So This One Time, In Scotland...

            The Sunday after the week of papers, I boarded a coach with my good friend Leslie and headed for Scotland! We had decided to take the cheap way out and take a coach up to Scotland because it was about 80 pounds cheaper to do this than the train, but it also meant that we had to spend twice the amount of time travelling. It was alright with us though, I mean we’d already spent 12 hours on a night train in Germany, an eight hour coach ride seemed like nothing! It wasn’t bad, we just weren’t expecting to stop so many times along the way and we had to keep changing bus drivers. But even through all of that, the trip was made worth while when we got to see the most amazing sunset over the rolling hills in Scotland. The entire sky was a combination of orange, yellow and red, it was truly beautiful.

            We were met at the bus station by two of our girl friends from the trip and we made the walk to our hostel. Since it was night time, we couldn’t see anything that we were passing and we truly didn’t have any idea what the city we were in looked like! I guess I should mention that the city we were in was the capital, Edinburgh. We made it to our hostel and collapsed on the bed for a short time before going down the hostel restaurant to get food. Leslie and I split a plate of amazing nachos, something we had been craving the whole trip, and we all got a beer. Right as we finished eating, the fire alarm started going off. Since no one around us panicked, we continued to sit at the table attempting to ignore the screeching alarm and sipping our beers. All of a sudden, the manager ran in and told all of us to get out. And in true American fashion, we all grabbed our beers, chugged them, and ran out of the building. We were told to walk up the street to a parking lot and had to stand in the cold, watching the chaos since a fire truck had showed up. About twenty minutes later we were allowed back into the building but we had decided we were going to head to a bar because we didn’t want to stand in the cold.

            Leslie decided to go shower so the other three of us headed to a bar just a block away from the hostel called Bannerman’s. I truly believe this is my favourite bar in the world! It was all locals, except for us, and there was a band playing. As we walked in, Galway Girl the song started to be played and I knew that it was going to be a good night! Beers were only two pounds, which was probably a bad idea in the long run. A kind, bald bartender took too us because we were the lost American girls and he made sure to keep supplying us with drinks all night. It is this night that has led to many jokes for the rest of the trip, and most of them because of the bartender. He was wearing a cool shirt so Emily made me ask where he got it. And after that, I just kept asking him a lot of questions about the bar, Edinburgh, distilleries, breweries, the wi-fi password and many other questions, and I started all of them with “excuse me…” So now, anytime that Emily and Sarah want to make fun of me, they just continuously say “excuse me” in an annoying voice that I’m sure I had the whole night. At the end of the night, we had made a pact that if I sent him a t-shirt from Rogue Brewery, he would send me a t-shirt from Bannerman’s, I need to remember to do that when I get home.

            At this bar, we also met dancing man (his name is self-explanatory), a drug dealing free mason that bought us drink and Andrew, the hot Welsh man with such a thick accent, we have no idea what he said to us the entire night. Overall, a spectacular experience for our first bar in Scotland! If I ever make it back to Edinburgh, I’m going back there! On the way back to the hostel, we got Emily a kebab which turned out to be quite the experience, and not to mention, we never saw that shop open again for the entirety of our trip… Slightly suspicious.

            The next day we all woke up and took showers, and let me tell you, this is the BEST shower pressure in entire UK! And probably all of Europe, it was the best thing ever! It had been almost two months since I had taken a shower in a shower that had decent water pressure. We walked around Edinburgh this day and discovered a large dormant volcano at one end of the Royal Mile. The Royal Mile runs through the middle of Edinburgh with the castle at one end and a palace at the other. We decided that we wouldn’t climb it that day, but the next day instead. To us, it looked huge and straight up, but at the same time, the perfect amount of exercise we all needed! We went into some tourist shops since whisky, cashmere and kilts are so popular, we had to see what Edinburgh had to offer! We walked around pretty much everywhere, went up to the castle but it was way too expensive so we decided not to go inside.

            For lunch, we had the most amazing Chinese buffet ever! It is still some of my favourite food of the trip, which is kind of sad. We walked pretty much the entire city and decided to head back to the hostel to clean up and since it was Valentine’s Day, let Leslie Skype her boyfriend back home. While she was talking to him, Sarah, Emily and I went for drinks out on the town. Emily had a tea so we couldn’t go into any of the bars if she had another drink so we just went back to our hostel and had a few drinks. Leslie joined us and we started playing cards. This lasted well into the night and we all decided to get a good amount of sleep before our hike the next day.

