2/28/12

Hello hello hello!! What a wonderful Tuesday morning! Unless you are me that is. As mentioned in my last blog Hannah, Jenna, and I weren't expecting on feeling the best today after our wonderful dinner experience last night, but shockingly everyone felt pretty good, except me who woke up with a headache that would not go away. Sooo this post may be pretty short since I tried to keep my eyes closed for the majority of the day. Even so I did manage to experience some of what this wonderful city has to offer since I had to get out of bed and tour with Andrew yet again.

First stop today was the Foundling Museum. It was really cute.

The museum is built where the Foundling Hospital had stood, a nice little establishment where orphans lived and were taught certain tools of the trade so that one day they could go out and work for the military and become useful to the society. Well that is just one thing the place is known for, the other thing is art, strange combination right? But really it makes sense. Have you ever heard of Hogarth? The name sounds familiar doesn't it? Yea, he was an artist, painted a lot of famous works and his stuff is all over in museums. So Hogarth was one of the original contributors to this Foundling Hospital. You see, Hogarth was a Protestant and part of the whole being a Christian thing includes helping people and Hogarth was quite the philanthropist. Not only did he paint a whole lot of stuff in order to spread the word about this place and make money for it, he convinced a bunch of his artist friends to do the same thing. And so all of these artists were painting scenes showing charity to children and biblical scenes (again with children in them) and all of these paintings were sold or commissioned in order to raise money for this hospital. Kind of neat really, and a bunch of the paintings are hanging in this Foundling Museum now. Mind you I had a headache while I was learning all of this so I probably missed a fact or two in there. Sorry no pictures of any of the inside of the place.

We spent a good two hours at the museum before we headed off to other parts of Russell Square (the area where we were exploring today). The class was pretty lucky today, we got to take a break after this part of the tour because Andrew needed a coffee. So we all got to sit outside in the beautiful sun and drink our coffee or eat our snacks that we got in this little area of shops we found. The weather became very nice at this point. The sun felt great and we were able to enjoy it as we made our way to a little park a few blocks away, passing the building where Andrew works on the way. When we got to the park I was so amazed by its beauty.

Gorgeous right! Too bad we weren't allowed to go in. There was a big fence surrounding the whole place. I only got these pictures by sticking my camera through the bars :)  Oh well, it was still nice to look at. The class got to go somewhere better after this anyway, the British Museum! It was so cool! We saw some awesome stuff!

The building itself if awesome!

And then there is THE Rosetta Stone!

Closeup of the Rosetta Stone

A lot of cool Egyptian stuff

The two eyebeam statue guys from the Neverending Story

Oh! And Jenna and Hanna took a dance class with the statues!

And can you believe it? I got to feed a horse.

Really cool double headed serpent from Mexico used in a lot of different ceremonies.

And a whole bunch of cool little figurines of gods and goddesses from all over the world.

The British Museum was so great! I had a blast and must go back really soon! The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Spent a lot of time online and then Lizzi and Charlotte made the most delicious stir-fry for dinner, seriously amazing!

Well bed time for this little night owl. Night all!

2/27/12

Well hello everyone!! Notice something with this blog? That's right! I'm actually doing it on time. Haha, I want to say that I will continue doing this but the way my life has been roller-coasting I'm not too sure how solid of a guarantee that would be.

So I want to start with a special announcement. Today is the 21st Birthday of one of my greatest friends, a girl who I love so much! Happy Birthday Becca!! I love you and I hope you had a blast last night and keep that party going for when I come home!!

And now on to today's events!

I woke up pretty crabby today actually, I mean I never enjoy waking up but having to wake up a good two hours earlier than normal and after going to bed about one hour later than normal, lets do some math, which I will admit is not my strongsuit but I think I got this one... so two hours plus one hour equals a really short amount of time sleeping!!! I am not the only one who knows this as I have already been yelled at by Hannah's mom today for being on Facebook so late last night (Sorry Terry!!). So I woke up at 8, a good half hour later than I had meant to which gave me only a half an hour to get ready this morning. Thank goodness I don't care how I look because if I did that would have been a stressful morning. Yea.

