The next day we slept in a little bit and then decided to see what a saturday had to offer. We started off by going to the Portobello Road market to wheel and deal. We actually haggled for the price of a stamp with the family crest on it....haggled and didn't even know it! I got some gifts as did my mom and we had some awesome crepes. After that we decided to go to Westminster Abbey, but it was closed for the day. My mom did however get to see Big Ben. That was one of the most hilarious parts of the trip. We were walking out of the tube station and she was like...where is it? and i pointed straight up and she was like! WHOA! we were just under there!!! You get really close to Big Ben when coming out of the tube. Lots of big ben in the background pictures were taken.
After that we decided to cross the river again and go on the London Eye. There was an old bagpiper playing on the bridge...that was funny. There was lots of queuing for the Eye BUT we did get 2 for 1 with my oyster card...go deals. In line we were entertained by King Tut performing on the pathway....nice. Once up in the air we got to take in the whole city. It was quite cool. Half an hour later we were the only ones who posed for the group picture. We did not buy it however.....what a racket..just like Great America.....

On the way back we stopped for a cheerful pint at the Sherlock Holmes Pub. We then wandered through trafalgar square where they were having lots of hub bub for the anniversary of the battle of trafalgar. We couldn't quite figure out what exactly was supposed to be going on. Seemed like a dress rehearsal or somtehin.....lots of fog though.

We then wandered to Leicester Square where we had some delicioius Wagamama food. After that, I recreated the pub tour that I went on, showing my mom the Astor House and all of the pubs. A few pints in the Cheshire Cheese and the George Inn were good fun. It made my mom's day to go to a Samuel Smiths pub where she could get her Oatmeal Stout. After that lovely day of walking it was back to the flat.

All right, I've gotten complaints/comments that i havent told you about my mom's visit yet, so here i go. This one's for you mom!
So my mom decided to make the most out of her trip and get into London at 5:55 am. And i decided to be the nice daughter and meet her at the airport. Anyway...i kind of slept through my alarm and didn't wake up until 6:30. i Met up with her...where she had been waiting for almost two hours (how was i supposed to know her plane would be early and that she would breeze through customs??? I guess the Heathrow express wasn't express enough!) Well it made me super happy to finally see my mom! We hopped on the Heathrow Express again (seriously, best £14 ever!) where my mom seemed a bit travel worn....as in sick. We got her into some fresh air after her first tube experience. and we watched through the drizzle to my flat. I know its against the rules of jet lag, but we were both tired, so we took a small nap...I figured it was okay because she didn't sleep at all on the plan. After that I took my mom on the most exhausting tour of London ever...don't believe me..ask her. I think I walked the most that i have walked in a really long time and i dont think my mom knew what she was getting into. First we walked through Covent Garden and then to the river. We walked across the Waterloo bridge so she could get her first real view of London. London as is portrayed on postcards. We walked along the Southbank for a bit ( i love it!) and then we found ourselves in the Borough Market. The only way i can describe it is Whole Foods Alive...its amazing and I think my mom was in food heaven. In case you're wondering, a pigs head is only £5....i'm sure i could have thought of some use for one with halloween, but i failed to think of anything. We grabbed some good food and sat in Southwark cathedrals grounds to enjoy our finds. We then went into Southwark cathedral...apparently anyone who's ever lived in London has a connection with this church.... Dickens, Shakespeare and the founder of Harvard University. The Shakespeare window is really cool and I had fun with my mom trying to pick out what plays were represented. After that we decided to go to the Bramah tea and coffee museum. Not bad, a little small, with some....interesting. tea pots. Those chinese are kind of interesting....thats all i have to say about THAT teapot. We walked across the millenium bridge and then peeked into st. pauls. We tried getting into the Tower of London but it was too late so we walked across tower bridge and got ourselves a bowl of chips from a cute little pub. Then we walked around the area taking pictures of cute houseboats and just enjoying the scenery. It was then back across the river to meet up with our London Walks guide to go on a Jack the Ripper walk. Our walk was huge!!! We were being led around by the guy who wrote the book on jack the ripper...my mom got to be the stand-in for the third victim of the ripper...way to go mom! On our tour we were down this little alley right next to a car park (parking garage) and all of a sudden this guy comes running down one of the levels and then scales the side of the building and takes off running again. He then goes to climb up the other side..it was something out of a jackie chan movie....quite distracting while you're trying to learn about this man who brutally murdered women. We ended up buying his book and called it a day. I thought my mom was going to die on the way home, so we went grocery shopping to buy food and she had her first pasty experience....oh the pasty. So much better than a hot pocket!
Thus concludes our first and very busy night. whoo hoo!

So next came the moment of truth....the Mid term. It was an essay test and we were given 8 question and had to write on the 3 of them...our choice. I ended up writing on the Roman influence on British Life and Culture, The Differences of the American and British Educational systems, and the influence on Britain being an island in its development. I had two hours which was hard for me because i can get quite verbose at times and i had a lot to say. It was up to the wire on me finishing and my hand hurt a lot from gripping the pen and writing furiously.... I know, thats a lot of drama for one test. It wasn't really that bad.

