Week 4 in London

Let me try and recap the last week…

On Thursday Sara and I went to The Tower of London. So much history there it is crazy! We did the Yeoman Tour, saw the Crown Jewels, went through the museum of amour and weapons, and went in some of the individual towers. My Dad would have loved hearing all the stories and seeing all the weapons and stuff.

There is so much to learn about and look at, so you could spend all day there! I cannot believe people still live in the Tower—it is like they are all just stuck in time!

Friday we went on a day trip to Bath. Bath was beautiful! No wonder so many rich, royal, and famous people holiday there. The architecture is all is Georgian, and built from a honey-colored limestone.

We went to Bath Abbey, “The Circus”, and the Royal Crescent. Then we ate lunch at a little outdoor café because the weather was perfect! After lunch we got to tour the Roman Bath museum. It was really cool to learn about and see all the ancient artifacts and architecture that date back to 60-70 AD. Crazy!

After the tour we went to the Pump Room and had scones and afternoon tea. I loved it! I could get used to that daily tradition. We even tried the water from the spring. It was HOT, and tasted disgusting. I was hoping it would cure all my problems… Then we had to get back on the train to London.

We got home and met our friends that were visiting from UC at their hotel. We decided to go out in Soho, which was a lot of fun. We went to O’Neill’s, which is a great place to have a drink. The weather was unusually warm for London, so we were enjoying being able to wear a dress and not have to bring our jackets! We called it quits pretty early because most of the group was severely jet-lagged.

The next day we met them at their hotel in the morning. We decided to do a bike tour of London because it could not have been a more perfect day! It was high 70s and sunny, for once.

The four-hour bike tour took us to through all the Royal Parks (Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Green Park, and St. James Park) to see The House of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Westmister Abbey, Big Ben, Kensington Palace, Albert Memorial, Trafalger Square, Princess Diana Memorial, and many other landmarks. It was the perfect thing to do on a Saturday, and a great way for our visitors (and us) to get a tour of the city. They have these Fat Tire Bike Tours in other European cities, so we think we are going to try one in Barcelona when we go.

After the tour we went to St. Paul’s Cathedral for Evensong. It is so beautiful and HUGE inside. It is the second largest church (by volume) in the world. My friend Lance and I randomly got in this line, and luckily we got to sit up by the choir. There wasn’t enough room for the rest of the group though. The choir sounded amazing, but it was nearly impossible to understand what they were saying or to follow them. It was a great experience though, and a perfect way to see and experience the Church.

After St. Paul’s we met a bunch of friends at this Italian restaurant that was SO YUMMY! It made us really excited to go to Italy this weekend. Later in the evening we had a bunch of friends over to our flat to just drink and hang out. It was great to have visitors, and sad to say goodbye to them. I will see them at school in a few weeks though.

Class was cancelled for Monday, so I spent most of the day doing homework and catching up. We went out a met a friend at a pub Monday, which was really low key, but fun.

Tuesday we (Emily, Carol, Sara, and I) got up to wander around Notting Hill, get lunch, and explore Portobello Market, one of London’s most famous markets. We had a lot of fun! Notting Hill was a really cute area, and we found great deals at the Market. We even found Hugh Grant’s bookshop from the movie…and I bought a book on Barcelona there.

Wednesday, today, we had class, like normal, and now I am preparing to leave for Italy in the morning. We are leaving at 4am (ugh), to fly to Venice. From Venice we are taking a train to Florence. We are spending Thursday and Friday (Caroline’s birthday) in Florence, and then going back to Venice mid-Saturday. Then we are flying back home late Sunday night! I cannot wait…

IRELAND!

See below. I keep forgetting to put titles on these posts. Oops!

Back to reality after a wonderful weekend in Ireland! I got up at 3:30am Friday to shower and catch a cab to the airport. The flight to Ireland was short and uneventful, and we in Du

blin by like 8am. We immediately dropped all of our stuff off at the hostel and began sightseeing. Dublin was COLD! Very Cold! Friday morning was windy and cold, but luckily it warmed up a little bit in the late afternoon.