            The next day, we all geared up in our waterproof attire and set out for the mountain. It had just rained but thankfully stopped for our hike. This hill was seriously straight up! I tried to take pictures, but it really doesn’t do it justice. It took us quite a while to get to what we thought was the top, mainly because we were all out of shape! Leslie, Sarah and I scaled one of the rock walls and climbed to the top, only to discover the actually volcano we were climbing was not where we were and we were still pretty much at the base… Depressing. But at this point, we were all feeling good that we’d made it that far so we decided to press on. There were these steps that weaved their way up the mountainside and we decided they looked like fun. Well, they weren’t, especially since they were too big for us. I was the tallest in the group and I even had trouble making the steps. We stopped because we were in hysterics about how short we were when a man came running up the steps behind us saying “Watch out, I’m massive! And I eat tourists for breakfast!” which only made us laugh harder. We followed the steps, only to realize we had to scale more rocks at the top of it. We did that and after taking in the view, continued the trek up the mountain. We FINALLY made it to the top and had a guy take a picture of us at the top. We all held up the “O” for UO and the guy took our picture. After he handed us our camera back, he started telling us about women’s day in his country. We were confused and just nodded and it wasn’t until later that we realized he didn’t realize we were holding up the “O,” he thought it represented something else…

            On the way back down the mountain, Sarah slipped in the mud and ice and her entire leg was covered in mud. We all laughed, and about ten minutes later, I slipped and got my leg soaking wet. Karma, it sneaks up and gets you sometimes. We enjoyed the rest of the day by relaxing, walking some more of the city, buying cashmere and eventually going back to Bannerman’s for a few drinks. Our favourite bartender was there and we also befriended the other bartender, but in a less drunken state this time. The next day we were all so tired, we didn’t do as much as we had planned. We went to the Scotch Whiskey Experience, didn’t pay for that but bought a couple things, and then wandered the city. We went back to the hostel and we all read books or wrote in our journals. I made a food list of everything that I’m going to eat when I get home!

            The next day, Thursday, we all had to head home because this was the day that the Bavarians were coming into town! Leslie, Sarah and I all took the coach home while Emily took the train. This trip back went a lot smoother because we didn’t have to stop many times. Overall, the trip to Scotland was completely worth it and I really hope that one day, when I have money again, I will be able to go back and explore even more!

My Buddy Dave

Well I’m sufficiently behind on this blog, that’s really all there is to say! I’m going to do my best to recount all of my experiences that I have had over the past 11 weeks and hope that in the next 24 hours, I can do some serious damage on the weeks that are absent. To those of you that don’t know, my computer crashed about five weeks ago, part of the reason why my blogs slowed and eventually stopped for the last two weeks.

            After the Norwich trip, life got a whole lot less exciting… Most of that had to do with the fact that we had to turn in two papers this week. We all struggled through and I think that the greatest reward that I got was being able to meet David Lloyd, though this did lead to more procrastination. David Lloyd is the artist for the graphic novel V for Vendetta. Most of you probably thought that it was just a movie, but in fact it is an amazing “comic” book that has amazing illustrations. Dave (we’re on a first name basis now) came and talked to our class about his experience with V and basically his entire life history, which was very interesting. I knew we would get along when he walked into the room, sat down and pulled out a Beck’s and asked for a glass. Not only was a speechless because someone so famous was in front of me, but now I had to hold back the impulse to laugh.

            Dave never went to art school, which is insane if you see a sample of his work or if you have ever read V. Those of you interested in reading the book or just looking at the art, I will be bringing my signed edition of the book home with me, don’t worry! He has had a very interesting life and he feels lucky to have worked with somebody as famous as Alan Moore, the co-author of V and also the author of From Hell. From Hell is the story of Jack the Ripper, in a graphic novel… Let me just say, that’s not a book you want to read on a rainy day if you are feeling the slightest bit sad. My professor assigned us Hawksmoor, From Hell and King Lear all at the same time, the most depressing reading combination ever!

            Anyways, I digress, back to Dave. He spoke to us for about two hours, the entire time keeping my attention since I was fascinated that he was such a good artist and he was completely self-taught. After the lecture, Dave, my professor and two other students from my class went down to the local pub for a pint. He bought us all a beer and we started having a life chat. After two pints and an hour and a half conversation, I unfortunately had to go home since we were having guests over to the house at home. As we went to thank him for the pints, he gave us a big hug and kissed us on both cheeks. My friend Emily and I ran out of the pub “fan-girl” giggling all the way to the Tube.

            When I finally made it home, I got to meet two of the girls that are here with the semester program. They share the AHA building with us and I believe there are about 20 students in their program. These two girls are living down the street with one of Alice’s friends so we had them over for tea and crumpets. Actually there were no crumpets, just cookies, or biscuits as they are called here. It was a lovely evening, but it just meant that yet again, I put off my papers until even later in the night! But it was okay, because once those papers were done, it meant that I got to head to Scotland with some friends!

