Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Oh my goodness, today, today was a very tiring day!!
3/21/12
It doesn't seem like we did much today when looking back at the series of events but let me tell you, I am exhausted!! Jenna Hannah and I started out with pack up all our suitcases yet again so that we could head out of our hotel and into our hostel. It really isn't that far of a walk between the two but when we each have all of our bags dragging behind us, yea it felt like a much longer walk!! Checking into the hostel wasn't anybodies favorite part of the day either. It took forever and it was so hot inside the building! I swear I was melting!! After about 45 minutes of figuring out our checking in paperwork and payments we were able to drop our stuff off in our room and head out immediately to get to the metro so we could go get Lizzi and bring her back! It was a little scary trying to find Lizzi, we didn't know for sure where she would be so we thought we would have to wander a bit, but the ride on the Metro to go get her was amazing!! I was super excited because the woman sitting right next to me had a cell phone that kept going off and it played the Pink Panther theme song, I was pretty delighted by this, but then even more amazement when a man broke out a microphone and some speakers and started rapping to everyone on the train! You probably had to be there to understand how great this is but it truly is!! So we finally made it to the area that Lizzi said she would be and we were pleasantly surprised to find her fairly quickly! We then got Lizzi a Metro pass and made it back to the Hostel so she could drop off her stuff, we could all get a bite to eat, and then head out for some adventure!
We decided to take the Metro to the river and walk along it and enjoy the sites as we walked toward Notre Dame. ADD kicked in again on the way there as we saw a cute park with green grass and pretty pink flowers and we strayed from our path. As has been the case though this diversion came with beautiful rewards!
And that was how we found the Lourve!! Yea that's right, that cute little museum in Paris, yupp I was there today!!! We didn't go in today but just seeing it was spectacular!! When we were done admiring the beauty here we went back on our regularly scheduled self guided tour and headed to Notre Dame, where I was just mesmerized by the grand and amazing beauty of this place!! I have to admit disney songs were going through my head as I pictured Quasimodo ringing the bells but for the most part I was entranced by the great Cathedral!
By the time we were done here it was about 6:00 and so we started to head back home to get something for dinner. Lizzi decided to make the best of her time in Paris and got herself a baguette and Jenna Hannah and I went on a search for something a little more substantial, which turned out to be sandwiches at a shop a couple of blocks from our hostel, but they were amazing!! Pretty much immediately after eating I took an accidental nap for a few hours and woke up to Kelsey and Charlotte joining us at the hostel! Great ending to a great today! We can only speculate as to the adventures we will find ourselves in tomorrow!!
3/21/12
It doesn't seem like we did much today when looking back at the series of events but let me tell you, I am exhausted!! Jenna Hannah and I started out with pack up all our suitcases yet again so that we could head out of our hotel and into our hostel. It really isn't that far of a walk between the two but when we each have all of our bags dragging behind us, yea it felt like a much longer walk!! Checking into the hostel wasn't anybodies favorite part of the day either. It took forever and it was so hot inside the building! I swear I was melting!! After about 45 minutes of figuring out our checking in paperwork and payments we were able to drop our stuff off in our room and head out immediately to get to the metro so we could go get Lizzi and bring her back! It was a little scary trying to find Lizzi, we didn't know for sure where she would be so we thought we would have to wander a bit, but the ride on the Metro to go get her was amazing!! I was super excited because the woman sitting right next to me had a cell phone that kept going off and it played the Pink Panther theme song, I was pretty delighted by this, but then even more amazement when a man broke out a microphone and some speakers and started rapping to everyone on the train! You probably had to be there to understand how great this is but it truly is!! So we finally made it to the area that Lizzi said she would be and we were pleasantly surprised to find her fairly quickly! We then got Lizzi a Metro pass and made it back to the Hostel so she could drop off her stuff, we could all get a bite to eat, and then head out for some adventure!
We decided to take the Metro to the river and walk along it and enjoy the sites as we walked toward Notre Dame. ADD kicked in again on the way there as we saw a cute park with green grass and pretty pink flowers and we strayed from our path. As has been the case though this diversion came with beautiful rewards!
And that was how we found the Lourve!! Yea that's right, that cute little museum in Paris, yupp I was there today!!! We didn't go in today but just seeing it was spectacular!! When we were done admiring the beauty here we went back on our regularly scheduled self guided tour and headed to Notre Dame, where I was just mesmerized by the grand and amazing beauty of this place!! I have to admit disney songs were going through my head as I pictured Quasimodo ringing the bells but for the most part I was entranced by the great Cathedral!
By the time we were done here it was about 6:00 and so we started to head back home to get something for dinner. Lizzi decided to make the best of her time in Paris and got herself a baguette and Jenna Hannah and I went on a search for something a little more substantial, which turned out to be sandwiches at a shop a couple of blocks from our hostel, but they were amazing!! Pretty much immediately after eating I took an accidental nap for a few hours and woke up to Kelsey and Charlotte joining us at the hostel! Great ending to a great today! We can only speculate as to the adventures we will find ourselves in tomorrow!!
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
I'm sure people want to hear some more about my time in Paris now! If you don't too friggen bad stop reading my blog!
3/19/12
We had a solid plan yet again for a great fulfilling day in Paris! That again was deterred by sleeping in... Not by much, but we really did not want to wake up early again! It turned out fine, we were out of our hotel by about 12:30, we had a quick bite to eat here and then went out on a little walk to find the Moulin Rouge. On our way there though Jenna and Hannah saw a carousel out of the corner of their eyes, and we either have tapped into our 6 year old selves or have gotten a serious case of ADD because when we find something that catches our attention we kind of forget about what we were doing and --ooo squirrel!!
