa and I) or online check-in (Katie). So he had to run around getting sent from line to line-he was like a deer caught in headlights. He probably wouldn't have made the plane if I didn't jump in and do some talking to the airline workers. During this drama Katie and Alyss went ahead to make sure at least they caught the plane. We finally got mike his ticket and we went to go through security which had a terribly long line but we were getting thourgh it. We had another hiccup when Mike's bag got stopped to be searched at security. So I went ahead-figuring 1. that I could try and hold the plane for him and 2. I didn't wan to miss my flight just because Mike was being dumb. So I made it to the gate as they were finishing up boarding, here I caught up with Alyssa and Katie. Who were freaking out because they were afraid that we weren't going to make the plane and because I had all of our hostel and transport information. About a minute later Mike came up from behind and we all made it on the plane with about 1 minute and a hlaf to spare. Seriously what it with my luck and transportation?

The flight to Venice was pretty smooth. I tried to nap the whole way and was pretty successful. Katie did wake me up at one point as we were flying over a set of mountains I had no reference to where I was at the time to know which ones but it was probably one of the prettiest sights I had ever seen. Imagine snow capped mountains, that seemed so close that I could reach out and touch them, shining in morning light as the sun is rising. Ah-Mazing.

We landed in Venice, got stamps in our passports (yay), and caught a bus to take us to Fusina. Fusina is where our campsite was which is right on the border of Venice. Venice is an island in north Italy and Fusina is the closest you can get without staying in the actual city-which is a bit expensive for a student budget. The bus from the airport dropped us off at a bus/train stop where we had to catch a bus to our campsite. We arrived and about 5 min later the bus that we needed pulled up-awesome timing. A few people got on we gathered our things and as Katie went to step onto the bus the driver shut the door on her face. It was the weirdest thing-he just shut the door and drove away. We couldn't even get mad-it was so funny. Just picture a jolly child running towards a sucker just to find out it was actually a a piece off poo on a stick. Because that was Katie's reaction. It was hilarious. The situation kept us laughing for quite a while until we realized that we would have to wait 2 more hours in direct sun for the next bus. That was a bit annoying but I was too excited to be in Venice to let it get to me. So the bus shows up for the second time, and it was the same driver-we laughed. We made it onto the bus this time and headed to the campsite. It was a smooth ride until our driver pulled over in the middle of no where and just left the bus, without warning. We waited a couple of minutes and then came along a new driver. I had heard about crazy Italian driving but to experience it first hand was quite the...experience. We got to the campsite, Camping Fusina, and checked in. Our cabin was rather cute 2 joined rooms, 2 beds in each. The campsite had its own market, bar and restaurant which was a plus. We arrived early enough that we caught the ferry service the camp offered. In essence a ferry boat to take us to the island. It was about a 15min ride that was amazing. Hot sunny weather on the sea. Heaven. Once we arrived to the city we chose to walk around and explore the city. It isnt that big but has a million tunnels and alleyways which make it very easy to get lost. We stumbled upon this great gelato place there-it was delicious! I had never had gelato before and it was pretty exciting to be trying it for the first time in Italy. After a couple of hours we headed back to the dock to catch the last boat back to the campsite. I/ we were pretty exhausted from traveling so we pretty much hung out in the cabin for a little while and went to bed. We woke up tuesday morning ready to go. We had some time to kil before the next ferry boat so we wandered around the campsite. Since it is literally on the edge of Italy there was a rock beach on the grounds so we went to the market and bought some fruit for breakfast and sat on the shore. We went and jumped on the boat and headed to the island. We decided to head to San Marco Square which is the tourist attraction of the city. So we went and toured the palace there adn it was gorgeous inside and afterwards we walked around the shore. We had great weather each day and I tried to take advantage and get some sun--but this led to me looking like the idiot because I would always bring my sunglasses but never wore them, they always sat atop my head. Then we jaunted off to this little market that we knew of and it was amazing a ton of hand crafted items that were great. Venice is famous for its Carnival they hay every year-a huge masquerade party. So I bought a hand made Venetian mask, signed by the artist. It is important to check for the signature because a lot of the stuff is just made from China otherwise. I was and still am very excited about it but it is a actually really creeper to wear, the paerson looks like serail killer. Oh well, I plan on hanging it on my wall in my aprtment next year anyway. I also bought some other classic Italian items but I shall not disclose what they are on here because my mom is reading this and I want her to be surprised when i bring them back. But other than that I bought this cool postcard that I plan on framing and hanging up as well. You'll find that this whole trip was one where I constantly searched for room decorations for next year. After we did our souvenir shopping we went and decided to go to dinner and eat at an actual restaurant. the menu from the outside had the most expensive plate of pasta at 9 euros so we decided to try there. Well when we went to go pay we were charged 16 euros (20-25 dollars). I still am baffled by how it was so expensive. But I guess we had to get scammed at least once on this trip right? We walked around for a bit stopping at random canals and sitting by the water and watching the gondola drivers overprice the customers here and there. Venice is a gorgeous city but doesnt have many actual attractions to go see which we loved because we just wanted to relax and finally get some color. Finally we headed back to the boat right around sunset which was gorgeous. The sky was just like a William Turner painting, look him up-he's a genius, and I loved it. I think I could have sat on the dock for hours. Once we got back to the campsite we bummed in the cabin and hung out. We had some interesting conversations and some infamous quotes from Mike. At one point, we got on topic of how Mike isn't into Asian hookers and that beastiality is really gross. I don't know how it happened but we were laughing so hard my side hurt. Plus, Mike when he's tired says some crazy stuff which probably would only be funny if you were there. We finally headed to bed. We awoke wednesday but let ourselves sleep in that day. The night was interupted with a call from Katie's mom. She was freaking out about the earthquake that had happened outside of Rome and thought we were all dead. Since we hadn't seen a paper, watched TV, or had internet access yet, we were completely oblivious. But, yes there was an earthquake 70km outside of Rome 150 people died and 200 injured. We were no where near or even felt and were completely safe. When we got up Wednesday morning we went and finally got on the internet, checked our emails and such. Then headed into the city. We basically saw everything in the first 2 days so we just revisited some of our favortie spots and sat by canals all day. Yes this vacation was very stressful ;) My friend Sam, previously mentioned in the blog, was getting into Venice that day so we met up with her and pointed out some of our favorites spots of the city. This included our favorite gelato place, which I made have visited everyday. This rounded up our stay in Venice and was our last chance to see the city. For years I have dreamed to visit Venice, just ask my mom how muchI have talked about it. The city was amazing and beautiful and breath taking. Every corner seemed like it belonged on a postcard. I fell like I spent half of the time picking my jaw up from off the floor. I know I will go back one day, hopefully sooner than later. We got back to the campsite, paid for our stay and headed back to hte cabin for another round of laughter. I just cant get over how ridiculous the conversations were that we had. I've tried to tell the contexts to people here but it seems like the jokes have lost there punch if you weren't involved in there origin. From here out I shall give the one liners we came up with and hope that suffices. Next we headed off to Rome and if you stay tuned that will be described in the next installment.

Katie and Alyssa with friends

2009-04-05T12:09:00.000-07:00

So Katie and Alyssa are going on spring break with me. Alyssa arrived in London wednesday afternoon and Katie, thursday morning. Since their arrival I have been playing tour guide and showing them many attractions in the city. Which has worn me down quite a bit. Very tired today. We leave for Venice early this morning-have to head to the bus station at 3am. From their we're going to catch a bus that is taking us to the airport which will take an hour and 15 min. We arrive in Venice at 9:25 which is 3:25 for you guys at home. We expect to be at our hostel by noon and hopefully seeing a little bit of the city by 3. Probably going to need a mini nap before we can explore a bit. And since the Ireland trip, I am really nervous to fly. At least this time I chose airport check-in instead of online so that will save me the hassle of that stupid stamp. I am pretty excited and it doesn't seem real.