We got breakfast in Temple Bar (the area, not the actual bar). We went to St. Stephens Green, which was beautiful! We went shopping down Grafton Street, and then went to Trinity College. We decided to pay for the entire tour, which was a great idea! Our tour guide was awesome, and very cute! We saw the Book of Kells, which was amazing, and crazy to think that it dates back to 800 AD. We also saw the Long Room in the old library, which was just breathtaking. Unfortunately we couldn’t take pictures. The Long room is 215 feet long and houses 200,000 of the library’s oldest books. The barrel-vaulted ceiling and woodwork were breathtaking. This library also has the oldest surving harp in Ireland, which is the countries symbol. We learned a lot of history and interesting facts about Trinity College and Dublin on the tour.

Then we went to Christ Church, which is Dublin’s oldest stone building. Most of the church has been renovated and rebuilt since the original church in 1038, but the basement is the original crypt.

After we finished touring Christ Church, we went to check in at our hostel and get cleaned up. Then we went to the Guiness Storehouse, which is celebrating their 250^th year. We did the full tour, which includes a complimentary pint of Guinness at the end! The tour was cool. I was kind of expecting a guide, but it was self-guided. Oh well. The best was the view from the bar on the 8^th floor (one of the tallest buildings in Dublin). So we got to see a view of the entire city, which was nice. None of us could choke down the entire pint. It was better than getting it in the states, but definitely not my beer of choice! I thought it wouldn’t be appropriate to ask if they had Bud Light instead…

After Guinness we went to The Brazen Head, Irelands oldest bar, for dinner. I got traditional Irish Stew, served with a side of potatoes. The stew had potatoes in it already, but whatever! Everything came with potatoes in Ireland I guess. We were then going to go meet one of Emily’s friends at The International bar for a Comedy hour. When we were waiting, someone came up to us and asked if we wanted to participate in the pub crawl that was about the start. Ten Euros for a free shot at 5 different pubs. Why not? So we got to tour Dublin the real way…through the pubs! I was shocked at how many pubs Dublin has. I knew the Irish were known for drinking… but there are more pubs and places to go out in such a small area, it was crazy! We met a lot of fun travelers and locals on our pub crawl, but we were so tired from being up since 3am, we called it an early night around 1am.

The next morning we had to get up at 5am to catch a train to Galway, which is on the west coast of Ireland. Coincidentally we picked the best weekend to be in Galway, “Races Weekend.” Ireland’s equivalent to the Kentucky Derby. We had no idea… We dropped our stuff off at the hostel, walked through the University Campus, went to the Galway Cathedral, got lunch near the main square, and did some shopping down the cute little streets. Galway was awesome. Such a small town, but really fun and cute…but cold! Even colder than Dublin. At least we had nice, sunny weather!

Then we headed out on a 2pm train to The Cliffs of Moher. The bus ride to the Cliffs was quite possibly the worst experience of my life. Besides the beautiful scenery, which included green EVERYTHING and random sheep and cows everywhere… the ride was rough. Imagine twisty, windy roads only big enough for 1 small European car. Then imagine 2 large coach buses trying to pass each other on these roads. Oh and the speed limit on these roads was 100, which is like 60 mph. So the buses would be flying down these country roads, come around a bend and see another car or bus and have to slam on the breaks. Not fun. I was pretty car sick by the end of the 2.5-hour bus ride. I had to do everything I could to make sure my lunch didn’t end up on the random person next to me. Oh, and the bus hit and killed a dog. That was sad. Surprisingly, we made it to the top to see the Cliffs of Moher. As miserable as I was on the bus, it was well worth the view. It was the most amazing, beautiful, breathtaking scene! We stayed and just walked up and down the edge of the cliff for a few hours. The wind was CRAZY, and luckily it didn’t blow us off the side. Sadly, we had to get back on the bus and go back. The bus ride home was 10 times worse than on the way there. I didn’t think that was possible.