Sorry, where was I? ;)
Anyway, we went to go see what was going on with the pretty carousel and found that it was at the base of the Sacre Coeur, a huge and beautiful basilica that we were going to find after the Moulin Rouge. So our day got a little out of order, but hey, worked for me! Now I wanted to ride on the carrousel before we went up to see the church but Hannah and Jenna gave me these disappointed looks that I think was suppose to remind me that I am not a little child. So I went with them but I assure you people, I will ride that carrousel!!
We then trekked our way up to the basilica, and I mean trekked!! This basilica is located on the butte Montmarte, the highest point in Paris!!! I'm talking hills and stairs everywhere!! I was pretty darn exhausted by the time I got to the top. But it was so pretty! Therefore, worth it!! The basilica was just gorgeous and the view was fantastic!
When were done admiring the beautiful church Hannah led us down a street close by that had a bunch of cute shops and really pretty houses! (Hannah has been to Paris so she has some good pointers for where to go)
At this point I have to say that I am so happy with how much my map reading skills have improved since I have been in Europe. There have been several times on this trip when my handy dandy map has gotten us out of some odd places and back to the safe(r) main streets! This skill was needed when we were done wandering streets and just wanted to make it to the Moulin Rouge already! We did find the main street but apparently none of us were thinking very clearly and didn't realize that the area where the Moulin Rouge would be located wouldn't be the most, uhhh, proper of all places... haha. SOO we got our pictures and got outta there!
When we started wandering around again we went back up some really steep hills and finally got to an area that we needed to rest and come up with a game plan. Jenna finally found another destination for us and with that we started to head toward the Cimetiere de Montmartre, on Avenue Rachel :)
On the way there and back we also got a bit of a view of the Eiffel Tower, not a very close one but it was still miraculous!
Walking back was a little difficult for all of us. We had walked so much and up hill that our legs were shaking!! Food was a must and so Hannah and Jenna both got a crepe with Nutella on it (yumm!!) and I got a tex mex chicken sandwich. It made me laugh that it was called tex mex so I just had to get it. The rest of the night was basically grocery shopping, munching on chocolate croissants, and Glee. Overall an amazing day in Paris!
3/20/12
I don't really know how it happened by we slept until about 11:15 today. Ok it might have something to do with staying up until the a.m. watching Glee but still we slept pretty heavy. Right away though we were up and at'em ready to head out. The first thing on our agenda was to go check out the area where our hostel that we are moving into tomorrow will be. It is a much nicer area and we are all excited to be somewhere that is a little quieter and cleaner. We had lunch close to our hostel and then made our way to the closest Metro station to buy a pass for the week, and thank goodness we chose that one, the lady who helped us was soooo sweet!! She didn't speak much English but really wanted to help us so she logged onto google translate and helped us to work the machines to get our metro passes. The whole time she was smiling at us and trying to joke with us, she was just amazing!
After had our metro passes we got to actually use them immediately and we were all so thankful for having been in London so long and using the Tube so often that figuring it out wasn't too hard at all! We took the train to Champ de Mars where we were able to get off and see.... THE EIFFEL TOWER!!! It was so beautiful and awesome and great and we got so many pictures of it!
We made sure to leave the Eiffel by a decent hour so we weren't running around Paris in the dark but I still feel we had a very full and great day!
3/19/12
We had a solid plan yet again for a great fulfilling day in Paris! That again was deterred by sleeping in... Not by much, but we really did not want to wake up early again! It turned out fine, we were out of our hotel by about 12:30, we had a quick bite to eat here and then went out on a little walk to find the Moulin Rouge. On our way there though Jenna and Hannah saw a carousel out of the corner of their eyes, and we either have tapped into our 6 year old selves or have gotten a serious case of ADD because when we find something that catches our attention we kind of forget about what we were doing and --ooo squirrel!!
Sorry, where was I? ;)
Anyway, we went to go see what was going on with the pretty carousel and found that it was at the base of the Sacre Coeur, a huge and beautiful basilica that we were going to find after the Moulin Rouge. So our day got a little out of order, but hey, worked for me! Now I wanted to ride on the carrousel before we went up to see the church but Hannah and Jenna gave me these disappointed looks that I think was suppose to remind me that I am not a little child. So I went with them but I assure you people, I will ride that carrousel!!
We then trekked our way up to the basilica, and I mean trekked!! This basilica is located on the butte Montmarte, the highest point in Paris!!! I'm talking hills and stairs everywhere!! I was pretty darn exhausted by the time I got to the top. But it was so pretty! Therefore, worth it!! The basilica was just gorgeous and the view was fantastic!
 |
| These are just some of the stairs that we had to climb, they are very sneaky because over that ledge where you think they are done there are MORE!!! |
When were done admiring the beautiful church Hannah led us down a street close by that had a bunch of cute shops and really pretty houses! (Hannah has been to Paris so she has some good pointers for where to go)
At this point I have to say that I am so happy with how much my map reading skills have improved since I have been in Europe. There have been several times on this trip when my handy dandy map has gotten us out of some odd places and back to the safe(r) main streets! This skill was needed when we were done wandering streets and just wanted to make it to the Moulin Rouge already! We did find the main street but apparently none of us were thinking very clearly and didn't realize that the area where the Moulin Rouge would be located wouldn't be the most, uhhh, proper of all places... haha. SOO we got our pictures and got outta there!
When we started wandering around again we went back up some really steep hills and finally got to an area that we needed to rest and come up with a game plan. Jenna finally found another destination for us and with that we started to head toward the Cimetiere de Montmartre, on Avenue Rachel :)
On the way there and back we also got a bit of a view of the Eiffel Tower, not a very close one but it was still miraculous!