Here's the rough itinerary for those curious:
Monday Apr 6th-Fly to Venice
Thursday Apr 9th-Fly to Rome
Sunday Apr 12th- Fly to Barcelona
Tuesday Apr 14th-Fly to Madrid
Thursday Apr 16th-Fly to London

Alrighty here's my last post before I leave. Italy here I come!

Ireland: Dublin, Limerick, Cork

2009-04-01T15:06:00.000-07:00

So this past weekend I traveled to Ireland. We had many ups and downs along the way so here we go.
Thursday:
Our flight to Dublin was scheduled to leave at 8:55. So we took a bus to the airport, which it was one of London's smaller ones so getting through security and checking in wasn't a problem. We even had enough time to sit down and eat dinner. The plane was a little late to board, I have yet to understand completely why but it sounded as if they were doing a security check or something along those lines. The flight was rather short too, about an hour or so. Once we landed we went to try and figure out how to get to the hostel. The only option that late at night was a taxi. We stayed at the "Shining hostel" which was pretty much in the city center so that was nice. We arrived and had some issues paying because the ATM gave all of us 50 pound notes and the hostel had almost no change. After some finagling, we got situated they gave us our linens and we headed up to our room. We were staying in a 18 bed room--which is officially too many people in the space provided. Here we had a little problem because there were only 3 beds open and there were 4 of us. So G and Sam went back down to figure it out and they ended uo staying in a different room while Mike and I slept in the original one. Minor drama but no big deal. I was calm until I went into the bathroom. Now I am a very relaxed person who doesn't get grossed out easily but this bathroom takes the cake. It was terrible. Extremely dirty, I barely wanted to go to the bathroom. And a shower was out of the question-wearing flip flops was too much exposure for your feet--definitely some virus floating around the floor. But we went to bed anyway.
Friday:
We woke up the next morning and walked about two blocks to the city center and looked for a tourist office for some information. The people here were very helpful and we decided to buy tickets for the Guinness Storehouse tour (of course) and a hop-on hop-off bus tour which took us to all the major sites of the city. We hopped on the bus and it was a bit cold so we had to sit on the lower level of the double decker bus which I wanted to sit upstairs--better view, picture opportunities and open air. We rode it till the Guinness Factory and got off to take the tour. The tour was really cool--just like brewery tours back home only a bit bigger the place had about 5ish levels. After the tour we went to the top level which is where the Gravity Bar is located. With the ticket we got a complimentary pint of Guinness so we checked that out. The bar had an amazing view of the city-simply gorgeous. After here we hoped on our bus tour to see the rest of stops. We saw cool places like Trinity College and St. Patrick's Cathedral. Trinity college is where some of the scenes for the Harry Potter films were shot and we actually saw a rainbow there! How amazing is that? After touring most of the afternoon, we headed back to the hostel took a break and went and ate dinner at the Asian Buffet that was next door--delicious! We then went out to a pub and called Madigan's had one pint and went back to the hostel. We had to get up early to head to Limerick. We had some issues with the beds..again. Sam and G were supposed to be in our original room but there was another mix up-long story short G ended up staying in a different room.
Saturday:
We woke up early to catch a train to Limerick. I mostly napped on the train but was woken up by the man that checks your tickets. We arrived in Limerick smoothly and after having some difficulty with the bus system we ended up taking a taxi to our hotel. The hotel was really nice-just your standard room but it was heaven compared to our Dublin hostel. It was called the Two-mile Inn-named for how far it was outside the city. The first thing we all did was take a shower--the hostel in Dublin was too scary so I opted to be smelly instead. And it was an amazing feeling to be clean again. Ah showers. After that we all got ready-our taxi driver told us that if we only had one day in the city the best thing to see is Bunratty Castle which was in the next town over, Co. Clare. So we took his advice and I am glad we did. We took a bus to the Bunratty Castle and Folk Park. So cool. The castle was really fun because they recreated all of the rooms to how they looked in the time of the castle. Attached there was a recreated village as well and you got to go in the houses to see what they looked like. In one of houses they had freshly made scones too! They were delicious, we each had at least two. So we pretty much just walked around the sites and such. Afterward, we walked across the street to the Creamery Bar for dinner. I had beef lasagna, potatoes, and vegetables. I think it was my favorite meal since i have been over here. We then took the bus back to the hotel and had a little break-watched some tv/ news. I haven't watched tv since I have been over here so even the cheesy Irish soap opera was fun. Then we decided to head into the city for a pint. G wasn't feeling well-migraine-so the three of us went. Mike and I got a pint of Guinness and Sam all of sudden felt sick so she didn't get anything. Eventually she went and threw up in the bathroom-she thinks the food didn't sit well with her. Mike and I were worried about getting sick from the two of them-just because spring break was in a week. This was actually a Rugby bar called Foley's and we watched the Ireland v. Bulgaria football match.--they tied. And then headed home.
Sunday:
We woke up early and took a bus to Cork. Cork is a gorgeous city built on a hill so from the bus terminal all you can see are these rows of houses with fields off in the distance. We then hopped on a bus to Blarney where we were of course heading to Blarney Castle. Blarney Castle was really cool and had a completely different feeling to it from the last one. you actually walk through a little bit of a garden to get to the castle and they haven't really restored it at all. Just added some railings here and there. So it was like walking around on these cool ruins. Yes i kissed the Blarney Stone. It was actually kinda neat--you have to sit on the ground and lean backwards/ up side down while a man holds on to you. Very cool--I can check that one off my bucket list. The funny thing about the castle was that it had the smallest corridors and stairways-and since we didn't have a hostel in Cork we had to bring our luggage with so my backpack made me feel like a watermelon getting squeezed through a keyhole. We left the castle and had some time to kill before the bus so we went and did some mini souvenir shopping and ate dinner. The bus took us back to Cork where we had about an hour and a half to kill before we need to catch our bus to Dublin--where our hostel for the night was and where our flight was leaving from in the morning. During the lay over I went a couple streets over and walked around there shopping district. I went to Penney's there which is basically the equivalent of Forever 21 from back home--there I bought a pair of capris and a pair of shorts for spring break, since I only brought one pair of shorts with me over here. The travel back to Dublin was fine everything went normal. We found our hostel after some minor directional errors. this one was way better than the one we stayed at before-smaller rooms (6 beds), clean bathroom, free internet! Amazing. We stayed up for a little while and chatted then realized that we had to be up at 4 to catch our flight back to London. When we went to sleep it was just the four of us in the room (2 free beds then) but to our surprise at about 1-2 am two Spanish girls came into our room-must've checked in real late. And after them being really loud and turning on all of the lights-I almost punched them. I wanted to asked them to be quite but I could only of the rude way to say it in Spanish. They also must have figured that none of us spoke Spanish but I've had about 6-7 years of so I understood most of what they were saying which made it hard to fall asleep because it didn't just sound like gibberish to me.
Monday:
We awoke at 4 am to catch a taxi to the airport. We arrived without a hitch and I wish the day stayed that way. We chose to do online check-in and had our tickets already printed off. So we headed to security. I t was the morning rush so it was a little hectic. I got through perfectly fine but the other had had problems because they had umbrellas in there bags and they were supposed to take them out before the x-ray machine. So after security we headed to our gate; we were here a bit early so we had enough time to grab some crappy airport breakfast ( a croissant and juice). Normally, planes board about a half hour before their departure time but our flight didn't start until about ten minutes before, which was rather annoying. So we began to board and hand the respective people our tickets and passports. Mike was let through fine but Me and Sam weren't allowed-I was told I couldn't board the plane. When i asked why I couldn't I was told that I needed a stamp on my ticket-a visa verification, like an ink stamp on my ticket. Apparently if you are not an EU ( European Union) student you need said stamp to get on their planes. Whatever. So G was able to go on because she is Norwegian. Sam and I jaunted back to check-in . Which was a bit difficult because it meant that we had to go through security backwards...which you're not supposed to do. We had to talk to the head officer on duty and explain the situation before we could go through--luckily they sympathized with us and were actually quite upset with the airline. After they let us through we hurried to check in, explained what happened, and had our tickets validated. By the time this happened it was about 6:21 and our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:25. We thought we could run back but the guy said it would be a waste of time since by the we would get back to the gate the plane would be gone. Annoying. So as this was happening Mike called me to inform me that they realized that they let him on the plane no problem but figured out they shouldn't have. So they went and kicked him off the plane! Seriously, what is wrong with these people. So the airline told us that to get on the next flight would cost 248 Euros ($400)! Sheesh. So we went to a different airline which had a flight for 182 Euros ($250) which still sucked but it was the best deal we were going to get. The whole time I was about to cry because I had a paper due Monday that is worth 50% of my grade and they don't accept late papers. So we bought the ticket, made it through security (again) and to our gate. This time we were able to board the plane no problem. We got back to London made it through the airport and jumped on a tube which takes about an hour to get to King's Cross, next to where I live. I was back in time to hand in my paper, but the events at the airpoty really put a damper on the trip and I was in a bad mood for 2 days. Oh well, at least I kissed the Blarney Stone right? :)