We had to be up so early today because we had a tour of the Houses of Parliament... (I am going to apologize again for the lack of pictures, there were only limited areas where we were allowed to use our cameras)...

Ceiling of the Entrance Hall

Window in the Entrance Hall

I like windows okay!

Pretty cool staircase in the Entrance Hall

View of the building on the terrace

View of London Eye from the terrace

Big Ben on the way out

 ...with an actual MP (Member of Parliament, took me a little while to figure out what that one stood for). The MP's name was Dennis Skinner, and he was awesome! He is this really feisty old man who believes in speaking his mind and not bending his beliefs in order to impress anyone and move up in office. He was a really cool guy! I will post a picture of him later that we took of him with the entire group but the picture wasn't taken with my camera. You can google him though, even google image and see him for yourself! While looking at pictures of him keep in mind that he has met Meryl Streep (he was an extra in The Iron Lady) and he is such a B.A. dude that he has been kicked out of session 10 times for what he calls, "opening his mouth too wide." Basically he said something that p.o.-ed some of the other MP's, he told us what those comments were but I think I will keep those private.

When we were done at Parliament it was time for a break for lunch until we had to head over to the National Gallery to look at some portraits from the Georgian era. Again no pictures to show, hope you all understand! So after two hours of no photo taking at the Gallery Jenna, Hannah, and I ventured out for drink and food, and this is where the night starts to get interesting...

It really started out great. Jenna and I wanted post cards and so we went to a shop where we knew there were some for a really good price, and while there I was able to be a bad influence and convince Hannah to buy twice as many as she was planning to :)  Next on our stop was Starbucks and I am not ashamed to admit that. I needed hot chocolate really bad and this Starbucks was really pretty. And so were the drinks.

See, pretty.

Whilst drinking our liquid happiness we had very deep philosophical conversations, about movie stars. Well that's half true, we basically spent the time discussing and trying to determine our degree separation from our favorite actors since we got to London. A little taste of what we discovered includes: Jenna is separated by Darren Criss by only 3 degrees, since the actor who we met last week (Jonathan Cullen) was in a play with Daniel Radcliffe who is associated with Darren through Broadway. Hannah is connected to Orlando Bloom through 3 degrees as well since Jonathan starred in Finding Neverland with Johnny Depp who was in Pirates with Orlando. And my favorite, I am connected to Robert Downey Jr by 4 degrees because Jonathan was in Finding Neverland with Kate Winslet who was in The Holiday with Jude Law who was in Sherlock Holmes with my man Bobby!! We are just this much closer to being man and wife, its fantastic!!

 We finally had our coffee and chocolatey drinks and so we were able to venture out and find a place to eat. It took us a really long time and I really wish I could tell you we went into the nice little Canadian Place that looked real cute,

Reminds me of How I Met Your Mother

or the other cute place that we could only assume serves only potatoes,

Sign made me chuckle

but alas, we did not listen to our hearts, or our stomachs, and instead chose to dine (or attempt to anyways) at a little diner (if you can call it that) down what I can only describe as an alley way. The place looked decent enough and the prices were a little lower than every other place so we thought that we would give it a chance. The moment when I now realize we should have left was when I saw that every meal was being cooked in a microwave. We were all really hungry though and so we decided to pretend we didn't see that. The second sign for us to hightail it outta there was when we then realized that the food being served was taken from a display case under heat lamps, which we thought had been meant for carry outs. Still we sat where we were, drinking our sodas and waiting patiently although a little frightened as well. The final and most disturbing signal that we needed to run and run out of there fast was when Jenna found a little more of the sea than she had bargained for in her seafood pasta dish. It took us a little while to figure out the creature's identity, but we have narrowed it down to either a baby octopus or a baby squid, not just a part of one, a tentacle or two, but a whole baby squid!! Hannah and I also did not enjoy our food as it was either cold by the time we got it or hardened by sitting under the heating lights for who knows how long, but I cannot even begin to fathom the fear and disgust that Jenna must have felt when she saw a creature from the deep peeking through her noodles and creamy tomato dish. Eww. Just eww. I think it goes without saying that we all still are feeling pretty sick at the moment.