Heading North to Norwich

After York, everything seemed less excited and most of London seemed common to us, we knew at this point of the trip that we were getting used to our surroundings. At first, we were excited about everything, going to all of the museums and seeing all of what London had to offer. By this time in the trip, I opened the tour guide book that Aaron gave me and realized I had been to almost every location in the book. I needed to find another tour guide book in order to find out what other stuff there was to do in this giant city! There are many places that I traveled in the city that I am sure I forgot about since I have been slacking in writing this blog, but the fact is, because everything became less impressive, I forgot to remember things that seemed unimportant.
This was the week that we would be travelling up to Norwich to visit Nico and Tom, the guys who so kindly welcomed me to the UK and taught me the best and most affordable pubs to go too. That was the one thing that got us through the week, knowing that at the end of it we would be spending the time with English guys that were our age that actually knew stuff about the country that we were living in, things that we probably would have never learned or found on our own in the time that we were living in the England. On Monday we went to the V&A, a museum that had just about everything, literally. We went for Tudor England class because they had a large exhibit on that period. It was fairly boring, things that we had already learned about or seen before, but we were patient, at least we didn't have to sit in the classroom all day! We had a little bit of free time afterwards so we went to a room that was partially under construction. It was the most giant room of plaster casts EVER! Apparently the English had a lot of money so they just travelled around the world making casts of all of the impressive things that they didn't own. For example, the David. Leslie and I were extremely excited because we had wanted to see if while we were in Italy but we weren't in the right city to see it. We wandered this room and then spent the rest of the day having a typical school experience for the next two days...
On Wednesday, we went to the Imperial War Museum for Intercultural Experience class, a class that we don't get credit for but have to go to every week for two hours. This was the first class that I loved, this museum was by far the most interesting to me. We had two hours to go where ever we wanted in this museum so I started in the wars room and worked my way through. My favorite part of this exhibit was the propanda signs that they had during the second world war, they were hilarious. I'm hoping to go back sometime this term and buy a couple of them as postcards just because they made me laugh so hard. Apparently they were successful though, and not a laughing matter in those days. There were tons of school groups this day so I quickly left and headed to the Holocaust exhibit. It is supposed to be the second most intense Holocaust exhibit in the world. It was giant, it took me a little over an hour to walk through the whole thing. It also left me extremely depressed but I learned a lot more about the Holocaust than I had ever known! Which was good, I could always use more knowledge about world events.
Thursday was an epic day as we got to see the most amazing performance yet. The week before (I left this out of my last blog) we had gone to see Hamlet at the Royal National Theatre. It was the best performance we had seen, though the actor playing Hamlet was a little too whiny for my liking. This week, we got to see another showing of King Lear except this time it would be a whole lot different! Not only would we be watching a live performance of the play in a movie theatre miles away from the actual theatre, but Derek Jacobi himself would be playing the part of King Lear! For those of you that don't know who he is, do a Google search and read all that he's been in. I recognized him from Gladiator but there are many other movies and plays that he has played major roles in. He did a spectacular job, we were all captivated by his stage presence and half of the time we didn't even realize we were in a movie theatre. Except for the camera angles and the panning in and out, or when the screen went blank as the satellite lost contact. It was hilarious, we could still hear the play but we couldn't see anything and then all of a sudden, some random man interrupted Derek Jacobi during King Lear's mad scence and announced "We're having technical difficulties, the play will be suspended until they are fixed." We couldn't believe it! Not only was this one of the most crucial scenes of the entire play, but Derek Jacobi was cut off on stage! So much for "the show must go on..."
On Friday, Erin, Leslie, Chloe and I boarded an afternoon train for Norwich. Again, we had all of the essentials: Cadbury caramel chocolate and Haribo gummy bears. But this time, Chloe and I decided we had to add one more thing to the mix: travel wine! They honestly sell plastic cups that have wine inside in the stores at the train station and they are made specifically for travelling purposes. It was great, we ate tons of sweets and drank wine, there really isn't a better way to spend a two hour train trip than doing that! We arrived in Norwich and were greeted by our friends, I was overjoyed to see them. We headed straight to Nico's house by cab and decided that Leslie and Erin would stay with him while Chloe and I would stay with Tom. We all walked down to Tom's house, first stopping to buy beer and wine, and talked to him and his roommates befor we headed out for dinner. Norwich, while being a beautiful town, smells of manure and has a horrible wind that blows through it all day. We honestly couldn't walk against the wind of awhile! We went to an Indian restaurant and bought way too much food! It ended up being an extremely expensive meal, one that we weren't expecting to have on this trip. But then we went out for drinks at a local pub and stayed there until early in the morning. We were just enjoying each other's company and made plans for the next day: we'd go to the beach!
Chloe and I woke up a little before noon, and didn't know what to do since Tom wasn't awake yet and we really didn't know his roommates. We got ready for the day and waiting anxiously for Tom to wake up so we could have our traditional English breakfast that we'd been promised. Nico called and he insisted that we wake Tom up because it was getting to be too late and we needed to leave before too long. Eventually Tom woke up and made breakfast for Chloe and I, which was delicious! A traditional English breakfast is, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, baked beans, toast and half of a tomato. Nico and the girls showed up, wondering where breakfast was because they thought that they were eating with us too. Oops! We headed to the train station and headed out to Sheridam, a city on the coast that was about an hour away from Norwich.
It was exactly like the Oregon coast: cold, dark and drizzle! We got fish and chips upon arriving and it was seriously the freshest fish I've had! We walked down to the water and skipped rocks into the ocean for awhile. Since it was raining, we decided to head up to a pub. But on the way to the pub, we discovered the amusement area. It was two pence to play a game so we all dug into our wallets and started playing on different machines. And like all gambling games, we all got addicted. We almost won five pounds, but we spent about five pounds on trying to win it so we finally gave up. Leslie found another machine that we were sure that we would have success on. And it looked like we were going to win and when Les entered her last coin, we didn't win anything. In anger, Chloe shoved the machine and a few coins jingled out as simultaneously the alarm started going off. Erin and Chloe ran, the rest of us stood around laughing but not knowing what to do. The people running the store didn't do anything so we continued playing until yet again we were out of money and then we decided it was time for the pub. We had a few pints here and then Leslie and I decided we wanted to go back to the amusements and see if we could win the five pounds. Afterwards we went to the grocery store and bought beer, since Chloe decided that Tom, Nico and I had to play Power Hour on the way home.
Power Hour is game that you drink a shot of beer every minute, meaning you'll drink around seven beers in an hour. We didn't have shot glasses, but the train ride home was almost an hour so we figured out about how much beer we should drink and the fun began. Tom listened to his iPod the entire trip back but Nico and I attempted to talk betweens swigs of beer. We drank a lot of beer, and we got off the train full but not quite drunk yet. We decided to walk to get food for dinner and buy the girls alcohol at a store. Nico and I had about a half of beer left to finish so we stood in the trolley garage in the parking lot to finish the beers. It was a great bonding time for the two of us, I'm extremely glad that Marian and him found each other so I had the opportunity to become friends with him. I'm even more excited for his trip to the US in April and again in July when he comes to rodeo with me!
We were unsuccessful in getting food or alcohol, so we went back to Tom's house and decided to watch Gladiator, mainly because we wanted to see Derek Jacobi in a movie and also because Leslie and I have been wanting to watch it since our trip to Rome. We all fell asleep right after the movie after Nico and the girls left to his place and woke up late again the next morning. We had to be on the train by 4 pm but Tom didn't wake up until 1:30 pm that day, so we really didn't get to go out and see Norwich. Nico had a football game so Leslie and Erin went to that and met up with on of Erin's friends that was studying in Norwich. Tom made Chloe and I a delicious breakfast again and after we had to pack up to go home. We said good-bye to Tom but didn't get the chance to see Nico, but hopefully we'll get to see both of them in London sometime! The train trip was uneventful and we spent most of the time playing card games against each other. We got home and did a little bit of homework, but for the most part, we went to bed. We're constantly exhausted on this trip, but it's well worth it!