Les Mis!

2009-03-24T17:46:00.000-07:00

So I went to see Les Miserables tonight. I had never seen les mis before and didn't know anything about it. But I loved it; great singing, special effects, and music. Go see it.
Shout out to Caitlin who was in London this week and invited me to go. I had a great time and am glad I got to see you!

2009-03-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

So this weekend wasn't anything too exciting, trying to not spend too much money since I go to Ireland Thursday.

But Friday night Sam, Jack, Mike and I went to a nearby theatre called Vue and watched Duplicity. Its the Clive Owen and Julia Roberts film. It just came out on Friday here, but I am guessing that's been out for a bit back home? Well I thought it was a great film. One of those that you could watch it a few times and each time you would catch something different. If Mr. and Mrs. Smith and the Italian Job had a love child it would be this movie. Afterwards we wandered around for a little while and then went to the HobGoblin, a pub nearby that we had never been to before. It had a pretty cool atmosphere so we might go back there again.

Saturday, I "researched," i.e. sat on the computer and watched Youtube videos. I have 2 papers that are due not this monday but the next. The thing is that I wont be back in London, from Ireland, until monday morning. So I have to get both of them done before I leave. Which maybe if they weren't a big waste of time and dealt with topics I cared about...I would be working on them.

Today was a lot of procrastination mixed with actually work but progress is progress right?

Fire in London

2009-03-19T07:57:00.000-07:00

Ok, so yesterday I was sitting in my room contently and then I looked out the window to see a fire. It was located in the business district of London a little south or where I am staying. The building belonged to the Immigration and Appeals Commission. It took 75 fire fighters to tackle the blaze. The roof of the five storey building along with most of the fourth florr were set ablaze. No one was injured and everyone evacuated the building before the squad arrived. This is the photo I took from my room. It is from when the fire started to die down. When we originally noticed it the smoke was black and a bit larger.

I'm starting to slack

2009-03-16T06:00:00.001-07:00

So I haven't done one of these in week. Yes, I am being a slacker.
Partially is because I ahvent done anything terribly exciting this week. I had class monday and tuesday....officially becoming my biggest waste of time.

Thursday the girls and I went out for dinner at a restaurant in Covent Garden (theatreland). I had salmon with rosemay and garlic potatoes and holladaise sauce; along with some raspberry and apple cake as dessert. Delicious! I don't usually get real food here just noodles and turkey sandwiches so this was a real treat. Afterwards we came back to NIDO but Sam and I wanted to go walk around. I was a really nice day here and London at night is gorgeous. We went down to the Thames Rover next to Parliament walked around for a while, got lost, and came back home. Early friday morning, Anthony, Dani's boyfriend, was arriving. It is his spring break so he is staying here for a week and then to the two of them are going to Amsterdam this weekend.

So, I got bored and decided to go down to oxford circus and did a little shopping. It was nothing special I just bought a couple of shirts and a necklace--and it was all under 9 pounds!

Saturday was gorgeous out! So I visited Hyde Park again. What can I say, I love that place. this time I explored a different part of it and watched a group of guys play football (soccer) for a while. I sat and read too, well, until it got a bit chilly and a couple with a baby came by and kept eyeing up my spot. HA. Afterwards I went up to Trafalger Spuare and walked around there for a little while. There was a celebration going on, but the commentaters were speaking in a language from the middle east, so I have no idea what it was for. After there I walked up to Holborn and came home. Sunday was a lazy day. We woke up early to go to the parade in Trafalgar Square for St. Patrick's Day. The parade was fun but nothing compared to those we see back home. They didn't even throw candy...well cans of guiness would have been more appropriate but you get the point. we stayed in the square for a little while. There they had bands playing some fun music. I bought a scarf as a souvenir and it now adorns my wall. But after that I came back to the room and worked on some journals that are due tomorrow. Dani and Anthony went to dinner anda movie so I enjoyed some alone time in the room and watched Darby O Gill and the Little People. You probably don't know what that is. It's a movie. Amazing one. Rent it. And later began to watch Watchmen. Today I wasted 2 hours in my literature class and just spent 3 pounds to print off 10 pages at the local internet cafe. They are pretty steep in prices for that here....I miss being able to do it at my university for free.

