6 weeks to go.

So today is the official first day of summer term. I really don't get what the point of this term is. We basically have an entire month to study for finals with one revision class for each subject. I guess I'm not complaining, it's just weird!

In light of not being able to go to Greece because of the volcano, I went to London from Thursday until Sunday. Thursday night Liz and I went to the Kate Nash concert, which was amazing! It was at a really small venue, so we were literally 10 feet away from her. Friday Liz went to Beligum for the day with her family friends who were visiting, so I met up with Jelyse, Joanna, and Chris and we went to Hyde park and laid out for the day. Friday night Christie and her friend Sara and I went out to dinner at this AMAZING Italian place. Sara almost got mugged before we went into the restaurant and it was so scary. While she was at the ATM people came up waving around newspapers and yelling and then managed to try and withdraw 200 pounds from her account, but she took it and ran. Yikes. Friday night we somehow made it into one of the notoriously elite clubs in London...it was INSANE and not real life. One of the girls in Christie's program met these guys from Nigeria who like hanging out with Americans, so they took about 10 of us out for predrinks at a place where one small champagne glass of a drink was 11 pounds! So the equivalent of about 16 or 17 American dollars. We then went to this club called Runway, where you usually have to be on a guestlist and pay a ridiculous cover, but we all somehow got in without paying anything. We knew we were out of place when we had to do a fingerprint for the coat check. The place was really cool and fun, but I don't see why anyone would pay that much money to do the same thing you can do at any other normal club.
Saturday Liz and I went to Regents park and took a nap in the sun until dinner. For dinner we got Mexican, which was amazing also. All the restaurants in London are soooo good but so expensive!! My meal cost about 17 US dollars. And that's on the lower end in terms of cost. At night we met up with Thomas, Brendan, Michael, and some of there friends and went to a small pub for a few drinks. I've known those boys since kindergarten...who would have guessed in our St. Louis days that we would be in London together 15 years later? It's so weird how time flies and how small the world is.
On Sunday I was scheduled to leave London with a prepaid ticket at 12:20 pm. I left Liz's flat at 11 am...and didn't make it back to Essex until 5 pm. It should be a 50 minute train ride. Apparently my train was canceled because of construction, so I had to take a combination of 5 different buses and trains. The bus I took went through a terrible neighborhood and I was pretty scared. I have definitely gotten the hang of traveling by myself and figuring this stuff out on my own, but I definitely did not enjoy having no idea where I was going and just showing up at another station with no clue what train to get on next. After being away for the weekend, I always feel so relieved to get on the bus from the Colchester train station, going through town, passing Tesco, and seeing the towers in the distance. Colchester feels like home after running around big and busy cities.
I can't believe I'll be home in six weeks. I am SO EXCITED. This has no doubt been the best experience of my life, but I will be so ready to come home to the most amazing friends and family. I was going to try to surprise my parents by coming home a week early, but there are no flights for when I would want to go. And I think that my Dad might have had a heart attack if I showed up at the door unplanned. My Mom would probably just start laughing and crying but I really think my Dad would actually go into shock and possibly be mad that he didn't know I was flying across the Atlantic Ocean. I know that time is going to fly, and I have another trip planned for Rome and Barcelona! Should be a really good time. In the meantime, my thoughts are seriously always with everyone at home, and I cannot wait until I can see you all and hug you for hours.
LOTS of love from England

10 April 2010

"To find the balance you want, this is what you must become. You must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the earth that it's like you have 4 legs instead of 2. That way, you can stay in the world. But you must stop looking at the world through your head. You must look through your heart, instead."