We got back to Galway and wanted to find somewhere to eat and listen to live music. That was nearly impossible because Galway was CRAZY crowded! You couldn’t even walk on the streets. I guess everyone was back from the Races, and just partying and drinking in the streets. Everyone was super dressed up! Fancy dresses and heels. I think they considered it to be really warm, but I was glad I had on jeans, a long sleeve shirt, my north face, and a scarf. It was not skimpy dress weather! Regardless it was a lot of fun. The Irish know how to have a good time! It was nearly impossible to get a drink or navigate through the streets because of the crowds, but I guess we picked a good weekend. I don’t think Galway only gets that crowded once a year. While in the streets we ran into some random Irish guys who just happened to be going back to Dublin on the same train as us. The asked us if we were going back for the games? We didn’t realize that it was the best weekend to be in Dublin. They had the GAA Gaelic football games, which is a huge deal. One of them had 4 extra tickets to the games, so we planned to meet up the following day with them.

We got back to our hostel just in enough time to sleep for a few hours and then shower and catch a train back to Dublin. Dublin was pretty crazy for the games on Sunday! They had a bank holiday on Monday so everyone was partying through the extended weekend. We got lunch at this really yummy place in Temple Bar called From Mexico to Rome. Great mix of Italian and Mexican food- the perfect place for me! After lunch we went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral (1192), went shopping, and then toured Dublin Castle. Dublin Castle was awesome! So beautiful, huge and detailed! The tour took us to an excavation underneath the current site of the castle. We could see one of the original towers, the original moat, and bridge for the castle, which dated back to 1204!

By the time we got done sight seeing, we were unable to meet the boys for the Football games. It would have been fun, but oh well. Maybe next time… We get to go to a football game in England in a couple weeks anyways.

After the castle we went to (the actual) Temple Bar and embarrassingly ordered a Bud Light. It was the first place we saw that even offered a Bud Light, and we were so thirty, so we HAD to order it. Sadly, it tasted nothing like an American Bud Light. So we looked on the back to find out that it was “brewed at the Guiness Storehouse at St. James Gate, under an exclusive contract with AB.” So much for a taste of home! We then went to Elephant and Castle to grab our last meal in Ireland L

We got on our 10:00 flight back to London, got in at 11:15, took an hour bus to Central London, and then a cab to our flat. What a trip! Ireland was fabulous! So much fun. It was much crazier and lively than I was expecting. Coincidentally, once again, we picked a good weekend to be there! Our trip was a total of 57 hours and 18+ hours was spent on a bus, in a taxi, on a plane, or on a train. From Thursday night through Saturday night I only managed to sleep a total of 11 hours. Crazy, I know, but it is MUCH cheeper to take the first or last plane and train of the day! Needless to say, I was completely exhausted when I got home on Sunday night!

I cannot believe I have already been here 3 weeks! This week, I am just catching up, finally going to the apple store, doing homework (including and paper and presentation this week), and then an all-day trip to Bath on Friday. Oh, and since I don’t have class on Tuesdays or Thursdays anymore, Sara and I went to the Victoria and Albert museum Tuesday as well as the British Beer Festival. That was so fun. Lots of good beer to try, and I had my first Perry, which is like a cider, but made from pears. It was really yummy. Almost too good!

Tomorrow we are going to the Tower of London! Jen and a bunch more of our friends get in on Friday afternoon, so we are spending the weekend in London with them. Talk to you soon!

Week 2

So, I have concluded that every week in London is going to be pretty crazy. After all, I only have Monday-Thursday to unpack from my last trip, grocery shop, catch up on sleep, go to class, do all my homework, explore London, and pack for my next trip. I guess I can't complain.

We got back on Monday from Paris and went straight to class at 11 am from the airport. We got a little bit more info about the project we are going to be doing for Event Design. We are acting as if Jordi, our professor, has commissioned us to do an exhibition about water.

Anything about water, which pretty much makes our options endless! We started researching past exhibitions and trying to focus our interests into a particular idea of what our individual exhibition will be about. I am thinking something for children? An interactive exhibition that incorporates water conservation, sustainability consciousness, and environmental education? We'll see.