Amanda's visit and a celebrity run in....sort of

2009-03-09T12:07:00.000-07:00

My friend Amanda who is currently studying in Sweden came to visit this last week. Her plane arrived in London late wednesday night. From there she had to take a train into the city and I picked her up from the terminal at Liverpool St. Station. This was a somewhat of a chore because her phone doesnt work in the UK so I had to stand around for a while and hope for the best. I was so excited to finally see a familiar face! We hoped on the last tube of the night and I dropped them off at their stop. Thursday, I took on the role of tour guide and spent the day showing Amanda around. I love fun facts so I definitely felt in my element. We started off the day with a jaunt through Hyde Park where Dani and I showed her the famous Peter Pan statue and the Princess Di Memorial. It was a gorgeous sunny/ warm day so she had some luck on her side when she came. After there we walked up back to Wellington Place where the famous Wellington Arch is placed along with several other memorials. From here we walked up to Buckingham Palace. I would like to say I timed out the day perfectly because when we got there they were about to start the changing of the guard but, it was luck. From there we thought we would walk to the nearest tube station to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. But before we knew it we could see the square so just walked up the couple of blocks. We didn't have enough time to see everything in there but Dani and I, as art students, gave her the cliffnotes version. We pointed out some famous paintings and I tried to add in my knowledge about them here and there. From here we decided to grab some lunch. We found a cafe that was still serving breakfast. Full English breakfast is to die for so we made her try it out; delicious. Moving on we headed to the British Museum. Here we had to also do a shortened tour. We pointed out the Rosetta Stone, crystal skull, Egyptian mummies, Roman architecture/ sculptures and ended with the Asia sectioned. Amanda loves Japanese culture so we gave her as much tie as wanted in this section. Then we headed back to NIDO where we showed Amanda "our hood" and building. We took a little rest here since we just walked end to end of london. Around dinner tine we took her to my favortie fish n' chips joint. It is this little hole in the wall diner on Chapel Market Rd. called Crown fish n' chips bar. Very classy. Amanda and her friend that came along, Caitlin, had tickets to see the Lion King at 7:30 so we hopped on the tube and took Amanda down to Covent Garden (Theatre Land). When we arrived her friend wasn't their yet so we waited and waited. At 8:00, the play had started 30 min. ago, her friend finally showed up. I was pretty mad for Amanda when her friend bearly gave an apology for her tardiness--I know I would have been mad if I paid for a show and missed the first half an hour. So, Dani and I went back to our room to rest and when the play was done we went to pick Amanda up from the theatre. From their we took the tube to Tower Hill. This is where we walked the Thames Path which runs from Tower Bridge to Parliament. Along the way you see the Tower of London, Globe theatre, Tate Modern, Dali Museum, Millenium Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral and many other historic sights. At night this city is gorgeous so it felt great to share that with Amanda. After our 2 hour walk we had to find a night bus to get back home which was practially impossible. Why? I don't know. We eventually had to get a taxi for part of the way but got her home in the end. the next morning she headed off to Glasgow to stay with my friend Alyssa before she headed back to Sweden.

Friday me and the gang went to a comedy club called The Funnyside. Here we saw three acts that were frickin' hilarious. I love British humor. Afterwards we stepped outside to see this huge swarm of people up the way with a ton of paprazzi snapping off pictures.So we walked up the block to see what or who the commotion was for. Come to find out the Michael Jackson was coming out of Oliver at that time. I didn't actually see him just the mini bus her got into. People were going crazy! One girl actually chased after his van too. I was worried for her because she didn't look very old and with his track record she probably should have been doing the opposite.

Saturday and Sunday were uneventful because I had homework and now have a cold of some sort. I think Amanda brought some Swedish plague with her that got me sick. And today I just had class, pretty exciting eh?

Wales: Coasteering, Kayaking

2009-03-07T05:11:00.000-08:00

Hey Guys. So these are some of the pictures from my camera I took with for the Coasteering and kayaking adventures. They are not necessarily in order but, Saturday afternoon we coasteered and Sunday morning our kayaking took place.

Me. All geared up and ready to go.

The climb down to the base.

Me. Off of one of our last jumps.

After one of the jumps. Man was the water cold at first.

Some of the cliffs/ rocks we jumped from.

More climbing.

Some action shots. I think this one is Mike, from the back him and Jack looked the same so I may be wrong.

More action. This is Tristan.

The beach we went to to begin kayaking.

A view from the water.

Putting the gear away. I was off bandaging the hands.

Some caves we got to check out.

Jack, Sam & Me. We were having a blast!

Me. Pre-accident. You can actually see the rocks behind me--that's where I wiped out.

The group. Alison, Dani, Jack, Mike, Me, Sam & Tristan.

Wales: Pembrokeshire, St David

2009-03-02T06:43:00.000-08:00

Well have I got some stories for you!

Friday was quite a doozy. We had a coach bus to take us to Wales, set to depart at noon. So we decided to meet in the lobby at 11:10/ 11:15ish which would give us plenty of time to get there. To my joy, not, when I showed up in the lobby with Dani, this other girl Alison had forgotten something and had to run back up to the room. So we waited for her and then headed off. We got down the steps outside my building when Alison once again noticed she forgot something, this time her allergy medication. I don't know if she had to chemically make the pills or what not herself but she sure took her sweet time to get it. As we were waiting, my friend Jack came back from his 11 o clock class. He originally was going to meet us at the station because we didn't know how late his class would get out. So we waited for him because he just had to run up and get his bags. All of this waiting put us about 10/ 15 min. behind schedule. So we jaunted to the tube station to hop a train down to the coach station. Just my luck the tube broke down when we were 1, I repeat 1, stop away from the coach. I was attempting to stay calm but inside I was completely nervous about missing our bus. Where the tube stopped was about a 15 min. walk and it was about 11:45/ 11:50 at this point. So we then made the judgement call to try and catch a bus over to the station. Luckily we didn't have to wait long. We hopped on the bus and headed over. As soon as the bus got us as close as possible we literally ran off the bus and down the street. It was like Home Alone when the family is running through the airport to catch their plane. Choas and I am sure we were quite the sight for onlookers. So we are running like mad men to get there. When we get to the station we look up on the terminal board to see where our bus was at and...our destination (Haverfordwest, Wales) wasn't up there. The bus had left. Multiple curse words ran through my mind.

The only other choice to get to Wales was to take a train. So we hopped back on the tube (different line) and went to Paddington station to catch a train. When we got to the ticket office they informed us that with a group rate (of 4 ppl.) it would be 44 pounds ($63) to take a one-way train to Wales. Yeah, my thoughts exactly; not the greatest amount I have ever been told. But we had no choice. So we got on that which got us to Wales on time.

So Friday night we headed to the lodge and had dinner. We could actually see stars! It was amazing! Being in the middle of Wales reminded me of being back home, Wisconsin. What a lovely way to be welcomed to the country. Upon arrival we were situated and assigned rooms. Very lovely decor. Another plus was the fact that dinner was served almost immediately. After dinner Libby, the activities coordinator, gave us some info about the weekend and we just relaxed and played some intense games of jenga and balderdash. What an amazing forst night.

Saturday morning we ate breakfast and then headed off for a 7 mile coastal hike. I have never been to Wales, or the UK for that matter, and was extremely excited for this hike. They drove us to a drop off point and we basically had to find our way back to the lodge. It was gorgeous, i have never seen anything like it. The ocean was a blue that one could only stare at. The cliffs were bright and each rich color pratically glowed in the sun. The best part is when my group and I took a wrong turn near the end that sent us off in the complete opposite direction of the lodge. Luckily the map they provided help us find our way home. Each person felt that they could set us on the right path and it became funny how none of us had any sense of direction. After walking down some roads and stopping a driver we arrived to the lodge about 30/45 min later than expected but we did fine.

Saturday afternoon we got all geared up to go coasteering. Coasteering is kind of hard to describe but in essence: you head to the coast, climb down to the water, jump in, swim to another cliff, jump off it, and head to the next cliff to do it again. Gettind dressed for coasteering is half the fun, really. Firts you must get geared up head to toe in a winter wet suit, life vest, helmet, booties and gloves. We all felt and looked like some odd gang of superhereos! The first thing we did was go into a little alcove where we bobbed in the water while the tide brought us up and down like an elevator, it was really cool. My friend Dani has a fear of drowning and elevators so this brought out those fears in her. The look on her face was priceless and wuite comical; her eyes all bugged out and mouth opened wide. We then headed to the cliffs to do some jumping. And this was incredible, I had never done anything like it before. My fear of heights came up here and there but after I relaxed and got into it I was having a blast. What an adrenaline rush and I felt like Evil Knievel! We ended the session with a jump off of a 30ft cliff too. It took me a little longer to take the leap but I did it and would do it again. This was my favorite activity of the weekend. It was at about this point that I fell in love with Wales. Words can describe my fondness for this place.

