Scotland!

I'm sorry I've been such a bad blogger! Tisk tisk on me! I promise I have been doing interesting things!

I went to Scotland with three girls from Hollins on March 19-21. We took the bus up to Edinburgh, Scotland. Taking the bus was NOT FUN AT ALL. The seats were very cramped and it was impossible to sleep. I made a mistake on my reservation and I thought I wasn't going to be let on the bus! We left on Thursday night, March 18 and I made my reservation on the 19th because that's what I had in my head. I showed the bus driver my reservation number and he said "Nope, that's for tomorrow night." My heart SANK. I was like "Wait? WHAT?" Then he told me to wait at the end of the line so he could see if he had any no shows because the bus was full. My friend Morgan waited with me until the last passenger boarded and then he looked at me and said "go on." THANK GOODNESS!!! I thought he was going to charge me a fee, but he never did! I felt SO lucky! That would have totally stunk if I had to go the next day. I wouldn't have gone because we were only in Scotland for 1 full day! P.S. Our bus left at 11:45 at night and we got to Edinburgh at 8:45am. FUN TIMES.

We thought we would be able to sleep on the bus, but that was most definitely impossible because of the cramped quarters and for a bit the heat was on blast! I asked the bus driver to turn on the A/C and turn off the heat! My friend Morgan was dying sitting next to the window because the heater was right next to her burning her legs!

Once we got to Edinburgh, we walked to our hostel which seemed to be at the other end of the world... but we made it eventually!
Our hostel was called Belford Hostel and it was inside of an old CHURCH! How crazy huh?! The "dorms" were in the middle of the church set up like cubicles and there were no ceilings to the cubicles so you could hear people in the next room. Pretty sure that we were the only Americans in the whole place. I think we were next to Germans and some Italians or something. We were in a six person room and we had two roommates that we think were from Poland.

We couldn't check into our hostel until 1pm so we just left some of our things in the safe area behind the front desk and went out to explore! We walked up the hill to Edinburgh Castle and on the top of the hill was a great view over the city. We bought tickets to tour the castle for 12 pounds. They didn't have a student rate! Weird. It was SOOOOOO windy. Our hair was going crazy! Here is a picture of me TRYING to take a nice picture but the wind was going crazy and blowing my hair in my face.

The castle was really amazing and the view was spectacular over the city. I took so many photos from up there.

stay tuned for more on this story....

Paris Day 2 & 3

Ahhh, I'm sorry to be so delayed in writing about Paris!!

On the second day, the group of us when to back to the Notre Dame to take some more pictures because you know me, I can never have enough.

Then we went to Champs-Elysees to walk around. Kellie and Steph found a cute little restaurant for lunch so we stopped to have a bite to eat before we walked to the Arc du Triomphe. It was so beautiful! The sky was blue and it was a gorgeous day for pictures.

Then we went to the Eiffel Tower and decided we would climb to the second level of it. Yeah, I got dragged into climbing because originally I was just going to take the lift up because I wasn't feeling well since I had been coughing and stuff for four days. ugh! But I climbed about 700 or more steps to the second level and got some nice pictures of the skyline and what not. Then we decided that we would buy a lift ticket to the very top of the Eiffel! It was so pretty from way up there and you could see so far into the distance!

After the Eiffel, we got crepes. Of course, we would. We ate so many crepes in Paris. They were SO delicious! Crepes with nutella is definitely delicious.

Then later at night, Elizabeth, Karoline, and I climbed the Arc at night and waited 45 minutes on the top of it because we wanted to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle. It sparkles every hour on the hour (at night) for 4 minutes. It was so magical!

On the last day, we went to all the museums that we wanted to see. We went to the Louvre first and saw tons of gorgeous paintings and sculptures and of course, took pictures outside next to the big glass pyramid. Next we went to Musee l'orangerie where Claude Monet's waterlily paintings are. They were so pretty! The were in a round white room with four in a room and then four in the next room. Next we went to the Musee d'Orsay. After that we were all pretty tired. We had done so much walking during our time in Paris and we all had sore feet and blisters. Emily, our friend studying in Paris, took us over to the are where she goes to school and we found a place to eat dinner. An organic place called Exki that had salads and soups. We ate and then walked around some more and decided to buy some wine, bread, and cheese and find somewhere nice to sit. We sat outside the gate of the Luxembourg Gardens because they were closed, but we pretended that we were in them haha.