Lessons Learned

Week three is by far the best week since it was our first real trip with school! So we spent the first two days in normal classes, meaning we had Shakespeare boot camp on Tuesday. We have four hours of Shakespeare class that day which may seem like a lot, but surprisingly passes rather quickly. The majority of us have Shakespeare, only Chloe and the other Katelyn aren't in the class (and yes, two of us have the same name and there's only 13 students). But even with Shakespeare boot camp, we were all extremely excited for this week!
This was the week that we would be taking our class trip, a three day adventure with our advisior and professor up to York. None of us knew a lot about York, but we had heard it was beautiful, clean and overall, a trip worth taking if staying in England. We were supposed to leave Kings Cross bright and early, around 8:15 am which meant that we would have to leave our houses around 7:30 am. Chloe and I woke up when we were supposed to, finished packing and heading to the station. We were about ten minutes behind schedule but we thought we'd still be fine, Kings Cross is only about seven stations down on the Metropolitan line, which we live on. We thought we were running late but we decided to wait for Leslie and Erin, since they lived at the same stop as us. They finally showed up, just a little before 8:00 am and we sprinted up the stairs to catch the train that had just arrrived. There were no announcements about what stop we were on, no announcements about anything in fact, so we just rode without concern of where we were, only what time it was and how far away we were. We stopped at Baker Street, about three stations away from Kings Cross and we had 15 minutes to make our train. We thought we could make it, if we sprinted when we got to the station. But all of a sudden, the doors closed and we went back the way we had just came from! Since there were no announcements, we hadn't realized that the train terminated at Baker Street and then went back towards our homestays. We panicked, as did the rest of the people stuck in the carriage with us but none of us could get out.
We got out at the next station, got the next train which we knew would take us to Kings Cross and crossed our fingers. At this point, we were all laughing because we couldn't believe this was all happening, and there was no reason to be freaking out, we knew it was highly unlikely that we would make the train. Our train was supposed to depart at 8:30 am. At 8:29 am, we made it up to the platform but there were too many trains departing, we didn't know which one was ours. Covered in sweat, anxious and upset, we stood confused in the middle of the station, watching the chaos around us. We called our advisior and he told us to go buy new tickets for the train. Since he had our tickets, we had to pay full price, 45 quid. We were not excited about that, especially since he said we could not be reimbursed by AHA. We got a train later that day and took all of the essentials with us: Haribo gummy bears, Cadbury caramel chocolate and our iPods. We made the most of the trip, arrived a little afternoon and started our tour of York.
We climbed the Roman wall that surrounds the city and followed it until we had to get down because of a "threatening tree" and then meet up with the rest of the group. We walked up into the center of town where The Shambles are located. Its a strip of shops that sell anything from whiskey, to wool, to chocolates and had multiple cafes. We walked around, walked inside a few of the shops and went to a cafe that had a deal for a cup of coffee and a doughnut, we couldn't pass that up! We met up with our group again and headed to the Viking Museum, a rather amusing trip which had a ride inside of it that taught you about the Viking history in York. We all loved it, one because we could sit during most of the time in the museum and two, there were a lot of good looking guys dressed as Vikings all around the museum. We were then allowed free time, so we walked out to our hostel, which was about 20 minutes walk from Main Street. We had a meal at the hostel and then were allowed free time to do whatever we pleased.
The most logical decision to us was to walk back into York and find a pub, which proved extremely easy since the English are huge fans of pubs and having a pint at any time of the day. We found an awesome bar that was all people our age and had a few drinks. Some people drank a lot, and some of us nursed one drink because we were too exhausted to drink much more. We went back to the hostel somewhat early and dropped into a deep sleep in the sketchest bunk beds I have ever seen in my life. For those of you that have seen Step Brothers, it was something like that, and I was surprised those of us on top didn't fall through.
The next morning we were up early, a little too early in my opinion, to explore all that York and its surrounding area had to offer us. This was the day that we were heading to Fountains Abbey: a beautiful old abbey in the middle of the countryside that has fallen down, but is surrounding by a magnificent water garden. As beautiful and inspiring as this location was, the weather decided it didn't want to cooperate. It was a chilly, well thats an understatment, day that had a brutal breeze that would sneak up and freeze any part of your body that skin was exposed. Of course, that was the day that I forgot to bring a scarf and the gloves that I thought were in my pocket were indeed still on my bed at the hostel. It was a brutal day. I took my nice camera to take pictures but didn't up taking that many because it hurt too bad to push the button or to try to change the shutter speed, it just wasn't worth it.