Yes this was not the greatest night of my life, but I cannot say it was a total disappointment, since we still had a play to look forward to. While I cannot say that the play was the most exciting thing I had ever seen but I was pretty excited to be just a few mere meters from Mr. Jean Luc Picard himself, that's right ladies and gentlemen, I saw Patrick Stewart tonight in the play Bingo, where he played William Shakespeare!! I wanted to wait and see if I could run into him after the show but with myself and two other girls thinking we might have food poisoning we really just felt like getting home and getting to bed. So I had to deal with pretending to meet Mr. Stewart.

He doesn't look too happy to see me :(

Ok, I need to get to sleep now, but I want to emphasize one little thing to you first. If you get nothing else out of this blog tonight just remember if you notice one thing is fishy (haha, yea) with a restaurant assume many other things are and GET OUT OF THERE!! Goodnight all!

So I was scolded today for not keeping up on my blog (shout-out to Rachel Bradley!!) and for that I would like to send out a sincere apology for any persons who were left without entertainment whilst checking my blog. Here is a run-through of this weeks events!

2/20/12

Monday morning, yes it is feels the same in London as it does everywhere else. I did not want to wake up I did want to sleep longer, but hark the gentle calls of London beckoned me, and I arose from my bed a little cranky but ready to take on the day. Classes this day were a little different. Monday usually consists of a lecture in the classroom, a break, and then a tour this week the tour went first since some students (including me) had to give a presentation in the afternoon. So we had to be up bright and early to meet Andrew at our tube stop so that we could go check out the Banqueting Hall on Whitecastle (Whitecastle is a street in London). Banqueting house was really cool. We had to take an underground system that is different than we normally do that went really fast and made me a little dizzy and kind of sick but at least we made it to our destination quicker! Eventually we made it to the Banqueting House where we had to watch a movie giving a general history of the building and then we finally got to see the actual banqueting hall. Even though we only got to really see one room it was very beautiful and pretty much worth it.

So these paintings on the ceiling of the banqueting hall were commissioned by Charles I. Fun fact: Charles was also executed by his own people in this banqueting hall. The people were getting a little p.o.-ed by his extensive taxing as well as his consistent disintegration and reintegration of parliament  and so they decided it was best to just get rid of him and not instate any other king at the time. And so England was without a monarchy for a time, until they decided to bring back the king, and with Charles I without a head they gave the role to Charles II, can you guess who that would be, you got it! Charles I's son!

The Banqueting House was really cool, but with only one room to really see the tour didn't last too long and so before we knew it we were back at home for lunch (or in my case a nap) before we had to go out to the classroom for class/presentations. Mine went pretty well. I did not use a visual aid since the instructions did not inform us that we had to, but in my evaluation he said that I was quite humorous, so I was satisfied.

The rest of the day was pretty slow and kind of uneventful. I apologize, therefore, for not posting anything that night but as you can tell from the nap I took earlier I was very tired. I did manage to make dinner for everybody though! I made cheeseburger macaroni. NO not the Hamburger Helper kind, but the real kind of casserole, and I was told it was pretty darn good!!

oh yea, be jealous.

I got awesome cooking skills.


2/21/12

Tuesday consisted of a slightly longer tour than the previous day. We went to St. Paul's Cathedral!! Can you guess how excited I was? If you guessed extremely you would be correct. Can you guess how mad I was when I found out we couldn't take pictures inside? If you guessed extremely yet again, congrats you win a prize! I got some nice pictures of the outside though...

The bottom picture isn't really St. Paul's but right outside of it. It was a tent town of people who were protesting. I didn't see too many of the protesters but judging from how many tents there were, there are tons of them!