Walking back was a little difficult for all of us. We had walked so much and up hill that our legs were shaking!! Food was a must and so Hannah and Jenna both got a crepe with Nutella on it (yumm!!) and I got a tex mex chicken sandwich. It made me laugh that it was called tex mex so I just had to get it. The rest of the night was basically grocery shopping, munching on chocolate croissants, and Glee. Overall an amazing day in Paris!
3/20/12
I don't really know how it happened by we slept until about 11:15 today. Ok it might have something to do with staying up until the a.m. watching Glee but still we slept pretty heavy. Right away though we were up and at'em ready to head out. The first thing on our agenda was to go check out the area where our hostel that we are moving into tomorrow will be. It is a much nicer area and we are all excited to be somewhere that is a little quieter and cleaner. We had lunch close to our hostel and then made our way to the closest Metro station to buy a pass for the week, and thank goodness we chose that one, the lady who helped us was soooo sweet!! She didn't speak much English but really wanted to help us so she logged onto google translate and helped us to work the machines to get our metro passes. The whole time she was smiling at us and trying to joke with us, she was just amazing!
After had our metro passes we got to actually use them immediately and we were all so thankful for having been in London so long and using the Tube so often that figuring it out wasn't too hard at all! We took the train to Champ de Mars where we were able to get off and see.... THE EIFFEL TOWER!!! It was so beautiful and awesome and great and we got so many pictures of it!
We made sure to leave the Eiffel by a decent hour so we weren't running around Paris in the dark but I still feel we had a very full and great day!
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Well I am no longer in London, and that fact has caused me to cry a couple of times since I left (all of which I did in private when I was not around anyone because that is not a sight worth seeing).
3/14/12-3/15/12
Yes two days are going to be counted as one and they are not even the weekend! Wednesday and Thursday were probably the two least eventful days that I had spent in London, and remember there were some Sundays that I had spent 13 hours sleeping! I'm not saying that a lot didn't get done, but the days were so boring!! Each morning we had class with Natania, Thursday being our very last class all together, and in both classes we discussed Virgina Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. The rest of the days were then spent working on the final papers we all had to do for both Andrew and Natania. The topics I picked for each were:
Andrew's-The Historical Narratives of Hampton Court Palace as Created by Historic Royal Palaces.
Natania's- Symbols of Evil and Gender Portrayed in The Devil and Mr. Punch and Heresy of Love.
It took me a shocking amount of time to write each of them but they were both done on time!!
No pictures of these day, you wouldn't have wanted to see pictures anyway, it was kind of sad how little I did and saw...
3/16/12
Friday. The day both finals were due. The day all packing needed to be done. The day of the final dinner hosted by ACM. The last full day we all spent in London. I was a little depressed the whole day at the thought of never being able to see Earl's Court again. I basically spent the day making final additions and edits to my papers and packing my bags.
That night we also had a dinner all together hosted by ACM and when I got to it I was so hungry that I swear I was about to eat a candle because they waited FOREVER to bring the food out!! I hadn't eaten all day which you probably would think would keep me from drinking and being a light weight but no. The only thing they had out for about 45 minutes was wine and I needed something in my stomach so I think I had about 5 glasses before I was finally able to eat. I don't think that I was the only one who either
A) Had drank on an empty stomach
or
B) Had A LOT to drink period.
The night became pretty epic as just about everyone decided to get up and dance. Natania started this little dance party and was soon accompanied by Neil (her husband) which eventually led to the majority of people joining, including Fabio and Andrew!! Let me tell you! Seeing Andrew dance was the highlight of my week! And not only does Andrew dance, he sings too!!! Oh deary he was having a great night!
Jenna and I did not dance (even though this girl is the best dancer I have ever seen...) and so we went downstairs and I bought us a jug (that's right a jug) of Sangria. It was delicious but I sadly did not get to drink much because Fabio spilled a bunch of mine as he was hugging me goodbye.
After a little while nobody was able to dance since they were apparently causing a ruckus (I am sorry but I cannot describe the ruckus) and the wine store downstairs was complaining that the bottles of wine were going to start falling off of the shelves if we did not stop.
It was a good final night in London, but I wish it could have lasted longer.
3/17/12
I am very happy to report that I did not have to wake up at 3:30 in the morning this time in order to catch a plane to a foreign country. This time it was 6:30 and it was to catch a train, to Paris!
I am going to be totally honest here. None of us were in a good mood for a good chunk of this day. We had to drag our bags with us everywhere. Hannah and I each had two suitcases and a backpack and Jenna had her one suitcase and backpack. We had to take the tube (last ride we took on the tube, sad day) to King's Cross St. Pancras to catch our train to Paris. It was a two hour ride and by the time we got on the train we were all disgustingly hot and so it was an uncomfortable ride. When we finally got to the train station in Paris (Gare du Nord) we had to find a map so we knew which direction we had to in to our hotel. The map did not help a whole lot and we ended up walking for a good 20 minutes in the WRONG DIRECTION!! We were all getting a little peeved, but Jenna (the eternal optimist) kept us all in good spirits and we continued on our way and after only 45 more minutes found our hotel, Hotel Bervic, located on a tiny little street completely hidden from the world.
The Hotel isn't the most exciting thing to look at but the one man that we have met that works here is really sweet and gives us candy and calls us angels. I realize saying all of this can sound really creepy to people on the outside but trust me he is not creepy, and we would know we have run into a few creepy people since we have been here.
Our room is kind of small, but there is room enough for the three of us and with a little work our luggage fits in here as well.
The view from our room isn't too bad either. We are far away from almost all famous monuments so we can't see those from our Hotel, but hey we are only a 10 minute walk from Sacre Coeur, and we will be seeing that soon, so that is awesome!