Saturday night was spent hanging out by the bonfire the lodge built for us. This weekend, a couple from New Zealand, living in London, was there as well. So it was nice to talk with and meet them . They were celebrating there 1 year wedding anniversary, and were completely adorable. Oh, and there children will be gorgeous by the looks of it.

Sunday we had one last session. Kayaking. I had never kayaked before, only canoed, so I was bit nervous, because I don't always have the best balance. But it was fine. They taught us some techniques and how to get out of the kayak quickly in case of emergency--little did I know I would need to use the latter later. We started of with a fun game of polo; my team won! It really was a test of balance to play the game. My friend Dani actually tipped herself over but no worries she was completely fine and we were still close to shore so she practically just hopped back in. We then went off and explored some caves and played around with the rocks. After a couple of hours, and 3 people tipping over there kayaks, the instructors (all two of them--very friendly and professional) found these two smaller rocks that we would be able to ride waves through. They showed us and it looked fun so I thought I'd give it a go. My first run through was quite fun so I wanted to go again. Cue the scary music. My second time around the instructor asked, "Do you want a bigger wave than last time?" and I, like and idiot said, "Yes!" So as I was riding the wave through when it crashed me against one of the rocks and pinned me on my side. I was trying to sit myself upright when a second wave crashed into me and tipped me over. I was a bit stuck but was able to wiggle out of my kayak. At this point, I was kind weirded out and trying to get my barrings but the instructors had already rushed over, got my kayak and paddle and were helping me out. They really were amazing and helped me feel completely safe. It took some effort but I got back in the kayak--which is a bit harder to do in the middle of the water where you can't touch the ground for leverage and you have to get back in feet first. But I got back in and the instructors decided to call it a day, it was near the end anyway. It wasn't til I was bring my kayak up on shore that I noticed how bad my hands got cut up and were now bleeding. The barnacles on the rocks are rather sharp and while I was holding the rocks to get myself upright they must have cut me up a little bit. After changing out of the wetsuit and some minor first aid. I was okay, but now hands look kinda like I tried to played rugby with a cheese grader. But I am fine just having troubles holding things...Oh, well makes for a better story, eh?

So after we got back and showered we ate lunch and hung around the lodge until it was time for them to take us back to the bus station. Where I actually made the bus to come home and seven and half hours later I was on the tube line that had broke down on Friday. Don't you just love when things come full circle? My Wales filled weekend was one of the best weekends of my life. I am already figuring out a way I can return and have more adventures. Amazing place. Oh and all of these pics are from my hike, I haven't developed my water-proof camera from coasteering and kayaking yet...those will come later.

2009-02-27T02:54:00.000-08:00

Hey Guys!

I haven't written in a while...sorry. I know some of you check this regularly.

But this week was pretty fun. Wednesday, to my delight, someone didn't show up to Dani's theatre class so there was an extra ticket to Twelfth Night! I was ecstatic and leaped at the opportunity--and for only 10 pounds so roughly $14---not bad! The play was amazing, great actors. We were up at the top balcony but we could see everything so the height didnt matter there. The height did matter because it was a bit higher than liked and my phobia came into view. At one point, I asked Dani, "Do you feel like the chairs are leaning forward?" She just laughed and was like, "You need to calm down." We were at the 2nd or third balcony and it was a rather steep set up so it was not my favorite. But, like I said the play was amazing, and had some great actors in it.

Thursday, Dani and I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Which is just about as big as the British Museum. We didnt even have enough time to see everything before they closed. So we are already planning on a trip back there. I didnt know we would be able to take pictures inside so I have none. But I will put some of Dani's up later.

And now I am rushing to write this because I am going to Wales for the weekend and I have to leave in about 10 min and I haven't finished packing--oh don't you just love procrastination? I do. So I am going to end this prematurely and fi it when I get back. Check back in for the details on Wales too. Bye!

2009-02-22T12:33:00.000-08:00

So this weekend wasn't anything particularly exciting but we had some fun. The trip to Wales has caused us to cut down on spending so that we'll have some money for there...some odd attempt at us being responsible I suppose. Friday, Sam, Dani, Mike and I went to a store called Primark. It is this really affordable store that kind of reminds me of Forever 21 from back home. For the Wales trip we were advised to bring a cheap pair of shoes that can get soaked and such for some of the adventures, like coastering (in essence cliff jumping into the Atlantic). This store was our first choice because of its affordablility. We ended up settling on these shoes that are basically a knock off of converse--figured they would be light enough that they wouldn't bother us to swim in. We also thought it would be fun to get funky colors since we are already going to look silly in our wetsuits, life jacket, and helmets. Mike was the only one able to do so and bought some bright green ones. The girls and I didnt have the options of colors so we had to choose black, white, or grey. We also thought these would help tell us apart in pics anyway--different shoes. Saturday was gorgeous and sunny so a couple of us went to Hyde Park and walked around there the entire afternoon. I saw some great scenery along with the famous Peter Pan statue and Princess Diana Memorial fountain. Afterwards we decided to get some ice cream and I tried a scoop of rum and raisin....Let's just say to my surprise there was more rum than anything else in that. All you would need is a bucket of it and some sunglasses and you would be set for the evening. We headed home and today I had a very sad attempt of getting caught up/ ahead on some homework. I have only opened a new word document....3 hours ago...oops.

2009-02-19T13:22:00.000-08:00

Today was a rather blah day in the city but I went a little stir crazy just sitting in my room. So, I decided to take the tube down to Hyde Park. I then walked around there for a little while, stopped by the Serpentine, and did some drawing. It was a little chilly just sitting on the bench so I walked around some more. After there, I walked through Wellington Place and Green Park up to Buckingham Palace. As I was walking to the Palace, I was listening to my iPod and not really paying attention. This was my downfall, because I was walking in the cycling lane, accidentally of course--not paying attention to where my feet were, when an elderly man riding a bike came up behind me. I didn't hear him coming until he was a foot behind away. He then scolded and yelled at me for being in the way. After I realized what I had done wrong, I felt terrible and decided to go home. I don't usually get shouted at very often, so when I do I just shut down and get sad. I sulked all the way to my building. I still feel bad/ guilty about it. Oh well, live and learn, right? But it was a nice day anyway. :)

2009-02-18T09:05:00.000-08:00

So I haven't done anything special in the last couple of days but wanted to keep this up to date. Classes went fine Monday and Tuesday. My late night class was cancelled tuesday so that ended my day at 6 rather than 9. Today I met with my film studies group to work on our project. It was just a continuity excersize but the guys i was paired with made it a lot more difficult. Each one wanted to be the leader, no wonder that gender causes so much trouble...

Anywho, keep checking in for more of the exciting stuff.
I will be going to Wales not this weekend but the next, so I am sure I will have some great stories from there.

:)

Liverpool = Beatles Love

2009-02-15T14:15:00.000-08:00

Yes mom, I know it's been a few days...