Tuesday we went to the London Eye. It was cool to see the city from so high, but kind of freaky to be suspended up in the air in a giant glass bubble. London looks so gray from above. EVERYTHING is gray or brown. It was a huge contrast to Paris, where everything looked so white and clean! After the London eye we went to this Cuban place to get a few drinks.

The Frozen Strawberry Margarita Cubana was fabulous! Then we ordered what we thought was chips and salsa and chips and queso. We were very wrong. It was essentially a biscuit with salsa. Not what we had expected or were looking forward to. Oh well. The fresh fruit in the margaritas made me happy.

Wednesday after class we went to Harrods to go shopping (really just look around. We weren't buying anything, unfortunately). Harrods was crazy huge! It included 7 floors, 4.5 acres of shopping, a grocery store, and a pet store (ever seen the YouTube video of Christian the Lion? They bought him at Harrods) all in one building! We had fun walking through and seeing all the famous designers collections: shoes, purses, jewelry, home-goods, wedding dresses, etc. Mostly looking at things we couldn't afford, but wished we could! They had a memorial to Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed. In front of their pictures was the ring he was supposedly going to give her. Describing the diamond as "huge" is an understatement.

My online class, which we thought was going to be simple, is causing us all much more stress than we thought! This week's assignment is a group project. How are we supposed to do a group project for an online class, you ask? Good question. It doesn't work at all really. My group has yet to participate, so my professor just gave me the "okay" to do it all on my own. Great! What a HUGE headache! I guess I will be writing a 5 page paper before I leave tomorrow morning.

In addition to Paris and Ireland, we finally booked the rest of our trips (with the exception of our Santorini hotel and our train from Venice to Florence). We are officially going to Italy (Venice and Florence), Barcelona, and Greece (Santorini and Athens).

Tomorrow we leave at 4:30am for Dublin. We are spending a day in Dublin and then we are going to Galway, on the west coast of Ireland. This trip should be so fun and beautiful, but definitely different than Paris!

Now I really need to start writing this paper! Cheers!

PARIS!!!

We made it! Our first interesting task was attempting to get from the airport to central Paris. Eventually we figured out the french signs and were on a train. We made it to Paris and really didn't have too much of a plan. We were starving, and looking for crepes. We didn't find any crepes, but we stumbled upon a boat tour that was about to leave. So we hopped on and took an hour tour up and down La Seine. It was perfect! Such a great way to see the city!

Paris was beautiful and fabulous- better than I ever imagined! After the tour, all we want was food! We decided just to get lunch instead of breakfast since it was about lunchtime. We started walking towards out hotel and found a cute cafe right by the Louve, La Corona (i think). The food was great, especially compared to the food in London! After lunch we made our way to our hotel, which was located one block from the Louve. It was perfect, clean, and (relatively) cheap. After putting out stuff down, we made the most of our time and starting immediately exploring.

We first went to Sainte Chapelle. What a breath-taking sight. The stained glass was amazing! Next we went to Notre Dame, The Pantheon, and Palais du Luxembourg. All so amazing! Notre Dame is HUGE!!! This was the first place that seemed really "touristy". As far as the crowd, especially compared to London, Paris was so refreshing--and empty! We made it back to the hotel after getting stuck in a down pour (and running into the family on TLC's Little People Big World) ha! My feet were in so much pain. The blisters were only getting worse. It was going to be a LONG weekend at this rate.

We all showered and got cleaned up. Next we went to the Louve because Friday nights were free for students from 6-9. We didn't stay too long. My god, you could be there for weeks and still not see everything! We made sure to see the Mona Lisa though! Next we went to dinner and this fabulous cafe that had such yummy bread and pasta and salads. We split a bottle of wine and ate so much, but it was so good! After dinner we went to the Latin Quarter (St. Germain) to go out. We split another bottle of wine and then went to this crazy bar that was recommended to us by Caroline. It was a good time. We were so tired from getting up at 3:30am, that we didn't stay out too late. After all, we had such a busy day ahead of us!