Weekend in Paris! Day 1

So, I know it's been forever and a half since I wrote last, but I've been doing exciting things, I promise!

I went to Paris on Thursday March 4th and came back to London on Sunday morning March 7th. There were 5 of us that went.

After walking around for 2 hours to find a hostel, we finally settled on one called the Centre International (or something) in the Latin Quarter near the Notre Dame.

Yes, a hostel. We survived!!! It was a room that slept 10 people. It had one room with 2 sets of bunk beds and then a little sink and shower with no curtain and then an open doorway to the next part of the room that had 3 sets of bunk beds. We had 1 roommate the first two nights, an older woman from Nice, France, and then the last night we had the rest of the beds filled. It was kinda sketchy, but we lived! I slept in my coat. I didn't want to touch the bed sheets or pillow... who knows what germs were on them. The hostel served breakfast... but we didn't really eat it. They had cereal, juice, coffee/hot chocolate, and bread. First off, the milk was warm, ewwwwwwww. Apparently the French boil their milk or something and it has a longer shelf life than ours AND they don't refrigerate it! To make it worse, one of the girls took a piece of bread out of the basket and there was a huge hairball on it. EWWWW!

We got out of there quick.

ANYWAY, back to the first day when we got to Paris. We took the Eurostar from London King's Cross St. Pancras station to Paris Gare du Nord. We went through the chunnel. We left London on a 5:25am train and arrived in Paris at 9:00am. Definitely an early morning. We met a friend, Emily, at the train station. She is studying in Paris with the Hollins Paris program. She definitely came in handy with translating!! Thank you Emily!! The weather was BEAUTIFUL and sunny, but a little bit cold. We were so hungry, so we decided to eat at a cafe. We sat down and the waiter tried to take our orders, but he wasn't understanding us. Then a customer came over and he spoke a little bit of English and was trying to tell the waiter what we wanted but I'm pretty sure no one know what anyone was saying. Our waiter left us and then a waitress came by and we tried to tell her all that we wanted was soup. She kept saying "impossible!" (in french) and we were like why??? Then she snatched our menus out of our hands and EVERYONE was staring at us. I just started laughing in embarrassment and we left to find our hostel.

After we dropped our stuff into the lockers at the hostel, we walked by the Notre Dame a block and a half away from our hostel, took pictures then went inside. It was really pretty! Then we walked along the river to the Jardins des Tuileries which is a garden that Emily said is her favorite. There was a little pond with ducks and lots of people sitting around the pond. We got our first french crepe with nutella at a crepe stand. It was DELICIOUS!!! Then we walked ALL the way to the Eiffel Tower. We stopped at a wine store and picked up a bottle of red wine and then picked up a loaf of french bread and sipped on wine and ate bread on a bench while we looked at the tower. So lovely :)

We walked around for a bit more and then found a pizza place to eat at because we didn't want to test our luck again on a french one and get kicked out again!! hahaha

We took the bus back to our hostel after a very long day and slept SO nicely. I slept in my coat. haha. But I was SO tired and I slept great :)

Westminster Abbey

Today, I had my English Architecture class field trip to Westminster Abbey! We got to tour the Abbey and it was seriously really awesome. The architecture of that building is amazing. There is so much detail on the outside and inside. According to my professor, every "decoration" is a symbol for something and everything has a purpose. How insane. Who thought of it all?! It's so big and there are so many tombs inside of Kings and Queens etc.

Our group, 7 girls plus our teacher, got to go into the room where Edward the Confessor's shrine is. The tour guide guy let us in but told us "this is very serious, this is not for sight seeing"... whatever that means. He said that they were getting ready to close it up to the public completely because the floor was getting ruined from people walking on it and they weren't going to let anyone see it anymore. COOL! So we are the last Hollins group to see it!

Next we toured through the different rooms staring at the ceiling listening to our professor tell us about the structure etc. We also saw Charles Darwin's tomb. Crazy!

After our tour, Kellie and I stopped by Pret A Manger (a sandwich/coffee chain) and got some sandwiches and ate them in Trafalger Square. It was starting to sprinkle as we ate and we thought about climbing on the lions but we thought we would just wait until another day. There were also lots of pigeons around and some girls were screaming because the pigeons were flying pretty close to their heads.