Well this weekend I went to Liverpool with Dani, Greg, and Andrew. Typically there are 2 reasons to visit this city. One, they have their own football team and two, it's where the Beatles are from. We went there for the latter. The trip started off with catching a coach bus at 8 am on friday. It was about a 5 hour trip but I attempted to sleep on the bus, but wasn't very successful--I was too distracted by the scenery we passed on the way. When we arrived we had no barrings to where we were and where the hostel was. A man approached us to take a taxi, and usually I do not pay attention when I get accosted by people on the street, but this was not London, and he was actually a nice guy trying to help. When we found out the taxi would only cost 6 pounds which then got split between the four of us, we decided it was a good idea. We had a very nice driver who pointed out hotspots and what to do/ not do while we were here. We arrived at the hostel and settled in for a bit. We then headed out to walk around the city. Here we saw some great graffitti art, churches, and Chinatown. While we were journeying around we saw the Liverpool Cathedral. It is the largest in the UK, and by the looks of it; no one would debate that fact. It was too late in the day to look around inside so we strolled around the exterior. while we were here we came across St. James' Garden. It looked gorgeous and I knew I had to go and walk through it. The grass was lush and green but juxtaposed with gravestones lined allong the walls of it. It created this very creepy, yet cool, atmosphere. After heading through there and taking boat loads of pictures, we started to walk back to the hostel. It was a great walk that helped me get orientated to the city. After our mini break at the hostel, we went and headed out to get some food and hang out at some pubs. After getting some pizza, we went to Matthew St., which is a hot spot in the city for night life. While here we went to The Lennon Pub which was a karaoke bar filled with people at least 10-15 years older than us. Yep, we stood out but I had a blast hearing some famous songs being belted out in the wrong key. While leaving Dani and I had an encounter with some locals that were old enough to be our grandparents. This old man gave me compliment after compliment in a very awkward way; may favorite being that, "the thing about you American girls is that you always have nice teeth." This man also didn't believe in a personal bubble, to the point where I thought he was going to try and kiss me and with no help from the boys (eh hem) Dani and I were able to make it away in one piece. From there, we went to the famous Cavern Club, which is where the Beatles got there start. It is a really cool place and I can see why loads of people flock there to hang out. I have never seen Greg's smile as big as it was here. After there we went to O'Neil's, an irish club. And might I say the best place to go on the weekend. We instantly became dancing fools when they kept playing some great tunes from our childhood. Here is where we met/ danced with the odd old man that was dressed in a stereotypical german beer garden ensemble thing...anyway he was a lot of fun and never spoke a word. So after we had been dancing for 3 hrs. straight (yes, i know many of you will be surprised by this but it was an amazing place-you would've too) we headed home. We then woke ourselves up bright and early to head to 8am breakfast that was provided by the hostel. It was a traditional english breakfast that was delicious and we were able to eat enough to tie us over for a while and really cut down on the cost of food. This started off, what would be a day packed with the Beatles. We booked the last four seats for the 12 o'clock Magical Mystery Tour! It was an amazing tour that lasted about 2 hrs. It took us all around Liverpool where we got to see all of their homes, Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, and the Cavern Club. It was a great tour and I would definitely go on it again. Afterwards we went to The Beatles Story which is a museum put together to tell you all about the history of the band. They even had a special exhibit, "The faces of John Lennon." It was a great collection of photographs but really sad at the same time. I learned so much that I didn't know before and am now an even bigger fan of the group. John Lennon is truelly an inspring human being, same with all of them really. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed inside so I can't show you how great this place was. I loved the yellow submarine room so much that I snuck a picture of it-you would've too. After this we took another break and headed back to the hostel for a nap. Then we decided to go out for some night life again where we revisted The Lennon bar and O'Neils and tried out some new places. It was a pretty crazy day, def. my favorite Valentine's Day so far. Andrew even bought these little plastic roses for Dani and I from a person in the street, it was really cute. This rounded up the even and we wandered home. Then on our last day we woke up and had to check out of the hostel by 10 am, so we did that and the hostel held our baggage for us, for the rest of the day--which was very nice of them. Then we went to the Tate Liverpool art gallery which had some amazing works from Picasso, Jackson Pollack, Andy Warhol and many more. It was very exciting we then went to grab some lunch. We stopped at this cafe/ pub called The Beehive where I ate some fish and chips. It was delicious and I think the best I have had so far. When then had a little time so we went to the Maritime Museum where they had all of the fun facts about cruiselines and ships. Probably the most famous is the Titanic. Which did you know that left out of Liverpool? I didn't and easily got absorbed in the displays there. Before we knew it we ran out of time and had to head back to the hostel to get out stuff. We then called a cab which took us the the bus station and we headed back to London. The bus smelled of a bowl of corn flakes on the way home, and that may sound really weird but I liked it. It reminded me of home in a odd, comforting way. Then when we got back to the city, I was so happy. It's weird how much I missed being away from London, I guess have already become attached to this place. Overall, it was a great trip and I would definitely go back and share it with others...thanks for reading, I know this was a long one. Enjoy the pictures. :)

Thanks for staying tuned :)

2009-02-12T09:43:00.000-08:00

So, I havent posted in a couple of days and it wasn't until I received an email from my mother, that I knew how devasting this could be for you. So here is a brief update on the last couple of days...

Well Monday and Tuesday consisted of attending classes and thats about it. Tuesday I have class from 10:30 am 'til 9 pm so it was quite a long day, I doubt I will ever be able to squeeze something exciting in on tuesdays. Oh well, I get a five day weekend so I shouldn't complain.

Wednesday I slept in and then decided to wander down to Oxford St. which is comparable to the "Magnificant Mile" in Chicago. Pretty much a huge street of shopping opportunities. I planned on not spending any money and just looking around and surely that didnt work out. It started when I found a pair of plastic aviator sunglasses. I owned a pair of these, you may remember them. Well, they broke early in the summer and I have been devasted since, so when I found them for 1 pound, I had to buy them right? Well i did which led me to also purchasing socks, a necklace, and 3 scarves. I couldnt just purchase the sunglasses that would've looked silly, but I still spent around 11 pounds shopping so that wasn't a huge dent to the wallet anyway....

And today, Dani and I, went to The National Portrait Gallery. It is connected to the National Gallery but has seperate displays. Some were really cool and I bought a print of John Tunnard's self portrait from the gift shop. Look it up.

2009-02-08T12:02:00.001-08:00

As suggested by Caitlin, I stood on the red carpet of the BAFTAs today. They are basically the British Oscars and a great opportunity to see some stars. I woke up at 6 am this morning so I could go downtown in attempts to acquire a wristband which was needed to enter the gates and stand in the public pens. I waited in a queue for 2 hours to recieve one and this assigned me a number for later. We went home and came back at 2 as they told us then they began listing off numbers that were allowed to enter, they did them in groups of 10. Even though this numeriocal system was in order people still felt the need to push and shove, which was rather annoying. After in the pens, we waited 'til about 5. This is when celebrities started showing up but the ones I was interested in waited 'til 6 or later. I got to see some great people; Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Ron Howard, Goldie Hawn and many, many more. Some were very sociable and attempted to sign as many things as their publicists would let them, while other were not my favorites. Sharon Stone was bordeline rude, but I didn't expect much from her. It was crazy as these celebrities were arriving. People were shouting and pushy not the greatest atmosphere to get a smile from a celebrity. And this is where my Brad Pitt story comes in. I was able to get Brad's autograph and shared a moment with him. You may be wondering about the latter so here it goes...and the risk of sounding like a little school girl here's what happened...Brad and Angelina arrived and everyone went nuts. They tried to sign many, many things and stopped for pictures. While Angelina didn't really come by me, Brad stopped directly in front of me. Best day ever. After he signed a couple of things I gently held up my notepad, he signed it, and then looked up and saw me. He paused and smiled back and then continued on...it may sound pretty lame. But he sure is gorgeous when you look at him in the eyes. I do have witnesses to this amazing event; Dani mentioned it to me a little later and said she had saw it. So I am not crazy. Unfortunately, I kinda wish it was under circumstances, like when I wasn't drenched and looking sloppy. But, I guess the best way to get his attention to not shove and shout but rather stand and smile. But I couldn't have shouted if I wanted to, I was so awe struck all I could do was stand there staring/ smiling at him. I didn't really even get a picture because of it....It was a pretty great day I must say def. a highlight. Oh and I also got signatures from, Emma Watson (Harry Potter), Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire), and Jonathon Ross (a british TV host that I love). Enjoy the pictures, I only posted the ones where you could see the people...