After that....I embarked on an adventure after realizing it was my Half Birthday. I know, thats not exactly that exciting, but it was just like a "oh....i'm halfway to 21" moment. So...in 6 months, i'lll be able to drink in the USA. I celebrated by going for a walk and ending up at the Staple Inn, a super old building that survived the great fire of 1666 (its OLD!) that led me through a little archway into a courtyard, through another archway into a garden with a fountain and then through more gates. Anyway, I ended up in Lincoln's Inn, very pretty. I ended up walking around there walking past the silver vaults and i eventually ended up in Lincoln's Inn Fields, a really cute park where I decided to be artsy and sit and write surrounded by greenery and serenity. Too bad they were running the woodchopper and my cell phone kept going off...thats peace. Anyway, i decided to give up on that and i'm glad that I did because on the way back to my flat...who drove by? THE QUEEN!!!!!

OH yeah, that was really cool, but you already know about that.

After that Stefanie and I embarked to Picadilly Circus to go to see a lecture by David Starkey on the monarchy. Quite interesting. I had a nice half birthday glass of wine and then we set off to find some sort of sweet....cake-esque. Since it was only my half birthday i settled for a bagel and some frozen yogurt....classy!!

It was a fun day of not wanting to go home and celebrating our freedom from school.

After that it was go home and try and clean/sleep for a bit. Because guess who was coming the next day???
MY MOM!

Okay, so this is going to be a halloween marathon of updating because i'm tired of being behind and so i'm going to update you to the minute.
So I last left you at Aimee's festivities. The next morning we all convened on St. Paul's Cathedral for the "super tour." That place is massive and it was very cool to go through doors that were locked and what not...it was cool to be like..."yeah thats right, we get to go in here and you don't" to all of the tourists and what not. If you want to know anything about the history of the place, let me know. I got a good dose of it. After an overpriced piece of carrot cake to provide me with energy, stefanie, tasha and I embarked on climbing all the way to the top of the place. Yeah, thats right, if you don't have a problem with vertigo and you're not too wide to fit through the small passages you can climb up to the three galleries which are each higher than the other.
They are:
The Whispering Gallery- Coolest thing ever! You can whisper against the wall and someone on the other end of the massive dome can hear you perfectly. Kicks the butt out of two tin cans and a piece of string. New plan for engagement: I want my future husband to ask me to marry him from across the dome...it'd be cute. Watch i'm sure it will be in some romantic comedy someday. Maybe i'll write it.
up more steps and now outside of the dome is the
Stone Gallery- its at the bottom of the big dome and you get quite the view of London, slightly obscured by cement pillars. BUT! no fear because higher up is the....
Golden Gallery-the top of the dome. You can see the whole city...its crazy! and beautiful. its crazy/beautiful. There was a man up there having to take a breather, turns out he had some heart problems...the steward was quite concerned, but the guy seemed to think there wasn't anything wrong with him...just out of breath.
After St Pauls, Stef and I decided to embark on a journey of procrastination. We didnt want to start studying for our Mid-Term so we decided to do a contact or two. We ended up having lunch at the Anchor pub (its historic...contact 1!), then we found a charming little place called The Clink Prison Museum, apparently its where the leaders of the Mayflower met....today its a museum where they have all sorts of information on torture and what not. Stef and I were the only people there , so we had free reign to take some hilarious pictures. My favorite is the one of stefanie cutting my head off with an axe. Later the director of the museum told us that it was really used in executions....ewww.. anyway contact 2....After that we wandered around the Southbank, finding the original site of the Globe (contact 3!) and then we went to the George Inn, the last galleried coaching inn in London (contact 4) and then the Tabard Inn where Chaucer had his pilgrims set forth to Canterbury from...it was really just a scary little alley way...oh well. i do believe we're up to 5 contacts...we're just that cool. We decided to unwind by drinking ridiculously priced coffee at Starbucks while studying for our test. It was really nice to sit and relax in the big comfortable chairs and the Thames was rough that night so you could hear the waves break and it was like we were on the ocean......splendid!
Back to the flat for more studying and smart sleep!

I have now found why some people want to hang out with me....
so then they can be like "are you going to put this in your blog?"
you know who you are :)

Okay, so after a lovely time in Manchester, my adventure had to come to an end when I had to leave on Monday. David had a job interview in the morning (he ended up getting the job at Urban Outfitters!) so I wandered around Manchester, making clothing purchases and what not, nothing beats good cheap clothes! I caught a train that was a half an hour earlier than I was supposed to and got back to London. I had enough time to sort of settle and take a shower before I found my way to Leicester Square for the premiere of 'Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride'. Okay the one of the real reasons that I went (and i'm sure that 3/4 of the people were there) was because the main character in the movie was Johnny Depp. But he was a no show. No worries though, I got to be super close to one of the coolest people in Show business today: Tim Burton. Okay, I have to say that I'm a major Burton fan, anyone who's been around my house around Halloween can attest to my very burton-esque upbringing. I mean I absolutely adore anything he's ever done and that's been a lot. Even frankenweinie....pure genius. Anyway, I snapped some good pictures of him and Aimee got his autograph. I tried, but I instead just got pictures. Oh well, he was one of the nicest people ever, making every attempt to try and meet and greet and sign stuff for all of his fans. Equally nice was his girlfriend Helena Bonham Carter. Now Fight Club happens to be my favorite movie and she of course is the love interest in that plus she's done everything from period films to Big Fish to Fight Club, she's equally as cool. After that me, stef, and aimee were all super pumped so we kind of just floated around on a cloud, wandering through SoHo and Chinatown settling for some delicious Chinese buffet and lots of hilarious pictures.
The next day we had a lecture on the English Civil War and Oliver Cromwell, etc. Educational as always. Its really funny because most of the movies we're watching (or watching clips of) I watched my freshman year of high school in World History. I'm definately getting a lot more out of watching them now, especially when I can say that I've actually been to a lot of the places!
After that Stef and I went to go pick up supplies/presents for Aimee's suprise party. We were in charge of chips and dip and we got her a really cute etchasketch pen because she always gets bored in class. After the party in the triple we set off for a few pubs where I revelled in the video jukebox...i got to listen to /see the video for Sic Transit Gloria...Glory fades by Brand new (i LOVE that song). All in all it was a very fun night despite me getting two drinks spilled on me. Oh well.....