We walked along the main drag and went inside this store called Hotel Chocolat. A store of everything chocolate and every flavor. Yum Yum Yummy. Kellie got some Strawberry & Creme truffles and I got Raspberry filled white chocolate hearts and we also got a slab of chocolate chip cookie dough chocolate to share.

After that, we got on the tube and she went to see 12th Night with her Shakespeare class and I went home.

Now, I'm uploading picture from today and researching things to do in London.

xoxo

Nothing too exciting

I haven't blogged in a while... not much has happened.

I want to watch the Olympics everyday but nothing is ever on when I'm home except for curling. darn it. I do not care!! I stayed up late one night to catch part of the men's halfpipe, but I was too tired to stay up any longer. Stupid time difference!

Friday, Kellie and I and some other girls went to Portobello Market in Notting Hill in the afternoon. My hope was to take some photos for my LMU photography class, but lots of store owners told me I couldn't. I was picturing the market to be stalls of things, but it was more of a long street with stores and only a few stalls. I took some photos of some neat things like watches, whistles, and some teacups.

There was a stand where a woman was making crepes. DELICIOUS!! I got one with strawberries and nutella. SO GOOD! Messy, but good. Then we left and that night went out to our favorite pub, O'Neils for a few hours. Not too late of a night

Saturday, I wanted to go to Borough Market but it took us forever and a half to finally get to the tube station we needed to get to and then I said nevermind because it closed at 5pm and it was already like 3:45 and I didn't want to get there and have NO time to take photos. I need to find a time to go back soon! So, bummed out, Kellie and I just walked around the King's Cross area where we were and went to Starbucks to get some coffee. Then on the way back to the bus stop, I saw a salon and I suggested that Kellie should get her hair cut. She agreed! So spur of the moment! We went into the salon and Kellie bargained with the hairdresser for cut the cost to 30 pounds instead of 40! Kellie has skills. She got her hair cut short but so cute! It was shorter than she had expected, but I love it on her!

Saturday night a bunch of us went out to a new pub called The Rocket and danced the night away. Fun fun!

Sunday, Kellie and I stayed in during the day, slept realllly late and then did some catching up on emails and homework. For dinner, we were invited to eat with some friends of my parents. They don't live too far from where I am staying but Jeff came and picked us up because he said it is too complicated with public transportation. We had a nice dinner and then Jeanie and Jeff shared with us some great websites to look at for local entertainment, restaurants, etc. It was nice visiting with them because I hadn't seen them in ages!

Monday, Kellie and I had morning class together, Media in Britain and then later that night I had a play for my theatre class, The Caretaker. It was a pretty good play! I enjoyed it!

Tuesday, Kellie and I had class, again. English Architecture. Our teacher lectures and it's hard to follow because she uses terms we have never heard of so I have to keep flipping through the handout she gave us on the first day of class with 29384234 different terms. It's fun. We also had our LMU classes today. I have my photography class from 2-5, but we normally get out earlier than 5. I think the class is going to be really interesting. My final project is to create 5 magazine spreads with images relating to the theme "London at work, London at play". I still need to figure out HOW I'm going to accomplish that. I'm a little scared now, because I'm not familiar with London yet and I'm not sure which direction to take. I have some research to do....

TIRED. I always say I will go to bed early and then I never do. Good thing I can sleep in tomorrow. Class doesn't start until 1! woo hooo!!!

xoxoxo

Rainy Thursday

Nothing much happened today. I had theatre discussion class from 2:30-3:30. Kellie had class earlier in the day and then she left after we had our meeting with the whole group at 1:45 at Univ. of London.

After my theatre class, I took the tube home and then Kellie and I had pasta for dinner and then Kellie napped and I watched a movie.

We were going to go out, but it was raining hardcore and we were kinda tired so we just decided to stay in and watch some tv and chill. Good time for me to let my foot chill and hopefully have my blister heal!

Oh, and I also got a letter from my Grandma Dot today in the mail :) I read it on my bus ride to school.

Now Kellie and I are watching the Olympics. It's 12:30am. hahaha

xoxo

such an exciting day... just kidding

Pictures :)

Big Ben!


This was at the Windor Castle last week



The London Eye



Me with the Tower Bridge in the back


The Tower Bridge