Final Days

Hello!

Sorry it has been so long since I have blogged! The internet is so limited here.

So.. what to tell?! I have been doing just about anything and everything possible here! I went to see Love Never Dies the other day which is the sequel to Phantom of the Opera and it was amazing! Definitely a great show! We went to see the British Museum which was so large that although we were there for over an hour and a half we only made it to part of one floor and to see the Rosetta Stone. Last night we went to Paul McCartney's house and Hugh Laurie's house as well. We've basically just been all over the place. 

I also took a day trip with three other people to see Stonehenge, Bath, and Salisbury. This was definitely a fabulous trip! We also got to see Jane Austin's house while we were there so we took a quick tour of that as well. 

I think one of my favorite parts of the trip thus far though was my trip to the London Eye the other night. We rode the Eye as it was getting dark and then walked along the peer for a good while. We happened to stumble upon a beach party that was called 'Take Back the Beach' that we joined in on and was a lot of fun. They had a great DJ and it ended up being some great free entertainment!

We finally got a picture of us all together just last nigh -- Here's a picture of our whole group:

Today we are going to be going to Primrose Hill which is supposed to be the tallest hill in London and has an amazing view. I am going to try to get to Westminster Abbey for a service today as well. I have heard the services are beautiful so I would like to try and attend that. 

Tomorrow we will be waking up at the early hour of 4am to get to Wimbledon by 5:30am! Apparently if you get there early and are one of the first 2000 people you get floor seat tickets for the whole day for just 15 pounds! I will have to update you on how that goes but hopefully we make it in time to do that :)

I will update again when I have internet. Only 2 more days! I can't believe it has already come to the end!  

Back to London Again

Sorry it has been a while since my last update! I still have terrible internet here. This past weekend I went to Paris with a few people on a bus tour that was a great amount of fun! We had a tour guide that looked like a mix between Jesus and Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean. We got onto a train at 8pm which connected us with our bus that we rode throughout the night. In the morning we woke up at 5:30am in front of the Arch de Triomphe to being our tour. 

Following the Arch de Triomphe we saw the Eiffel Tower and then our tour guide was able to get us into the Louvre for free! 

Following that we toured around the city. I climbed the tower of Notre Dame to see the bell and went into the cathedral as well. We found a nice cafe to eat some french baguettes at fora decent price and shopped along the streets where are the vendors are located. I was able to find some very pretty artwork to bring back to hang in the new apartment in July which I was very excited about. After touring around all over the main centers in Paris we finished up the day on a boat tour of the historical sites and then went off to the hotel to eat some chinese and get some sleep.

The next morning we went to the Palace of Versailles. We were not able to go into the palace unfortunately because the queue alone was 1 1/2 hours long and then it would take about 3-4 hours to take a fast walking tour of the whole thing. So, we spent the morning and afternoon touring the gardens which alone would take about a day and a half to see. They are like a huge maze. You pick a path and then wind up at a new fountain/garden area and then turn another way and find a new path. 

These are pictures of some of the gardens we discovered in the maze. If you look at the pictures you will see that the paths are high bushes that have different ways you can turn all along the sides. It truly is a maze. 

Following the gardens we went to a french market where we got a few different types of cheese and a large baguette to split between us. Lastly, before we left to go back to London we went to visit Monmarte to visit the carousel where Amelie was filmed and to tour the art corner of Paris. Unfortunately I could not afford any of the artwork but it was great to see. This is also where the only vineyard in Paris is located. The grapes are supposed to be so strong that they sell very small wine bottles for about 55 pounds each. Unfortunately we also were so pressed for time that would couldn't find this in time. I had been hoping to purchase the wine only so that everyone at home could try and bit but apparently we had been circling around it for quite some time but didn't see it past the gates and playgrounds...so we missed it. But, I did buy some wine to bring home from the markets.

After our travel in Paris we came back to London to get back into classes and work again. Yesterday we were at Oxford for a lecture from the Oxford Internet Institute. They did not set aside time for us to tour so we didn't get to see the campus so I will have to try and find a time to go back before I leave. Throughout the week we plan to get to the tower of London and the Eye as well as a play. We wanted to see Warhorse but unfortunately they were sold out. I hear it is coming to NY soon so I might have to make a trip there to see it as it is supposed to be amazing. Today we will be going to "A Taste of London" in Regents park and hopefully doing some shopping in Camden market. 

I will try to update a little more frequently. Only 10 days left! 