So inside the Cathedral was amazing! It was gorgeous and parts of it were really fun. It is where Diana and Charles were married and there are some cool monuments to important people like at Westminster Abbey. It was mostly a lot of government and military people, nobody that too many Americans would know really good. The coolest part of the Cathedral (as well as the most terrifying) was the Whispering Dome. If there is anything that people really know about St. Paul's is that it has a huge dome that can be seen in all different parts of London, well it turns out that people can actually walk way up into the dome and walk around it. The cool part about it is that if one person stands on one end of the dome and someone on the other side and they whisper to each other they can hear it! So we spent about half an hour just whispering sweet nothings to each other.

I was really tired when we got back to the flat. It was an awesome but very long day, so I was really happy when it was time for dinner and in honor of Fat Tuesday Alyssa made pancakes for everyone. They were pretty awesome! The rest of my night was completely stressful since I had applications to fill out for this summer to do research. A great end to the night.

2/22/12

 Ash Wednesday!! It was a pretty uneventful day. In the morning we had class and then I pretty much wasted the day by taking a nap. I would say I was upset with myself but to be honest I needed to sleep so bad! I made up for it later though since the group had to go to see Comedy of Errors.

It was a good show and by Shakespeare so of course I was really excited to see it. The cast did a good job of making it very funny and for the most part I could understand what was going on!
After the show we took a nice walk to a Tube station that was a little farther away than the one we had gotten off at and so we got to enjoy the nice scenery. I was wearing heels and so my feet were killing me, but I had this to look at.

I love London at night.

2/23/12

Well Wednesday was actually a pretty interesting day. We had class with Natania but she didn't actually run the class, she invited a good friend of hers to speak with us, an actor. He was really cool, made us do some really embarrassing things like pretend to be a lark and flutter around in a park full of people as well as yell "I loathe thee" at others and ourselves, in a park full of people and to perform an entire sonnet aloud, in a park full of people. By the end of the experience I still wanted to vomit from embarrassment and plan to repress certain parts of the day into the deep recesses of my brain where they will never bother me again, but now to the interesting bit, go to the site IMDB, go ahead I will wait here...
Ok now type Jonathan Cullen into the search...
ready? ok now scroll down a little bit and bam! You have seen him before if you saw the movie Finding Neverland!! And if you haven't seen it yet watch it! He is the doctor!! I was just a little excited about that.

I am sad to report that the rest of my day wasn't as exciting. The day was beautiful and I had planned on going to the park to read and just enjoy the sun but I am a college student and so a good majority of the time those dreams are squished by the fact of impending paperwork which always seems to need to be done IMMEDIATELY. I was a little cranky when I found this out but I did get it done, so there! The only thing that got me through the day without a complete mental breakdown was the knowledge of the fact that we had a three day weekend and the next day was Friday which would be full of fun and adventure!

2/24/12

And full of adventure it was!! I woke up to see the sun was shining and it was going to be a beautiful day! For once I would not need to bundle up and worry about the cold, well that was one fact I was unaware of actually until after I had already ventured out in my jacket and scarf all the way to the Tube stop and so sadly I had to deal with being hot and sweaty as I saw some pretty awesome stuff. Any way here is the cool stuff...

Tower Bridge

Gargoyle on Tower Bridge

Tower of London: view from Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge

So get this, as you may have noticed from the picture captions Tower Bridge is right by Tower of London, so you may think that the names correspond due to their close proximity, that's what I thought at least, according to some chick here (this may not be true but I thought it was a fun fact) the real reason for the Bridge's name is because of the two towers that were build into the bridge to hold the hydraulic engines that raise and lower the bridge. I prefer to believe that the Towers of the bridge were built because it was right by Tower of London but that also may not be true. Either way the bridge is lovely and walking across it was magnificent. It was a sunny day with a gentle breeze that drove me crazy just because of my hair but kept me nice and cool so I could enjoy the sights.