After about three hours of snot freezing, goosebump raising, and frostbitten toes from the cold, we headed towards warmth. We enjoyed a sack lunch at the abbey and then we were all so cold, we decided to leave early and return to York for a little bit of free time. We went back to The Shambles and then headed back to the hostel. That night none of us wanted to brave the cold to walk all the way back into town, so we picked up some super cheap alcohol on the way home so we wouldn't have to make a trip to a pub. We quickly finished that alcohol so a small group of us went to taste test local brews at the bar in the hostel. York Brewery is the oldest brewery in England and they have many delicious types of beer. We eventually went out at got a couple more beers a local off license and then sat around socializing. We still went to bed fairly early because yet again, we had to wake up early.
The next morning we walked into York and went to Yorkminister Abbey. The outside looked like your traditional abbey, and we weren't overjoyed to be going to another church. But it again, was beautiful on the inside and we had a guided tour through the entire thing. We learned so much, which was good, and also realized that our professor has an extremely intelligent 21 month old little girl. Not only can she walk steadily, but she can speak full sentences and get her point across easily. She uses bigger words than are in my vocabulary and she is not intimidated by anything. She was looking at a quote that was carved out on the floor and turned looked at her mom and said "O." I thought she was being cute, pointing out a letter she was extremely familar with since her dad is a professor at UO. But no, she was just noticing a letter of the alphabet in this inscription and then she started counting all of the O's she could find, and she counted all of them, all 11. My jaw dropped. I don't think I could count to 11 until I was like four years old and didn't know the alphabet until about that time too.
After the abbey, we had a little bit of free time so most of us sprinted across the river to York Brewery for a tour. We got a beer with the tour, and met a funny old man who loved that we were from America and loved the fact even more that I knew almost all of the hops in the brews because most of their hops come from Oregon. It was a great experience, plus it gave us the opportunity to have a pint in the middle of the day before we had to go to a museum. We walked through the museum quickly, since we had limited time to go anywhere else in the town and then run back to the hostel and get our things. Leslie wanted to go to the quilt museum because her mom quilts. I agreed to go with her there, but only if we could go to the whiskey shop afterwards.
We barely made it to the hostel and then back to the station but we did it! We were so glad  that we weren't late, for once, and we thought that we would sleep the whole way back to London. But boy was I wrong! I got to sit right behind my professor's little girl, and again, she blew my mind with just how intelligent she was. She picked up on character traits that we would have never guessed. We were asking her, "What does Mommy say?" her response being "I love you," then "What does Daddy say?" again, "I love you." Then we asked her what Martin, our advisor, said. She thought about it for a second and then, "Martin says, follow me!" Martin is our tour guide, he leads us everywhere so he is saying that a lot, but for her to pick up on that, impressive.
About an hour later, I found myself making Play Doh animals, only to have them destroyed by the same person that insisted I make them. It was a great way to spend the end of the trip, it made me miss my childhood though and all those times Ryan destroyed all of the things I built with Play Doh. :) Also, the things that she would request ranged from a duck, to a rhino, to a T-Rex, to a wooly mammoth. I know I didn't know all of those animals at her age. We all went to bed as soon as we arrived at our homestays and laid low for most of the next day. But Saturday night we had to go out, it was Wendy's 21st birthday!
There is a local bar, The Junction, that is a short 15 minute walk from our house or about 5 minutes away if we take the tub. Wendy chose there for her birthday, and we were glad, it was close and karooke night! We had a great night, buying her lots of drinks and enjoying each others company. I lost a bet to Chloe which meant that I had to go talk to guys at a corner booth, which thankfully, Wendy went with me. Turns out there were extremely nice guys, interested in why we were there, it wasn't really a place where they have ever seen Americans. They bought us a round of drinks and we spent the rest of the night until closing chatting with them. We all exchanged numbers and decided to meet up at Quiz Night so we could team up, Americans and English, and then we would for sure win all of the quizzes. By far, this was the best week of the trip so far!