We didn't do a whole lot this first night. When we got to hotel at last we were all pretty tired and kind of sore so the only thing we really HAD to do was go find food! Which we did! We started by getting dinner at a fast food place, we found a French fast food joint and decided to try that one. Let me tell ya, fast food is one thing the French do not do well. I'm not saying the food was not eatable or just nasty, it was pretty ok, but I don't think I am ever going to have a craving for a Quick Burger ever again.
After we ate we went and found a grocery store to get some food for lunches for the next couple of days. We decided on bread, butter, and an assortment of cheeses. We don't have a fridge tho. This stuff will last alright in room temperature right? haha, oh well.
3/18/12
We slept 12 hours! We were planning on 10 which sounded like a lot to us but nobody wanted to get out of bed this morning, so it turned into 12. It turned out just fine though! It turned out to be a really rainy day today, so everything we had planned to do would have been miserable anyway.
We turned out to actually have a pretty great day. Hannah's mom wanted us to go check out an antique flea market about 30 minutes away from us and so that's what we spent the early afternoon trekking to. It was a bit of a chore to get there but when we did it was worth it. So many awesome things were there and I just wish I had the money to afford these beautiful items!!
We had lunch at the market, which consisted of bread and butter and cheese. Sounds bland and blah but I rather enjoyed it.
We did find some awesome stuff and one little booth had some items for a decent enough price, I was even able to get a souvenir or two...
It really doesn't sound like we did a whole lot today but it felt like a full and rewarding day to me. I am just so excited to be in Paris that the rude people, the streets that smell like urine, and the fact that we have no food to eat for breakfast tomorrow are all not affecting me and stressing me out like it normally should. Even the fact that we sat in a restaurant for an extra hour tonight after dinner because the waiter wouldn't bring us our check didn't bother me like it normally would. I am so strangely happy to be here that I had a good 15 minute laughing fit tonight about something that really wasn't that funny. But hey, I guess Paris agrees with me.
3/14/12-3/15/12
Yes two days are going to be counted as one and they are not even the weekend! Wednesday and Thursday were probably the two least eventful days that I had spent in London, and remember there were some Sundays that I had spent 13 hours sleeping! I'm not saying that a lot didn't get done, but the days were so boring!! Each morning we had class with Natania, Thursday being our very last class all together, and in both classes we discussed Virgina Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. The rest of the days were then spent working on the final papers we all had to do for both Andrew and Natania. The topics I picked for each were:
Andrew's-The Historical Narratives of Hampton Court Palace as Created by Historic Royal Palaces.
Natania's- Symbols of Evil and Gender Portrayed in The Devil and Mr. Punch and Heresy of Love.
It took me a shocking amount of time to write each of them but they were both done on time!!
No pictures of these day, you wouldn't have wanted to see pictures anyway, it was kind of sad how little I did and saw...
3/16/12
Friday. The day both finals were due. The day all packing needed to be done. The day of the final dinner hosted by ACM. The last full day we all spent in London. I was a little depressed the whole day at the thought of never being able to see Earl's Court again. I basically spent the day making final additions and edits to my papers and packing my bags.
That night we also had a dinner all together hosted by ACM and when I got to it I was so hungry that I swear I was about to eat a candle because they waited FOREVER to bring the food out!! I hadn't eaten all day which you probably would think would keep me from drinking and being a light weight but no. The only thing they had out for about 45 minutes was wine and I needed something in my stomach so I think I had about 5 glasses before I was finally able to eat. I don't think that I was the only one who either
A) Had drank on an empty stomach
or
B) Had A LOT to drink period.
The night became pretty epic as just about everyone decided to get up and dance. Natania started this little dance party and was soon accompanied by Neil (her husband) which eventually led to the majority of people joining, including Fabio and Andrew!! Let me tell you! Seeing Andrew dance was the highlight of my week! And not only does Andrew dance, he sings too!!! Oh deary he was having a great night!
Jenna and I did not dance (even though this girl is the best dancer I have ever seen...) and so we went downstairs and I bought us a jug (that's right a jug) of Sangria. It was delicious but I sadly did not get to drink much because Fabio spilled a bunch of mine as he was hugging me goodbye.
After a little while nobody was able to dance since they were apparently causing a ruckus (I am sorry but I cannot describe the ruckus) and the wine store downstairs was complaining that the bottles of wine were going to start falling off of the shelves if we did not stop.
It was a good final night in London, but I wish it could have lasted longer.
3/17/12
I am very happy to report that I did not have to wake up at 3:30 in the morning this time in order to catch a plane to a foreign country. This time it was 6:30 and it was to catch a train, to Paris!
I am going to be totally honest here. None of us were in a good mood for a good chunk of this day. We had to drag our bags with us everywhere. Hannah and I each had two suitcases and a backpack and Jenna had her one suitcase and backpack. We had to take the tube (last ride we took on the tube, sad day) to King's Cross St. Pancras to catch our train to Paris. It was a two hour ride and by the time we got on the train we were all disgustingly hot and so it was an uncomfortable ride. When we finally got to the train station in Paris (Gare du Nord) we had to find a map so we knew which direction we had to in to our hotel. The map did not help a whole lot and we ended up walking for a good 20 minutes in the WRONG DIRECTION!! We were all getting a little peeved, but Jenna (the eternal optimist) kept us all in good spirits and we continued on our way and after only 45 more minutes found our hotel, Hotel Bervic, located on a tiny little street completely hidden from the world.
The Hotel isn't the most exciting thing to look at but the one man that we have met that works here is really sweet and gives us candy and calls us angels. I realize saying all of this can sound really creepy to people on the outside but trust me he is not creepy, and we would know we have run into a few creepy people since we have been here.
Our room is kind of small, but there is room enough for the three of us and with a little work our luggage fits in here as well.