There is more than a week delay on me updating, i'm really really bad at this game. Anyway, the next day up north in Manchester was a fun one. i had my first home cooked english breakfast including black pudding which, frankly they can keep in England. it wasn't bad, but just not my cup of tea. We drove back to David's house a little too early for my liking, but I did get to take a shower and a little nap, so that was nice. Of course I got a cup of tea upon awakening. After that we went to his friend Jane's house. Jane is a 50 year old housewife they call Lady Jane and she is one of David's best friends. We sat around and talk and she made me some of hte best food I've had here. She made quiche!!!! Now if you don't know me that well let me let you in on a little secret, known as the secret to my heart: QUICHE!!! i Love it! anyway, we sat down and talked (and drank tea of course!) and David's other friend decided it was best to attack everything that is america and apparently it was all my fault. no worries though, I handled the situation with wit and poise, which I thought to be the best way. After eating (i swear david was trying to fatten me up on this trip!) we all went for a stroll around the park where we people watched for awhile and I also met David's friend Esther. lovely. After that, we went back to Davids where I watched Wallace and Gromit for a bit and then we went back into Manchester with Sophia and her boyfriend where we went to 'curry mile' which is a strip of road known for its overabundance of curry restaurants. After some delicious curry and naan...oh how i love naan bread I got taken on the nickel tour of Manchester, ending at the Manchester Wheel, which I suppose is their version of the London Eye, only a whole lot smaller and cheaper. (David did say however that Manchester is just like london and has everything it has only smaller!). We all went up in one little pod and i got quite a nice view of the city. After that it was back to nana's house for lots of late night conversations consisting of us talking about how David's not coming back to work at camp this summer and who's going to visit who in the future...good times.

okay. 2nd day in the city of manchester.
Apparently David thought i was in need of a lie-in (translation: sleeping in!!!) that was lovely seeing as I really didnt have a lot of sleep the night before packing and what not. After that I had the lovely experience of my first "bacon butty." Now when I told everyone that it was my first I got looked at as if I had just said I had never taken a shower or something. A bacon butty consists of bread buttered on the inside, english bacon and tomato sauce (ketchup). not too bad. Not something I could eat everyday but not too bad. Apparently I'm supposed to try a chip butty next....Something that I need to mention here is the amount of tea I ingested on this trip. By this time in the trip I had tea when I first arrived at davids, when i got to his nana's house, when I woke up, etc. I would continue this trend throughout the rest of my trip, every new house I stepped into, the first question would be "do you want a brew?" or "would you like a cuppa?" followed by "do you take sugar love?" followed by "how many?" Oh how i love the English!!! Sidenote: Do you want a brew? has total different connotation than in the states. I don't think i would have accepted the offer of a brew at 10 o'clock in the morning in the US. brew=tea here, not beer as you might think (silly americans!!)
After that lovely english culinary experience, David's mom met up with us and his grandpa drove us all to the city where we shopped and what not and then went out to eat... here i realized how much I miss American Lemonade. I don't drink pop and so if i go out in the States i'll order an Ice Tea or more often, a lemonade. I caught myself almost ordering a Lemonade until I realized I would have been brought a sprite. no fear though, after a call to my mom, she brought me two huge containers of country time lemonade mix....delicious!!!!! Lunch was really nice, I had a duck salad which was great (i've found my eating habits/content have changed a bit while here. For instance, there are periods when i seem almost vegetarian and I have been eating a lot more duck and rabbit and no beef at all......)
We split up from David's mum and then continued to shop around a bit more and wander around before we went back to David's house where we got ready to go to his friends Ali and Sam's house. David's friend Amanda picked us up to go Bury where they lived and I learned where David got his crazy driving skills from...it was like nascar, except on the other side of the road.
Ali and Sam have an amazing house and Sam had cooked a beautiful sit down dinner of bread and this pasta that was amazing and lots of wine. For dessert I think we had the most amazing and simple thing ever, strawberries and cream...mmmmm....After that we played trivial pursuit. Now i'm usually a master at this game (my brother Larry and I are the reigning Y-Camp Family Camp Champs) but I found myself useless in the ways of British trivia. I did get all of the America questions though!!! A fun night of playing games and talking and what not we called it a night. Good times. Good People.

So other than my super exciting adventure of seeing the monarch (who as Robin so accurately pointed out doesnt serve much of a purpose other than tourism) I have been quite remiss in updating this little thing. Sorry about that! I guess i've just been too busy having fun!!!!
I guess I will start by telling you about my trip to manchester/salford: home to the lovely David Leith!!

I left my flat quite early in the morning on not a lot of sleep to go and sort out all my train business. Everything worked out hunky dory and I got myself a paper (how english of me!) and a water and settled in for the lovely 2.5 hour train ride. I got to see quite a bit of the English country side and listen to a group of women who were apparently secret shoppers going to work/spying on costumer service! Thats a job I want!