The next day we decided to get breakfast on the go. We stopped at this little bakery and got croissants, pastries, etc. Everything was so yummy! We walked to Musee d'Orsay where we spent a while looking at all the amazing impressionism work (including pre and post impressionism). We then proceeded to walk to the Eiffel Tower. We waited in a line for about an hour and walked up to the second "story", which was really like 700+ steps! We waited in another line for another hour or so to take the elevator to the top. We realized that we didn't have the right ticket to go to the top, so Sara ran to get in another line. Unfortunately they closed the ticket office for an hour! So we decided not to wait another hour plus! We were sad that we didn't make it all the way to the top. The view was wonderful though. You could see so far, and everything

looked so clean and white! Well worth the calf workout!

Next we went to Tour Montparnasse, a skyscraper south of the Eiffel Tower. This view was awesome too! We got lots of pictures of the city with the Eiffel Tower! We grabbed lunch at a sandwich shop near the metro stop. On the way back to our hotel we stoped at the Jardin des Tuileries, got slushies, and took quick naps sitting in lounge chairs by a fountain. The weather was PERFECT: 80 degrees and sunny! We were in heaven!

We went back to the hotel to shower and get cleaned up. We were planning on going to a club right by the Arc de Triumphe, so we decided to go see that, and find somewhere to eat dinner around there. We cam upon this cafe that ended up being the best food and wine! Everything was so good! We proceeded to make friends with some young Parisians, another american, and the waiter. We waited until the cafe closed to go out from there.

The following day, we were going to take it easy and go shopping and walk around Des Champs-Elysees. We tried to get some lunch at this old Hemingway hangout, but they weren't serving food on Sunday. In fact, almost everything was closed on Sunday! So we found this other place to eat.. nothing worth going

back to! We then took the metro to the Concorde stop and we were going to walk from there. We were coming out of the subway and that is when mass chaos began. There were police, army, national guard, etc in the subway screaming (in french) and people everywhere! We had no idea what was going on. At first it was kind of scary. We thought that there was some sort of disaster or demonstration going on.

We got above ground and there were thousands and thousands of people everywhere. Everyone was yelling and cheering at what seemed like a parade. We still couldn't tell because everything was in French, and none of us could speak or read French.

We finally got down to Des Champs-Elysees and realized

what was going on, and how lucky we were! It was the finish of the Tour de France. How exciting! No wonder there were thousands of people every where! We didn't have the best view, and couldn't understand what the announcers were saying, but it was very cool to see. There were so many bikers and they were all going so fast! And the caravans behind the bikers were huge! It was really cool to see.

After the finish, we went to the Grande Arche near La Defense. Very cool to see, especially the contrast between the Arc de Triumphe and how they lined up perfectly! From there we decided to pack a picnic and go to Sacre-Coeur, the church on the hill. We got baguettes, a bottle of wine, cheese, and desserts

to share. We sat on the hill, watched the sunset, took pictures of the city at night, and made our way back to our hotel around 12:00. We packed everything up, scheduled a taxi for 4am, and went to bed for a few hours.

Overall the trip to Paris was amazing. So much better than I anticipated. I knew Paris would be beautiful and old, but I had no idea! If I am ever lucky enough to go again, I will make sure I go to the top of the Eiffel Tower, go to the Pompidou, and make it to Versaille. Other than that, we saw a lot and did a lot! It was a jam-packed weekend but well worth it! We survived not knowing any French, and luckily everyone was so helpful! We didn't have any rude encounters with Parisians :) My computer is still not fixed... It takes forever to get an appointment at the Apple store here! So i just stole some of Carol and Sara's pictures. Enjoy!

The LONG pre-Paris week...

Sorry it has taken me so long to post! I wanted to make one more post about my crazy week before I left for Paris, but like I said, it was a crazy week! Let me try to go back and recap.