The view from our room isn't too bad either. We are far away from almost all famous monuments so we can't see those from our Hotel, but hey we are only a 10 minute walk from Sacre Coeur, and we will be seeing that soon, so that is awesome!
We didn't do a whole lot this first night. When we got to hotel at last we were all pretty tired and kind of sore so the only thing we really HAD to do was go find food! Which we did! We started by getting dinner at a fast food place, we found a French fast food joint and decided to try that one. Let me tell ya, fast food is one thing the French do not do well. I'm not saying the food was not eatable or just nasty, it was pretty ok, but I don't think I am ever going to have a craving for a Quick Burger ever again.
After we ate we went and found a grocery store to get some food for lunches for the next couple of days. We decided on bread, butter, and an assortment of cheeses. We don't have a fridge tho. This stuff will last alright in room temperature right? haha, oh well.
3/18/12
We slept 12 hours! We were planning on 10 which sounded like a lot to us but nobody wanted to get out of bed this morning, so it turned into 12. It turned out just fine though! It turned out to be a really rainy day today, so everything we had planned to do would have been miserable anyway.
We turned out to actually have a pretty great day. Hannah's mom wanted us to go check out an antique flea market about 30 minutes away from us and so that's what we spent the early afternoon trekking to. It was a bit of a chore to get there but when we did it was worth it. So many awesome things were there and I just wish I had the money to afford these beautiful items!!
We had lunch at the market, which consisted of bread and butter and cheese. Sounds bland and blah but I rather enjoyed it.
We did find some awesome stuff and one little booth had some items for a decent enough price, I was even able to get a souvenir or two...
It really doesn't sound like we did a whole lot today but it felt like a full and rewarding day to me. I am just so excited to be in Paris that the rude people, the streets that smell like urine, and the fact that we have no food to eat for breakfast tomorrow are all not affecting me and stressing me out like it normally should. Even the fact that we sat in a restaurant for an extra hour tonight after dinner because the waiter wouldn't bring us our check didn't bother me like it normally would. I am so strangely happy to be here that I had a good 15 minute laughing fit tonight about something that really wasn't that funny. But hey, I guess Paris agrees with me.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Wow!!! I have been awful in keeping up with this! Sorry it has been over a week!
Let's see what have we missed... I will try to keep this all to a minimum...
3/5/12
Day started out as a usual Monday, it was class with Andrew which meant a little over an hour of lecture on Georgian London and about an hour of presentations before we took a break for lunch, after which we headed out on one of our weekly tours. This time we headed over to the Victoria and Albert Museum to check out some of the cool artwork in there and for some reason on this day I decided to forget my camera and so did not get any pictures whatsoever. We then headed to the Albert Memorial which is so beautiful but cost so much money but Queen Victoria just HAD to get it built because she was so broken up over his death. Turns out the memorial is really gaudy and against what Prince Albert stood for, but hey Vicky was pretty heartbroken and might not have been thinking too straight. I didn't have my camera this day but luckily I went a few weeks earlier and did get pictures! You might even remember it from a previous post!
Monday night was fun as well. We went to go see the play Traveling Light, another one that I recommend highly, it was really interesting! And after the play we all decided that we did not want to go back to our flat yet and so a group of us went out to the pub where I got a very nice sized drink.
So it was a little late when we got back, but bar time is about 11 here, so it really wasn't so late.
3/6/12
No Class with Andrew today :( it is kind of sad that it is our second to last week before we are all done in London and a tour with Andrew did not happen but we still had a tour! Nadia Valman, who is actually a professor of religion and specializes in Judaism, took us all on a tour of the East Side of London. She taught us a lot about the history and showed us the palimpsest of the East Side but I have to say that it is not a place that I will find myself wanting to go to a whole lot in my future. It was kind of dirty. But I was excited to see this!
Yea man! I was on a street where Jack the Ripper killed two women! I realize its a little creepy to be excited about this but the Ripper has intrigued me since I was little.
3/7/12
Wednesday was not too eventful during the day. We had class with Natania in the morning and discussed the play we went to see on Monday and started discussing the book Mrs. Dalloway by Virgina Woolf. If any of you are fans of this book good for you, but it is not a book I plan on reading for fun again anytime soon!
This night was awesome since I got the chance to take a trip to my past because we went to go see Matilda, the musical! It was everything that is awesome about the story of Matilda that I have loved since my childhood with the added sweet awesometude of singing and dancing! The set was gorgeous!
And the children were so talented!!!
This clip doesn't even do the actors justice! Seeing it live was just amazing and I would love to go see it again and again!
I would have loved to stay after the show and try to meet some of the actors but sadly I had to up in about 4 hours to leave for Ireland!!
3/8/12
It is going to be very difficult to leave my description of my trip to Ireland short because it is just the most amazing and beautiful and magical place in the entire world! And I am going back, no doubt about that one there!
But like I said, we had to wake up very early in order to catch our flight there. 7 of us went but 3 of us got plane tickets for 6 in the morning and so had to be awake by about 330. It was totally worth it though! Despite being exhausted and wanting to sleep we stayed awake our first day in Ireland, and although all that we did was explore Dublin on our own it was fantastic! We stayed in a little hostel called Jacobs Inn, it was simple but good.
And then we just took a stroll around the town and enjoyed, well everything.
We got some awesome pictures but of course pictures don't always portray the awesomeness of what we see!
It wasn't terribly eventful but so nice, and when we got back we got a little something to eat, made our dinners in the kitchen, Lizzi was hit on by an older man but didn't realize it, we met another person that was staying in the hostel and we all went out to the pub for a drink!
When we were done at the pub Jenna Hannah and I had been up for about 21 hours, so we were pretty ready for bed and passed out faster than we could lay down in our beds.