I got off the train and right there was david with much longer hair than i'm used to (like an inch-inch and a half, not really much) and his friend Sophia....good times. My first experience in Manchester was trying to wade through the crowds and clothes at Primark....which is an experience, let me tell you. Its cheap clothes galore and crowds!!! And I had a big back pack which resulted in me getting knocked around by the masses. I had my first experience with getting looked at like i was an alien. I was talking to David and this little girl looked at me in amazement at my accent....manchester's not exactly as touristy/non english as London.
After that lovely experience I went all around Manchester, to david's university, the Lowry (the theatre that david works at and I now envy!!), I rode on my first tram (a street car basically), i saw the stadium where Manchester United plays as well the Salford Quays which were fun to walk around and what not. We took a bus to David's house and the little bakery where his mom works....so much fun. I got to relax AND partake in Music Videos!!!! David has satellite which equalled at least 20 music channels!!! HEAVEN!!!!! Then David made me a complete dinner, which crackers and cheese and jam as an appetizer....i got to see quite the domestic side of him.

We then decided to go to his nana's where we were staying for the night. There was quite a bit of confusion in regards to his nana's allowance of us to both stay there (we had to explain that we were sleeping in separate beds and that we were just friends, and get permission from his mom!!!) Good times. After that it was back into Manchester Proper where we went to the Royal Exchange to see Romeo and Juliet. It was an all right production, but someone needs to explain to me how swordplay and swashbuckling were still in vogue in 1950s italy. The theatre itself was really cool, it had the appearance of as if the lunar module landed in the middle of an old stock exchange. It was good to see some theatre in the round though. After that we went to the Oyster Bar, quite the historic pub where I had myself my first Mancunian pint AND learned that I can take black and white pictures on my camera!!!
David's dad came and picked us up and I got to drive in a car in Manchester...the whole driving on the other side still gets me, I always feel like we're going to hit the oncoming cars....I'm sure it goes the same way when they come to America.
1 day down. Next day, next entry

So today, after wandering around the city, I was on my way back to the flat when who would drive by?

THE QUEEN!!!!

yeah thats right, I saw the Queen of England, like I saw her with my own two eyes.

I think my trip to the merry land is complete.

ps I saw Tim Burton, Helena Bonham Carter, and Christopher Lee earlier this week.



OH yeah...and in less than 8 hours my mom is going to be here

Oh Yeah YEah!!! It's my half birthday, in 6 months i'll be legal to drink in the United states

Oh happy day!
i'll update more later.

Thursday shall be known as: Dominican Day. The reason being, we were dominated by Dominican's planning all day. First off was a community meeting about whatever and the handing out of new syllabi....After that was a lecture by Dr. Robert Faltynek who actually teaches at Dominican. Apparently there's a bid every year for who gets to come and give a lecture to the study abroad kiddies. He won and gave us a lecture on British scientists. It was nice because I thought there was going to be a lot of theory and what not, but it was more history than science...yay! It was really cool and it turns out that him and his wife are both graduates of Augustana....go home town (Or region) schoools! Anyway I think I impressed Ryan with my strange knowledge of science. Little did he know I was the nerdy child who wanted to be a scientist when i grew up and used to play with microscopes.
We had a lunch break that included me and stef going to sainsbury's and getting all sorts of goodness in the forms of prepackaged foods and wandering around FSU making friends with people because they had Chicago on their t-shirts.
After that we went to the Royal Institution and the Faraday museum where we had one of the most enthusiastic tour guides (i guess we've had a lot of those around here) who was very adamant that we see these portraits lit up.....crazy. It was cool to see things like the first electric motor and the first transformer and all sorts of scientific firsts. I'm not going to lie, i'm kind of a nerd when it comes to science and I really like it. It brought back memories of building electromagnets for my dad in grade school (i know, just say it, i'm a nerd) Oh well I'm a nerd who could build a buzzer out of a hack saw, some wire and a nair...so there.
After that we all departed for a lovely Dominican paid for dinner at the Texas Embassy. Yes there actually used to be a texas embassy here in London. Now its a semi-cheesy Tex Mex restaurant. Of course there was lots of filling up on chips and salsa and lots of good free food and i think a fun time was had by all. After that we just kind of wandered around a bit and did some interesting shopping.
I went home and did some laundry/napping whilst packing for my lovely trip the next day to Manchester!!!!

Okay!!! So the next day (that would be Wednesday I do believe!) I got up early to meet with my tutor and for the first time i was right on time (the first time i was super early, the second late...i felt like goldilocks!!) anyway, we delved into my project and i'm now at the time that I have to start e-mailing people and getting interviews. This makes me nervous!!! but hopefully i'll get some information for my project. Why can't i just watch plays and get credit for it?
On my way back from that lovely meeting, I got a text (the British are big into this whole text messaging thing!!) from my good friend mark's friend who is also studying in London, we decided to meet up for some sort of Luncheon goodness. We met up at his school (which is literally 30 secs from my front door) and me, him and his roommate went out for some delicious and cheap 'za. It was good to have some conversations with different people other than my DU friends. Plus it was nice to talk to boys that are from Dominican (there are only three on this trip and I find that I relate better to guys and enjoy the pleasure of their company). Anyway, I dropped them back off for class and went back to take a nap. Lail woke me up for some bread and then i basically just vegged until stef and I decided to pull an all nighter at school doing homework. That was pretty much it seeing as we were up until 7 AM the next morning. Thus concluding the funnness that was Wednesday.