Last week was rough. Really rough. The first full week of classes was definitely an adjustment for me. I haven't been in a classroom in almost 8 months. So the whole idea of homework, studying, and reading was a bit foreign. Tuesday, after walking 2 miles in the rain to class, Sara and I found out it was cancelled. GREAT. Apparently our professor is from Germany and he comes in every Tuesday. If there are complications or delays with his flight he just cancels class. So, we decided it would be a good time to figure out what all we had to do for our online class. Seeing as we didn't have a classroom to go to or a teacher to ask, we figured we should start the process sooner rather than later. Good thing too because we ran into hours (and I mean hours) of complications with our schedule. Oh well. We finally got it all figured out.

My online class, Business Ethics, has 2 assignments per week. One discussion board about a different topic each week and one paper per week. Both assignments have to be completed on Sunday at midnight (CST). I have class live chats with my teacher twice a week. Unfortunately they are at 7pm CST, which is 1am GMT... not sure how many of those chats I will make. Since our assignments are due every Sunday, and we are traveling on the weekends, we basically need to have everything finished by Thursday. So, that is part of why my week was so crazy. I had to read 4 chapters in a textbook and write a paper (among many other things) before leaving for Paris.

We went on a Old Pubs of London Walking Tour on Tuesday night. It was a lot of fun. Very cool, old, hidden places with lots of history! My blisters were getting worse by the minute (gross right? and this isn't even the worst blister). I had to stop multiple times to buy more "plasters" (band-aids) because I was just bleeding through them all. Not fun. At all. So much for thinking I was smart by bringing flats.

Wednesday I had my second Event design class. There are all Americans in my class. 6 are from California and then 4, including me, are from Cincinnati. My teacher Jordi is from Spain, and seems like he is going to teach us a lot. Our homework was to go to the London Design Museum and go through 2 different exhibitions. One was about the history of design in London, and the other was by Javier Mariscal's Life

Drawings. Both very interesting and very different. I started forming more blisters on this trip to the museum. It doesn't matter what shoes I wear. I just can't win!

Thursday comes along and I have my first Perspective Sketch and Rendering class (since the first one was cancelled). Wow. It was not what we expected or what the course description had said. It was very elementary... and pretty much everything we had already learned (in three different classes in fact). We got the syllabus and schedule, and Sara and I both thought that we wouldn't really be learning anything new. So we decided to drop the class. That opened up entirely new can of worms. We were leaving for Paris in the morning, had to get approval from our advisor at UC, get all these forms signed, and turned back in.... What a headache! We ended up picking up another business class that runs in an accelerated 5 weeks. Luckily, it doesn't start until my last 5 weeks. One less thing to worry about for now.

Next, I started planning out Paris trip. Yes, just hours before we left. Trying located recommended places to go and eat and where we were staying because I knew I wouldn't have access to a computer while we were there. Speaking of computers.. I went to upload my pictures from the week, and my computer won't save a thing. So I will have to make a trip to the Apple Store when I get back from Paris. Just what I needed. Nothing is ever easy here...

I couldn't worry about my computer at that point though. I was leaving in about 4 hours! I threw some things in a backpack, loaded my purse up with homework and reading material, and I tried to get a few hours of sleep. That didn't go very well. I was way too excited (and the party going on above me didn't help). Next thing I know my alarm was going off at 3:30am. We got to the airport, checked-in, and were off to Paris! So exciting. I will make a post about my Paris trip as SOON as I can get my pictures working...

Week 1 :)

I think I am officially settled. I am learning my way around my flat, and learning more and more about the city. It is more confusing to get around and to orient myself because there are very few straight streets here. It’s not like NYC where you have 5^th street, which is next to 6^th, and 7^th, etc. There really is no real organization of streets or easy ways to learn them. It will just take time.