3/9/12
Jenna Hannah and I were all very happy to be able to sleep later than 4 in the morning and while we didn't sleep in too late we did get to stay in bed until about 9, but then we had to get up because it is just stupid to waste time in Ireland by sleeping! We stayed in Dublin again this day but this time we were able to learn a whole lot about the city during a walking tour with one of the most energetic Irish women I have ever met! She was crazy awesome and the tour was fantastic. It was free but we all had to give her money at the end because it was great. We learned a lot about the different people who have lived in Ireland and about the different forms of government that has controlled the country but it was so great because the tour guide (Amanda) basically told us all of this information in story book form. We also toured different parts of the city to learn about famous writers and places in the city, and even ran into a very drunk women who taught us all the importance of dancing. You had to be there to appreciate it but it was hilarious!
This tour was awesome I had so much fun and learned a whole lot about Dublin and Ireland in general. While it was fantastic I would not call it the highlight of my day since right after I went to the most amazing place in the world, better than Disney World, that's right I said it, better than Disney!
I WENT TO THE GUINNESS BREWERY!!!!! It was fantastic! I went by myself because nobody else on this trip appreciates a good beer quite as much as I do. I also learned a lot on this tour that I took as well. It was all about how to make beer and what makes a Guinness so amazing, but I feel it was information that is very much worth knowing!
Overall I would put this day in one of the top five best days of my life. It was grand and even though I got sick later that night and could not go out to any of the pubs I still consider this day pretty awesome! And we all made a new friend! We met her at our hostel she was staying in the same room as us. Her name is Anna and she is from Brazil who came to Ireland to go to school so she could better learn English. She is already doing an amazing job and it was so great to meet her, she was the cutest and nicest person!
3/10/12
Another very active day in Ireland, woke up a little earlier than the day before because we had a bus tour to Wicklow out in the country. This means we got to see real Ireland, the green pretty parts of Ireland! Again we had an awesome guide, a man this time named Stephen who did not like to follow the rules of the road! According to him most of the stop lights in Ireland are simply decoration. I disagree but didn't feel that it was appropriate to argue with the driver. A lot of what we did was stop for pictures of the pretty landscape at different areas but while we were driving Stephen also gave us some history of Ireland and the areas surrounding us. My favorite parts were in the bog lands where we learned about the bog bodies (I will not go into detail if people are squeamish but if you want to know more check it out! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_body) and we learned a lovely song about the bog and we all got to sing together! In this area quite a few movies were filmed as well, including Braveheart and P.S. I Love You!!!! We stopped in a little town for lunch and then made our way to a really old monastery attributed to St. Kevin of Glendalough. There were also two really pretty lakes here and a whole bunch of sheep! Many pictures were taken on this trip!
The tour was so great, and it was amazing to see the beautiful Irish country! When we got back to the hostel after the tour was over we were all really tired and planned to just eat and relax for a little while and go to bed. We kind of did that, except we stayed awake for a few hours longer than we wanted to because we met some really cool who were also staying in the hostel and go to school in Ireland! One of these people, her name is Katie, decided that I am her new best friend and she lives in Chicago and so told me that she is going to come to Wisconsin searching for me. We all hung out for quite awhile and an interesting game of pool/snookered was played before we finally decided it would be a good idea to catch some shut eye before we woke up at 3:30 again to catch a flight home (to London).
3/11/12
It was really sad to leave Ireland, I would have stayed forever if I could but at least I was going back to London, another city I have come to love. I was really tired when we got back and planned to take a nap but somehow never got along to it. I did, however, start planning my trip home after we are all done in Italy, which of course is going to have a pit stop in Ireland before going back to the States. I also got a bit of research in for the the two final papers that I have due Friday. I actually was very productive which is strange for Sunday because I also finished an application to do research at the University of Santa Barbara for this summer! Send positive vibes my way that I get accepted! I would love to go back to that University, it is just perfect for me!
3/12/12
Back to classes. Morning started with class with Andrew. We are in our last week in London :( and so we had a lecture on modern and post modern architecture followed by presentations of 20th and 21st century buildings. Same as usual, break for lunch and then off to a tour. This time we went to the Tate Britain to see an art exhibit called migrations about (obviously) migration in Britain. There was truly some amazing and moving pieces, but as usual with art galleries I could not take any pictures of any of it.
I would recommend looking into it though if it sounds interesting to you, it is very much worth it. After everyone had made it through the exhibit Hannah Jenna and I wandered around more of the museum and saw some pretty cool stuff and some kind of odd things. One piece even made me really dizzy, it was an inverted reverse mirror that made me feel like I was on a rocking ship when I looked at it.
The rest of the day wasn't very eventful after the museum. We all headed back to the flat where we ate a delicious stir fry made by Lizzi and Charlotte and we all attempted to do more work on our final papers.
3/13/12
Today was kind of a slow day. I was a little sad all day because it finally hit me that I am going to be leaving London in just a matter of days and I don't want to! Still, I had to knock myself out of it because there is still work to do! I did sleep in today just a little bit because I kind of forgot to set my alarm clock... haha. Oops. But then I had what I feel is a very productive day. Jenna Hanna and I started out by going out to get a box that we can all send stuff home in, since we are all really worried about bringing so much with us to Italy. After we got the boxes we made our way to Trafalgar Square (probably for the last time) and then off to Camden Town because Jenna and I really wanted Chinese food for lunch! And Hannah ate some too! I was so proud!
We then had to leave for Canary Wharf for our last tour with Andrew :( the tour did not go very long because there was not a whole lot to see that we could not see in any major city in the world.
But we did have a very long and nice talk about the movie the Matrix and various other movies that question the true reality. We then had a very sentimental goodbye to Andrew and made him promise to come to the farewell dinner on Friday.