I know its been quite some time (a week) since I last updated you to what i've been up to so I'm going to break the days into separate entries so that you can digest them a little better.
Tuesday we went to Hampstead Heath and Kenwood House. Hampstead was a gorgeous little town with all sorts of delights and history, as every British town or village. This one had a really neat church cemetary where I learned about people being buried beneath their headboards instead of gravestones. Hampstead also appears to be celebrityville. I saw Jamie Oliver's house, H.G. Wells' house, 2 of the spice girls (Baby and Sporty) and a host of others. One of the highlights was the Admiral's House. Now, for those of you that have seen Mary Poppins the movie. This was the house that was the location for the guy that entered things in his log and shot off cannons......I SAW THAT HOUSE!!! better yet, you know who lives there now? Russell Crowe...right down the street from Ridley Scott. I don't know why but i'm getting sucked up into this whole British obsession with celebrity, drat it all.
After a lovely romp through Hampstead Heath (it was hard to imagine being that close to the city but having these lovely woods to meander through) we passed by a pond that had ducks. Now I was being quite the motherly figure and therefore had a ziploc baggie full of cheerios to snack on and to sustain my fellow travellers and I thought that the ducks and geese and swans would appreciate a little multigrain goodness and so i fed them. All was well until a loose dog decided to take this time to attack the fowl by running through my legs! Scared the beejeebies out of them and me!!!! Its on video as well. Later whilst walking I continued my tradition of falling down as I have on every walk we've been on.
We stopped the official London Walks tour at the delightful Spainard's Inn. Apparently its haunted.....food was good but expensive. I devoured a lovely wild mushroom pasta....it seemed like everything had mushrooms in it....crazy wooded areas...
After the Inn we went to Kenwood house, where I continued my crazy Notting Hill journey. Kenwood was the place where they filmed the scenes where Julia Roberts was filming a Henry James movie. It was pretty cool. I took a lot of pictures and did a cartwheel in the huge grassy area in front....good times...
After that we waited a good amount of time for a bus that would have been faster to walk to get to where we needed to go. I think at this point it was more a matter of laziness than speed though. After that I decided to go and see some theatre because, well thats what i do. I went to see "The Aristocrats" by brien friel. Good old irish plays...Anyway, it was really good and there were some FSU kids there AND to continue the Notting Hill business, one of the actresses, Gina McKee ,was in the play (she played Hugh Grant's wheelchair bound friend). Oh how life comes full circle.
I'm convinced that whenever I leave the National Theatre it rains.....because it did that night. I wandered around the South Bankish area for a bit and then caught the tube home.
This is the end of Stephanies Week Part 1. Please go to the next entry....DING!

Okay okay, here is the condensed version of a very fun past few days that have left me utterly tired (such is the life of a social butterfly such as myself). Anyway....so a few days ago I get a message on facebook from my good friend Jenni Wyffels who was like "hey...i'm coming to England! Lets hang out" so I messaged her back and we went on and on. Turns out she was coming to London and bringing another former classmate, ryan browne, with her....oh yeah and 4 of her friends from Spain. Anyway we make plans to meet up at their hostel which I found only after wandering around Paddington/hyde Park for a bit. The reason: The wonder that is the british street naming system. In a 3 block area there was a: Craven Hill Road, Craven Hill Gardens, And a Craven Hill Terrace....crazy!!!!! There might have been a craven hill mews in there as well...oh i know there was a craven hill square too......oh man, why do you ahve to be soooo confusing. Anyway we finally met up and decided to go find some vittles.
We ended up in this little pub in Paddinton where all of these kids decided that they wanted fish and chips...every single one of them. Except me...i've had my share. Anyway the pub was packed so we ended up sitting at this table with this older guy. Who then proceeded to hit on one of the girls in our group....for two hours. He told me i was the quick one because I was the only one who was picking up on half of the stuff that he was saying...i guess thats what i get for living here for a bit. Anyway, then he turned his attentions on me after insulting all of the boys in our group. I like to think that my razor sharp wit kept him at bay however and finally he left...after getting a call from his wife (apparently he also had two kids or something....weird). After that we decided to give the spanish study abroad kids (who were actually all from Chicago) a taste of their temporary home, so we went to a spanish bar that happened to have live music and gave them the ability to order in espanol.
By this time it was late and i was all gunho about hopping on my bus home but the group was against it for the interest of my safety so I ended up crashing in their hostel with them. The next morning I got them all situated sightseeing wise and went home to work on homework (i know i'm so exciting!) later on they came and suprised me at my flat. I ended up cooking them some dinner and what not and it was one of their birthdays so we had cupcakes and sang happy birthday and had a very fun time. It was nice to have a little flavor of Geneseo here in London for a bit. Plus we have an experience that we can rub in our friends' faces (hey! remember that time we were all together....in LONDON!!!) yay!
This morning, I got up bright and early (so so so early) to go meet up with the DU group at Waterloo station to meet for a London Walks tour of Hampton Court Palace and Richmond. It was gorgeous!!! The gardens were simply stunning and there were lots of fun little anecdotes about everyones favorite King of England: Henry VIII, really who doesn't love him? I got a really funny ghost christmas card, you'll all have to see it¬. Also included was a stunning ride on the Thames in a cute little boat, complete with sandwiches for a picnic lunch. I seriously think bribes were made for the beautiful weather we had. It was gorgeous. Thing I'm going to miss when we get back to the states: Corn on my sandwiches. SOunds weird, tastes delicious.
After that I booked it to get onto the train because I had designs to go see: HAIR!!! That's right everyone's favorite hippy musical. Here's the deal about hair: The entire run at the Gate theatre is sold out. BUT!!! they have this wonderful thing called "Happy Mondays" where, they have a limited number (20) of tickets that they don't sell and then at 6:30 they dole them out to those that are standing in line for a price of: Pay what you can. that's right....cheap theatre. It was truly a happy monday.
The show itself: AMAZING!!!! Seriously, there were tears coming out of my eyes at the end. It was so so so so so so good. If someone wants to get some christmas presents early: get me the soundtrack. I loved it. They updated it totally to make it modern and what not. No longer Vietnam, the show was based around the war in Iraq and they weren't hippies, they were street punks. It was very very cool though. I really can't say how amazing it was. On the tube home we were in the same carriage as one of the actors...yummy!!
So...there you have it. my weekend in a very small nutshell. Tonights plan: Homework, Tomorrow's Plan: Homework, hampstead heath, and more shows!!!
Stay out of trouble, i'll be back with more updates before you know it.