London is a really cool city. EVERYTHING is a little bit backwards. It just takes some slight adjustments. The first grocery shopping experience was interesting. The nutrition facts are different, they don’t have a lot of the same food, and nothing tastes the same. Everything is so bland. Even the bread is bland- even though I am not sure how that is even possible! The last few days I have been trying to cook or eat in to save some money because I know I will be eating out non-stop on out weekend trips. Also, the whole driving on the other side of the road thing is weird. Luckily the streets say “look left” and “look right” on them at all the cross walks. The words and symbols they use for everything are so weird too. Just trying to work the oven/stove top was a challenge! The “hob” is the stovetop and the “cooker”, which is the oven has to be turned to a little symbol that looks like a shark tooth. Who knew? Also the normal printer paper size is a little off. An 8.5” x 11 is really like 8” x 12” and they call it A4 here.

Orientation was Friday and I had my first day of classes today. It went very well. I am in a combined furniture design and event design class. It sounds like I am going to pair up with a furniture design student and do a project where we pick the event, location, etc. It sounds like fun. Our professor, Jordi, is nice and young. There is a bit of a language barrier, but it will be fine.

School is 2 miles from our flat in Camden. We have decided that we are going to try and walk to school as much as possible. It is a really pretty walk through Regents Park, and takes about 40 minutes. We can take a bus or the underground, but we figure it is a good way to get some exercise and save some money. So, as long as we aren’t rushed for time, we will most likely walk. Even in the rain… Today, I had to drop some forms off at school at 9am, so I decided to run to school, run home, shower, and then walk back to my 11am class. Then we walked to Oxford Street to check out the “touristy” shopping area (and that it was), and then we walked home. So, so far today I have walked about 9.5 miles. If we go out tonight, it will probably add up to11+ miles just today. Hopefully my blisters will go away soon!

The weather has been much cooler than I expected. Actually I didn’t know what to expect, but I wish I would have packed more jeans. It has rained every day, except for today. But it has yet to rain all day. It usually just rains for a few hours, and then it is usually always party cloudy. I wore a tank top on my run this morning hoping I would get some sun (because there wasn’t a cloud in the sky for once), but I wasn’t very successful. It is pretty shady in the park. Oh well. During the day it has been about 65-75 degrees, and at night it has gotten down to 50-55. BRRRR!

Oh Saturday we went to Primrose Hill to check it out. Unfortunately we did not see any celebrities. It is a beautiful area! Then we went to Camden Market, which was cool. The market was HUGE and you could spend days there. We just stayed a couple hours.

We planned our trip to Paris (next weekend), Ireland, and Greece. Just a few more trips to finish booking. It takes SO long to plan and book everything for 6 people. There are multiple trains/flights/buses to each weekend, several different hostels and hotels, and everyone has different schedules, so multiple different to and from flights! It is so confusing, and causes a huge headache! That’s why we can only manage to plan one a day.

On Sunday, we went on a bus tour of the city. It was so fun to hear about all the random stories, facts, and history about the city. We briefly saw/visited a lot, but I cannot wait to go back to most places. The list of things to do here just keeps getting longer and longer! We only have one class a day, and because we will be traveling most weekends, we are going to try to do some stuff on the weekdays. We are hoping they will be less touristy (and maybe less expensive) too.

We have been out every night but last night, because we needed to catch up on sleep! We have met a lot of fun local people who have showed us a good time. There is a very informative magazine/website called timeout.com/London. It lists the places to go and things to do for the week.

I am (surprisingly) adjusting to not having my iphone on me at all times. I wish it worked because the GPS feature/internet would be awesome! There are so many times that I wish I could just use UrbanSpoon to find a place to eat, or the Map to find out where I am! I got a phone here, but it is a joke. It looks like my first cell phone, and it is so hard to text with! I forgot about T9. My cell number is 07542183379. It took me forever to memorize! I got a pay as you go plan, which included 100 min to the US per month. I get free incoming class and texts and it is free for my friends and I to talk (as long as we are in the UK). Disappointingly Skype hasn’t been working very well because the Internet in my flat is terrible. Someone said something about upgrading the internet, so I need to look into that!

If you are friends with me on facebook, you can see some of my pics. If not, or to look at ALL my pictures, go to...

http://kristenepage.myphotoalbum.com/view_album.php