When we got across the bridge Jenna, Hanna, Lizzi, and I sat in a little patch of grass to watch the river and enjoy the sun on our faces. It was glorious! We then ventured down along the side of the river and just enjoyed the building we passed.

Reminded me of a dojo

London Bridge

Monument to the great fire of London

We crossed London Bridge to find another Tube station. From here we went to Camden Town where Lizzi new of an awesome market. It was really good that I didn't bring all of my money here because I would have spent it all here. I am thinking of going back to get everybody's souvenirs. Everything was just so pretty.

This is just one example of some of the lovely shops that are around, and don't worry those who know me, I haven't changed into a girly girl over here, I just can't deny the fact that some of this stuff is gorgeous. But as you know I also find the darker shops in areas like this hence I found these places.

One is a tattoo place and the other just sells really cool clothes. One of these shops that we went into though had some people working there who were, well the nicest word would be rude. There was this lady who was legitimately dressed like a vampire, it was really way too much for even me to appreciate, and she went right ahead with telling all of us what was wrong with our outfits. She was a real witch (see what I did there?) to Lizzi and Hannah and she told me I dressed too sporty. Have you ever seen me? I do not dress sporty I wanted to point out her plethora of wardrobe "oopsie-daiseys" but I was seriously scared she would bite me. The rest of the time at the market was pretty cool though, and I definitely plan  on returning!

After the market Hannah, Jenna, and I were pretty beat so we went back to the flat, Super Lizzi went on exploring the city though with energy that I just can't even comprehend. Since it was Friday and the three of us didn't feel like cooking we went out to a pub called O'Neils for fish and chips. Now I know last time I took a picture of the fish and chips we got...

I do not know where it could have gone

But this time I was just too hungry to get a good shot of it. Hannah did a better job of restraining herself though.

Thank you Vanna

It was some pretty darn good fish. We then had to rush out of there because I was missing a Skype date with Rachel (to whom this blog post is dedicated to). Later in the night we decided to get up and venture out again since Jenna had heard that Trafalgar Square looks pretty darn awesome at night.

It was just gorgeous! It was a great call on Jenna's part! Lucky for us though we got an extra little show for coming on this particular night!

A couple of minutes after we got there there was suddenly loud horns being blown and music being played and hundreds of bicyclists rode into the square and starting going in circles around one of the fountains. We were mesmerized but did not know what was going on. Finally one of the guys got off of his bike close enough to us that I could go up to him and ask about it and that is when we learned about Critical Mass London. It is an even that takes place the last Friday of every month to raise awareness for bicycle safety in the city. It was awesome and a great sight to see. Unfortunate Jenna Hanna and Lizzi wanted to get a better look and so they made me climb the monument (pictured several pictures up) in order to be at a better viewing height. I wasn't too excited for this and they all got a good laugh at me as I struggled my way up but at least we weren't up there for too long.

It was a pretty awesome end to the night.

2/25/12

Saturday a day for sleeping in, much to Jenna's frustration, I will admit it was my fault that Hannah and I slept a little this morning since I had kept her up talking until about 3:30 the previous night. That is alright though, plenty was accomplished on this day.

The first stop was Leicester Square, since it was Saturday and we hoped to be able to see a show that night. Unfortunately we had some trouble finding the area for discount tickets, I don't know where we got turned around, but we were not in too much trouble since on our misguided journey we passed a couple of theatres with shows playing that were pretty interested in seeing. First we tried to see Zach Braff's new show, All New People, but there were no seats together so the three of us would have had to be separated to see it. On the next stop we were a bit more lucky in the Theatre that was showing Chicago. The seats weren't together in the sense that we were sitting right next to each other, but more in a line one behind the other, but it seemed decent enough for us so we took the tickets. Now we had time to kill between morning and 8:00 pm, when the show was playing.