Yay for today!
It started off with me getting up at a reasonable time and having a delicious brunch of quesadillas, my new specialty and having delightful slumber party esque conversations with Stefanie while we avoided homework. we alternated talking and reading, her Pride and Prejudice (for the umpteenth million time) and me a Bill Bryson book. He's Like the Wayne Brady of Americans in British relations...that analogy made sense to me..I promise. After that we decided to be productive. And we were. Off we went to the British Library.
The British Library is a great example of why I love this country and why i think i have already learned more and acquired more culture in one month than I have in my entire school career. I'm not dissing my previous education at all, it was very good, it's just that here I get to actually see the things that I've learned about in all of my classes. In one gallery of the British Library (which is a working library as well!) I got to see (and I kid you not): The First Folio (the original), The first copy of Alice in Wonderland, The only existing medieval copy of Beowulf, The working copy of Finnegan's Wake, the original score of Handel's Messiah, The Lindisfarne Gospels, The taxing stamps that started the Revolutionary War, Leonardo DaVinci's notebook, the Magna Carta, and original Beatle's lyrics written on things like napkins and greeting cards. IT was crazy!!!!!!!! Seriously there was so much stuff I could hardly contain myself. All in one room!!!!! Stefanie cried. I just kept running around like a school girl.
After that I decided I was going to head over to the Lyric Hammersmith to see me some Shakespeare. It was equally as amazing. It was Julius Caesar at its best with fog machines, strobe lights and lots of loud noises. Seriously though, it was really good. The tube home was flooded with middle aged women clutching their Donnie Osmond programs wearing shirts bearing his likeness. That's right mr. puppy love himself had played a show in London and it was driving his maternal fan base crazy. and they were so cute, like little school girls talking about how fantastic the show was. I talked with some of them about how they got lost on the way there, they were very funny AND the first real londoners i've met and talked to in London!!!!!
Things I'm excited for/made me excited:
Having a mini Geneseo reunion tomorrow with my good friends Jenni and Ryan when they come to London!!! Getting to see David in a week!!!! Getting to see my mom in like two weeks!!! yay!!!

So i got back from another one of the best nights here in London. It started off after I left you guys with me going to visit Allison in her office because she was bored and I had to tell her about a UK movie release date (they are sooooo behind here with US movies! The Exorcism of Emily Rose-Which I really want to see comes out nov. 29th almost two months after the states!!!) Anyway, I was discussing my theatre options for the night with her and she was like "that one's right by my house!!" I called about tickets, they had them and she was like, you can come have dinner at my house before you go to the show. So I waited for her to finish work (consisting of us looking up movie info online and me reading a book on London while she was on hold) and we took the bus back to her house where we whipped up the tower of nachos using imported ingredients from the US while I gazed in wonder at the fact that she had cable TV in her kitchen (i haven't seen more than the five terrestrial channels in a long time!!! and there were MUSIC VIDEOS!!!!! do you know how much I've missed MUSIC VIDEOS??!?!) Then we watched the Simpsons and Hollyoaks whilst finishing our meal with: S'MORES!!!!!! I would just like to say that 2 out of the 3 ingredients in S'mores are unavailable in the UK (good marshmallows and graham crackers of any kind) but yet again: Imported food! (import =her cousin brought it upon visiting) Okay, I know I talk about food a lot on this thing but this was american food and i've missed s'mores so much!!!!!! Anyway, above my gastronomical conquests the night was just fun because I got to chill with Allison and relax and watch cable TV and just have fun and joke around and take fun nacho related pictures anyway, it was just good times.
After that I hopped on a bus and headed to the King's Head Theatre. I was a little confused at first because the King's Head theatre happens to be in the back of a Pub. Yes thats right, if you didn't know it was there, you could walk into this pub and have no idea that through the double doors on the back, there's legitimate (and darn good!) theatre going on. It was a little strange with the woman at the door with a cash box for tickets, but the show was amazing and high quality. The show was "Misery" as in based off the book by the same name by Stephen King. It was really really good and I highly suggest it to anyone, that is if you are in the area and you want to eat or drink while watching your theatre. I met some more Americans there who knew the Asst. Stage Manager which was kind of cool. We talked about movie premieres and are probably going to see the corpse bride (just to see Johnny Depp!!) The plan for this week is Theatre, Theatre, Theatre. I have a whole list of plays I need to see before the end of this trip and I have to catch up for my time being gone from the London area. Plays plays plays.....yay!!! I missed seeing the band "the academy is...." tonight at the Barfly. I was planning on going but then totally forgot about it and saw some real theatre instead. It's all right though...they are from Chicago so I'm sure I will see them again......perhaps in their hometown, where I happen to go to school. What a novel concept. Misery was worth it.
It was so cool because the theatre itself was so small, it only seats 60 people and we were in the front row. That intimate of settings always makes the show better if there are good actors and there was. It's still weird to see what you can get away with here, like having lots of open fires onstage, after dealing with the fire marshall on many a show at Dominican, I was suprised at them having a bucket of flaming paper just sitting on stage. Crazy Brits.
Anyway it was nice AND i had my first solo bus navigating experience....I didn't do half bad....it got me closer to my flat that I originally thought I could get...go me for being all city smart and what not.
Well thats it for now, i'll talk to you all later when i have more exciting stories to tell.