2009-02-07T08:58:00.000-08:00

Went to the National Gallery today and it was amazing. It houses hundreads of paintings from the 13th to the 20th centuries. They have some really famous works there and it was great to finally see some of them in person. I saw pieces from all the ninja turtles, van gogh, sauret, turner and mantegna. It was great, really. Sorry there were no pictures allowed so I have none to share with you.

2009-02-06T10:39:00.000-08:00

So, I don't have anything special to report, except that I have caught some sickeness in this city. I do not feel the best and am ODing on some drug to hope I get better. It is leaving me very unmotivated and pathetic....

Grandma would be happy

2009-02-05T10:57:00.000-08:00

So today Dani and I didn't really have anything in particular planned out so it was great when Jack stopped by this morning to see if we wanted to go check out St. Paul's Cathedral. He definitely didn't have to ask me twice and off we went. We finally found it after some wandering and you really cannot miss it. It's huge! We walked around the exterior and took some great photos of it, even though it wasn't the best weather. It's been misting all day, very wet. We then ventured in to see how much it cost and it was a bit more expensive than we guessed but the cashier gave us a student discount that cut the cost a bit. As soon as we got through the barrier I was in awe, it looks even bigger once you are inside. The ceiling is gorgeous, I don't think I would be able to describe it properly. But imagine gold mosaics practically glowing in the light. We found a stairway which allowed us to venture up (257 stairs) to the Whispering Dome. It is pretty much as it sounds if you sit up there you can hear the conversations across the way. Really great acoustics. I could sit up there for hours if they let me. The paintings made my jaw drop, I have never seen anything like it really. We then went up (~170) stairs to the outdoor balcony which had an amazing view of the city. Spent time up there taking pictures and slowly made our way back down. Now these stairs, let's just say they wouldn't fit any regulations in modern society. It became a task to make sure you didn't take a tumble down them. After we left we headed to a restaurant/ pub, called All Bar One, down the way where I tried bangers and mash for the first time. It was delicious! I would definitely recommend it to others.

oh and you will see that we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, so sorry I couldn't share my eyes with you...

2009-02-04T09:16:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had my first classes at London Met. I was pretty nervous and excited. My art class sounds like it will be my favorite for the next four months, the others, I could do without but I guess they will have to do. I made some friends in my film studies class which helped with some anxiety....I was afraid of being a dumb american so pretty much didn't open my mouth (surprised?) all day unless a question was directed only to me. But it should be a fun semester.
Then today I ventured out and went to the post office and waited in a rather long queue behind some not so intelligent people. After there, I wandered to Carphone Warehouse to buy my mobile phone for here. And what a doozie that turned into. I got lost again, and I still have no idea how it happen but I basically walked into the opposite direction for 10 min. I then wandered the streets in what I hoped was the correct direction and did eventually make it home, I was pretty proud of myself. But that's what I get for walking aroud London without a map or stopping to ask for directions. All in all, I walked around for an extra 30-40 minutes.
But to make up for it, Dani came back from her theatre class with an extra ticket for a play tonight. So now I am going to go see A Midsummer Night's Dream...which is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. Big smile on this kids face! What a day.

Snow Day

2009-02-02T06:09:00.000-08:00

Today was supposed to be my first day of classes. I was excited, got ready and headed off. After topping up my tube pass I jumped on the Piccadilly line to North campus. To my surprise, when I arrived I was told that classes were cancelled today do to the adverse conditions. I was shocked. It is snowing in London today and apparently they haven't seen snow likes this in 7 years--a local man informed us. London is beside itself, they don't know what to do. Half of the cities transportation is shut down and the people don't know what to do. We a saw a man clearing his walkway with a broom. We were told that the snow doens't usually stick and stay in London. Right now I would say they have just a couple of inches really, maybe 2 or 3, but I have always been terrible at estimating it. Nevertheless it is nothing by Wisconsin standards. So I guess I have one more day to realx.

Oh and tacks here are not the same. Tack is actually sticking blue adhesive, we think they call tacks push pins....I confused the a store owner today when I didn't know really what else to call them.

The Weekend

2009-02-02T03:40:00.000-08:00

Alrighty.

Well Saturday we decided not to do a typical touristy thing and went down to Camden Market. It was this great little neighborhood with tons of shops and vendors. We stepped out of the station and it was easily the most crowded station i have been to yet. The street was filled with people walking up and down looking at the little shops. This area is the trendy, punk-goth, vintage area. Which made for some interesting people. On the main drag you had all these goth kids with piercings and tattoos. So we walked down a ways to try and get off the beaten path and found a few side streets that were a real english market. It had brick walkways still and too many soips squeezed into one area. After a little bit we spotted this shop that all of these amazing leatherbound journals, sketchbooks and diaries. I bought a sketchbook that is amazing--it was hand made in India and the paper is hand made...there are still leaf particles in the pages. We moved along and saw that there is still this great little canal that runs through part of it and had a brick bridge over it. It was a gorgeous sight. I didn't really want to leave but it was cold. So we headed home and took a break and then decided to go out to Soho and find a bar. the one that we had originally planned on going to was packed and there was a line 'til the end of the block so we decided to go to this place called Thirst. Then we headed home and some other went to a local pub but I was way too tired for this and hit the hay.

Sunday we went down to Leicester Square to take part in the celebrations for Chinese New Year. This was amazing as well. They had live performances of singing, dancing, and drum playing (my favorite). They had some little shops set up where they were selling little souveniers....I ended up buying a paper dragon and an ornament with an ox on it...it was holding a fish that apprently is a symbol to bring money--quite appropriate for this trip, I thought. They had a fireworks display at 6 o' clock. These were gorgeous and I was almost certain that they would set the square on fire. I guess the British don't worry about setting fireworks off in the middle of some trees. After these, we headed home and spent the night bumming around Nido. At about 11ish here is when they were airing the Superbowl so a bunch of us squeezed into the cafe to watch. I stayed up until half time and then had to get some sleep.

British Humor--It speaks the truth.

2009-01-31T04:11:00.000-08:00

Hey Guys,
So some of you have asked about transportation around here and what its like. A comedian, Michael Mcintyre, explains it very well in one of his sketches. I wish I wcould say that it was an exaggeration but its pretty much spot on. Only watch the video 'til minute 5:30. The rest doesn't matter.
Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es2l4yUBY6M

2009-01-30T17:59:00.000-08:00

Today I went to the British Museum. This one is most famous for housing the Rosetta Stone along with millions of other treasures. It's free of charge and self guided. Dani and I spent the afternoon looking at amazing artifacts. It was great. Here are some pictures of my favorites from the exhibits.