London Life Played Out

Over the first two weeks of school, the most important things I've learned is that the Tube never runs right if you're late, chips are French fries and crisps are chips, theatre isn't always entertaining (especially late on a Monday night) and don't be fooled by London maps, they're deceiving, everything is much closer than it seems.
We started week two with an indoor tour of Westminster Abbey which was absolutely amazing but wish we could have spent more time there. I also wish I could have taken pictures of the inside but of course, I wasn't allowed too. Half of the group didn't appreciate this experience at all, which was frustrating to me, but our prof didn't seem to notice. We had to make it back to AHA and we left slowly, not ready to leave this experience behind. I don't think that I'll spend 15 quid to get in again..
Graphic London had officially started and we began with Hawksmoor, a conspiracy theory book about the life of Nicholas Hawksmoor, a architect who built churches in London and the surrounding area. These churches are known for being a bit eerie, non conventional and unnerving to passerbys. We visited most of his churches during this week and during various other times during the term. They were amazing, and yes, most of them scare the bloody hell out of you, but nothing short of spectacular. I also discovered a large gravestone in remembrance of a bunch of Davidson's behind St George's, which wasn't as exciting..
This is also the week that we saw Midsummer, a modern day play that was absolutely hilarious but in a theatre that was in, well, the ghetto. We ate at the Chicken Cottage that night if it helps give you an idea of the area we were in..
That Friday of week two was jam packed for us, especially considering we don't have Friday classes so we're used to using that day to sleep in. We went to Hampton Court for the day, and while the place was beautiful, the weather was literally freezing. This was a palace that used to be owned by King Henry VIII, Tudor period king, that he used for entertaining his guests and also used for multiple honeymoon's. He had large kitchens that were used to not only cook a large amount of food for him, but also for about 600 people a day that came to visit or stay at the palace. Hampton Court was not in it's usual state because they were filming the next Sherlock Holmes movie so they had props all over the palace. They weren't filming the day we were there though, I wish they would have! After we had walked around the inside of the palace, we walked the grounds that were covered with wonderful gardens and funny shaped trees. We left somewhat early because we were all numb but stayed in London because we went to watch King Lear that night.
While King Lear is supposed to be a very sad and depressing play about insanity, death and sexuality, somehow Erin and I managed to make it a comedy. It was just one of those nights when everything was funny, mainly because Erin had the hiccups and kept making funny noises during the quiet part of the play. We couldn't really understand the actor playing Lear so it made the play that much worse. It was my first play that I didn't like, but had a feeling that it wouldn't be the last.
That weekend we didn't do anything too thrilling, went into Harrow, the neighbouring town and had a few pints. We've been laying low because exhaustion has sunk in. We also realized just how much alcohol costs over here.
In my last blog I forgot to write about meeting Nico and Tom to get my luggage back. Chloe, Leslie and I all meet them at a train station on the opposite side of London at a cheaper restaurant. We all had beer and burgers and deeply enjoyed each others company for the most of the night. So much in fact, we almost missed the last train home! Basically, I am so glad that I had the opportunity to meet this two quality guys, they truly are fantastic and I'm glad that I'll be able to come home with at least two English friends!

The Wanderings of a Tourist

We arrived at Heathrow Airport around an hour later than we were supposed to and made our way directly to the tube. We were trying to figure out the ticket machine when a gentleman asked me if I needed a ticket. I said yes, both Leslie and I did, so these two men gave us their day passes! So we didn’t have to pay and headed towards home. We changed trains like experts and before I knew it, I was walking down Churchill Avenue in the pitch black wondering what my host mom and roommate would be like. I soon found out when a short, elderly woman opened the door for me exclaiming in a German English accent “Katelin! Oh she’s here, she’s here! We don’t have to worry anymore!” I was confused by this because I told her I would be arriving at 5:30 pm and it was 5:35 pm.

Chloe was sleeping on the couch, so I didn’t get to meet her right away but I got to have a cup of instant coffee with Alice. She has a coffee pot, apparently she doesn’t use it. It was at this moment I decided I’d be drinking tea for the rest of the trip. Chloe woke up and we had fish and potatoes for dinner, all covered in a nice butter sauce. I could feel my arteries clogging already. Chloe and I chatted for awhile, she’s from Michigan, junior and we got along right away since neither of us were English majors on an English program trip. We share a room on the second floor with two twin sized beds, an awesome floral chair, a giant wardrobe and a desk. Thankfully the room is big so it’s not too crowded.

The next morning we boarded our first train for London centre with our directions in one hand and tube ticket in the other. We made it two stops before our train was terminated due to a “passenger incident,” which in the London translation means that somebody jumped in front of a train… again. We luckily still made it to the school on time, which is a converted old house literally in the centre of London. We met the important people that would be running our program, but more importantly, we met each other. There are 13 of us on this trip, 12 of them are girls and the guy has longer hair than me. We had a delicious lunch and then had a presentation by a police officer of the dangers of London. He gave us some fun things that we’re supposed to use to protect our belongings, but that we’d much rather torture each other with. The presentation terrified us but at the same time we learned a lot.