So last night I had my second brush with the papparazzi/celebrities....kind of. After a lovely day of wandering around this city (really that's my favorite thing to do..just wander) I remembered that a bunch of us were meeting up with Allison to go to a movie premiere, if we so wished. The movie premiere was in Leiceister (I know i keep spelling this wrong!!) Square and it was for this British movie called "Kinky Boots". Its about this shoe factory that was going out of business until they discovered a new demographic: Drag Queens! We stood in line to try and get a view of the celebrities. Well seeing as it wasn't exactly a star studded film there weren't that many celebrities that I recognized (plus there were lots of British celebrities, so I was completely lost). Those that I had a brush with were Kelly Osbourne (who's super skinny now), Sadie Frost (Jude Law's exlover of some sort-the 2nd of which i've seen while here in london, jude law sure has a way with the ladies...), and Jimmy Carr (who in the States hosts the show distraction) I was probably 1 foot at most from Jimmy Carr and he looked right at me (the people to both sides of me got autographs but i was paperless, alas). So not exactly a star studded affair. I DID learn however of the premiere of "The Corpse Bride" which would equal Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton....i do believe thats what I call a dream come true. I know where I'll be that day!
After that we all went at again tried what the english call mexican food....not really the best I have to say. Walking home we ran into two of our lovely fellow DU-ers who I guess were off to see Revolver. Jess and I had nothing else to do, so we decided to go see it too. Guy Ritchie, why do you have to be so darn confusing??? I swear, that movie is more confusing and "what the just happened??" than anything I've seen in a long time. I still don't really understand what I watched. After that I came home and fell fast fast asleep and woke up this morning to go to the National Portrait Gallery.
The National Portrait Gallery was amazing, I think it will most certainly be a repeat visit. We only did the Tudor and Stuart exhibits and really only discussed 4 different paintings. It certainly felt a lot more like an art class than a tour. It was very interesting though, just to sit on these little padded stools and discuss what we thought were key points of the painting. I think I could discuss art all day....I like to make things up and try and give them meaning...
They have this exhibit there that is called "The World's Most Photographed" and they have all these rare photographs of famous people like elvis, marilyn monroe, james dean, and JFK....i most certainly have to go back and see that. Well I'm off....hope you all are having some sort of good times wherever you are. Peace OUt!

Okay, so I left you hanging on my experience this weekend...but alas...there was more. After recovering from the hike (well kind of...I still have quite the sniffles and well, I seemed to have misplaced my voice..) A group of us went to some french esque restaurant where apparently my fishcakes were the hit (jess kept stealing them). The highlight of the night there was this incredibley overserved group of 30 year old women coming in and being quite loud. Apparently it was one of their birthdays so they went all out and made shirts and apparently each had to consume 30 drinks in the night...I must have seen them around 15, i'd have hated to been around at the end of the night...they were laying all over the tables and being quite loud. The restaurant apparently refused to serve them food, but would serve them drinks (a brilliant plan). Anyway, once they were gone down the street with the football/rugby hooligans our waitress came and apologized, even gave us free vegetables for our trouble. Nothing smoothes over anything like free veggies. Afterwards we all headed to Safeway to buy junkfood...I bought Welsh Cakes/cookies because, well we were in Wales. Those things are my all time favorite and I usually only get them once a year at the Highland Games and they are ever so good and I figured I might as well have the real thing. I liked them so much that I called my mom to inform her of my being in Wales eating welsh dessert...I hope she liked the message. After that lovely adventure, we all piled into this tiny little cottage where one of our people was staying. This place happened to not have an overbearing hostess and a VCR! and! movies! so we watched everyone's favorite movie on Catholic dogma: Seven!!! Man, I forgot two things about that movies (no i did not forget the ending!) 1. How hot Brad Pitt is and 2. How creepy Kevin Spacey is. I'm supposed to go see him in Richard III and now all i'm going to have going through my head is how creepy is was in this movie...no joke. That was fun, what was even funnier was Joe scaring Stefanie with his "ninja outfit" (really just a scarf wrapped around his face). It was scary to hear her blood curdling scream, but once we realized she was okay (only did we know this by her swearing at joe...while on the phone with her dad by the way...) I really would have liked to know her dad's reaction to hear his sweet daughter letting out some pretty weighty curse words in joe's direction. Upon getting back, stefanie and I were drilled as to everyone's whereabouts, even though we had no idea and then went to bed.
The next morning, we went to Bath...thats right home of the roman baths and the 18th century rich resort. We went in the Roman Baths (the big one) and it was awesome. Those romans really knew what was up and how to relax. The spring was really cool and in the pump room you could buy a glass of water from the underground spring for only 50p. I decided to be adventurous.....whoooie....first off it was warm, like bathwater warm, secondly it was....mineral rich, or so it tasted. I'm quite certain that i've had similar tasting water that came out of the tap in Geneseo...(Sidenote:we now have a Brita water filter). It was an experience nonetheless. I had a fun time after that just wandering around Bath, taking in the sites and seeing the lovely architecture that John Wood jr and sr created such as the Circus and the Royal Crescent..very posh. After that we came home to our lovely flat and slept.
and slept
and slept
in fact yesterday I was feeling so sick that the greater portion of my day was spent sleeping. I know it seems like a waste of my time in London but I was feeling really sick (still am what with no voice...) so i thought it in my best interest.
This morning we watched Elizabeth as our class for the day (I love this program) it was actually a really good movie, full of historical content and of course drama and romance...lovely. Tonight: THe movie premiere of "Kinky Boots" in Leister Square. Should be a good time. Well I'm off. Au Revoir...wait...i'm in London, not paris.....Cheerio!!!