The night has been kind of slow since then. More research and more work on our final papers, and somehow I found a way to catch up on my blog! Yay me!
I am sorry this post ended up so long. It is very easy to lose track of the days here.
Let's see what have we missed... I will try to keep this all to a minimum...
3/5/12
Day started out as a usual Monday, it was class with Andrew which meant a little over an hour of lecture on Georgian London and about an hour of presentations before we took a break for lunch, after which we headed out on one of our weekly tours. This time we headed over to the Victoria and Albert Museum to check out some of the cool artwork in there and for some reason on this day I decided to forget my camera and so did not get any pictures whatsoever. We then headed to the Albert Memorial which is so beautiful but cost so much money but Queen Victoria just HAD to get it built because she was so broken up over his death. Turns out the memorial is really gaudy and against what Prince Albert stood for, but hey Vicky was pretty heartbroken and might not have been thinking too straight. I didn't have my camera this day but luckily I went a few weeks earlier and did get pictures! You might even remember it from a previous post!
Monday night was fun as well. We went to go see the play Traveling Light, another one that I recommend highly, it was really interesting! And after the play we all decided that we did not want to go back to our flat yet and so a group of us went out to the pub where I got a very nice sized drink.
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| Ain't it perty? |
So it was a little late when we got back, but bar time is about 11 here, so it really wasn't so late.
3/6/12
No Class with Andrew today :( it is kind of sad that it is our second to last week before we are all done in London and a tour with Andrew did not happen but we still had a tour! Nadia Valman, who is actually a professor of religion and specializes in Judaism, took us all on a tour of the East Side of London. She taught us a lot about the history and showed us the palimpsest of the East Side but I have to say that it is not a place that I will find myself wanting to go to a whole lot in my future. It was kind of dirty. But I was excited to see this!
Yea man! I was on a street where Jack the Ripper killed two women! I realize its a little creepy to be excited about this but the Ripper has intrigued me since I was little.
3/7/12
Wednesday was not too eventful during the day. We had class with Natania in the morning and discussed the play we went to see on Monday and started discussing the book Mrs. Dalloway by Virgina Woolf. If any of you are fans of this book good for you, but it is not a book I plan on reading for fun again anytime soon!
This night was awesome since I got the chance to take a trip to my past because we went to go see Matilda, the musical! It was everything that is awesome about the story of Matilda that I have loved since my childhood with the added sweet awesometude of singing and dancing! The set was gorgeous!
And the children were so talented!!!
I would have loved to stay after the show and try to meet some of the actors but sadly I had to up in about 4 hours to leave for Ireland!!
3/8/12
It is going to be very difficult to leave my description of my trip to Ireland short because it is just the most amazing and beautiful and magical place in the entire world! And I am going back, no doubt about that one there!
But like I said, we had to wake up very early in order to catch our flight there. 7 of us went but 3 of us got plane tickets for 6 in the morning and so had to be awake by about 330. It was totally worth it though! Despite being exhausted and wanting to sleep we stayed awake our first day in Ireland, and although all that we did was explore Dublin on our own it was fantastic! We stayed in a little hostel called Jacobs Inn, it was simple but good.
And then we just took a stroll around the town and enjoyed, well everything.
We got some awesome pictures but of course pictures don't always portray the awesomeness of what we see!
[Video will not upload right now but I will come back to this later!]
It wasn't terribly eventful but so nice, and when we got back we got a little something to eat, made our dinners in the kitchen, Lizzi was hit on by an older man but didn't realize it, we met another person that was staying in the hostel and we all went out to the pub for a drink!
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| Ok maybe more than just a drink. haha, don't worry there were 7 of us, those are not all mine! |
When we were done at the pub Jenna Hannah and I had been up for about 21 hours, so we were pretty ready for bed and passed out faster than we could lay down in our beds.
3/9/12
Jenna Hannah and I were all very happy to be able to sleep later than 4 in the morning and while we didn't sleep in too late we did get to stay in bed until about 9, but then we had to get up because it is just stupid to waste time in Ireland by sleeping! We stayed in Dublin again this day but this time we were able to learn a whole lot about the city during a walking tour with one of the most energetic Irish women I have ever met! She was crazy awesome and the tour was fantastic. It was free but we all had to give her money at the end because it was great. We learned a lot about the different people who have lived in Ireland and about the different forms of government that has controlled the country but it was so great because the tour guide (Amanda) basically told us all of this information in story book form. We also toured different parts of the city to learn about famous writers and places in the city, and even ran into a very drunk women who taught us all the importance of dancing. You had to be there to appreciate it but it was hilarious!
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| Dublin Castle |
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| Dublin Castle |
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| Garden by Dublin Castle |
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| Haunted 40 Steps |
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| A church... don't remember which... |
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| Statue of James Joyce with his best friend (where the drunk lady told us to dance) |
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| St. Stephens Park |
This tour was awesome I had so much fun and learned a whole lot about Dublin and Ireland in general. While it was fantastic I would not call it the highlight of my day since right after I went to the most amazing place in the world, better than Disney World, that's right I said it, better than Disney!
I WENT TO THE GUINNESS BREWERY!!!!! It was fantastic! I went by myself because nobody else on this trip appreciates a good beer quite as much as I do. I also learned a lot on this tour that I took as well. It was all about how to make beer and what makes a Guinness so amazing, but I feel it was information that is very much worth knowing!