We went for a walk around the area surrounding us and then were allowed to go home, or in our case, go buy cell phones. We paid a whopping one penny for the phone, so it wasn’t a large investment. We had another butter dinner with Alice, who doesn’t eat dinner with us, and then headed for a pub in the neighboring town. The pub was cheap, lots of beer selection and all locals.

The next few days went about the same as the first day. We had introductions to our teachers and the classes we could take, had lunch and then went out in the city. We went on a river boat tour of the River Thames that started right across from the London Eye and took it all the way down to Tower Bridge, which is appropriately next to the Tower of London. We spent around three hours at the tower, which is actually a castle I would say, and it was an amazing history lesson of the English culture. It mainly covered all the ways people were killed in the past, since we visited the tower were the prisoners were held and usually killed in, the place where Anne Boleyn was beheaded and also Bloody Tower. So after that uplifting day, we all went out for a pint, and this time everyone in the program went.

Classes officially started on Wednesday and I attended all of them to get an idea of what classes I wanted to take. In the end, I decided on Graphic London, Shakespeare and Tudor England. Graphic London is a class where we read graphic novels, which I have no experience with, Shakespeare is self explanatory and Tudor England is the study of the Tudor period in England. The Thursday of the week we attended our first play, As You Like It at a wonderful theatre also in central London. The performance was spectacular, and I loved it, mainly because it was my first real theatre production that I had ever seen. Our Friday event got cancelled due to rain, so we decided to head to Camden Market instead.

I can’t even put into words the size or quality of this market, it literally goes on forever and has just about anything a person could desire. We went split off into two groups and decided to tackle the market at our own rate and meet up in a few hours. My group stuck mainly to the tourist shops, shoe stores and the indoor buildings when it started to rain. It was fantastic, a place that I could visit multiple times and still never be tired of.

On Saturday we did the normal tourist route of Buckingham Palace, down through St. James Park, through the Horse Guard Area, down to Big Ben and then ended beside Westminster Abbey. All of this experience was overwhelming; it was hard to believe we were actually seeing all of this and that everything was so close! We took a double decker bus through the city, and got off when it ended. We decided that we’d had enough of a day and went home to rest, which is pretty much all that we did on Sunday too. Not the most energetic first week ever, but we sure did have fun!

When in Rome...

The day that my Germany adventure ended was the day that Leslie flew into Munich. Her plane arrived in the morning so we were at the airport bright and early! She packed much lighter than I did, which we were later really glad about since we literally carried our luggage all over Rome. We spent the day in Munich, which I deeply enjoyed since it was my first time actually being in the city. Plus we had the greatest tour guide ever, Max, who insisted we start our tour with a beer and a traditional Bavarian lunch at the Hofbrauhaus. It was here that Leslie had her first true German beer, and where she fell in love with it just like I did. We ate a giant meal and then started to walk it off. It was about -2 C, so we were freezing for most of the time.

            We basically just walked, without purpose, while Max told us the history of everything surrounding us and took us into a view churches. We went back to St. Mary’s Square and went to the top of the parliament building. You could see all of Munich, and it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen. I think it was at this moment that Leslie realized what she could expect from Europe in general and she just stared, speechless, over all the rooftops. After getting coffee, Leslie was in need of a nap. So we walked back to the car, tucked her in with all the blankets and jackets we could find, and then left her sleeping in a car, in a parking garage, in Munich. Epic way to start her journey I thought.

            At this point, we were all so cold Max decided the best option was to go find a good place for beer and coffee. So we did, spending a couple hours there and laughing at all the memories we had from the week. Max began speaking English a lot more at the end of the trip so we had a lot of fun in those hours before going to wake Leslie up. We were still early for our train, so Max again decided the best option was to go for a beer, or two. So an hour later, two semi-drunk American girls boarded a night train for Rome. If we had known what lay before us, we would have made sure we were drunk before we left. Max and Kathi left us with a giant bag of bread and meat and then we left.

            The beginning of our journey started out great, there were only four people in a six person cabin so we had some foot space. But at the next stop, those seats were taken and we sat like sardines with nowhere to rest our heads while sleeping. I got to sit next to some crazy old lady who not only talked out loud to herself, but also talked in her sleep. The worst part of our journey was the stops: we would stop in one town for usually about a half an hour, and during this time there would be great commotion on the train. When we reached Bologna, we sat for 45 minutes and then the train finally moved. But it only went about 200 meters before stopping and returning to the station for another half an hour, and then going the direction we had just come from. Leslie and I were convinced we’d never make it to Rome.

            In Florence, everyone left the train and we got the cabin to ourselves. We stretched out and got a good hour of sleep before the next stop. We finally got to Rome about 10 am the morning after we left and we were tired and confused. We got money, a Roma Pass and a map, figuring this would be all we would need to find our hostel. We were determined to use the Metro since our hostel was not in central Rome. Let’s just say, four hours later and a couple break downs later, we finally walked up the hill towards the greatest hostel ever. We got a room to ourselves (for cheap!) which had its own bathroom with a shower. Since it was still afternoon, we decided we should at least go into Rome and do something. So we took the Metro down to the river, looked at some of the bridges and walked around looking for a café.