Edinburgh

Today I went to Edinburgh Castle! It was HUGE and was a great thing to see. Because the castle is so large we spent basically all day there and still didn't get to see all of it. It's hard to believe just a few people actually owned  that space...not sure why you would need that much land. 

Not much of an update here. We have 3 papers and 3 written journals due this week so I will be stuck inside doing those all day unfortunately. Hopefully I'll be able to go down to the center of Edinburgh and find an internet cafe so I might be able to at least experience a new hole-in-the-wall type of place while I work. 

I will be on Skype just about all day if anyone wants to touch base. Tomorrow I will be in Glasgow all day so I will probably be mostly out of contact for the full day.

Hello from Scotland!

Hey Everyone!

We're in Edinburgh now! We are staying at Edinburgh University which is located about one block away from King Arthur's Seat. We each get single rooms which is nice considering we all know my sleep talking/walking just isn't fair to subject anyone else to. There are maids that come in and clean your dorm room here which is the oddest thing. It's just like a hotel -- we have 'please make up my room' and 'please do not disturb' signs to put on our doors indicating whether or not we want service.

Today I woke up at 5:30am to climb King Arthur's Seat which was a lot of fun and a great work out. I plan on going on it again in the morning. They have beautiful parks right beneath it that we have been eating dinner and reading books at. 

We also went to the Museum of Scotland and then went to a place called Spoons for lunch. Spoons is where JK Rowling wrote her first Harry Potter novel. There's a pictures below of me sitting where she sat when she was writing :). There is another place in Edinburgh that claims to be the 'birth place of Harry Potter' but JK Rowling has publicly denied that that is the location and does not go there because they have a large picture of her in the window that I guess she believes to be quite embarrassing. I also got a picture next to her hand prints when we went on a walking tour of down town Edinburgh. 

Tomorrow we will be heading to Edinburgh Market and Edinburgh Castle :) I will post pictures as soon as I can!

Wales!

Hello From Wales!!

I apologize for the delay in my post. We didn’t have any internet access while in Cardiff unless you wanted to pay £28 p/hour.

Tuesday we left from London on a train which took us to Cardiff, Wales! I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when going to Wales because to be honest you don’t ever really hear much about Wales. It is beautiful!! I think I like it quite a bit better than London actually… It’s got that city feel with old architecture everywhere without the busy, rushing feeling that London has.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn which was located right next to the water, Millennium Stadium, Bute Park, and a HUGE Castle. They have a lot of really fun shops that are all located along small side streets. Each way you turn there are just more and more shops reaching sometimes up to 5 floors high along small back allies.

A couple girls and I went exploring throughout the city and we found a great little Irish pub called “O’Neils”. They played live music and have great prices! I will be uploading some of the bands we heard play on Facebook if you want to take a listen J.  On the same day we found a fabulous market! We were walking along one of the side streets and we saw a large sign that said “Cardiff Market” so we decided to check it out. What looked like a small store from the front ended up being a HUGE market full of local vendors. There were people with pastries, people making pasta on the spot, people with purses and records, people with all sorts of meats and cheeses and on and on…. It was amazing!

This morning we decided to go to the market to get breakfast. I picked up a delicious blueberry muffin and a jam filled donut both made on the spot by an older Welsh woman for only 98p! They were delicious….While we were in Wales we visits the Welsh Assembly which was pretty cool. The building is extremely eco friendly. They have large rods which reach far down into the earth to pull up heat for the building and use almost all natural light. The acoustics in the main room they meet in were pretty fascinating as well! They have what looks almost like a tunnel in the ceiling that reaches up to the roof that is surrounded by metal rods. The tunnel brings light into the room and the rods create acoustics in the room that allow the main chancellor to hear absolutely everything in the entire room. He can  hear the slightest whisper in every corner. The crazy thing is that the person next to you basically has to yell for you to hear them. It’s designed to completely eliminate any side discussion. In addition whenever someone speaks or stands there are cameras that run along the ceiling that automatically zoom in on that one person and record everything. It’s a very high tech place! We also visited a college in Cardiff and learned about how they run their student newspaper as well as a broadcasting station called S4C.

Overall the trip to Wales as fabulous! I really wish we could have stayed longer! I managed to blow my budget on rugby gear but saved on all my food because of that huge market and had a great time running through the parks and along the water. Wales is definitely a place to visit! I would recommend it to everyone J.

Now I am on a train headed for Edinburgh – which by the way no one knows how to pronounce. Not even the Irish band we met at the pub!.

As usual, check back for updates when you can! J