Well well well everyone. I have returned from my adventures elsewhere yet again and I am here to report what I've done so that all of you might live vicariously through me yet again...if that is your purpose for reading this. Anyway...here we go
Thursday night: was the pub social for all of the groups that Ryan, our director, overseas. There were people from Binghamton, Marymount, and ALEXIA (some weird program) as well as Dominican. We rented out the top room of a pub on grays inn road and had ourselves a shindig. The thing about it is that it was supposed to be a "mixer" where the other groups met each other and socialized. We kind of just sat in little bubbles talking and what not...until the food came. And then there was a mad dash to the bar to swoop down upon the munchies. Afterwards some BU and some DU kids decided to go find something to do. That basically meant wandering the streets for awhile and then sitting in a Lounge/bar/club where there was music. Not too bad. I got told that I do a really good shooter mcgavin (from happy gilmore) finger shoot thing with accompanying noise. I'll have to do it more often. After that it was head back to the flat and pack time.
Friday: Stefanie and I woke up on time this time and got to the bus, packed and ready to go with time to spare (and the ability to get seats of our own!) I pretty much slept the entire bus ride until we got to Stonehenge. Okay....seriously, I know it's an important, impressive place, but i wasn't very impressed. 1. the road was right there which totally detracted from the whole ancient feel of it. 2. You couldn't get anywhere near it, because it was roped off, you basically did a giant loop around it at a distance of 30-40 feet. There wasn't a whole lot to see. I mean, i was glad that I went and now can say that I've seen stonehenge but it was a good thing that we were only really there for an hour. I smashed a penny...that was kind of cool....
.Later that day we checked into our bed and breakfast, not before i got very sick from the bus ride....VERY sick. Alls well now. Anyway our b & B was away from the others (we were all divided amongst 4 different ones) so we got to drive in the owner's car. So i sat in the passenger seat and it was one of the weirdest experiences for me, i was expecting to find a steering wheel but there was none...it was a crazy experience!! Our hostess served us tea and biscuits and was very nice to all of us...or so we thought. This is the section where I discuss the B & B:

• It was in a person's house, like honest to goodness, it was their house, we had tea in their dining room, one of the rooms had their son's name on it!! That and there were only three rooms!
• So upon arriving from our night out of playing games in one of the other B&Bs and eating dinner, we find our hostess waiting up for us at a little past midnight....that seemed sweet enough until she informed us that we had a curfew of midnight and that she waited up for all of her guests!
• Our hostess woke us up for breakfast in the morning, after we agreed that we were having it at 8:30.
• She chastized those who decided to sleep in that day after eating breakfast (not me)
• Upon coming home the next night, she grilled me and Stefanie on the whereabouts of the other girls, to which we had no clue, she sat there on the phone with her friend relaying what we were saying to her for about 15 minutes...crazy
• While grilling us she used quite derogatory terms to describe people...such as the colored girl and the big girl....
• I can't even begin to talk about how confusing it was figuring out where our luggage and our bodies were going this morning. The old guy actually drove up to find us to tell us that we had to go meet the bus somewhere on the other side of town....just as the bus was pulling up.
• It was over all craziness!!!! We'll just blame it on them being welsh.

Whilste the others in our party were sleeping the day away, a handful of us decided to go on a Ryan-recommended hike. I decided to go because all of the horse riding places were booked. Wow....thats all I can say about that hike and I'm not sure if that is said in a good way.... The hike seemed like a good idea up until we started on the trail. Then as we started to ascend straight up, it started to rain. You knew it was bad when Allison, one of our leaders decided to turn back. We scaled the first hill, things cleared up and it looked like smooth sailing. Then crossing a creek in a valley, i got my foot quite wet, still nothing bad though. Plus there was a rainbow and it was just so pretty! (we actually saw quite a few rainbows in Wales, maybe theres a Welsh leprechaun or two at work...) Once we completed the first little hill we looked up to see the bohemiath hill, with its peak in the cloud. I naively wished that I could go in the cloud because I thought it would be cool. Well once we started hiking up, the rain started coming down....yay for being a wet rat!!! You see, I HAVE a rain jacket, but guess what i forgot as I was running out the door? Yeah thats right...the jacket. So i braved the elements and the very steep path, and the wind to make it to the top, where I was told I would have the most spectacular view of the Brecon Beacons National Park...instead, I got my cloud. Yes thats right it was pure white, only about 40 degrees F and there were about 60 mph winds. It was craziness, but very very cool....literallly. After that exhausting and soaking hike, we booked it back to the b & B for a hot shower and curled up into our beds with warm comforters and took a nice nap...yay!

More shall come later, but i'm tired from all this travelling and i'm falling asleep at the computer and I have to walk back now. I'll update more I promise!!1