            After the most delicious mocha of my life, we headed back to the hostel for dinner where our waiters had a joyous time making fun of us since we were so delirious at this point, we didn’t even know what we were ordering. We ended up getting way too much food and then going back to our room in misery. We decided to sleep in the next day in order to try to catch up on the sleep we didn’t get on the plane, and decided we’d go to the closest attraction the next day which was the Vatican.

            We finally left our hostel around 11 am the next day and headed off to the Vatican, which was even closer than we had thought! Upon arriving there, we realized it was surrounded by a market place selling everything you could ever want and had some good gift ideas. We tried to not buy too much and walked into the Vatican to get away from the vendors. What greeted us was a sight we couldn’t put into words and literally made us speechless and we both turned to each other and grinned. We knew this was only a small part of Rome and we couldn’t wait for what was to come. It was about at this moment that we realized it was a holiday, and a Wednesday, so the Pope had spoke that morning at the Vatican and we had just missed him. But even that didn’t deter our spirits.

            We spent most of the day walking around the Vatican, inside St. Paul’s Cathedral and down to a castle that I’m not even sure of its name. It was sunset at this time and we stood on a bridge, looking down the street at St. Paul’s and then continued wandering this part of the city. We didn’t even know what we were looking at, but we took pictures of buildings we defined as pretty or unique, and then decided since it was dark, we should probably try to get back to the hostel.

It was during this day that we began to notice a trend in the style of clothes people were wearing, and how to most accurately describe them is “bubble jackets.” A type of jacket that not only looks like it’s inflatable and could double as a floatation device in the case of a flash flood, but is also shiny to the point of astonishment. If you want to float in an ocean and look at your reflection, a bubble jacket is the thing for you. The moment of absolute ridiculousness was when we saw a couple, waiting for the bus next to us, dressed in matched bubble jackets and pushing a stroller. Immediately, Leslie and I had made a snide comment to each other and sarcastically bet that the baby was also wearing a bubble jacket. At that moment, we glimpsed the little bit of black shininess which confirmed our hope of the complete bubble jacket family. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, we realized that what we had assumed was a baby in a stroller was actually a pub in a bubble jacket vest. We lost it. This couple not only bought a stroller SPECIFICALLY for their dog, but also dressed it in a matching outfit. The next night, this same couple pushed that stroller with their pug, thankfully not in his jacket, through the door of our hostel restaurant and asked for special seating for their dog. Greatest part of the trip right there.

That night at the hostel, we had a beer and French fries at the restaurant so yet again, the waiters made fun of us. We went to bed early and decided the next day would be ultimate tourist day. We started early and decided that the Colosseum would be the right thing to start with. As we walked out of the Metro station, there it was, looming above us and stealing our breath. We used our Roma Pass to get in for free and spent almost two hours walking the inside of the legendary building. By far, the most amazing thing I have ever seen in my life, even more amazing then Bubble Jacket Stroller Pug. We walked around looking at some of the other sites in the surrounding area, and then headed for the Trevi Fountain.

The place was packed, but we fought our way to the front, took pictures, threw in our coins of choice, and then ran from the massive crowd that had engulfed us. We stopped at a hole in the wall restaurant that had cheap prices so we thought, why not. Best pasta I’ve ever had! I don’t even remember what it was called but it was cheese ravioli with white sauce that had ham in it. We also got house wine, which was about two or three glasses of wine a piece. The entire meal, two giant plates of pasta and lots of wine was a grand total of 16 Euros! We saw signs saying the Pantheon was close, so wandered down a side street and there it was! We didn’t know it at first because it’s under construction and surrounded by scaffolding. It was at this moment, we realized we had done everything backwards. We should have gone to the Colosseum last because it trumped everything else we saw and so we just kind of shrugged at the Pantheon. We got gelato and ate it at the base of a column at the Pantheon and decided that we were the ultimate tourist.



YUM!



We discovered a couple plazas that were gorgeous and ended up buying a lot of postcards. We headed back to the Trevi Fountain and sat on the steps of a church across the street writing postcards until the sun went down. We headed back to our hostel, had more pasta and wine, got made fun of again by our waiters and then went to bed. The last day in Rome we bought day passes for the Metro and met up with a friend of Leslie’s that she went to high school with that is studying in Rome. We spent the majority of the day with her, walking around Rome and eating the traditional foods: pasta, pizza, gelato and crepes. Afterwards, Leslie and I headed back to the hostel, read books and relaxed for a little bit and then went to the bar. We had a couple bottles of wine, befriended those same waiters that had been making fun of us for days and meet some Australians. We got free shots from the waiters for the rest of the night and started an epic dance party with the Auzzies that lasted until the wee hours of the morning.

We woke up slowly the next morning, deciding that going to bed at 3:30 am when we had to be at the airport by 11 am might not have been the greatest idea. But we made it! We were on time, just moving at a slow pace and finding any opportunity to sneak in a quick nap. Our flight was delayed an hour, but we didn’t mind since we weren’t really in any sort of hurry. We landed in Heathrow, found our luggage and headed for our host families. This is where the London life begins!

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Leslie and I inside the most amazing place on Earth...