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| The 9000 year lease on the land for the brewery |
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| The safe that holds the yeast used for Guinness |
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| There is a waterfall in the brewery! It is like the Willy Wonka's factory of all breweries!! |
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| "makes it light and frothy..." haha I'm sure that doesn't apply to this situation |
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| My free taste |
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| My teacher of how to pour the perfect pint |
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| Before |
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| After |
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| I got a certificate for pouring the perfect pint! |
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| And I got to drink the pint! |
Overall I would put this day in one of the top five best days of my life. It was grand and even though I got sick later that night and could not go out to any of the pubs I still consider this day pretty awesome! And we all made a new friend! We met her at our hostel she was staying in the same room as us. Her name is Anna and she is from Brazil who came to Ireland to go to school so she could better learn English. She is already doing an amazing job and it was so great to meet her, she was the cutest and nicest person!
3/10/12
Another very active day in Ireland, woke up a little earlier than the day before because we had a bus tour to Wicklow out in the country. This means we got to see real Ireland, the green pretty parts of Ireland! Again we had an awesome guide, a man this time named Stephen who did not like to follow the rules of the road! According to him most of the stop lights in Ireland are simply decoration. I disagree but didn't feel that it was appropriate to argue with the driver. A lot of what we did was stop for pictures of the pretty landscape at different areas but while we were driving Stephen also gave us some history of Ireland and the areas surrounding us. My favorite parts were in the bog lands where we learned about the bog bodies (I will not go into detail if people are squeamish but if you want to know more check it out! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_body) and we learned a lovely song about the bog and we all got to sing together! In this area quite a few movies were filmed as well, including Braveheart and P.S. I Love You!!!! We stopped in a little town for lunch and then made our way to a really old monastery attributed to St. Kevin of Glendalough. There were also two really pretty lakes here and a whole bunch of sheep! Many pictures were taken on this trip!
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| Legend says if a woman runs around this tower 3 times counterclockwise she will get married within a year, clockwise and she will get divorced |
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| Left from the old monastery |
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| Me by the chapel of St. Kevin |
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| The Lower Lake |
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| That's a mini waterfall behind me |
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| The Upper Lake |
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| I also took a more serious picture of them but I feel this captures the mood of the day |
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| Pretty Tree by the Upper Lake |
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| That's Sheila, she got sleepy while she was eating |
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| Chapel of St. Kevin |
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| Graves by the monastery |
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| Pretty Irish landscape |
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| A river that leads to a waterfall |
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| There are sheep in that field but they look really tiny here |
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| Wild Windelow Bus Tour |
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| Gorgeous trees |
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| Kelsey by the water of the sandy beaches |
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| Ain't she so pretty! |
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| Taken from inside the bus, you can kind of see my reflection. |
The tour was so great, and it was amazing to see the beautiful Irish country! When we got back to the hostel after the tour was over we were all really tired and planned to just eat and relax for a little while and go to bed. We kind of did that, except we stayed awake for a few hours longer than we wanted to because we met some really cool who were also staying in the hostel and go to school in Ireland! One of these people, her name is Katie, decided that I am her new best friend and she lives in Chicago and so told me that she is going to come to Wisconsin searching for me. We all hung out for quite awhile and an interesting game of pool/snookered was played before we finally decided it would be a good idea to catch some shut eye before we woke up at 3:30 again to catch a flight home (to London).
3/11/12
It was really sad to leave Ireland, I would have stayed forever if I could but at least I was going back to London, another city I have come to love. I was really tired when we got back and planned to take a nap but somehow never got along to it. I did, however, start planning my trip home after we are all done in Italy, which of course is going to have a pit stop in Ireland before going back to the States. I also got a bit of research in for the the two final papers that I have due Friday. I actually was very productive which is strange for Sunday because I also finished an application to do research at the University of Santa Barbara for this summer! Send positive vibes my way that I get accepted! I would love to go back to that University, it is just perfect for me!
3/12/12
Back to classes. Morning started with class with Andrew. We are in our last week in London :( and so we had a lecture on modern and post modern architecture followed by presentations of 20th and 21st century buildings. Same as usual, break for lunch and then off to a tour. This time we went to the Tate Britain to see an art exhibit called migrations about (obviously) migration in Britain. There was truly some amazing and moving pieces, but as usual with art galleries I could not take any pictures of any of it.
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| Which is why I got yelled at when I took this :) |
I would recommend looking into it though if it sounds interesting to you, it is very much worth it. After everyone had made it through the exhibit Hannah Jenna and I wandered around more of the museum and saw some pretty cool stuff and some kind of odd things. One piece even made me really dizzy, it was an inverted reverse mirror that made me feel like I was on a rocking ship when I looked at it.
The rest of the day wasn't very eventful after the museum. We all headed back to the flat where we ate a delicious stir fry made by Lizzi and Charlotte and we all attempted to do more work on our final papers.
3/13/12
Today was kind of a slow day. I was a little sad all day because it finally hit me that I am going to be leaving London in just a matter of days and I don't want to! Still, I had to knock myself out of it because there is still work to do! I did sleep in today just a little bit because I kind of forgot to set my alarm clock... haha. Oops. But then I had what I feel is a very productive day. Jenna Hanna and I started out by going out to get a box that we can all send stuff home in, since we are all really worried about bringing so much with us to Italy. After we got the boxes we made our way to Trafalgar Square (probably for the last time) and then off to Camden Town because Jenna and I really wanted Chinese food for lunch! And Hannah ate some too! I was so proud!
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| Noodles, Bang Bang Chicken, shrimp and Spring Rolls |
We then had to leave for Canary Wharf for our last tour with Andrew :( the tour did not go very long because there was not a whole lot to see that we could not see in any major city in the world.
But we did have a very long and nice talk about the movie the Matrix and various other movies that question the true reality. We then had a very sentimental goodbye to Andrew and made him promise to come to the farewell dinner on Friday.
The night has been kind of slow since then. More research and more work on our final papers, and somehow I found a way to catch up on my blog! Yay me!
I am sorry this post ended up so long. It is very easy to lose track of the days here.
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