Easter

I went to London on Sunday afternoon for Easter with Christie, which was a nice escape. After a two hour train ride to get there, we walked around Kensington Park for a while and enjoyed the sun. Before dinner we went and got the most amazing gelato, mmm. Then we made chicken for dinner and just hung out with her flatmates. Later that night we went out, which is definitely a first for Easter. The next day we went to the Victorian and Albert Museum and looked at some amazing photography, then went on to the Natural History Museum and saw the dinosaurs, rawr. It was actually really cool. I feel as I get older and have traveled more I have become a lot more interested in history and museums. I wish I could have been this interested when I was actually taking history classes and it mattered. I took the train back at 7 last night and it took me three hours to get home because of all the construction on the tube and railways.

I just did my taxes, hooray for not getting hunted down in England by the IRS! Today I am going to go for a run, take out some books for my sociology paper, attempt to pick out my Le Moyne fall classes, and then go to the reading room tonight and attempt to bang out this paper so it can be over with. GREECE two weeks from today, yay!

Paris

I just returned from Paris two days ago, which was amazing. Although I had heard this many times before, I didn't realize how truly rude the Parisians can be. At first my French was extremely rusty, but by the end of the trip I was able to have several meaningful conversations, including how to get somewhere on the metro and where I could find a cash machine and umbrella. I understood a lot more than I could speak. Surprisingly, a LOT of people speak English there. Every restaurant we went to had English speaking waiters. (Especially McDonalds, which is the only thing open on Sundays in Paris).

We hopped in a cab at 3 am on Friday morning to go to Paris, which was a little early for my liking. We were all totally exhausted. The cab ride was two hours to Luton Airport in London. We lucked out and only had to pay 80 pounds instead of 140 because the people I talked to when I called in advance gave me the wrong price. Hooray! When we first arrived at our hostel we definitely did not get a warm welcome, but we made the best of it. At least we got free internet and croissants in the morning! Although they did hide them behind the counter near the beer and I had to everything short of beg them to have two instead of one. The first day we walked around the area nearby our hostel and stumbled upon the Eiffel tower, which ended up being about a 15-20 minute walk away. We realized quickly that you had to be careful of gypsies and hagglers around the Eiffel, including a man who drew the most hideous caracature of me...I refused to pay him for it because it was so ugly. And he still gave it to me for me! After walking around for the day, Joanna, Jelyse, and I all met up with Katharine and her friends and went out for dinner. (A 30 euro dinner, might I add....with TINY PORTIONS! But soooo delicious). Joanna and I were both struggling with a terrible cough, no sleep, and PINK EYE! From wearing our contacts too long and fake eye lashes the night before at Jo's burlesque themed birthday party. But we made the best of it because we were so excited to be in Paris. All the rest of the 5 days seem to be a blur, but to summarize, we saw the Sacre Coeur, Eiffel tower in daylight, night, and went halfway up at night, Champs Elysees, Luxembourg Gardens, Concorde, the square where Marie Antoinette was killed, Versailles, the Arc de Triomphe, Moulin Rouge, Saint-Michel fountain/square, the Notre Dame, the bridge where the first pedestrian sidewalks were created/the oldest bridge in Paris, the Seine River, the Louvre (Mona is tiny!), and the Opera house that the phantom of the Opera musical was based off of. We took a map and literally walked or took the metro to all of Paris. For the Versailles tour we had to take the train there, and although the gardens were AMAZING, it rained the whole time and we were soaked. The thing I loved about Paris was that every where you went there was some fountain or monument popping up. Everything was extremely beautiful and I felt like I learned a lot on the free tour we went on and from Joanna's friend living in Paris who took us around on the last day. I realize that you have to have a thick skin to live in Paris, as amazing as it is. I found myself desperately missing Colchester and the small town friendly vibe here. It is an amazing city though and I felt really blessed to have the opportunity to travel there and do as much as we did. Looking out from the Eiffel tower at night at the city made me feel so small in a good way- like the world is this huge, amazing, infinite place where anything is possible.

Unfortunately my blog won't let me post pictures right now, so those of you who don't have me on Facebook will get emails with the pictures :)

Tomorrow I am going to London to spend Easter with Christie, then I have two weeks of essays and studying before GREECE!

Love from England xxx