Before we left Leicester Square there was a book shop (or a few) that Jenna and Hannah thought I would enjoy, and oh boy did I! There were first edition books everywhere and a book store all about spiritual healing, the occult, and astrology. It was awesome! The books were pretty expensive though, and my wallet just couldn't handle the emotional strain of being torn from even more money, and so I left without any books and we headed to Regents park. On the way there though we passed some more cool shops, like the Beatles store and the Sherlock Holmes Museum store. Yes I went in, and yes I spent money, oops.

After spending more money that I didn't have we went somewhere that I could spend no more money, to a beautiful park with lunches that we had made earlier.

It was a really pretty park, and would have been peaceful if there wasn't a little girl screaming and having a temper tantrum. Normally I would have been upset that a little brat was disturbing my peace by really it was funny, and I felt bad but I couldn't help from laughing as she just stopped walking her smile suddenly became a frown and she just started screaming. It was hilarious and the reason behind it was nonexistent. There was also a little boy, who was just adorable, and his dad was teaching him how to use his skateboard. It was awesome because this little kid was so proper. At one point he looked up at his father and said to him (no say this in your head with a little kid british accent) "it's quite difficult isn't it?" It was so CUTE!!

When we were done with lunch we went to a little place, you may have heard of it, Abbey Road!!! It was so awesome!! And a little scary, for real. Obviously so many people want a picture in this intersection, and so they start walking across and stop, in front of moving cars to pose for this picture!

Do you see that car there? Yea the driver is getting really annoyed and honking the horn while slowing down only minimally, these people almost got hit so many times. Because it is not enough to be stupid and stop in a busy intersection once, but they had to many times in order to get a good enough picture. Now I like to think that I was a little more sensible in my picture.

But then again...

Yea that would be me, in the busy intersection. but look, not too many cars!

Later that night we got pumped since we finally were heading out to see Chicago! On the way we some some pretty awesome stuff, like a floating egg

You didn't believe me did you?

And a huge group of girls all dressed as Waldo from Where's Waldo? I would have taken a picture but Waldo is one crazy dude, and I didn't want to get attacked by a whole group of them. Finally we made it to the theatre and after only half an hour of waiting were able to take our seats, which were as I said behind one another. If you didn't understand what I meant, here it is...

Despite the odd seating it was an amazing show, one that I would love to see again and again. Or just buy the cd, since the music was really the best part, to me anyway, Jenna loved the dancing, and I can't wait until the day that I hear Jenna is in one of these shows showing off her dance moves, go to Youtube and look up Ripon College Dance Team, you will see, my friend is an amazing dancer!!

Later that night when we got back to the flat I watched the movie Chicago online as I did my laundry. Jenna and Hannah went to bed. And as they were sleeping I had to keep going in and out of the room which if you were here you would know why that was bad, our door squeaked like crazy whenever you would open it. I didn't want to wake them up though so I greased the hinges with some vegetable oil to quiet the door down. Sunday morning was hilarious when Jenna opened the door and had a horrifying look on her face as she tried to figure out where the squeak went. You had to be here, but to me it was quite hilarious. Tehehe.

These days are just so great, I feel I am being spoiled over here with every passing day.

For those of you who have never seen Chicago, here is a little taste of it, from the movie.

Chicago-Cell Block Tango

2/27/12

 Well today stood up to the typical Sunday reputation. I slept until noon, well we all slept until noon. The day was not all lost, however. We finally got some much needed shopping done, we topped up our Oyster cards, and Hannah and I finally headed over to Rymans for notebooks and folders. All of my papers are now well organized and no longer all over our room. The rest of the day I will admit was a little slow, just some homework, a little tv show, and a mini nap. But then I made some dinner (hamburgers and Hannah made chicken rice) and was right back to work, getting this blog done, finally! Again I am sorry this has taken me so long, but if you were here you'd understand, there is so much to see and hardly any time to write about it.

Yet I love you all and so I write about it. Until we meet again friends, family, and strangers. I hope you enjoy reading as I enjoy writing all of this for you!