2009-01-29T11:27:00.000-08:00

Today was the best day of orientation that I will ever have. We had an informational meeting where a few representatives came from some local organizations that can help us "get the best out of [our] stay." I was informed on a weekend trip that I have the opportunity to take this weekend eco trip to Wales. It sounds amazing where I will get to go hiking, kayaking and things like that. Then a man from STA Travel came to try and bribe us into using them for journey planning. Blah Blah Blah

Then came the exciting part. We went to a local diner down the street for lunch where I ate breakfast--which was borderline amazing! Oh, and breakfast is served all day here, so I was overjoyed to find out that fun fact. :)

Then we were led on a bus/ boat tour through London, Westminister, and Greenwich. On the bus we had a tour guide, Andrew, who told all sorts of historical facts about the buildings we saw. As you may know, I love fun facts! I think I was a tour guide in another lifetime. So went all through the city by bus and took our first stop at St. James Place/ Buckingham Palace. Here, I saw where Prince Charles lives, Green Park (Where the story goes the the wife of King Charles II ripped out all of the flowers on the ground after she found out he had given some to another woman--true or not there are still no flowers today, hence the name.) and Buckingham Palace (no queen today). We then hoped back onto our bus and drove all throughout the city. One of my favorite moments was when we turned onto Fleet Street! As you guys may know Fleet Street was helped made famous in the U.S. by Stephen Sondheim's musical, Sweeney Todd. I love Sweeney Todd. :) Yup. We then made our way through Westminister and then to Greenwich. Here we boarded our boat for our river tour on the Thames. From the river I saw the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, London Bridge, The London Eye, Parliament, and whole bunch of other places. It was great to see these during the day since I saw most lat night when we walked Thames Path. We got off the boat and were dropped off in front of Parliament. From here, we were to fend for our selves and find our own way home. It was sort of like army training where they drop you in the the middle of a foreign field and you have to find your way back to base camp. This turned out well because we were able to walk around and see Trafalgar Square, Picadilly Circus, The National Portrait Gallery and many other locations. We then took the Tube back to Nido and relaxed for a bit. The Dani, Kyle, Jack and I decided we would go out for a pint. We headed off with no destination in mind and ended up stopping at London Pub. After there we wandered down the streets all the way to Soho, the neighborhood where the West End theatres are--pretty much back by Piccadilly. After walking about many streets we walked back to Nido to end the night.

2009-01-28T12:41:00.000-08:00

Today four of us went down and walked part of Thames Path. Which follows the Thames River--obviously. Here are some cool photos i got. We walked past Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, Millenium Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral, and saw the globe Theatre from across the river.

Day Two

2009-01-27T11:57:00.000-08:00

Alrighty,

Last night I had a mini orientation meeting where we got a tour throught the building and such. Afterwards a 6 of us decided to go check out a pub (Sorry Mom). It was Australia Day here yesterday which is a holiday where they celebrate Australia's independence...but is really just an excuse to drink. So we hung out there for a while and then headed home to get some much needed sleep.

So today started out with the first day of orientation. Met up with our neighbors, Jack and Kyle, and headed to North Campus. London Met has two campuses and this is the one where I will be taking all of my classes so it was nice to get a feel for the area. We went to King's cross station and got an oyster card that will serve as my tube/ bus pass for the next week or so until I can get the student one--which gives me an extra 30% off of travel. Once we got to our destination it toook only minutes to spot the building--it was painted bright purple (the school's color)--we are pretty sure they do this so that drunk Americans can find it. Nido is decorated with flashy colors on the outside as well, so we figure that is the intention. Orientation went well. I have my class timetable now. I have 1 class on monday and 3 on tuesday...and that's it. Jealous? So that gives me a five day weekend which I am will not be complaining about anytime soon.

After the orientation meeting Dani, Jack, Kyle and I decided to walk back to Nido. So we explored/ got lost in Islington, a borough near where I live. After a little while we stopped in one of the little food joints to get some food. London's version of fast food is amazing. In the U.S. this usually means that food is ready for you and sloppy. Here is just means the speed in which they make it. I ate fish and chips, because you have to right? We then headed home, took a break, and then ventured out for more exploring. We headed off to Regent's Park, which was gorgeous, and saw some cool plants/ animals there. The ducks and geese are much friendlier. In the U.S. I would be afraind of an attack from a goose but here they are very pleasant--must be the environment, very proper. ;) It's great to be in winter and see green on the ground instead of brown. We then headed over to Abbey Road and saw the studio where the Beatles recorded their album. The wall out in front is where everyone writes and graffittis, so we left our marks as well. After that we headed home to give the feet some rest. Throughout this entire adventure we kept getting lost. London doesn't believe in the "you are here" signs on public placed maps and they don't really like street signs either...But it was still a fun day and we saw some cool stuff.

Landing in LondonTown--A very detailed version

2009-01-26T09:28:00.000-08:00

Ok where to start?
Well getting ready for this trip was an adventure the last few days. I became a neurotic wreck by the time it was time to leave Mauston. I was constantly rechecking my bags to make sure everything was there. Then my dad and I headed off to Chicago.
We arrived to the airport which easily became a scene from European Vacation, with Chevy Chase. (the scene where they are stuck going around that circle by Big Ben) My father missed my exit to the correct terminal the first time so we went ALL the way around it one more time.
Checking in at Chicago was a breeze and the lovely woman that checked my bags made some small talk with me about how Tina Turner had been there last week. Apparently she is a gorgeous lady with amazing legs--just how'd you expect her to look, I guess. I was nervous about finding the correct gate but was easily assured when I heard the British accents at my gate.
The flight was what I epected. As you may know, flying has never been my favorite. For me, a flight from Madison to Detroit is too long, so you can imagine my thoughts on and international, 7 1/2 hr. flight. But overall, it wasn't bad. I sat next to a very nice guy that was kind, curtious, and British. Don't get any ideas guys--he was kinda above my age range. :) The food was decent. I was happy when my vegetables with dinner were hot AND still crunchy. I was a bit disappointed by my movie selection. I end up watching 3 episodes of the Office and Vicki Christina Barcelona. I have no idea what that movie was--not the right choice when picking something that you don't really want to pay attention to. But if you like Spanish scenary, language, actors, and movies with no substance...well, then it is the perfect choice for you!
My flight was ahead of schedule so we circled above London for about 15 min. before landing, which was not a very nice thing to do. Tease me as I am on the edge of my seat with excitement. Jerks. We then landed and I walked through a long hallway until I got to customs. This part scared me. If you didn't know, about a week ago I had a dream that they wouldn't let me into the country because they thought I was a terrorist, and that irrational fear was coming back. I made a fool of myself when they asked me where I was from. I went into too much detail of where WI is. You see, unlike the U.S., people know there geography over here and everyone I have met knew exactly where I was from. But, I made it through customs in one piece, waited anxiously for my luggage, and then found a girl from my program. Dani was on my flight and I recognized her from LaCrosse, so we quickly became buddies as we then searched for Rob. Rob was the man in charge of tracking us down and making sure we didn't get lost. We found him easily, learned we were the firsts to arrive, and then waited for the rest of our group. 2 hrs. later our group was complete with a clusters of students from New York and a cluster from Philadelphia. Yes, out of a group of ~25, we were the only 2 represented the Midwest. After meeting them we kinda laughed at each other's accents. A girl asked about getting a water and I almosted died. She was from Jersey, so you can imagine how that sounded.
After everyone was rounded up, we took a coach bus to Nido, my building of residence. It took us a 45 min drive through rush hour to get to the building. Along the way, we saw the most amazing architecture. We drove past a neighborhood that was straight out of Mary Poppins. I half expected chimney sweepers to start dancing and singing on the rooves. A lot of the houses are made out of brick and were gorgeous.
We arrived at Nido and went through the check-in process. This wasnt very stressful but I was anxious about seeing my room. During this process I found out the Dani and I are roommates so we had a laugh at that--"what are the odds." I am now getting settled in and have a meeting in a few minutes here. So I will end this one. Thanks for making it this far down and reading. There will be more to come. :)

Love, Love

Up and Running

2008-12-26T16:31:00.000-08:00

Hey Guys!

You have reached my blog site where I will be posting photos, updates, and such while I am away at London.

Thanks for stopping by!